Noah just couldn’t enter into this mental state of make-believe. Regardless of the intention behind it, it was still a hug! How could he view it as something other than what it was?
But this inability to pretend was his own psychological issue… He shouldn’t make Levi suffer due to it. The right thing to do would be to grit his teeth and pull through these remaining couple of days.
Noah let out a long and heavy sigh, but his arms that had been crossed defensively in front of him loosened. He skittishly eyed Levi’s torso, thinking about how to best go about returning the hug.
‘Noah, you can do it!’ He encouraged himself, ‘How come you didn’t feel shy hugging Levi a few days earlier? Why are you suddenly making such a big deal out of it?’ Before he could even finish that thought, Noah answered his own question, ‘How could it be the same?! A few days earlier, I was hugging my good and straight brother-in-law! And now I’m hugging my own not-entirely-straight soon-to-be lawfully-wedded husband!’ Then just as that thought appeared, Noah once again interrupted himself, ‘So you DO remember this is your own soon-to-be husband? What’s wrong with hugging your own husband?’
Blackie, ‘Host! Don’t do this! (っ °Д °;)っIf you learn how to argue with yourself, then I’ll be out of a job!’
Finally, after going in circles for a while, Noah’s lips pressed into a pout, and his arms rather hesitatingly slipped around Levi’s form to timidly return the hug.
Levi’s entire form stiffened, and contrarily, that actually made Noah feel better about what he was doing. ‘Hmph! Wasn’t it you who wanted me to reciprocate? Do you finally feel embarrassed? Do you regret it? Heh, too late!’ Noah’s eyes curved, and he even coyly rested his cheek against Levi’s chest.
Noah thought that he could sometimes be really silly, making a mountain out of a molehill. Why was he hesitating? Wasn’t Levi comfortable to hug? Wasn’t Levi’s chest nice to lean on? And besides, wasn’t this big bully just a paper tiger? He seemed all composed on the outside, saying a lot of nonsense, but wasn’t his heart beating just as fast as his own? (ಡ艸ಡ)
Paper tiger Levi, ‘Yatta!! The spring of my life has come!’ o(≧▽≦)o
Blackie, ‘Wait, wait, wait! Let me get this straight… you did something wrong, and instead of getting punished, you… got a hug? ( •᷄⌓•᷅ )
‘… (。_。) … … … erm… how should I put this…
‘Grandmaster, please take me in as your disciple and teach me your craft!’ ( ✪ ▽ ✪ )ノ
***
The touching moment of hugs and fluffs lasted for one whole…!
…minute.
And then, Noah jumped off of Levi as if burned and scuttled out of the room with neon red ears. Ah, ah, that was definitely a lover-hug! The kind with a really intense lover flavor!!! (⁄ ⁄> ﹏ <⁄ ⁄)
Ah, ah! Screw this whole reciprocating business! QAQ This is good enough for now!
Ahem! Baby steps! Baby steps! (*︶^︶*)
Blackie, ‘…Wow! ( ゚Д゚)Host, you change your mind faster than a Magic 8 ball!’
Levi stood shellshocked with his arms still raised, looking at his baby’s fleeing perky bottom, and didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. He didn’t even get a hardon yet, and his baby still bolted like his little ass was on fire!
Blackie, ‘Yet? You planned on getting a hardon, did you?’ (¬‿¬)
It was like the little one had a built-in danger detection! Levi’s lower half had only just started getting restless, and his baby had already pulled the plug on him!
Levi lowered his arms, and after a second of bemusement, a husky laugh escaped him. His baby was really too cute to bear! (/≧ω\) ♡
***
As per Fynn’s wishes, the two returned back to the safety of the Cordia manor. After directing the staff to move the bunk bed out of Noah’s room (in spite of Cordia daddy’s black face), the two settled down on the comfy couch in the living room and resumed their briefing with Fynn regarding the investigation results.
“What about that footage of the corridor? Did you identify the owners of the two communicators?”
Fynn faced Noah, who had been the one to ask the question, then he side-glanced at the sour-looking Levi, sitting on the sofa next to the little guy. Huh? The little one was no longer using Levi as a personal armchair? How come? The two didn’t look like they had a fight! Strange. Very strange. 🤔
As luck would have it, the answer to this particular enigma lay with Cordia daddy, who was watching the two boys like a hawk. Noah felt that sitting on top of another man’s lap was already embarrassing enough as it was, and the only reason why he went along with it was for the sake of appearances. However, at home, there was no one they needed to put up appearances for! And he certainly didn’t have skin thick enough to act so unbridled in front of his parents.
