[Seeing that Stelle had pulled up the surveillance footage of him sabotaging the relay, Bernard simply stopped trying to defend himself.]
[But he insisted that destroying the relay had been for Rocky's own good. The boy had been completely fixated on Lesley, neglecting his proper work day after day.]
["You people simply lack understanding of the facts. Lesley, she... she..." Bernard hesitated to speak.]
[Stelle vaguely sensed something was wrong. "Did something happen to her?"]
["No, she's completely unharmed. And... she accepted Rocky's confession." Bernard suddenly changed his tone. "But they cannot be together."]
[Looking at Stelle's tightly furrowed brows, Bernard continued to explain. "This isn't the result of my interference. They simply cannot be together... never can. You don't know—very few people truly understand what a stellar quake really is..."]
["If properly protected, a stellar quake causes no physical harm to the body. However, the gravitational collapse it produces causes enormous changes in the spacetime curvature of the affected star domain... Simply put, our time flow rate and hers are no longer consistent."]
["From the moment the stellar quake occurred, the time discrepancy between Lesley and us will only grow larger. The time it takes for her to send a reply could go from one month... to one year... to even ten years."]
["Not only that—before she leaves the abnormal gravity environment, every month she travels in the galaxy will cost us decades of waiting. If Rocky is living in the [present] node, then Lesley... she is already living in the [future]."]
[Bernard stood before the observation window. Beyond it stretched the vast, boundless galaxy. Starlight illuminated his wrinkled face. The brows that were usually tightly furrowed now relaxed, revealing a rarely seen exhaustion and desolation.]
[He let out a heavy sigh.]
["...I was once a young man too." Bernard murmured. "I think—compared to outright rejection, being unable to be with the one whose heart aligns with yours despite mutual feelings... that is far crueler."]
[In the end, he placed the truth in a signal translation log—red for the real truth, blue for the fabricated chat records where he faked Lesley's rejection of Rocky. The decision was in Stelle's hands; she would decide everything.]
——
MYGO!!!!!
Inside the restaurant on the first floor of LIVE HOUSE RiNG, Chihaya Anon rested her cheek on her hand. The strawberry soda in front of her had long since lost its bubbles. She stared at Stelle's hesitant, wavering figure on the Celestial Screen, her face filled with melancholy.
"This is too cruel for them." Seeing this scenario of lovers unable to be together, Anon's mood plummeted to rock bottom. What was stopping them wasn't a person—but the insurmountable barrier of time and distance.
Rikki was wiping plates behind the bar. "So... will Stelle tell Rocky the truth? I feel like he's pretty stubborn. If she tells him everything—"
"Of course she has to tell him!" Anon unconsciously raised her voice, biting hard on the straw in her cup. "If I grew old and found out that when I was young I gave up true love because of a lie, I... I... I'd never rest in peace!"
"Heh." Tomori, sitting across from her, calmly shook her head.
"What good would it do even if he knew? Should he carry regret and sorrow for the rest of his life?" She gently stirred the black tea in her cup, the silver spoon clinking crisply against the porcelain.
"But..." Anon knew Tomori was right, yet the thought that Rocky's entire life might be affected by this lie made her unwilling to accept it.
Tomori looked up at the worried-looking Rocky on the Celestial Screen. "Sometimes, not knowing is a kind of happiness. Only a complete break can—"
She suddenly stopped mid-sentence. Anon saw Tomori's brows furrow tightly. She took a deep breath, as if recalling some unpleasant past. Her face turned ashen.
——
[Stelle found Rocky. He was still revising the new love poem he had just written. Seeing Stelle approach, Rocky immediately guessed she had fixed the relay.]
[In the end, Stelle steeled herself and handed him the red translation log.]
[After thanking her, Rocky eagerly went to read his beloved girl's reply. But as his fingers slid across the data pad, the smile that had barely begun to bloom on his lips froze in place.]
["How could this be... Lesley accepted my confession, but that part about the stellar quake..." Rocky dazedly lowered his head. "I... my brain's having trouble processing this right now..."]
["It seems because of the gravitational effects of the stellar quake, for every month that passes for her, decades will pass for me. So if I wait for her to come back... I'll already be as old as Master? All that long time I spent missing her... to her, it would just be an insignificant instant?"]
["...I never thought even time could be so unfair to people." Rocky murmured to himself. "Spending a lifetime waiting for one person, enduring endless longing and loneliness... Honestly, bro, you didn't think I was that naive, did you?"]
[He seemed to have figured something out and let out a delighted cry. "Haha! Of course I won't wait for her! I'm not waiting!"]
["But I'm going to chase her. I'm going to chase time! Since her spacetime curve has already become a vast canyon, instead of waiting for her to come out—wouldn't it be better for me to cross that canyon myself?"]
[In Rocky's view, spending ten years to find her after she had only experienced one month—but from then on synchronizing their time flow rates—was absolutely the wisest choice. Having said that, he immediately decided to pack his bags and set out to find Lesley.]
——
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
"Waaah... so touching!"
In the student council room, Fujiwara Chika was clutching a box of tissues. Tears streamed down her face like an open faucet—ever since learning the truth about the stellar quake, she hadn't stopped crying once. "Ten years! Waaah... you two have to be super happy for me!!"
"I'm willing to go vegetarian for three months if it means they can be safe and together!" Fujiwara Chika cried even louder. "And throw in Ishigami-kun's ten years of being single as well!"
"Hah? Fujiwara-senpai, thanks so much for your generosity." Ishigami Yuu lifted his head from the computer screen. "If you're just going to get all emotional yourself, senpai, why drag my happiness into it?"
"Mainly because seeing such a pure-love guy makes me kind of want to fall in love too." Fujiwara Chika showed a shy expression.
Ishigami Yuu took off his headphones. "Oh, that's great. But Fujiwara-senpai, I need to remind you—falling in love is always sweetest when you're watching other people do it. If you actually try it yourself... you might end up losing faith in love halfway through."