Edited by: ASaltedFish
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While Ellery and Akimitsu were in Hezyria, Juniper and Edros spent a lot of time with each other.
Since Edros had confessed to Juniper and stated that he wanted to be in a relationship with him with the goal of marriage, Juniper took the time to get to know Edros and get used to being around him.
At first, Juniper spent a day with Edros and then needed a couple of days to recover mentally. During his recovery days, he would occasionally respond to Edros' messages, but never went to see him, even though they lived in the same house. As they got to know each other and spent more time with each other, Juniper was able to get used to Edros' presence and felt more comfortable with him.
Eventually, Juniper would only need a few hours alone to recover. He did it this way so when he decides to date Edros with the goal of marriage, he wouldn't feel overwhelmed by being with Edros every day.
Edros knew what Juniper was like, so he was very patient and indulgent.
A week into their living arrangement, Edros finally had some news about the planet, MPE12, which had a ruined civilization that looked similar to planet "Earth" from Juniper's past life.
A group of scientists from the Academy of Science, funded by the Empire, arrived at MPE12 two weeks after the First Fleet left. Since then, they have been researching the environment and looking for any remains.
They found multiple cities, similar to the one they had explored with Juniper, but with varying degrees of destruction. Some cities were destroyed earlier than others, suggesting that a large-scale war took place that killed their inhabitants. There were no humans, but the research team did find digital documents that needed some time to be restored.
At dinner, Edros informed Juniper about the documents he received. "I remember you mentioned that you wanted to get the research data on MPE12. It's not complete, but I can send you what I have so far."
"Thank you, Edros!" Juniper was pleasantly surprised, so he gave one of his rare smiles. "I will look at it after dinner… Do you want to look at it with me?"
An invitation to sit next to and spend more time with Juniper? Edros immediately agreed.
The two took their time with dinner and then went to Juniper's room to look at the data while waiting for the nightly call with Ellery.
The information sent by the research team was dense, so it would take some time to get through all of the information, but from the summary the head researcher sent, he mentioned that they found information on a planet called Earth in the galaxy known as "the Milky Way."
These Earthlings were alone in their galaxy. After the destruction of their planet, with their primitive technology, they did their best to leave the galaxy in search of planets with a familiar ecosystem to the one they lost.
After many generations, they landed on MPE12, but history repeated itself, and MPE12 was destroyed. Unfortunately, everyone had died before they could leave the planet in search of a new one. The materials used for their buildings and cars were reminiscent of the structures their ancestors had built on planet Earth.
That was all the summary had mentioned, while the rest of the document went into more detail about the rise and the fall of planet Earth and the start of their journey to MPE12. It didn't have anything related to other planets or MPE12 yet.
To be honest, Juniper didn't care much about the journey. All he wanted to know was what happened to Earth after he had passed. Was it the same Earth that he knew? Or was it like a parallel universe kind of thing?
Edros read along with Juniper. He didn't say much, but he provided comfort when he felt Juniper got to a heavy part of the document.
So far, they had read that the countries on Earth had gone through a nuclear war that destroyed most of the planet. Those who started the wars and those with money fled to a space station that hovered near the moon, leaving most of the population to die off on its own. The technical death of the "Earth" happened 25 years after Juniper had died.
The survivors, many generations later, sent their people to see if there were any survivors on Earth, but there weren't any.
After a long pause, Juniper sighed. "It took place 25 years after I had died… I guess my death was a blessing in disguise."
"Your death… May I ask how you died? If it's too traumatic, you don't have to tell me."
"It's okay. It's not too bad. I don't really remember if I was in pain or not."
Then Juniper explained that he thought something had hit the back of his small car, causing it to roll into a ditch. With the combination of the snowy road and the intense impact, there was no way he would have survived that accident.
Even though Juniper told Edros that he didn't remember the pain, it still made him feel horrible for Juniper. He died alone and cold, not knowing exactly what killed him. It must have been painful even if Juniper couldn't remember it anymore.
After knowing that Juniper had no family when he died, that made him feel even worse. No one would celebrate his life and mourn his death.
"Why do you look so upset?" Juniper was a little confused. Maybe he remembered the pain when he first got here, but over time, he forgot, especially after going through almost 100 years of the same constant torment when his soul transferred over to this body.
Edros looked at Juniper's confused face and didn't know how to explain how he was feeling. After a while, he finally spoke. "It hurts knowing that you went through so much… And at the end of your past life, you died a painful, cold, and lonely death. I wish I could take away all of your painful memories and replace them with ones full of love and happiness."
His words were a bit corny, but it was his heartfelt feelings.
"Edros…" Juniper kept looking at Edros, not sure what he was trying to find while looking at his face. He didn't know what to say. Still, he was moved.
After Edros' first guiding session, he had always been kind and patient with him. Actually, he was very indulgent, not minding that he was different from other people. It didn't take long for Juniper to forgive Edros after their first official meeting. Then he found out they had similar hobbies (crystal collecting), making it easier to talk with Edros. From then on, it seemed, except for Ellery, Edros was the closest person to him.
"Don't worry about my past. I am here now with you and Ellery. Ever since I woke up in Ellery's body, I have been looking forward to the future. I hope that you will stay by my side, making sure that even if there are bad times, you will replace those memories with more good times." Juniper also wasn't good with words; in the past, people often misunderstood him, but he hoped Edros understood what he was trying to say.
By the time he stopped talking, Juniper realized his words sounded like he was confessing his feelings to Edros, hoping that they would stay together through good and bad times.
Well, he didn't hate or dislike Edros, but was it really love? He wasn't sure. He didn't know what love felt like. In his past life, he had never dated anyone. It was only after coming here that he had the time to consider it.
When he saw Ellery and Akimitsu together, he could see how much they loved each other. But he and Edros were different from them in terms of personality. Would their love be the same?
"I…" What was Juniper trying to say? He didn't want to back-track his statement, but he didn't want to make it seem like he was stringing Edros along!
"I promise to be with you during the good and bad times. I will make sure you have twice as many good memories as the bad ones." Edros had a serious expression on his face. He wasn't expecting them to get together right away, but for him, any progress was good enough.
"Then… Thank you." Juniper nodded while turning on his terminal. "It's time to call Ellery…"
Edros saw Juniper's ears turning red, so he didn't say anything. He was happy to make Juniper feel a little shy around him. It meant that Juniper was conscious of him!
As soon as Juniper pressed on Ellery's contact information, Ellery's video call went through.
After accepting the video call, Juniper saw Ellery and Akimitsu sitting on the bed together. The two of them were in Akimitsu's childhood room.
"Hey, Juniper!" Ellery excitedly greeted. It was as if he hadn't seen Juniper in ages. He also said hello to Edros, who returned the greeting to him and Akimitsu.
Seeing Ellery happy also made Juniper happy, so he smiled back. "Hello, Ellery. Hello Akimitsu. Are you two still having fun in Hezyria?"
"Yes! Akimitsu took me to this place called Crystal Palace. A palace made with this hard crystal called Cloud Diamonds. The color is a cloudy white, but it's so hard you can't even make it into jewelry, but somehow, there's a whole castle made out of it."
Ellery then explained the processing method for the Cloudy Diamond and even showed him a piece that he was able to buy for Juniper's collection.
Juniper was the most excited about the Cloudy Diamond and repeatedly asked Ellery to zoom in on the diamond, showing him the same angles many times.
The two only hung up when it was getting late and past Juniper's bedtime.