Chicken Wing Boy

The Trailblazer calmly straightened up. Her face still bore the flushed hue of drunkenness, but her eyes were exceptionally clear.

"What I like is the you who dares to express yourself now, not that Sunday who spends all day cowering in the corner and refusing to mingle with the Express Crew!"

Stelle coolly swept back her hair. She refused to believe it—she had always been the one throwing direct punches at others.

No one could turn around and throw a direct punch at her. No one!

She casually removed her glove, grabbed the dazed Sunday who had been struck silly by her direct confession, and pressed him down.

The situation had completely reversed.

Sunday lay on his back on the bed, his ear feathers obediently falling onto the sheets with his hair, rising and falling slowly with his breathing.

The man blinked.

What had the Trailblazer just said?

Had he misheard?

All those words Stelle's little mouth had chattered out just now—could they ultimately be condensed into the most concise four words:

I like you!

Was that why she wanted to touch his ear feathers—because she liked him?

Rather than because, as Sunday had previously thought, just any Halovian would do.

The man lowered his lashes, feeling his cheeks grow faintly warm.

Perhaps it was a side effect of being confessed to, or perhaps he was ashamed of having misunderstood the Trailblazer just now.

So the Trailblazer liked him. That made things easy.

She only wanted to touch his ear feathers. That was a very simple matter.

Come on, Trailblazer. Make your move.

Lying on his back on the bed, Sunday could only raise his eyes to look at Stelle from the position of the one beneath her.

He slowly removed his own glove as well.

Dry, warm, slender fingers slowly moved across the bedsheet.

They found Stelle's fingers where they rested on the bed and drew them over.

Two hands accustomed to wearing gloves trembled when they suddenly touched each other's warm skin.

In the darkness, Sunday's gaze glimmered like scattered starlight, its flickering radiance falling straight into the Trailblazer's heart.

Awkwardly yet carefully, he gently placed the Trailblazer's fingers on his ear feathers.

Stelle softened her breathing. Earlier, she had only squeezed Sunday's ear feathers through her gloves, so she had not been able to feel their texture at all.

But now was different.

She had done nothing at all, yet Sunday had taken her hand himself, inviting her to gently touch the most private place of a Halovian, the place least to be trifled with.

Sunday's voice was even softer than Stelle's quietened breath.

"As long as it's you, if you want to touch them, I welcome it. Just... please be gentle, because they're... very fragile."

Stelle nodded and stroked Sunday's ear feathers with her fingers.

In truth, ever since first meeting Sunday, the Trailblazer had imagined what those ear feathers would feel like.

Now, she was finally experiencing it for herself.

They were soft, smooth, and wonderfully pleasant to touch.

Her fingers slid over the ornaments attached to his ear feathers.

Aha's voice rang through her mind like a narrator's, sly and mischievous.

Aha: You don't know this, do you? Because of those ornaments, Sparkle once gave Sunday a nickname. Let me tell you—it was "Chicken Wing Boy"! Hahaha! What a riot!

"Pfft."

The Trailblazer suddenly laughed.

Sparkle really was something else. Her imagination was enormous.

How had she come up with such a fitting nickname? It was so funny.

"W-what is it?"

Sunday's eyes were filled with confusion.

"Nothing."

The Trailblazer went with the flow and lay down. She sprawled over Sunday's chest, listening to his heartbeat.

"I just suddenly thought about you boarding the Express, about having you by my side on my future journeys, and felt secretly delighted."

She truly was a Trailblazer of Elation. She could lie without even drafting a script.

Without blinking, she made up an excuse and smoothed over the fact that she had snickered.

"I see."

Sunday did not doubt her. The Trailblazer's entire body lay heavily atop him, but not heavily enough to leave him unable to breathe.

He simply savored the sensation of Stelle relying on him completely, each breath making the girl atop him rise and fall.

A fine itch spread through the places where his ear feathers had been stroked. He did not even need to get up and look in a mirror to know that every spot graced by the Trailblazer's fingers must have become sensitively tinged with a thin blush.

Sunday reached out, cupping the Trailblazer's waist in his palm, afraid that she might roll over carelessly and tumble off the bed.

"Huff... huff..."

Steady, prolonged breathing gradually sounded from above him.

She had fallen asleep?

Sunday turned his head to look. The Trailblazer curled into a ball in his arms had indeed peacefully entered dreamland.

The aftereffects of the alcohol must have caught up with her.

He maintained his position as Stelle's human mattress for an unknown amount of time, until she finally rolled over onto the bed.

Sunday sat up, feeling much lighter. He glanced at Stelle, who was sprawled across the bed and sleeping soundly.

"She really has no sense of caution."

The man's Adam's apple bobbed as he tucked the blanket around the girl.

Stelle looked far too adorable when she slept.

Sunday watched her like that for a long time.

In the end, he bent down and very, very lightly kissed the back of her hand.

It was time to leave. Staying in a girl's room for so long would be improper.

As the man stood and passed the corner, he met the gaze of a creature with huge, watery eyes.

Oh. Sunday vaguely remembered it. It was one of the cat cakes the Trailblazer kept. Whenever she had time, she would bring the cat cakes to the Parlor Car and let the Express Crew pet them to their hearts' content.

Sunday was not especially interested in little creatures like this, but he could not refuse the Trailblazer's enthusiastic invitation, so he had petted it a couple of times.

Now, he and this Trash Cake stared each other down.

This Trash Cake was not asleep in the middle of the night.

And its eyes were opened so wide.

Sunday reasonably suspected that it had silently watched everything that had happened from the moment he and the Trailblazer entered the room until now!

But then he remembered that a cat cake was only an adorable cat cake, and it could not speak.

So Sunday merely crouched down and stroked its plastic shell with ease, then gently closed the door and left the room.

What Sunday did not know was that the Trailblazer could understand cat cakes.

The next day.

Pom-Pom: Meow, meow ୧( ⁼̴̶̤̀ω⁼̴̶̤́ )૭

Stelle: Oh, you're saying Old Sunday kissed me while I was asleep? Where did he kiss me?!

Pom-Pom: Meow, meow-meow ⸜(๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝

Stelle: Just my hand? Boring. You looked so excited, I thought you were going to say something interesting!

Pom-Pom:! Meow-meow ＜(｀^´)＞

What Himeko, Welt, March 7th, and Dan Heng did not know was why, from the day Sunday escorted Stelle back to her room onward,

he suddenly began trying to fit in with the Express Crew.

Sunday usually stayed put in the Party Car. Why was he now willing to come to the Parlor Car and chat with everyone?

There was no other reason. Sunday simply always remembered what the Trailblazer had said.

Because she liked seeing him free and unrestrained, and wanted Sunday to treat the Express Crew as family rather than spend every day in a corner of the Party Car.

That was all.

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