Alright, the time is now! Food? Check! Luggage? Check! Our thesis? Just about done! Yep, we’re all but ready to travel to Havana, the quik where the Mobius Awards are being held. And just in time too, we’re really cutting it close here judging by the fact that it’s literally tomorrow. Back when we first met, I thought Lune to be nothing more than a narcissistic prick who didn’t at all care for the people around him. Well, there are still times where I think this, especially when he starts to talk about that godforsaken love life of his, but as long as we steer clear from that topic, he’s a pretty good guy.

Right now, Lune, Joseph and I are enjoying a lovely morning breakfast together. The idea was Lune’s originally, but ever since he started living with us, he would always force me to join in on this little family get together over the dining table. Maybe it’s another one of his traditions, or he just thinks that he needs to butt in and stick his nose in other people’s business as much as possible, but Joseph seems happy so I never bothered to protest. A hearty meal also does wonders for my stamina, at least compared to the scientifically minimal amount of calories I take in daily with the food I make for myself just to get through the day. It just can’t compare to Lune’s cooking! This guy is full of surprises…

“Thanks for the meal!” He clapped his hands together as he dug in, not even bothering with using his utensils.

That’s another thing – he always says that phrase before chowing down, but who’s he thanking if he’s the one that made the food? Of course, we started following his example to the point where even I sometimes catch myself saying it before eating when on lunch break, even when I’m alone. It could just be another one of his traditions, but it’s not ill-mannered, and in fact it shows off his polite side quite a bit. Maybe his deceased wife taught him that or something?

“Hey Lune?” I couldn’t hold in my curiosity as I asked, “Could I ask why is it that you always say that phrase and clap your hands as if it’s a prayer before eating your food?”

“Meil!” Joseph reprimanded me, “That’s very rude of you to say! We don’t make fun of people’s traditions in this house, whatever they may be!”

I wasn’t making fun of him! I was just genuinely curious, dammit! This geezer is really starting to annoy me to no end! Thankfully, Lune understood from my tone that I was in fact just asking without any ill-will, so he knocked on the wooden table to grab Joseph’s attention before explaining it to me honestly.

“Mhf!” He decided to swallow the bite he took out of his steak before answering, “Remember that foreign friend Issei I was talking to you about? I don’t even know why myself, but he would always do this before munching down any and all food. Must be one of his weird traditions, but I just sort of found myself following in his footsteps without even noticing myself. Haha, I’ll stop if it’s bothering you.”

“No no, that’s not what I was getting at!” I chuckled, “It’s just – You always have all these traditions you follow, most of which I’ve never even heard of. Y’know, like little promises you made once in your life that you, for whatever reason, still uphold.”

“Really now?” He raised his eyebrow with a smile, “And here I was, trying super hard to be anti-traditions. Traditions only ever serve as inconveniences. They hold us back, so I don’t really understand what you mean when you say that.”

“Well, for example, you refuse to use utensils when you’re eating with people you’re familiar with. You only ever use them in formal situations, but here it’s straight from the hand.”

“That’s because Carter never ate with his utensils!” He shot back, “By the Gods, I still remember when Cecily would try to force him to use them, only for him to eventually get too frustrated and throw them all out the window. After that, no one could even take a single bite of their food anymore, since Cecily would start throwing each and every plate at him out of anger, haha! Good times…”

Whoa, reminiscing about your deceased brother-in-law and wife, are you? And what’s with this overly familiar way of explaining the story to us? You do realize that if you hadn’t been bugging us about all of your adventurer stories day-in day-out that we wouldn’t even understand who these people are, do you? Actually, Joseph can't keep up at all since you only ever pestered me about your adventures.

“Right… And what about that weird fixation with you and Willow trees?”

“My wife is kept preserved under a Willow tree. Didn’t I tell you this?”

“Ah, I forgot about that, sorry.”

Lune didn’t seem at all mad at me for asking such intrusive questions. Anyone would get mad at me for mentioning their deceased loved ones, but he seemed to be quite tolerant to it, at least when it comes from my mouth. Guess being an assistant has its perks, after all.

“And chess?”

“What about it?” He asked with a genuinely confused expression, “It’s just a fun little game I like to play. Nothing more to it.”

“Look at you two!” Joseph said with a slap to the knee, “I’ve never seen Meil talk this much in my entire life, and as soon as Lune shows up, he suddenly can’t stop with the questions!”

What can I say, I’m ever the curious fellow. That being the case, Lune’s mannerisms are something that still interests me more, but it appears I’ll have to finish that topic at a later time. Lune seems kind of bummed out after all, so I shouldn’t pry too much. I’m not sure if he’s being one hundred percent honest with me though, because I doubt there really wouldn’t be anything between him and chess if he’s been bugging me to play with him daily. Furthermore, he has a strong distaste for using the Knight. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve never even seen him use it once during a game. That level of obsessiveness can’t be a coincidence!

“Ehe, thanks Joe!” Lune scratched the back of his head in earnest, “But it’s not because of me that your son’s like this. It’s his own willingness to change that allowed for him to move forward this much.”

At these words, Joseph gave me a saddened look before correcting Lune, “A-Actually, Lune, Meil doesn’t like being called my son, since we’re not blood related. It’d probably make him happier if you didn’t refer to him as my son.”

“What?!” He jumped from his seat before giving me a death glare, “Meil, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“W-What?” I sat there in utter shock at his complete emotional one eighty.

“Joe’s an incredible man who gave up everything just to give you a proper life, and now he’s kindly allowed you to chase your dreams! How the hell is such a guy not considered your father?”

