Chapter 1260: Old Tales of Phei & Kozuki

For a long while afterward, Phei or Melissa seemed interested in moving.

Melissa remained nestled between Phei’s legs beneath the thick blanket, her back resting comfortably against his chest while his arms circled her from behind. The lanterns around the ancient tree had burned lower, their amber flames gentler now, and the moonlight had spread across the ocean until a broad silver road seemed to begin beneath the cliff and continue all the way toward the horizon.

Every now and then the hanging bed swayed beneath the breeze, carrying the faint scent of salt through the pale curtains surrounding them.

Phei had become almost suspiciously quiet.

Melissa knew why.

His hand had not properly left her stomach since she told him.

Sometimes his palm merely rested there, warm and broad over the soft fabric covering her.

Other times his thumb moved in small absent strokes, or his fingers spread a little wider as though he could somehow protect the tiny life beneath them simply by covering more of her.

He also kept looking down.

Melissa endured the sixth or seventh inspection before a smile finally betrayed her.

"You know," she murmured, turning her face slightly toward him, "staring at my stomach every thirty seconds is not going to make the baby grow any faster."

Phei immediately looked up with the offended innocence of a man caught committing a crime he had absolutely committed.

"I wasn’t staring."

Melissa’s smile widened. "Yes you were."

"I’m monitoring."

"Monitoring what?" She glanced meaningfully toward the hand still covering her stomach. "Our child is apparently already under twenty-four-hour Dragon surveillance, and has barely begun existing for even a month or two."

Phei opened his mouth, looked down at his own hand as if only now realizing it had betrayed him, then laughed softly against her hair. There was no embarrassment strong enough to make him move it, though. Instead he kissed Melissa’s temple and allowed his gaze to linger on her face for a few seconds before something thoughtful entered his eyes.

"Have you thought about what you want?"

Melissa tilted her head. "What I want?"

"For the baby." His thumb continued its gentle movement over her stomach. "Boy or girl."

The question softened her immediately.

Phei looked toward the sea, and for once there was a hint of sheepishness beneath his expression. "I know I’m supposed to give the good father answer and say I don’t care as long as the baby is healthy."

Melissa’s brows rose. "But?"

"But that would be slightly dishonest." He gave a quiet laugh before tightening his arms around her. "I mean it when I say I’ll love either. Son or daughter, I don’t think there is anything this baby could turn out to be that would make me love him/her less. Gods, I already love them and they don’t even have the decency to introduce themself properly.<anno data-annotation-id="c070d9fa-1652-92d2-e2a5-c6aef3fa853b" data-title=""">"<sup>1</anno>

Melissa laughed, but she could read the sincerity beneath the joke.

"So which one are you secretly hoping for?"

Phei hesitated for only a moment: "A girl."

That answer surprised her enough that she turned farther in his arms. "A girl?"

"Mm."

Melissa studied him beneath the moonlight. "Why?"

Phei’s gaze wandered upward toward the stars longingly at the fond memories and his wishes when he was a kid: "When I was little, I used to wonder what having a sister would be like."

Her expression became attentive.

"Sometimes I imagined a younger sister," he continued, his smile growing softer as old childish thoughts resurfaced. "Some tiny menace following me everywhere, touching all my things, blaming me whenever she broke something, probably crying to Mom whenever I refused to give her whatever she wanted."

Melissa laughed quietly. "You would have spoiled her horribly."

"Obviously. I would complain about her every day and then threaten to kill anyone else who dared complain about her."

"That sounds exactly like you."

Phei accepted the accusation without shame. "But sometimes I imagined having an older sister too. I think I wanted that even more."

Something clicked behind Melissa’s eyes but she hid it immediately before her lips slowly curved. "Kozuki you mean?"

Phei blinked. "What about her?"

"That statement explains the piggybacks you had her give you."

His face changed instantly and Melissa started laughing before he could even defend himself.

"I did not always make her give me piggybacks."

"You absolutely did. You’d follow that poor girl around until she finally crouched down."

"Historical slander." Phei laughed loudly now, the sound carrying through the sound barrier and remaining entirely theirs. "She acted like she hated it, but she liked carrying me. I know it!"

"She did," Melissa admitted, her smile warming as the memory returned. "She loved it, actually. She would grumble every single time, then walk around with you on her back far longer than necessary."

Phei pointed toward her as though finally receiving vindication from the highest court. "Exactly. She was lucky I was civilized. I could’ve simply jumped onto her back whenever I wanted."

Melissa turned her head slowly and looked at him.

Phei held the expression for a second before conceding with a laugh. "Fine. Maybe civilized is ambitious."

"Very."

He chuckled, but the laughter faded naturally into something quieter as Kozuki remained inside his thoughts.

Phei looked toward the ocean. "Maybe that’s why I bothered her so much. She was like a big sister to me then."

Melissa did not interrupt.

"She wasn’t my sister," he added quickly, lips twitching. "And she would’ve probably kicked me out of a tree if I called her that after all those speeches she gave about her marrying me. But when I was little... I think I liked having someone older two years I could cling to. Someone I could annoy and still know she’d let me climb onto her back five minutes later."

Melissa watched the side of his face.

The melancholy entered so gently beneath his smile that another person might have missed it.

Melissa never would. "Hopefully she still wants to marry you the way she used to declare."

Phei’s warmth vanished beneath immediate offense. He clicked his tongue, gave a disgusted little tut and looked away as though Kozuki herself had somehow insulted him from another continent:

"Marry me, my ass."

Melissa’s eyebrows climbed.

Phei became visibly grumpy. "She spent years declaring I was going to marry her, then disappeared for years and barely spoke to me. She even forbade me from contacting her."

Melissa was already smiling again. "You’re sulking."

"I am not sulking."

"You are... with your mouth doing that."

Phei touched his lips on instinct, realized Melissa had tricked him into checking whether he was pouting and narrowed his eyes at her while she laughed.

"Very funny."

"I think it’s adorable."

"Nothing about this is adorable. Do you know how annoying it is for someone to make you part of their childhood every single day and then suddenly decide you’re not allowed to contact them?"

The complaint came sharper than the earlier jokes, and Melissa’s amusement softened.

Phei exhaled. "I know she probably has reasons." There was truth in it but still; "I know," he repeated more quietly, looking back toward the sea. "I’m not stupid. If she really wanted nothing to do with me, she could’ve just disappeared without bothering to tell me not to contact her. That almost makes it more annoying because it means there was something she wasn’t telling me. We were brother and sister... closer than best friends!"

Melissa rested her hand over his. "Maybe you’ll understand when you see her again."

"If I see her again."

"You will."

Phei glanced down at Melissa.

She sounded certain enough that he decided not to challenge it.

Instead he gave another quiet tut and muttered, "If she still expects to marry me after all this, she can start with an apology."

<annotations style="display: none;">English is my second language I still find it weird to call a baby IT so I will be using the they/them words, I hope that’s okay. It feels more better to me that way.</annotations>