CEO loves me with all his soul.-Chapter 157. A Still Heart Waits for Spring

The room was silent.

Not the kind of silence that comes from peace or sleep — but the kind that follows a storm. The kind that hums with what cannot be said, with everything already said, and with the truth too heavy to be spoken again.

Adrian lay on the platform at the center of the cryo-lab, white sheets tucked neatly over his body, sensors trailing over his pulse points like the roots of something still alive, still refusing to let go.

Yuin stood on one side, trembling fingers adjusting the final calibrations. Lucas stood opposite, jaw clenched, eyes wet. The chamber around them thrummed with energy — the hum of technology both ancient and ahead of its time, a miracle and a farewell rolled into one.

And standing at the edge of the platform...

Ethan.

His hands were clenched into fists, though his voice had long gone quiet. No more shouting, no more begging. His world — the only person who ever made him feel vulnerable, brave, and alive — was lying there, eyes closed, trusting them all.

Trusting him.

"Is there no other way?" Seraphina’s voice broke through the thick silence.

She was nineteen now, bold and tall like her father, but her words were small.

"No," Yuin said gently, not looking up. "We’ve exhausted every protocol. His brain activity is stable, but the condition is... dormant. Unpredictable. The only way we can keep him safe, without risking full neural decay, is cryostasis."

Eira clung to Aurelius, her face buried in her brother’s chest. Her quiet sobs were like raindrops in a sacred hall.

Aron stood beside Ethan, clutching his hand, not crying, just watching. Like he knew too much for someone only ten years old. His silver eyes — Adrian’s eyes — never blinked.

"This isn’t death," Lucas whispered to them all, voice hoarse. "It’s preservation. We wait. We hope. And when the technology catches up — we bring him back."

But the words, as gently as they were spoken, felt too light.

Too easy for the weight of what was happening.

"Let’s begin," Yuin finally said, fingers hovering over the activation console.

The room dimmed. The capsule hissed gently. Blue light began to gather around the base of the cryo-chamber. Adrian’s body was slowly encased in a cocoon of glowing suspension.

His last breath — soft, unconscious — frosted against the clear cover.

Ethan had not moved.

Not once.

He watched every second like he was memorizing something holy.

Then he turned to Leclair.

"Brother," he said. "Take care of my children."

The room went still.

"What are you saying?" Augustin whispered.

Ethan looked at his son, his daughters — all of them looking like they were breaking into pieces right in front of him.

And he knelt in front of them.

"I need to be with him," he said. "If something goes wrong, if he wakes up afraid... I need to be there."

Seraphina’s jaw dropped. "No, Dad—!"

"I promised him," Ethan said firmly. "I promised I would never leave him alone."

Eira screamed.

Aurelius backed away in shock. "This isn’t right. We still need you! We need you, Dad!"

But Ethan’s eyes — black and shining — were unwavering.

"I have to protect him," he said again, as though explaining the most basic law of nature. "And that doesn’t stop just because time gets in the way."

"Ethan," Leclair started, stepping forward. "You have responsibilities—"

"I’m asking you," Ethan said, voice trembling now, "as a brother. Take care of them. Guide them. Love them."

Augustin burst into tears.

Aron finally spoke, voice soft. "Will you dream with Papa in there?"

Ethan looked down at him.

"Yes," he whispered. "And I’ll dream of all of you growing up into greatness."

Lucas stood, frozen, unable to speak. It was happening again — a separation, a gamble with time and fate. But this time, there was no way to stop it.

Yuin adjusted the second chamber, this time with slower movements.

"Are you sure?" he asked one last time.

Ethan nodded.

He stepped onto the second platform beside Adrian’s now-sealed chamber. Before lying down, he looked one more time at his children — Seraphina with her fists clenched, eyes red. Aurelius biting his lips hard enough to bleed. Eira, sobbing like her heart had been shattered. And little Aron, still holding the sky in his mind, but with his world slipping away.

"I love you," Ethan said.

It broke the last thread.

The sobbing, the screaming, the grief.

He laid back.

Lucas came forward, gently inserting the IV lines. Yuin placed the monitor nodes. A gentle mist began to swirl around Ethan’s frame as the chamber sealed.

He reached out once — palm against the glass separating him from Adrian.

And then his eyes closed.

Leclair held Aurelius.

Augustin guided Eira and Seraphina out of the lab.

Aron didn’t move until the last light from the chamber dimmed, his tiny hand pressed against the glass, whispering something only he could hear.

Outside the facility, the sun was still shining.

The sky did not know what had been lost.

But the family that remained would carry it.

Leclair turned to Lucas and Yuin.

"Find the cure," he said, voice steel. "If it takes a year or a century — bring them back."

They both nodded.

Because love like that... doesn’t disappear.

It shouldn’t disappear just like that.

They deserve all the happiness.

.

.

One year later.

The wind smelled like autumn — dry leaves, street food stalls, the clean paper scent of freshly printed textbooks.

