CEO loves me with all his soul.-Chapter 156. The Stars Belong to Him Now

Chapter 156: 156. The Stars Belong to Him Now
The wind was different that morning.
It wasn’t louder, colder, or particularly unusual. But to Ethan, it sounded like something was shifting — something invisible and heavy — like the beginning of a page turning in a book he hadn’t finished reading.
In the courtyard of Levistis Manor, bags were already packed. Aron stood near them, wearing a neatly pressed coat, his little shoes polished to perfection. He was only eight years old, but he stood with the posture of someone older — more like a visitor from the stars than a child raised in laughter and lullabies.
Xilian Zephyr stood beside him, patient and quietly proud. The famed astrophysicist had arrived to take Aron back to his private observatory home — a sanctuary designed for study, safety, and focused brilliance. After three years of mentorship, Aron had asked — politely, shyly — if he could live there to learn full-time.
He wanted more time with the stars.
He wanted to be among people who understood silence.
Adrian had cried the first time the request was made.
Ethan hadn’t.
But now, standing in the courtyard watching their youngest son prepare to leave, something in Ethan felt impossibly tight.
"Are you sure?" Adrian asked again, kneeling down and cupping Aron’s face gently.
Aron nodded. "I want to learn more. There are questions I need to ask the sky."
Adrian kissed his forehead. "Then go ask them. But don’t forget to come home when you miss us."
Aron hesitated, then whispered, "I’ll miss you a lot."
Adrian’s arms wrapped around him again.
Ethan stood nearby, silent.
When Aron walked over to him, Ethan crouched down and placed both hands on his son’s tiny shoulders.
"You’re still our little star," Ethan said, voice rougher than usual. "Even when you’re light-years away."
Aron looked up at him, solemn.
"I’ll shine brighter. For you."
That was when Ethan pulled him into a hug — strong, steady, like a promise carved into the universe.
When the car drove away, Adrian’s hand slipped into Ethan’s.
They stood there for a long time, even after the dust settled.
The house grew quieter after that.
It wasn’t empty — far from it. But without Aron’s soft footsteps, or his whispered facts about comets and quasars, the walls felt like they were holding their breath.
Adrian lingered longer in Aron’s room.
Ethan didn’t say much about it, but he made sure to forward every new and letter Zephyr sent about Aron’s progress. They received updates weekly — videos of Aron building mechanical orreries, programming star maps, and once, even giving a small lecture to university guests.
He was thriving.
He was happy.
But he was missed.
Meanwhile, the other children were growing up in their own beautiful, stubborn ways.
Seraphina
, now seventeen, had taken a path no one saw coming.
She enlisted.
Not in secrecy, not in rebellion — but with unwavering intent.
"I want to protect what we’ve built," she told Ethan and Adrian over dinner one evening. "I want to make sure no one ever tries to take it from us again."
Adrian had tears in his eyes.
Ethan tried to talk her out of it — just once. When that didn’t work, he offered to get her into the officers’ academy through connections.
She refused.
"I don’t want shortcuts," she said. "I want strength."
She cut her hair short — and marched with fire in her veins.
She wrote home often, usually with sarcastic commentary about the incompetence of some trainer or how much she missed Eira’s poetry readings.
Her letters always ended the same way:
"Tell Aron the stars are still here. He doesn’t have to hurry back to catch them."
Aurelius
, on the other hand, followed a quieter but equally firm path.
By fifteen, he was shadowing Leclair at the Twilight Company headquarters. Polished and composed, Aurelius had inherited his uncle’s elegance and his father’s tenacity.
"He’s going to be a nightmare in business," Leclair said proudly one day.
"Great," Ethan replied. "Now I’ll have to lose deals to my own son."
Aurelius was diplomatic, cunning, and charming — in all the ways that Seraphina was bold and brash. He had an innate ability to read people, to negotiate without pressure, and to find cracks in logic that even seasoned executives missed.
At home, he still played video games with Eira and cooked with Adrian when no one was watching. But his mind was already mapping mergers and expansion strategies.
Sometimes Ethan watched him and wondered how they’d raised someone so
refined
.
And then Aurelius would trip over his own feet trying to impress a delivery boy and Ethan would sigh in relief: still human.
Eira
, at thirteen, was the soul of the family.
She was an artist.
From the age of ten, she had filled every spare wall in the manor with paintings. Dreamlike landscapes. Star-filled skies. Abstract portraits of people with their eyes closed and hearts wide open.
"She got that from you," Ethan said to Adrian once.
"No," Adrian replied. "She got that from all of us. She just... sees it better."
Eira didn’t like noise. She preferred to read, to draw, and to sit by the fireplace while everyone else was being chaotic. She often took tea with Augustin, who doted on her endlessly and called her his "sweetest niece."
When Seraphina returned on holiday from her training, she would often find Eira already painting her likeness.
