Author: 唇亡齿寒 / Lips Gone, Teeth Cold
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 31
Alois felt his blood boil, only to be doused by a bucket of ice water.
“…Srosie?” he asked in disbelief, his voice trailing off.
“Oh, yes!” The “Srosie” in the silver foil dress nodded, his gaze strange as if saying, “We just met yesterday, how can you not remember me?”
“…Camilla?” Alois asked again.
“That’s right.”
Instantly, words like “trap”, “femboy”, and “crossdresser” flew through Alois’s mind, like meteors crashing on a planet’s surface, causing an earthquake!
“You’re… a man?” He stammered, barely getting the words out.
“What’s wrong with your eyes? Isn’t it obvious?” Camilla, or rather Srosie, put his hands on his hips, looking quite displeased.
“Then why are you dressed as a woman?!”
Srosie, or Camilla, pouted. “Is it wrong to like wearing women’s clothes?”
Alois’s mind exploded. What the hell is going on?! His heart was racing like a herd of wild horses, but his face remained as calm as a still lake. Camilla is a man! Camilla is a cross-dresser! Oh Lord! Asimov! Tell me, I’m not dreaming! I haven’t crossed into some strange parallel world! Someone give me a wall to bang my head against! I’ve heard that on some remote planets in the Federation, there’s a weird religion where believers scream to express their dissatisfaction with reality when they’re stressed. I want to join and scream too!
“What’s with that expression?!” Srosie frowned his delicate eyebrows. “Aren’t you my fan? Now that I’ve told you my biggest secret, you should at least pretend to be happy!”
Alois continued his deadpan expression. How can I be happy! This is not something to be happy about! Why haven’t I realized Camilla is a man all these years! Why didn’t I realize Srosie was Camilla when I met him! Makeup! It’s all because of makeup! Makeup can make a person look completely different! Yes, it’s all the makeup artist’s fault!
“Why do you still look like a dead fish?” Srosie stretched out a slender finger and poked Alois’s face. “Does being a man make you stop loving me?”
Alois’s expression remained blank.
Srosie looked at him with frustration. He grabbed the young man’s collar and roared, “Do you like me or not? Answer!”
His eyes were deadly serious, the blue pupils like the sea, glistening under the bright lights. Alois suddenly felt that if he said “no”, Srosie would immediately cry in front of him.
…The makeup would be ruined.
He patted the boy’s head, feeling the cool, delicate texture of the silver foil against his palm. “I do like you,” he said. “Whether you’re Camilla or Srosie, I like you.”
“Mm.” Srosie let go of his collar, quickly turning to Rita standing nearby. “Bring one of my albums.” Alois saw him rub his eyes with the back of his hand, the light revealing a sparkling trace of tears. But he pretended he saw nothing.
“Already prepared.” Rita smiled, handing over an album and a permanent marker. The album was the newly released “Eighth Galaxy Hymn” from half a year ago, with Camilla on the cover, her blue hair flowing freely as she spread her arms in the galactic wind, as if flying or embracing the world. Srosie took out the cover paper and signed a few lines in elegant script on the last page of the lyrics booklet.
[For Alois:
May the pirate of the galaxy have a prosperous career and always fly freely among the stars.
Your diva, Camilla.]
After signing, he roughly stuffed the album into Alois’s hands. “Hurry into the theater. I need to finish my makeup. You’ve wasted too much of my time!”
Alois didn’t even have time to say thank you before being pushed to the door. Whether it was because the makeup wasn’t well done, he always felt Srosie’s face was very red. He wanted to turn back and say, “Good luck with your concert,” but Srosie suddenly lunged forward and kissed him, silencing his words. The kiss was light as a breeze, brushing over and quickly separating.
Alois stumbled into the darkness outside. If not for the square-faced guard catching him, he would have fallen to the ground.
“Are you okay?” the guard asked expressionlessly.
“Yes, yes, thank you.” Alois found his balance, still dizzy. He held Camilla’s album to his chest, his heart pounding wildly again.
Joshua stood beside the square-faced guard, hands in his pockets, looking at him with a complex expression. Oh, Joshua. He almost forgot about the assassin. Since entering backstage, Joshua hadn’t said a word, silent as a statue.
The square-faced guard led them back to the theater entrance through the dark corridor. He pointed to the flowing crowd. “Follow them inside. The theater is right there. I have to get back to work.” Alois thanked him and apologized for taking up so much of his time.
Following the crowd, the two walked into the Whirlpool Grand Theater. The entire theater was over a hundred meters high, with a vast open interior. In the center was a circular stage, surrounded by concentric rings of seats. Alois looked for his seat number in confusion and found the “special seats” were in the innermost ring. There were very few of them, probably only about twenty.
‘This theater’s layout is so strange,’ he thought. The audience seats aren’t even tiered. How will the people in the back see? Or are they going to rely on holographic images?
After sitting down, staff pushed carts selling drinks, lozenges, and glow sticks. Alois unthinkingly bought two glow sticks, using Joshua’s card, of course. He sneaked a glance at the assassin, afraid he might be unhappy, but Joshua kept his head down, deep in thought.