Aron sat quietly beneath the branches of an old gingko tree in the garden behind the institute. The leaves above had just begun to yellow, and they drifted down in slow spirals, landing gently in his lap. A book about lunar physics rested open before him, though his eyes weren’t reading anymore.

They were watching the sky.

It had been a full year since Papa and Dad went to sleep.

At first, he didn’t know what "cryostasis" meant. He had just thought: They’re going on a trip. But as the days crawled on — the slow empty dinners, the dreams where Papa would read him space stories, the way Seraphina would cry in secret and Aurelius got so quiet — he began to understand.

They weren’t coming back anytime soon.

Still, Aron didn’t cry. Not once. Not even when Eira read him bedtime stories in Adrian’s voice and had to stop halfway through because she couldn’t continue. Not when Leclair held him too tightly and whispered "I’m sorry." Not even on the day they moved into the northern wing of Levistis Manor.

Aron just watched the sky.

Because one day, he’d take them there.

That had been his promise.

His parents had dreamed of building a safe world. He would build one among the stars.

That’s what he told himself every morning.

And every night.

Until the accident.

It happened on a cold day in late November.

Xilian Zephyr, Aron’s mentor, had invited him and a few other junior apprentices to tour a remote observatory situated in the mountain zone bordering the old military dome. It was an abandoned area mostly — beautiful, snowy cliffs, quiet lakes, and the occasional fallen satellite dish.

It had started like an adventure.

But halfway through the visit, one of the core generators powering the dome’s artificial heating suffered a volatile leak.

Before any of the staff realized it, the kids were exposed to a sudden burst of unstable radiation — something too old, too obscure, and far too dangerous. It lasted only seconds before the safety shield deployed. But it was enough.

Most of the kids fainted or were rushed into quarantine.

But Aron...

Aron didn’t even flinch.

He stood completely still, blinking slowly as the snow began to fall around him, his body surrounded by a faint silver glow for exactly seven seconds before it vanished.

When they returned to the manor two days later, something was different.

Eira noticed it first.

"Your hair," she whispered, stunned. "Aron..."

He looked at her, puzzled.

She guided him to a mirror.

The boy staring back at him had beautiful white hair — not silver, not pale-blonde. White, like snow under moonlight, soft and impossible. His eyes had also shifted: the once gentle silver-blue had turned into a deep black, so dark and wide that they seemed to reflect the whole world back in them.

He touched his face.

"It doesn’t hurt," he said quietly.

But everyone else was panicking.

The doctors ran tests.

Xilian Zephyr arrived in a panic and requested full genetic screenings. Lucas and Yuin scanned him personally. Even Luri and Diana visited the hospital, their faces creased with worry.

"It’s a mutation," Lucas said after hours of silence. "But not one we’ve documented. Not induced by the radiation alone. There’s something... else."

"Something dormant," Yuin murmured. "It might have been triggered." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"But triggered by what?" Diana asked. "He wasn’t supposed to be part of any trial or experimental proximity..."

Everyone fell into silence.

That night, Aron sat beside his parents’ sealed chambers.

He had snuck away from the hospital.

Wearing one of Papa’s old scarves.

The cold tiles under his feet didn’t bother him. The air, faintly humming from the cryo-stabilizers, was comforting. It felt like being close to the sun in winter — too far to touch, but warm enough to survive.

"Papa," he said, pressing his palm against the glass of Adrian’s chamber. "Something’s happening to me. I think it’s good... but I don’t know."

He looked toward Ethan’s chamber next.

"Dad... I wish you were here to tell me if I’m still just a little kid."

No one answered, of course.

But Aron smiled anyway.

"I’m not scared," he said. "Just confused."

And then, from deep within his skin — where the silver light had disappeared during the accident — a soft glow returned.

This time, it came from his hands.

A silver aura. Gentle. Protective. Familiar.

Exactly like Adrian’s ability, once whispered about in old files.

Aron stared.

Then laughed softly, tears in his eyes.

"I think I got something from you, Papa."

The following morning, the family gathered around him again.

This time, less panic — more awe.

"He’s... awakened," Lucas said quietly.

"Like the Atops did in the early studies," Yuin added.

Eira reached out to take her little brother’s hand. "You have an ability," she whispered. "Just like Papa."

Aron nodded.

"I think I can protect people."

Seraphina returned early from her military assignment to see him. Her eyes welled up when she saw the hair, the glow, the calm.

"You’re our miracle," she told him.

"No," he whispered. "Papa and Dad are."

She hugged him tightly, trying not to cry again.

"They’ll be proud," she said.

Aron’s voice was steady. "I’ll bring them back."

Aurelius — tall, quiet, reliable — placed a hand on Aron’s shoulder and nodded.

"We’ll help you," he said. "We all will."

.

.

"In the eternity where time once stopped, love moved forward. Even in silence, even in ice, even across stars — he loved him with all his soul. And somehow, that was enough to make the world begin again."

-THE END-