Rin’s eyes looked dim. He turned his gaze to Nao. “This is. . .how you looked in your past life?”

“. . .It was a little worse than this,” Nao said in a light, quiet voice. “Anyway. . .We’ll need to make casts of the limbs and torso.”

“I’ll take care of the hands and feet,” Sandie said. “A-Long, Kit, you two handle the limbs. Rin can do the chest, and we’ll leave the lower half of the torso to Nao-kun.”

Everyone agreed to this arrangement. Sandie pulled out a large bin of molding putty and set to work on the feet. Wen Xulong and Kit each started on an arm, while Rin and Nao took a seat off to the side to wait for their time to come.

Rin’s eyes were still disconsolate. It was a completely different look compared to only moments earlier, when he had pinched Nao’s nose shut and teased him with a gleam in his gaze. It made Nao sad to think that he was the cause for the drastic change.

It seemed like he was constantly making trouble for Rin in all sorts of different ways, shapes and forms. For every problem he solved, he created a dozen more. He couldn’t think of what he’d done to incite such horrible luck, but whatever he tried, he couldn’t shake it. He always made Rin worry or dragged him down.

Nao frowned, biting his lip. He’d have to try harder in the future so Rin wouldn’t have to suffer on his behalf.

“Nao-kun.”

Nao blinked and looked up at Rin. He was met head-on with Rin’s gaze.

“Did you have any friends? What were they like?” Rin asked.

“Well. . .There were my lab partners,” Nao said. “Helen-chan—she was our head biologist. She was really nice—whenever we had to work early or late, she would make jam-filled oat muffins for everyone. Then there was Olaf. His speech was rough, so he didn’t talk much, he used sign language instead, but he was also very nice. He was tall and muscular, so a lot of people were scared of him. Um, and there was Josh—he was really good with tiny parts, and he always had to work on something because he had so much energy. Whenever we had long hours at the lab, he would get really antsy and start doing jumping jacks.”

Nao unconsciously smiled, recalling the littler things of his time with his past lab partners. Rin listened intently as he continued.

“There was Artie, too—Helen-chan called him ‘the crazy scientist’. He had these really thick glasses and his hair was always messy—it caught fire at least four times during his experiments. He always brought a deck of cards, and whenever one of us was tired out, he’d do card tricks. He taught me a few. Oh, and Lily—she was a writer. Sometimes, she’d bring in pieces of her work, and. . .”

Nao’s cheeks dimpled, melancholy twisting his smile. Looking at Rin again, he said, “You already know all of this, don’t you? You even remembered my birthday. . .”

Rin’s cheeks took on the lightest hint of color. He didn’t deny it. “I didn’t know the small details like this.”

Rin didn’t say it, but Nao could sense that he was waiting for him to continue speaking. Taking a deep breath and letting out a heavy sigh, he went on.

“Lily would bring in some of her writing, whenever our work wasn’t too heavy, and she’d let Florian read it aloud to us. Florian was a theatre kid, so he had a bit of a knack for it. Lily always said her stories came to life in Florian’s hands.”

Rin’s gaze remained steadfastly on Nao. “And what was he like?”

Nao chuckled a little, but there was only wistfulness in the sound. “. . .Xulong-ge reminds me of him in some ways,” he said. “He has the same sort of. . .robustness, authenticity, that Florian had. He was a little older than me, and always treated me kindly—he was like how I imagined a brother might be. Well, sort of. . .”

Rin’s attentive gaze was still sticking to Nao like glue. After a stretch of silence, Nao chuckled again, a helpless amusement showing through the rich sound.

“Rin-san, how can you already read me so well? You really want to know it all, huh?”

Rin’s answer was surprisingly blunt and simple—a convictive “Mm.”

Nao met Rin’s eyes, a little stunned by his sincerity. It was touching. After a moment, he dropped his gaze and spoke once more.

“I spent a lot of time with all of my lab partners—most of my waking hours from the time I was nine until. . .But anyway, the one I saw the most was Florian,” Nao said. “He walked me home more often than not, and a lot of times my mom would insist that he stay and eat something before heading out. I always thought of him as family, but. . .around the time I was maybe. . .fifteen and a half, something like that. . .I stayed past hours at the lab, fine-tuning some bits and pieces of the metamatrix. Florian stayed too, and eventually convinced me to take a break. It was. . .one in the morning? Two?” Nao shook his head. “I can’t remember.”