After a few dozen minutes, the theater was full of people, and the surrounding noise was deafening.
Snap! The lights on the theater’s ceiling went out, plunging the theater into darkness. The seats seemed to be made of some special material, glowing faintly in the dark.
Ethereal music began to play. The buzzing whispers immediately stopped. Alois felt his seat vibrating and looked around in confusion, realizing that all the seats were rising! A chorus of surprised gasps sounded in the theater, quickly silenced by the music. The seats rose higher and higher, spreading apart. Alois noticed that the floor beneath the seats was made of separate magnetic levitation panels. The rows in the back rose higher, the ones in the front lower, with the special seats almost floating above the circular stage. Soon, the seats formed a conical shape, slowly rotating around the stage driven by the magnetic levitation panels. In the dark, the glowing seats looked like scattered stars in the universe.
No wonder this place is called the “Whirlpool Grand Theater”. It really does look like a giant whirlpool.
Alois and Joshua’s seats were connected. Looking around, he saw that the distant stars were also grouped in twos and threes. It seemed the theater had arranged adjacent seats when selling tickets.
In the darkness, a clear singing voice arose.
“You stand there, lined along the hillside, meeting,
The sight of my dying self, fleeting.
Add another page to this life’s story,
On the burning paper, in all its glory,
I have recognized you all!
But fearless words escape with burn,
‘The Galactic Diva Camilla has return!’” [Note 1]
Snap! The lights flashed on! People, unable to adjust to the sudden brightness, quickly covered their eyes. When they opened them again, they found that the circular stage had also risen, with a girl standing in the center. Her deep blue hair floated like waves, her sleeves and skirt also fluttering, making her look like she was floating in water. A close-up image of her appeared above the stage. Her eyes were closed, and diamond-like light dust was scattered on her long eyelashes, as if she were asleep.
Though he knew it was a holographic image projected onto special foil, Alois couldn’t help but marvel.
The music abruptly shifted from ethereal to passionate. The sleeping girl opened her eyes, instantly radiating brilliant light like a shining star.
“Knowing you can soar in the sky,
Makes you fear that moment of spreading wings and forgetting the wind’s sigh.
Forget it, even if where you go is unclear,
The distant mirage will soon appear,
Fearing that someday it will come, it’s true,
Reflects the future of me and you.” [Note 2]
The girl began to dance, turning the entire theater into her domain. In an instant, translucent wings spread from her back, transforming her from a fish in the sea to a bird in the sky, flying and singing freely, her voice echoing through every corner of the galaxy.
Alois stood up excitedly. Their seats passed right in front of Camilla, no more than three meters away. The diva saw him too, smiling and winking at him.
“When two hearts without solace stand close together,
True sorrow begins to soar, untethered.
Forget it, in the night’s embrace,
Dreaming of the days’ shadowed face,
It will surely fall, as dreams take flight,
Heading towards that light.”
People screamed in excitement, singing along with Camilla. Alois was no exception. He knew every song by Camilla, could remember all the lyrics.
Joshua suddenly raised his head. He could no longer stay calm. In the dazzling holographic light, he clearly saw a red mark on Alois’s lips, probably left by Camilla’s kiss earlier. And the young man himself hadn’t noticed, bouncing around beside him, flirting with the cross-dressing diva.
Damn it!
Damn it!
How hateful!
The assassin grabbed Alois’s arm, pulling him towards himself.
“What’s wrong, Joshua?”
His question was silenced by a fierce kiss. Joshua pressed his lips against Alois’s, not letting him make a sound. He tasted the lemon-flavored lipstick left by Camilla, which only fueled his anger. He held the back of Alois’s head, preventing him from pulling away, giving him a dominant kiss amidst the diva’s splendid singing.
“Someday I will be with you,
Sharing the moon, enjoying the dawn, basking in the sunlight, witnessing the morning.
Weaving dreams together, wandering through summer, braving the cold winter, passing time together.
Brushing the breeze, playing in the water, treading the dust, soaring in the sky.
Walking farther and farther in destiny.”
When the kiss ended, both were panting, faces flushed. “What’s wrong with you, Joshua?” Alois asked again.
On stage, Camilla spun, the colorful lights flashing with her movements. Joshua stared at Alois, satisfied to see his lips still red, but now from the passionate kiss and bites.
“Nothing,” the assassin said. “I just suddenly wanted to kiss you.”
As Camilla finished a song, the theater plunged into darkness again. Applause and cheers swept through the theater, accompanied by waving glow sticks.
After each song, Joshua kissed Alois again in the darkness. He remembered that they kissed twenty-nine times until the final song, [Moon River].
The author has something to say:
[Note 1] This passage is adapted from the last stanza of Robert Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”.
[Note 2] This passage and the following two stanzas are from the song “Oblivious“, lyrics by Yuki Kajiura.
Kinky Thoughts:
You can find the full text of Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came here. Translation for Oblivious lyrics here.
I took some artistic liberties with the lyrics in the novel in order to make them rhyme.
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