“W-Well, it’s just…” I tried to explain it as best as I could, the last few words being so silent even I barely heard myself, “We’re not blood related, plus he’s an Abyssal, and I’m a Raaman…”

“Speak up, Mister High and Mighty!” He pushed his finger on my forehead, leading to me falling off balance, “What’s wrong? Too ashamed to call him your father? I had to run away from home to pursue my dreams! My parents would only ever tell me to fuck off whenever I said I wanted to explore the world!”

“Hey now, Lune, calm down!” Joseph added, “I don’t mind, really!”

“But you should, da-!” He bit his tongue right as he was about to call Joseph dad, “It’s just cruel… He did so much for you, more than anything my parents ever did for me – he believed in you and guided you through each step. My parents are blood relatives, but they were nothing more than caretakers. Joseph isn’t even the same race as you, but he was more of a father than my parents ever where. Something as simple as calling him ‘dad’ surely wouldn’t hurt your ego that much, but it’d certainly mean the world to him.”

His words aggravated me for some reason. Even I didn’t quite understand why, I’m tolerant to any and all jeers, but when he told me just how much of a good for nothing son I was to Joseph, it kind of stung. Does he think I don’t respect Joseph or something?! In any case, his words caused a pretty nasty reaction to come from my end.

“You speaking from experience or something, huh? Don’t you yourself have a daughter somewhere out there in the world you betrayed and abandoned?”

“I do!” He shouted with tears streaming down his eyes, “I fucking do have a daughter I abandoned! I’m ashamed to even think about it, but I won’t try and be delusional and hide the fact entirely! I said it before and I’ll say it again – the moment we finish with the awards and I send you off to your University of choice, I’m going back to make amends with her and her mother!”

“You think they’ll accept you, you damned adulterous cheat!?” I shouted as I hit the table with a loud thud, “No wonder your parents never had any hopes for you if you turned out as shitty as thi-!”

I don’t remember much about what happened the next moment. In fact, the entire scene quickly faded to black, as I was swiftly knocked out with a single punch to the chin. Well, I kind of deserved it. Only I know this out of everyone present, but I’m kind of lucky given the fact that I’m not a pile of ashes instead. Even in such a high-tense situation, Lune held back on using his Iros because I was the one that was insulting him. How gentlemanly.

***

“…I know he stepped out of line, but you took it too far!” A saddened old voice could be heard.

Ah, it appears that I'm waking up to a familiar scene. I'm lying on something that's not quite soft to be a bed, but not quite soft to be the floor. They must've carried me to the sofa after I had collapsed. From this voice, I can probably assume that that was Joseph who was talking just now, and he seemed quite upset. Logically, the person he was talking to had to be Lune, and since he's talking about that one hit knock out, I must not have been out for that long. I'll try and pretend that I'm still knocked out to see if Lune's feeling bad about hitting me.

"It's just a punch to the chin, Joe! A young man at his age should already have had a body part cut off, so this much is nothing!"

"W-Well, he did get a bit of skin trimmed off of his..." Joseph started talking about a delicate topic whilst putting his mouth to Lune's ear.

"Hmm...? Ohh... Wait, why is that? Ahh..." Lune's replies left little to the imagination.

Ugh, I hate this! Why are they talking about that of all things?! I was forced into it because of the quik's religion, plus I was still a child back then! I couldn't refuse no matter what I did! Eh, I don't really care all that much, it's not something to fuss over (Even though Lune is wincing at every single time Joseph says "Cut").

"In any case!" Joseph withdrew from Lune's side as he spoke out, "You shouldn't have struck him to begin with! You should've held back no matter how harsh his words were. Although I do understand why you did what you did..."

“Haha, right, sorry~!” An annoyingly satisfied Lune answered back, “But don’t worry, I held back!”

“Held back?!” I jumped up from the sofa I was placed on, “You knocked me clean the fuck out!”

“See, Joe? He’s a strong guy, I told you he’ll get up in a jiff!”

As you can probably guess from this turn of events, Lune seems to have let go of all his hatred with that punch of his. It’s good that he stopped before he got to Joseph, but then again I’m pretty sure I was his only target. But man, now that I think about it, I really did say some pretty nasty stuff to him. Even I’d knock myself out at such remarks!

“Hey Lune?” I said feebly.

“Yeah man?”

“Sorry for… saying all that mean stuff. I guess the stress is taking its toll on me. I don’t quite know what’s gotten into me these past few days.”

“No problem, I’ll tell you about it later, but I think I have a hypothesis on why you’re feeling the way you are.” He said, “We’re quite similar, so I knew what the best way to de-escalate the situation would be. Sorry it had turned out to be force, ha-ha…”

“Nah, you’re good.” I dapped him up as I sat up from the sofa, “And sorry for being a lousy son… d-dad.”

I didn’t want to make my delivery too sappy, but maybe what Lune was saying had some merit to it. It was kind of embarrassing to say, so I kind of blushed whilst looking at Joseph. To my surprise, he didn’t at all tease me for flubbing the line, but instead he fell to his knees and started sobbing.

“Joe?!” Lune went to his aid, to which I followed suit.

“I’m truly blessed!” He sobbed, “I’m truly blessed to have you two with me! You may not be blood related, but you will always be my son, Meil! And you too, Lune! From now on, I will do my best to be a supportive father figure to you as well! If I ever live to meet your real parents, I’ll give them a stern talking to! I’ll tell them all about how incredible of a son they’ve birthed!”

“Joe…! Heh, don’t worry about it. They already know what they’ve missed out on, it’s just that they haven’t seen me since I was thirteen. Don’t say such grim things like If I live that long, because I just know you will, and I’ll personally introduce both of you to them!”

Just like that, the last day the two of us spent in Oden had passed, and in the early morning, we got a warm sendoff from dad and my company’s employees. It seems dad had secretly arranged for them to see us off personally, which I find to be quite thoughtful of him. This is it, next stop – Havana!