Knowing exactly what was going through his baby’s head, Levi had wanted to take his darling into one of the many unoccupied rooms inside the manor and call Fynn from there. If the two of them were alone (minus the Fynn on the other side of the screen, who could basically be ignored), then Levi could take liberties with his precious however he wanted. (≖‿≖)
Unfortunately for him, if he could think of this, so could others. And even more unfortunately, the astute person who could think this far happened to be his disagreeable father-in-law. (≖ ‸ ≖)
Levi couldn’t understand why, but this father-in-law seemed to have something against him! Whenever he wanted to eat his baby’s tofu, this father-in-law would pop up to obstruct him! Just like now – Levi wanted privacy with his baby, but this father-in-law would hear none of it! Instead, Cordia daddy very passionately persuaded them to just “feel at home” and use everything in the living room freely.
Levi, naturally, wasn’t convinced, but what could he do when his baby WAS? He could only grind his teeth and note down another X against his father-in-law in his little black book. –Not a real book, of course, but the mental, imaginary kind. The kind that, besides not being a book, was neither black (due to not having a physical form) nor little (due to the pettiness of its owner). In fact, now that Levi thought about it, perhaps he should rename it into the grudge-list? 🤔
But that was certainly a matter for another time.
Fynn’s long-distance inspection of the two revealed no explanations; thus, he chose not to dwell on it. Wasn’t this exactly what he had wanted? The two had finally stopped shoving dogfood down his throat! For all he knew, maybe they had reflected on their past behavior and turned over a new leaf. (And by ‘they’ and ‘their’, he obviously meant ‘he’ and ‘his’, because the only one who’d do any kind of self-reflection here would only be Aris…)
With a few taps of his light screen, Fynn brought up the footage of a man walking down the corridor leading to the highly confidential Druxa labs. “By cross-referencing the footage of the corridor with check-in times, we managed to narrow it down. The owner of one of the two unidentified communicators– not the one who hired the Soother, but the other one– is this person.”
The man in the footage had unclear features because he was wearing sunglasses and a mask covering the lower half of his face, but from the little they could see, he seemed to be mature in age. They couldn’t make out any personal accessories or even see what exactly he was wearing because a lab coat covered most of his form. The lab coat in question was one of the standard Druxa lab coats lent to visitors, so there were no clues to be found there either.
“We couldn’t run face recognition on him because his face is covered up,” Fynn explained, “But we did run one of the more experimental recognition algorithms based on height and body proportions.”
“And?” Noah tilted his brown head. “Since it’s still in development, we don’t have a large database of people to compare it against just yet…” Noah’s nose wrinkled, “So nothing?” “On the contrary,” Fynn’s mouth curled up, “Since we didn’t have a database, I pulled up some footage of the last city council meeting for testing purposes. Who would have thought we’d actually manage to get a match.” Fynn’s smile disappeared, replaced by a frown, “Too bad that the technology is still experimental, and its results aren’t yet considered reliable enough to be used in court.” Noah leaned forward towards the light screen, his little butt nearly slipping off the sofa, “Heh, for testing purposes, you say? Weren’t you trying to check whether this person is councilor Desmond?” Fynn’s frown was once again replaced by a guilty-as-charged look, and he scratched his head sheepishly, “He is one of the shareholders of Druxa, and the main advocate for the monitoring
“… The owner of the other unknown number is not on our footage.” Fynn scratched his head helplessly, “But as you can see, the only way into the lab is through this hallway, and the only way into the hallway is through these doors that are under surveillance. Thus, everyone entering the hallway should be captured on camera. And yet, here we are…” Fynn sighed before continuing, “At first, we thought that the footage had been tampered with, but there are no missing periods of time nor any other signs it had been messed with. Besides for the Ghost, the times reported by the footage and the access logs match up for everyone else.” Fynn shook his head, “Under the assumption that it wasn’t an issue with the footage, we went back and turned the entire place upside down again. But we still did not manage to find another way into the lab. We even considered the possibility of this person being invisible, but there was no footage of the doors opening by themselves. And
