Chapter 592 - You Know? (1/2)
Leonel sighed hearing Aina's question. Quite frankly, he didn't know how to respond.
Was he alright? Well, technically, there wasn't anything wrong with him. His life wasn't in danger, his future wasn't exactly bleak… Truthfully, he didn't have very much to worry about at all.
Of course, if the members of Shield Cross Stars heard these thoughts of his, it would be hard to tell how they would react. After all, no one had ever had such a nonchalant response to being designated a Tier 3 Criminal.
To put matters into perspective, to even be labeled a Tier 9 Criminal was enough to have bounty hunters breathing down your neck. To leap from a Tier 4 Criminal to a Tier 3 was the equivalent of being a felon that could be sentenced to consecutive life sentences. Leonel was quite literally only short of individuals known for destroying worlds, solar systems and galaxies. This was how serious this matter was.
Yet, Leonel hardly spared a thought toward this matter. In fact, ever since his conversation with his grandfather, it was all that had been on his mind. He couldn't find a reason to care about anything else.
If it wasn't for the fact that Leonel had already sworn to himself to find a cure for Aina, he might have had no other purpose but to lounge around in depression at the moment.
Maybe the harshest truth of it all was that Leonel didn't feel that this matter was even as serious as that. Depression was often something a person couldn't control, an imbalance in the chemicals of the mind that caused up and down swings in mood. Leonel couldn't say he was going through such a thing, but what he did know was that he felt everything that had once been in his control was slowly but surely slipping away.
Leonel sighed again.
”I just don't feel like I have as much of a grasp on things as I once did. I find it laughable that I thought I understood anything to begin with.”
Aina gazed toward Leonel, unsure of how she should answer.
She didn't feel as strongly about certain things as Leonel did. The deaths of the common folk of Earth? She didn't spare them a thought. There were some things about this cruel world that she was just numb to. If it wasn't for the fact it was someone she cared about feeling this way, even to this point she might not have spared a thought toward those matters.
However, at the same time, she didn't want Leonel to keep running from his own thoughts. She was herself while he was him. They would never be the same. While she found it easy to ignore such things, Leonel wasn't the same.
That said… Aina felt that there was something off about how much Leonel cared, almost as though he was trying to cling to ideals that weren't his own while he ran from an even larger problem.
Unfortunately… Maybe the one things Leonel had never told Aina was about his conversation with Coach Owen and the truth surrounding his birth. Whether by coincidence and subconsciously, or on purpose and consciously, she didn't have the final piece of the puzzle that she needed.
”Did you always know how to cook this well?” Leonel shook his head, quickly changing the subject.
Aina realized what he was doing, but there were some things that couldn't be pressed. If Leonel didn't want to talk about it, forcing him to do so would only make him shut down.
”No,” Aina replied with a smile, ”Usually it was Yuri who always took care of the cooking. I was bored so I thought I would try my hand at it.”
Aina waved off her efforts with a hand. But, Leonel's silent smile seemed to see right through her.
”I think it's more than just that.” Leonel said after Aina began squirming in her seat beneath his gaze. ”There was something special about your cooking, as though it had its own unique flow of energy. It was definitely beyond anything I've ever eaten before.”