"You’ll make me look like a soldier," Seraphina complained.
"You
are
a soldier," Eira said. "But I still make you pretty."
She had a lightness to her. A quiet glow.
And every time she painted the stars, Adrian knew she missed Aron too.
It was a strange thing — watching their children stretch toward the world.
Ethan, once the protector of secrets and bloodlines, now spent his days coordinating work from home just so he could be present.
Adrian still painted, still taught, but he had fewer students now and more time spent tending the garden where Jesper’s favorite flowers bloomed every year.
Some evenings, they sat together on the porch.
"Do you think we did well?" Adrian asked once.
Ethan leaned his head on Adrian’s shoulder.
"I think we raised legends."
Adrian smiled faintly. "I just wanted them to be kind."
"They are. Kind and terrifying."
"I miss Aron."
"Me too."
"But I’m proud."
"Me too."
One night, they got a call from Zephyr.
Aron had asked for a telescope upgrade.
"Something big," Zephyr said. "Bigger than him. He wants to track planets now. Not just stars."
Adrian laughed.
Ethan sent the funds before the call ended.
A week later, they received a photo: Aron beside his new telescope, smiling — really smiling — with stardust in his eyes and a constellation etched into his notebook.
Attached was a voice recording:
"Papa, Daddy. Thank you. I love you. I’ll come visit after the next meteor shower."
Adrian wept.
Ethan stood behind him, wrapped him in his arms, and whispered, "We’ll wait as long as it takes."
Because that’s what you do for stars.
You wait.
You watch them grow.
And you let them shine.
.
.
It was a rare thing for two mothers to escape the whirlpool of family life.
Between packed lunches, school pick-ups, night stories, and managing household affairs, Diana and Luri rarely had a moment that was just theirs. Not shared with their children, not diluted by responsibility, not paused for calls from overzealous siblings like Isaac or long-winded emails from Ethan’s department heads.
Just them.
So when the chance came — a full afternoon, weather soft and golden — they didn’t hesitate.
Diana left a note for Argos, who was more than capable of managing their two kids. Luri kissed Yuin goodbye at the bookstore they owned, where he was arranging poetry readings for the weekend. And then, with linked arms and coffee in hand, they stepped out into the city.
The world didn’t often see women in their 40s like this — radiant in quiet confidence.
Diana wore a flowing cream blouse tucked into tailored high-waist slacks, her hair loosely pinned in a way that let a few strands fall romantically around her temples. She looked like a high-ranking official from a dreamworld — cool, composed, and stunning.
Luri, never one for fussy fashion, wore a soft blue dress that fluttered around her knees and a thin silver chain with a single sapphire. Her hair, tied into a low twist, gleamed in the sunlight. She walked with a grace that was nearly aristocratic, though her laugh ruined it with warmth every other second.
They turned more than a few heads.
And they didn’t care.
Their first stop was an art café tucked between a quiet antique store and a florist.
It was a tiny space, known only to a few. The owner, an old woman named Merya, smiled when she saw them.
"Look who finally escaped," she teased as she poured rose tea into delicate cups.
"I almost forgot what silence sounds like," Luri replied, sliding into a seat beside Diana.
"I don’t even miss the screaming yet," Diana grinned. "Is that bad?"
Merya cackled. "That’s
healthy
, dear."
They sipped their tea and shared a pistachio tart, taking long breaths like people remembering how to live in slow motion.
"How’s Seraphina?" Luri asked, tracing the rim of her teacup.
Diana smiled. "Braver than all of us. She sent me a picture of her bruised face last week with the caption:
’I won the fight, not the mirror.’
"
Luri chuckled. "She’s so much like Ethan."
"And she’s the reason Adrian has white hairs," Diana said, smirking.
They both laughed.
"And Aron?" Diana asked, voice gentler now.
Luri’s smile softened. "Thriving. He sent a letter to Eira about a planet he discovered in simulation. She was so excited she painted it on her bedroom wall."
"She’s so much like Adrian."
"I think we’re all a little like Adrian," Luri said. "Even Yuin."
"Especially Yuin," Diana agreed with a snort. "That gentleness? That’s pure Adrian."
They sat in silence for a while, letting the sun filter through the stained glass of the café windows, washing their skin in soft color.
"Do you ever feel... old?" Luri asked suddenly.
Diana raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to start a fight?"
Luri laughed. "I’m serious."
Diana considered the question.
"No," she said finally. "But I do feel
seasoned
. Like a wine that’s ready. Or a sword that’s finally been tempered."
Luri tilted her head. "Poetic."
"I live with poets."
Luri sighed, staring at the garden just outside.
"I feel good," she said. "I just sometimes... miss being twenty and dumb."
"Why?"
"We had all that fire. All that uncertainty."
Diana smiled. "We still have fire. We’re just better at controlling it now."