"It won't be so disgusting for you..."
"Shut up!"
"You remain faithful to him, as I understand..."
"What? What are you even talking about?"
I was torn by indignation and laughter at the same time. The guy was too impressed by my romance with Yarison. Are there really so many rumors about us in secular circles and the elite? And who cares?
"The ring on your finger is with a sapphire. Beautiful and expensive. Are you and Yarison engaged?" Tiren continued to dig in in an offended voice. "Do you hope to meet him?"
"It's quite possible, isn't it? Yarison can board another ark and follow us to the same exoplanet..."
"If he can! Only three such ships were built, and it is not known for sure whether survivors will board them. Why are you so calm that he stayed there?"
Tiren peered into my face, puzzled, as if trying to understand what I was hiding.
"You interfere too much in my personal space, and I didn't allow you to do that. You ask such questions, I'm not happy... After the little things you did to me, I don't even know whether to consider you a friend."
"A-ha-ha," he grinned. "We are now friends-lovers..."
"It's weird for me! And Jamien will scoff at me if he finds out about your tricks."
"So don't share our relationship with him. He'll be jealous, but I don't want to give him a blow job... So… Yarison...?"
I interrupted him sharply:
"Don't you dare ask! It's annoying that you're constantly trying to find out about him. Yes, this is his ring! But we're not engaged. Just a gift!"
"You are naive, Denris. It seems to me that you don't know much about Yarison."
I was alarmed by the strange statement.
"What is it? Explain, since you said something!"
"He knew about you for a long time... and planned to send you on one of the arks..."
"What? On the contrary, he did not let me go..."
"Paid for your and Jamien's pilot academy... secretly... there weren't many ways to get you onto the ship. Just imagine how many people wanted to get here. Only the richest bought tickets. Shall I tell you how much one costs? To make you aware? Two billion!"
I widened my eyes and stared at Tiren, who continued his revelations:
"He is not only a journalist and environmentalist. He is a scientist-inventor. No one knows where he got the technology for creating a quantum engine, which is ahead of our development, but with his input the construction of starships began and it is not known what his actual age is."
"What? Well, probably about fifty..."
"Ha-ha, no, much older. My father was a kid, when he saw Yarison at first time and he looked the same as now, eternally about thirty years old and impeccable in appearance. Strange, right?"
…I did not express any obvious surprise and looked extremely incredulous. Was Yarison really immortal and someone knew about it?
"But that's not what surprises me first of all," Tiren shrugged, blinking his eyes.
"And then what?"
"Why did he fall in love with you?"
"Could I ask you the same question? You're stalking me too! Or... it's just curiosity and a game being started with me to find out some secrets?"
"Oh, no!" Tiren made an offended face. "You are very attractive to me too. I have long wanted to meet you and I was really wondering why this mysterious man who had no family for years became close to you?"
"I look like his dead friend. This is how he explained it to me..."
"But he didn't have any partner with your appearance."
"How do you know who he had there? Was your family really digging into his personal life?"
"Surely! Think about it, would investors put their money in the construction of arks if they trusted one scientist? Yarison's personality was studied from all sides, his every move was known... Only recently they found out that he was gay, since he courted you so diligently."
"Recently?"
…This statement confused me greatly. Yarison couldn't lie to me about his dead lover. I saw tears when he mentioned him, there is no point in acting like this... And these two rings... they still look unusual. Their design was old fashioned and sophisticated, as far as I know about art.
… I stared at ring on my finger, puzzled. How old was he really?
"Fine! I confess to you that Yarison is immortal!" I blurted out. "Does this make you feel better?"
"Did he tell you this himself?" Tiren was amazed.
"Yes!" I made enigmatic face. "I didn't believe him. This is impossible!"
"Hmm... I don't know if it's possible or not, but I trust my father. Yarison's appearance has not changed for forty years! If this is so, then who is he? Alien?"
"That's what I thought, but he didn't say so, these are my assumptions."
I didn't want to point out that Yarison was also a telepath and perhaps had some other crazy abilities.
Everything I heard from this lustful young man shocked me. Why did he choose me as his lover? By what criteria, if no one saw his former partner even twenty years ago?
Still, I began to suspect that Tiren had specifically clung to me in order to learn the secrets of an unusual personality. Most likely this is connected with his father, who wants to know the secret of Yarison's immortality.
How can I know? I'm just a failed lover of an extraordinary person. Of course, he promised to make me immortal, but this does not seem like a serious promise. It's still hard to believe.