Hmm … If I crank up the power module … no, that won’t do. I need to get it spinning, but how? Maybe it’s connected wrong. Ah, there we go! Come on, please work!

Pushing the button, the wires connected and the metals making up the battery prototype reacted, creating electricity which powered the motor. Its cogs began spinning and, at long last, its propeller as well.

“I did it … I DID IT! WOOHOO!” Akito raised his hands up in the air, jumping around ecstatically, when suddenly three knocks came from behind the door.

His mother entered, her long fluffy hair swung freely in the air, ginger red the same as his, and her bright green eyes looked over to Akito with a keen sense of curiosity. “What’s going on here?”

“Mom! Mom!” Akito took her to the table. “Look! Look! I did it! I made the propeller run!”

His mother, Yukina Satomi, took a closer look at the running propeller as well as the machines supporting its movement and the blueprints serving as a guide to their constructions. She gazed at them mesmerizingly, as if she’d entered a trance or a vivid dream.

“Did I … do good?” asked Akito, unsure if his experiment was acceptable in the eyes of his mother, to which she enveloped him in a warm and jolly embrace.

“Good? You didn’t do just good. You did terrific!” her eyes sparkled like stars. “Please, tell me all about it.”

“Yes!” Akito spoke excitedly. “It’s a propeller like the ones used in airships. The one we took to visit grandma in Shui Zhen.”

He began explaining the entire thing thoroughly. Starting from how he built the battery pile using the spare parts his mother gave him to designing everything from scratch using the blueprints from engineering books as reference. The words were rather complicated to understand, but the detailed pictures made it easy to construct the entire thing.

“Also once it spins, the air then gets pulled inside. I think that the airships move forward by pulling themselves through the winds, generating a thing called …,” Akito looked over to the bunch of notes he made on his desk; calculations upon calculations, graphs upon graphs, all pointing toward a blueprint of an A-12 airship series; and not a moment later, he found the word. “THRUST! Yes, it generates thrust, causing a forward, uhm … propulsion.”

“Looks like you still need to work on your vocabulary,” his mother patted his head. “I’m proud of you lil engineer.”

Hearing the praise gave Akito butterflies, as he sought to improve his skills and one day create an unimaginable machine no one had ever seen. That’ll show them. I just have to keep on going, he thought, as more and more ideas poured into his head.

“Oh, look at the time. Better head downstairs now for breakfast. I’d like to see your creation for a bit more.”

“But mom, I want to eat with you.”

“Oh, don’t worry I’ll be down in a little while,” she then smiled. “In the meantime, you can go say hi to your dad who's back from his trip.”

“Dad’s back?!” Akito quickly sprinted out the door and down the stairs, where down below was a blue-haired man named Masaki Koshiji, sitting in the dining room while casually reading the newspaper. “Dad! Dad!”

His dad took notice of Akito, but before he could do anything, Akito leapt to him and gave him a big hug.

“Woah there. You almost knocked my chair over!” he smiled. “Look at you now. You’re so big now.”

“Yup! And one day I’m going to be taller than you, dad.”

“Well, then you gotta eat your vegetables,” he said, looking at the lots of greens prepared on the dining table, to which Akito fervently shook his head. “Oh come on. Surely you wouldn’t want to disappoint Mister Cook?”

Through the open window leading inside the kitchen, racking with clangs of cookware and plates, was a small four-armed automaton wearing a chef hat, roasting mackerel, boiling soup, scooping rice bowls, and juicing fruits all at the same time. It was her mother’s creation and the only one of its kind.

Still, despite the hard work it was working, Akito said, “Nope. I don’t like it.”

“But didn’t you like broccoli and beans when you were little?” his father asked, and Akito tried to recall the memory, yet none came up. “I see. I see. If you don’t eat your greens then I guess I won’t give you your present.” He glanced at the couple of boxes on the corner, neatly stacked and wrapped. “Seems like I have to give them to someone else.”

“No, I’ll eat them!” Akito hurried to his chair, and once Mister Cook came in with the rest of the food and utensils, Akito immediately grabbed a rice bowl, a pair of chopsticks, and said, “Itadakimasu.”

But before he could, hesitantly, dig into his portion of broccoli and beans, her mother swooped in and stopped him. “Woah there, you’re not going to wait for me? When the family’s together, we eat together.”

Once his mother sat down, his father put away the newspaper and Mister Cook returned to his small compartment room below the stairs, going into hibernation mode until the next time needed. And thus, chopsticks on-hand, the three said, “Itadakimasu,” and ate breakfast, starting with the mackerel.

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Simultaneously, the three spat it out. The mackerel’s taste was too strong and salty, likely from the overdrenching of soy sauce. Fortunately, neither the rice, vegetables, nor soup had any problems, but without the main dish though …

“I’ll go out to buy some chicken in Shiki-san’s,” his father walked out the door, leaving the two alone on the dining table.

Akito’s mother immediately approached him and said, “How about we go tinker on Mister Cook and see what’s the problem?” And Akito immediately went ecstatic, noddings his head and headed over to Mister Cook’s container.

Toolbox by their side, they took Mister Cook out, opening up the back panel where inside was a bunch of colorful wires connected to various ports. His mother told him each wire’s function as well as the command cube on the center which gave the automaton orders to move, optimized to allow for limited adaptive learning.. Essentially an artificial soul or consciousness.

“So, that’s why Mister Cook can cook a lot of things,” said Akito. “But what about this bright thing?”

