Love Code At the End of The World

Raffles stopped muttering and blushed too. His grayish-blue eyes quivered, then he faced me and lifted his hand in a small wave. “See-see you tomorrow.”

Harry glanced at Raffles, only to look away when he saw Raffles’s bashful face, deep in thought as his gaze fixed elsewhere. 

In an instant, the three of us had sunk into an awkward silence. The oxygen seemed to run out and I felt suffocated. I quickly turned away.

“Wait,” Raffles called me. I stopped but didn’t turn back immediately. Raffles ran to stand before me, his lips lifted in a smile. “There’s something that I forgot to tell you about. Hurry up and follow me!” Then, he pulled my arm and started running.

Surprised, I followed behind him. Raffles had never had the courage to touch a girl before. Before I had come here, he hadn’t even had the courage to look at a girl when he spoke. He had used a booklet to communicate with other girls back then. The only person who could converse with him had been Arsenal.

When I had seen him for the first time, he didn’t have the courage to face me too. He had used his booklet to talk to me.

Now, he was laughing with us, running with us, having fun with us. He was even courageous enough to pull my arm and fight a snow war with Harry.

I followed him, watching his hair fly behind his back. He was wearing a light blue sleeveless long coat with a hood. Raffles liked blue, and his long coat was printed with a pattern of fine orchids, making it look classic yet elegant.

He liked clothes that carried a classical vibe. The clothes that he picked were all long shirts, long gowns or long robes. He would put a long coat over it to finish the outfit, achieving a classic Asian look. I couldn’t blame Williams for admiring Raffles.  

He ran for a while before he seemed to notice something. He turned around and shouted at Harry, “Harry! Come with us!”

“I don’t want to,” Harry stood on his original spot and waved at us as he turned away, “Go ahead. You two go ahead.” He looked awkward.

Raffles let go of me and ran to Harry. Grabbing Harry’s arm, he started running again. “Let’s go together because there are three!”

“What three?” Harry looked at him suspiciously but Raffles only smiled mysteriously. I watched him, confused, as he ran to me with Harry in tow. With his free hand, Raffles took my arm again to pull me along. The three of us ran under the dim lightning, Sis Cannon’s shouting and Joey’s nagging dimly audible in the background.

Noah City was going to bed.

Harry and I exchanged looks behind Raffles. I looked at him confusedly while he looked back at me in bewilderment. Whatever. Let’s run along with Raffles.

Raffles brought Harry and me to the ecology zone, halting in front of a white cabin. He let go of Harry and I, and turned to us with a smile while he panted, catching his breath. His reddened face looked excited.

He raised his fingers and went *shh!* He acted as if there was a baby behind the door and was afraid we would wake her.

Harry and I glanced at each other. What’s wrong with Raffles today?

Harry shrugged. He was obviously as lost as I was.

Raffles turned around and opened the door gently with his badge. There was a warm yellow light inside the cabin. The entire white cabin was tinged yellow by the light. 

He walked in softly as though there really was a cute baby sleeping inside and he didn’t want to wake her up.

Influenced by his behavior, Harry and I tiptoed behind Raffles. When we entered, we noticed a white egg-shaped glass box in the cabin, which had an even more intense yellow light inside it.

Raffles walked towards it gently, Harry and I behind him. When we finally saw inside the box, we crowded closer to the glass in surprise.

There were three small eggs inside!

Three eggs lay quietly in the box, on top of a carpet of snow-white goose down while yellow light bulbs on the inside walls warmed them. 

The glass cover reflected our three faces. Even Harry and Raffles were watching the eggs with a gentle gaze that I had never seen before, filled with a heartwarming light.

“You are incubating them!” I lowered my voice and exclaimed in surprise. Raffles and Harry stood to either side of me as usual.

As there hadn’t been stable energy, Raffles had never incubated them all this while and only used a special equipment to store them.

With the unstable energy in Noah City that resulted in power outages from time to time, the three eggs might have spoiled instead.

Raffles nodded with a smile. He replied in a low voice, “I wonder if they would have hatched by the time we return.”

“It takes so long for them to hatch?” Harry was surprised. His smile turned malicious. “Does that mean we get to eat them when we come back?”

Raffles and I glared at him in disdain.

“I’m still not sure what kind of eggs they are. I couldn’t find it in the archive center. It should be a new species that had mutated after the end of the world. I can only hope it won’t be some kind of aggressive being. The eggs look small so it shouldn’t be very powerful,” Raffle looked at the eggs and said but he sounded somewhat unconfident.

It was my first time hearing Raffles sound so unconfident.

I eyed the size of the egg and nodded in agreement. “It is definitely nothing big in size. Looking at the size of the egg, I reckon it should be the size of a chicken or a duck.” It would be impossible for it to be dragons or some sort of huge animal. Then again, turtle eggs are small even though turtles are so huge. “But…”

“But what?” Raffles asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing.” The eggs still looked like chicken eggs or bird eggs.

“Which one do you think is male and which one female?” Harry asked curiously.

I rolled my eyes at him. “How can we tell?”

“God, I pray that there are both male and female!” Raffles prayed hard next to me.

“Hehe, if there are only males or only females, we can eat them when they reach a certain size!” Harry licked his lips and grinned mischievously.

“Harry!” Raffles was angry.

Still grinning mischievously like a child who was simply fooling around with Raffles, Harry made a surrender gesture and said, “Okay, okay. I’ll stop joking with you. I think we should give them names.” He turned to look at the eggs in the incubator. “Little guy, what are you exactly?” He watched the egg directly facing him in the incubator with a tender gaze.

Yeah, what are you exactly?

I believed that they would bring us surprises beyond imagination when they hatch after our return.

The three of us leaned over the incubator, watching them fixedly for very, very long.