Side story:
In the afternoon at Aedes Elysiae, sunlight like molten gold spilled across the boundless, wave-like wheat fields. The air was filled with the warm fragrance of ripening grain and the scent of earth.
Phaethon and Cyrene sat side by side on the ridge between the fields, watching the small, white figure in the distance—Phainon—tirelessly chasing a phosphorescent butterfly, his clear laughter carried to them on the wind.
"Phaethon, why are you always so sullen? Look, how happily Phainon is playing in the wheat field?" Cyrene looked curiously at Phaethon sitting on the ridge beside her.
"Hmph, what's so fun about running together in a field? You could do that anytime, couldn't you?" Phaethon let out a soft snort. "I really don't know why Mom and Dad made Phainon the older brother. We're twins; the time we were born couldn't have been that different."
"Truly childish," he murmured, hugging his knees, a hint of maturity beyond his years on his small face as he quietly assessed his own brother.
Beside him, Cyrene's pink hair drifted gently in the breeze. Leaning back on her hands, she tilted her face up, squinting as she enjoyed the caress of the sunlight, a lazy, contented smile playing on her lips.
"This is what's good," her voice was like honey, light and sincere. "Phainon playing so carefree like this, this wheat field growing so peacefully, even the wind blowing past our ears is so gentle... This is why I love the concept of 'the world.'"
"Love the world?" Phaethon turned his head to look at her perfect profile, his brow furrowing slightly. The soul from a modern era within him couldn't help but argue back. "Not every kind of world is worth loving."
"A world where... the poor are slaves for generations, with no hope of ever rising, and nobles act with impunity, treating human life as worthless."
"A world of incessant warfare, where a village that exists today might be burned to ashes tomorrow, and children might not even live to see the next sunrise."
"A world where... most people, from birth to death, can only wallow in mud and despair, seeing no future, feeling not a shred of warmth or light... If a world like that were placed before you, Sister Cyrene, would you still, without hesitation, like it? Love it?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Phaethon regretted them. He felt like a cruel executioner, brutally tearing apart the beautiful filter before this girl's eyes with his words.
He abruptly fell silent, pressing his lips together tightly, lowering his head to stare at his own toes, not daring to look at her anymore.
The smile on Cyrene's face froze. She fell silent, her long eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath her eyes. The sound of the wheat waves seemed amplified in that moment, rustling and filling the quiet between them.
A long, long time passed.
So long that Phaethon thought she wouldn't answer, her soft yet firm voice finally rang out. Like a stone dropped into a still lake, the ripples it created were heavy enough to bear the weight of an entire world:
"Precisely because of that," she turned her head, her azure eyes looking directly at Phaethon. There was no reproach in them, only a clarity bordering on compassion. "It is precisely *THAT* kind of world that needs someone to love it even more."
Phaethon jolted, stunned. He lifted his head, crashing into those eyes of hers that seemed capable of containing everything, momentarily speechless.
...
A few hours later, the sunset dyed the sky a warm orange-red.
Under the familiar old tree, Phaethon stood behind Cyrene, gently pushing a simple wooden swing. The swing creaked with a soothing rhythm, lifting and lowering the pink-haired girl, merging into the twilight.
"Phaethon," Cyrene suddenly spoke, her voice floating with the rise and fall of the swing. "This morning you said no one would love such a dark world. Then tell me, what kind of world... do you think would be worth your love?"
Phaethon's hands pushing the swing didn't stop. Perhaps out of pique from their morning conversation, perhaps wanting to prove something to her—and to himself—he took a deep breath and began to speak.
To speak of the ideal vision engraved deep in his soul.
He described a world where everyone could eat their fill, free from the fear of survival.
He described a world where everyone could freely choose how to live, possessing a fate not imposed upon them.
He described a world without inherent nobility or baseness, where effort could be seen and recognized.
He described a world where, even with doors left unlocked at night, one wouldn't need to worry about theft or harm.
He described a world where no one would be forced into banditry because they had run out of options.
He described a world where commoners wouldn't be subjected to torture for offending the powerful.
He described a world where those great figures in high positions were no longer aloof, but sincerely served their people.
But he was describing a world that was almost impossible to appear in reality...
His words weren't impassioned, even carrying a childlike naivete. Yet that vision, originating from another time and space—concrete and real—was like a star cast into a deep pool, its light growing brighter, more and more detailed.
Cyrene listened quietly, not interrupting, not commenting. Only... her eyes grew brighter and brighter as Phaethon spoke, as if filled with the entire starry river.
She had never heard such a concrete, such a detailed depiction of "beauty." It didn't sound like fantasy, but more like a... clear blueprint.
On that day, the girl who had been pondering since birth how to love this vast world, through the words of the boy beside her, "saw" for the first time a concrete, vivid, warm, and hopeful new world.
She fell in love with the world he described.
And the respect for the equality of all beings, the profound compassion for suffering, the unwavering belief in a beautiful future contained within his words... all of this together sketched out the kindest, purest, gentlest soul she could imagine.
When Phaethon finally stopped, breathing slightly heavily, Cyrene turned around on the swing to face him. The lingering glow of the sunset enveloped her whole person in a warm halo.
She looked at him, a smile blooming bit by bit on her face, brighter than the evening glow on the horizon.
"You see, Phaethon," her voice carried a joy and tenderness like discovering a treasure. "Although this morning you listed so much darkness, despair, and injustice in the world for me... In reality, look, your heart knows what kind of world is beautiful, what kind of world is bright."
"And you know it in such detail, as if... you've seen that world with your own eyes." She tilted her head slightly, a sly, intelligent light sparkling in her eyes. "This shows that deep down, you've also been longing for such a world all along, haven't you?"
She leaned forward, her gaze looking straight into Phaethon's somewhat flustered eyes. Word by word, clearly and affirmatively, she said:
"Deep down, you have always been gentle, kind, just, and bright, haven't you?"
In that moment, the wind stopped. The rustling of the wheat waves, the creaking of the swing, all seemed to fade away.
In the brilliant pupils of Cyrene's eyes, Phaethon clearly saw his own reflection.
And in Phaethon's pupils, slightly shaken by being so completely understood and affirmed, Cyrene's figure was deeply imprinted.
She fell in love with the detailed utopia he spoke of.
And in her unwavering trust, he found the initial anchor for his soul in this unfamiliar world.
Perhaps it was at that moment that they truly began to see each other in their eyes.