“Ah ah ah!” his mother stopped his hand from touching it. “That is the fuel used to power up Mister Cook. Magion.”

“Magion?” Akito was surprised, looking at the canister filled with pinkish light. “Isn’t that the energy mages use to cast magic?”

“Yup. Safely extracted directly from the ley lines and safely contained in this tiny little container here.”

“But Ryosachi-sensei said that magion is very dangerous. It’s volatile and blows up like fireworks!”

“That’s true,” she said. “That’s why you shouldn’t touch it. Even though it’s contained in a special-made glass canister, it continues to emanate radioactive energy that can seep into the skin and destroy your insides.”

“That sounds … really bad.”

“Oh don’t you worry, Akito. The canister is coated in wax from waxbloom flowers. The same goes for the command cube and the wires connected to it. This special wax has unique properties that hardens the more it receives energy. Basically, if you continue to hammer a wet bowl of waxbloom wax, it’ll eventually become as hard as stone. Just don’t get it in your hair unless you want to be permanently bald.”

“But won’t that disrupt the energy flow in the wires?”

“Quite intuitive of you. But that’s not the problem due to the nature of magion itself. Mages said that while magion is inherently destructive and jagged, it flows as fluid as a river stream, allowing them to shape it into whatever form they desire. And thus entered Onodera Ren, my trusty mentor, who founded the theory that led to the birth of magion-powered machinery. ‘Who says that normal humans can’t use magic?’ she always says.”

This Onodera Ren sounded like a great person, so Akito thought, wondering if he would receive the most wonderful and intelligent mentor, to become as great a researcher as his mother was.

“Ah, so this is the problem,” his mother took out a strange cog piece using weirdly-shaped tools. “The accelerator’s a bit chipped and the wire’s a bit fried.”

“So, does that mean we can’t fix Mister Cook?”

“We can, but not now. We’ve got to get a replacement part in the hardware shop.”

“Alright, let’s go!” Akito headed to the door, only to be grabbed by the collar.

“Woah there! You’re not going outside. We haven’t even had breakfast yet.” —Akito was about to retort, but then his stomach growled, proving his mother right— “Instead, why don’t we check out those souvenirs your father got from his trip?”

“But won’t he find out?” he whispered.

“We’ll have to be quick,” she whispered back, and the two immediately went over to the corner of boxes, opening them and getting a look out of its contents, and as expected, most of them were food.

Three boxes of dates, ten boxes of chocolate, seven jars of honey, four jars of pickled vegetables, and a whole set of foreign spices with very vibrant colors and earthy scent. Then as for the ornaments there was an obelisk trinket inscribed in various foreign picturesque symbols, a diorama of camels walking in front of pyramids, a bronze goblet and oil lamp, and a … strange painting of a very menacing-looking eye, which his mother quickly covered back.

“Dad gets us weird gifts,” Akito commented.

“I know your father and I doubt that he would willingly buy these kinds of stuff. Probably gifts from the Yashar diplomats there.”

“They’re weird. And why did Dad not buy mom any presents?”

“Why he’s already given me the best present ever,” his mother smiled and poked his nose with hers, though Akito remained confused. “But you’re right though. Not getting your mom any souvenirs? Your dad’s quite cruel.”

“Am I now?”

The two turned their heads back and saw an irritated man with a bag full of fried chicken. Their crimes exposed and guilty grins appeared, as Akito’s father appeared to be thinking of something.

“Let’s see now. What should I do with you guys?” his father placed the fried chickens on the table and walked toward them, quickly taking pace, as the two immediately fled to the corners of the dining room and to the living room hall. “I’m gonna catch you,” he said. “I’m gonna catch you and give you guys a big tickle.”

His father continued chasing them before focusing solely on Akito. They sped through the wooden floor and hopped past the couches until the moment Akito was cornered and his father’s fingers moved as they aimed to tickle him.

Then his mother came from behind, pouncing at his father and causing him to fall. “Run Akito,” she asid. “I’ll take care of this beastly monster.” And Akito did run, escaping to behind the walls, where he peeked out to see his parents battling it out.

“Who are you calling a monster?” his father said.

“Victory comes to the hero,” his mother replied.

“We’re playing Dungeon Exploration huh? Alright then. The monster, after being subdued by the hero, managed to flip the tables and—” with a slight of hand, Akito’s father switched both their positions. “Subdue the hero by rolling a fifty.”

“No fair!” said Akito’s mother. “Neither of us have dice.”

“It’s a spiritual dice unseen by humans.”

“Wouldn’t you also be unable to see it then?”

“Who cares?” he gave a smug grin. “Also, I rolled a double, thus I rolled again and got sixty. The monster was revealed to be a devilishly handsome prince from a faraway land, cured by the transcending beauty of the hero.”

“Masaki, you …,” her face blushed.

“The prince, unable to take his eyes off of the hero, leaned in and …”

The beautiful hero closed her eyes, as the handsome prince’s face neared hers, closer and closer until only an inch separated them. The hero seemed to be waiting for something to happen, for a gift given by the prince.

“Mom and Dad are so lovey-dovey,” Akito accidentally said out loud, and the two quickly stood upright. Their cheeks bright and red, while attempting to strike a small talk with each other.

It looked as if they were trying to brush away the mood, but the mood remained lovely yet a tad awkward. Nevertheless, they appeared to have a good time despite the interruption, making Akito a bit regretful for speaking out his comment. But at the same time, he wondered if he would one day have the kind of relationship his parents have. It certainly looked fun.