“Exactly!” Noah kept nodding his fluffy head encouragingly, “You said that none of the people you questioned had anything to do with terrorists, right? However, you only questioned those that were on the list of people allowed entry into our lab, correct?” The weariness on Fynn’s face was replaced with agitation, “The Ghost is among the people that we didn’t question! He is one of the personnel from the other 4 labs!” Then he slumped back into his chair, “Ah! We worked through the entire night and barely managed to finish questioning all these people, yet now we have to track down and question more than 4 times the amount of others who had access to the other labs!” Noah felt that being a law enforcement officer was very pitiful, thus he mercifully extended a helping hand, “You might not need to do that. We can use the access logs to narrow down the potential suspects. Anyone who, according to the footage, entered the corridor that day AFTER Ghost’s entry was recorde
Noah immediately put that thought into practice. He stopped thinking and focused on just breathing. Luckily, the scent tickling his nose was inherently rather soothing. Mmm, he recognized this pleasant cologne. And this warm and wide chest. And the comfortable embrace that was like a big satin blanket, so cozy he didn’t want to move… It all made him feel very secure. Like everything was alright. Like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. This foreign yet familiar warmth trickled into Noah’s heart, driving away the chill. And the careful caresses patted down all of his metaphorically raised fur. And thus, the turmoil within Noah settled back down as quickly as it had previously risen up. Seeing his unresponsive darling’s ears finally heat up after a long and nerve-racking delay, Levi let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Phew! If his baby had the presence of mind to feel shy, it me
Fynn understood the rationale, but it still didn’t feel right, “But why did the two have to meet up, anyway? If it was just a discussion, it could have been done remotely. Did the councilor come to pick up drugs and see the research results first hand? But since councilor Desmond had access to the lab, couldn’t he have just gone in and taken the drugs himself? Why the need to meet up?” This time, Noah was the one to speak up, “Would a paranoid person, such as Asan, trust the other to quietly take a few drug samples and see himself out? He had to be there to supervise the other and make sure he didn’t do anything he shouldn’t.” Fynn paused a moment to consider Noah’s words, then he spoke up again, “But if the councilor had access rights to the lab, couldn’t he have dropped in at any time, all by himself?” “What makes you think he had permanent access rights? Asan could have granted his number clearance each time they were supposed to meet and revoked them afte
After the matter of tuxedos was resolved, the natural progression of things led the two grooms to the topic of rings. Both wedding AND engagement rings! When Levi realized that he was getting married to his baby, yet not only had he not officially proposed, but his baby’s lovely hands didn’t even have his ring on, he felt so sour inside that his face scrunched up like a squeezed sponge. This needed to be corrected! Right now! (ꐦ °Д°) But how could he correct it when he didn’t even have the rings yet?! (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ ┻━┻ What was he supposed to do? Reuse the rings from the previous engagement? Of course he couldn’t do that!!! Even if there was no issue with the ring size and the feminine design, how could he let his precious wear things that were not just picked by someone else but even worn by someone else before?! Even if he used his feet to think, he still wouldn’t manage to come up with such a stupid idea! But, ah, the realization that those slen
This warning immediately roused Levi from his lethargic state, “Why be careful? Wouldn’t such a reality be a good thing? For a married couple to be happily in love, isn't that how it should be?” Noah fell silent for a moment, then his pink mouth opened to reveal what lay hidden in the depths of his heart, “That's only if it's mutual. If it's one-sided, it would just be sad.” Levi deeply stared into the little one’s two shiny orbs, “That’s only if it forever remains one-sided.” Then the bottomless abyss within the pool of blue was replaced with a shimmer of mischief, “But why would it be… ah! Don’t tell me you intend to seduce me and then dump me?!” Levi’s face warped into exaggerated shock and grief, “Ah, ah, you can’t play with hearts like this! You must take responsibility for me!” Noah’s melancholy was instantly broken, and his glorious bright red blush made its triumphant return. “Who–who–who is playing with hearts?! What ‘seduce and dump’?! And what ‘tak
Since neither Noah nor Levi were the ones who scheduled all that, they had to ask Maery to deal with… uh… canceling it? Maery, “No way! (︶^︶)ノI got two weeks off work for this! And now I don’t even need to bring that scourge along on my vacation! (ノ*^o^)ノ* Yatta!” In other words… “Dear brother, I don’t care where you go for your honeymoon, as for me, dead or alive, I am going to that spa!” (✧ᴗ✧)و Noah, “…” ( •᷄⌓•᷅ ) ‘…does that mean you intend to go with us – but not with us – on our honeymoon?’ Blackie shook his head, “Host, you are not asking the right questions here!”(︶^︶)ノ Blackie turned his virtual eyes towards Maery, “Do tell, o( ̄▽ ̄)d what plans have you made that would ensure your corpse gets smuggled into the spa? Come on, don’t keep us in suspense!” Noah, “…” (◞‸ლ) Feeling helpless due to both his sister AND his pesky system, Noah turned to his fiancé for help. Only to see the other crossing over prett