“We were sitting together on the stairwell. Florian kept giving me this. . .concerned look, so I asked him what was wrong. He didn’t answer at first, but then he said. . .”

Nao paused for a moment, recalling that night.

Nao had sat on that step—higher up than Florian’s, yet still leaving him shorter than the other boy—looking up at his friend. Florian had looked at him with that tender, worried gaze, and only after Nao was about to ask a second time did he finally reach out and ruffle Nao’s hair.

“Nao-kun, you probably know already, but I’m in love with you.”

Nao had been startled by these words, but Florian had kept on talking.

“I know I’m not your guy, so I haven’t said anything. Even if we dated, it wouldn’t go anywhere. Still, I worry about you sometimes.”

“. . .In love?”

Florian had chuckled. “See, Nao-kun? You don’t even know what love is. You’re so. . .so pure and innocent, so gentle. I can’t help being scared that you’ll get yourself hurt someday. There are a lot of people out there who would use your naivety for their own gain. If you should ever meet one of them. . .I just hope you’ll be able to stay safe.

He’d laughed some more when Nao frowned, then hugged him; after that night, Florian never mentioned his love for Nao again, but Nao wondered now if he’d ever found his guy.

Nao wrapped up the story for Rin and waited for him to say something in response.

“. . .So you didn’t love him back?” Rin asked after a moment.

Nao laughed a little. “Rin-san, just like he said back then. . .I don’t even know what it means to be in love. But one thing I can say is that, although I cared for him a lot, Florian was never someone I wanted to be in a relationship with.”

Rin looked at Nao thoughtfully for a long moment. A creeping realization dawned in his gaze, and with it, a light flush swept his face. He turned away. In a voice packed with undertones Nao couldn’t read, he said, “. . .You’ll know when it happens.”

Nao pondered this. He supposed it was probably true.

“Rin-san, I already think of you as such a good friend, but I don’t know that much about you,” he said after a stretch of silence.

“What do you want to know?” Rin asked.

Nao tilted his head back a little. “Mm. . .What are your favorite things? Colors, foods, places. . .what kind of music and TV you like—your favorite books, your hobbies. . .Stuff like that. Or if you want to talk about your past, that’s okay too. I’ll listen to whatever you want to say.”

Rin blanked for a second. Nao’s request left so much wiggle room, he wasn’t sure where to start. “. . .My favorite color is purple, my favorite food is sweet-and-sour pork. . .I don’t really have a favorite place. I like a lot of different kinds of music. . .and I like some anime. . .Um. . .My favorite books are Little Mushroom and Wait For Me After School. . .Uh, as for hobbies. . .There are a lot. . .”

“Then which ones do you spend the most time on?” Nao asked.

“. . .Piano, I guess,” Rin said. “And figure skating.”

Nao’s eyes lit up. “You figure skate?”

Rin glanced at Nao, then averted his gaze, hoping he wouldn’t blush. “Mm. . .My mom made me take lessons when I said I was interested. I haven’t practiced in a while, I might be rusty. . .”

“I’ve always loved figure skating,” Nao said. “When I was little, I wanted to do it myself someday. Though now that I think of it, I’m not really suited to it.”

Rin opened his mouth to answer, but it was Sandie’s voice that rang out. “Rin, your turn. Limbs are done.”

“Alright,” Rin replied. He got up and took a couple steps forward, then paused.

His job was to make the mold for the torso. It wasn’t exceptionally hard—cumbersome, but compared to an intricate part like the hands, it was nothing. It was just that it would require a lot of direct handling of the body.

Did it count as feeling someone up if they weren’t actually inhabiting their body at the moment? He also had Nao’s permission, but somehow the thought of going through with this made Rin feel like he was being perverted. His palms felt sweaty all of a sudden.

Wen Xulong noticed his odd state and walked over, clapping his shoulder. “C’mon, Shini-sama, I’ll help you out. I’d be bored otherwise, anyway.”

And so, Rin was forced to reluctantly walk to the table where Nao’s body laid, and with Wen Xulong’s help, set about creating the torso’s mold.

Nao, meanwhile, was sunk in thought. His mind swirled with memories of the past and questions of the future, switching back and forth between reminiscence and curiosity. He didn’t notice Rin’s strangeness at all. His fingers unconsciously curled around the pendant of the necklace Rin had given him.

Wrapped in the darkness of his palm, the dragon inside emitted a faint but beautiful light.