“…Country~roads~take~me~home~

To~the~place~I~belong~

West~Virginia~Mountain~Mama~

Take~me~home~country~road..."

At night, beside the campfire that made crackling sounds from time to time, Aoye Shigeru was playing the guitar all the time, humming the leisurely tunes that everyone was quite familiar with. Everyone was enjoying this quiet atmosphere, and even the voices of talking to each other were unconsciously lowered a lot.

But soon, Shinji Ikari's voice, who had not yet begun to change his voice, interrupted the singing of Shizuo Aoye's singing, and even alarmed the birds staying on the nearby treetops.

"—What! I, I, I, I, I want to live in the same tent with Chu Xuan?"

Masato Masato talked about Shinji Ikari who was assigned to the tent tonight and stood up from the folding chair with a "huh", his face turned red due to the firelight.

Feeling the inexplicable gaze of everyone, Shinji Ikari's face turned redder, she sat down again with a hunched over, and asked Makoto Hinata who opened her mouth wide and looked at him with her throat:

"Then, that... do I want to live in the same tent with Colonel Chuxuan?"

"Of course, he only uses the tent of Colonel Chuxuan himself, but we were three of us squeezed into a tent, so I wonder if it's just the same.

But I didn't expect you to have such a big reaction, sorry Shinji.

Then you can go with us tonight. Anyway, the tent we rented was originally for 2 to 4 people."

Makoto Hinata apologized to Shinji Ikari for his inadequacy, but Shinji Ikari shook his head hard. His index fingers poked each other and said hesitantly:

"No, I don't want to, I just felt... shocked.

For example, if Colonel Chuxuan agrees, then I will bother you."

Shinji Ikari's words were quite polite and formal, just living in the same tent with Chu Xuan. He said it as if he was staying at Chu Xuan's house, which made Hinata scratch his head in confusion.

"Ah...I don't think Colonel Chuxuan would object..."

Speaking of this, Makoto Hinata, who had been suffering from the doubts of others, simply stood up and shouted loudly to Chu Xuan, who was not far away and was listening to the night insects, asked:

"Col. Chu Xuan, it's okay to let Shinji live in your tent, right?"

"no problem."

Chu Xuan didn't have to think about Hinata's expectations, so he agreed directly. After all, he was not a beautiful girl dressed as a man, so there was no need to find various reasons to avoid living in the same room with other "same sex".

"For this, I've caused you trouble!"

Although neither Hyuga Makoto nor Chu Xuan cared about such trivial matters like sesame seeds, Shinji Ikari stood up nervously and bowed to Chu Xuan.

"Hey... Shinji... probably projected part of his feelings for his father on Chu Xuan..."

Looking at Shinji Ikari from afar, a kind of indescribable expression flashed in Miri Katsurachi's eyes. It was not the expression of jealousy that Chu Xuan had easily established a relationship with her ward, but a kind of nostalgia...but not a simple expression of nostalgia.

Miri Katsuki beside her looked at Shinji Ikari's face that was slightly imaginative with Commander Gendo Ikari, and the corners of his mouth gently raised.

"What's wrong with this? As a boy, he must imitate the back of a man to grow up gradually."

Ibuki Maya sitting on the other side of Riko Akagi and Miri Kazuki, who looked complicated, didn't say anything. She just had a little mercy in her eyes. Commander Gendo Ikari ignored his son and was no longer a secret in the NERV base. No one knew what happened to the father and son in the past, so that he became such a strange relationship now.

No one thinks that this is Shinji Ikari's fault, but in general, there is a stepmother only when he has a stepmother. For Commander Gendo Ikari, who has never given any scandals, what kind of consideration did he treat his biological son so coldly?

"Shinji, we will go to the clearings in the forest to see the stars - the open space where we pick mountain vegetables in the morning. Are you going to go together?"

When the bonfire was about to burn out, Chu Xuan took the Black Cat and Ayami Rei to the point where Shinji Ikari, who was staying with Hinata Makoto and Aoba Shige, had been stuffed with headphones to listen to music, and sent him an invitation to stargazing.

"Hey... are you looking at the stars? It's really a nostalgic event."

Qiuye Shiro put down the guitar in his arms, stretched his waist vigorously, and then stood up.

"Shinji, go, this is a rare youth."

The literary young man with long hair and shoulders patted Shinji Ikari on the shoulder, then showed his shiny teeth and raised his thumbs to him.

"Then, okay, thank you..."

Shinji Ikari agreed to Chu Xuan’s invitation with some embarrassment. He didn’t know whether he said thank you to Chu Xuan or Aoye Shige, or maybe he was thanking them both at the same time.

Because the "adults" are no longer interested in the activities of watching the stars, which are too youthful - it is also possible that they are just embarrassed to join the children to take turns to see the telescope. In short, the only ones who went to see the stars together were Chu Xuan, Black Cat, Ayahari and Shinji Ikari, but there should be no dangers near this campsite, and there should be no wild animals.

And... Maybe no one still remembers that Chu Xuan is actually only "18 years old"? But he is indeed more than 18 years old.

"By the way, when it comes to looking at the stars... you should also see P.L.A.N.T. and Macross with this telescope?

——I have just seen the moon base.”

The moon closest to Earth and the Earth's "neighbor" Venus. After Mars, the black cat looking up at the starry sky suddenly thought of the unique "human miracle" in this world when Chu Xuan was looking for the next star.

For Shinji Ikari, the rapid development of aerospace technology and various mechas, the emergence of new humans has become part of "common sense", but in the world where black cats live, there is no such surreal "black technology" - of course there are no zeniths and interstellar aliens.

"It's time to see."

With his super computing power, Chu Xuan quickly and accurately aimed the telescope at the colonial satellite located at L5 point Lagrange and the P.L.A.N.T., which was composed of the space immigration ship Macross, and then gave out the eyepiece.

Out of gentlemanly considerations (actually, I dare not compete with Black Cat for the first viewing power), Shinji Ikari put his eyes in front of the eyepiece after both Black Cat and Ayanami Ri were watching, and for the first time he saw P.L.A.N.T.

In fact, the P.L.A.N.T. I saw from the eyepiece of the astronomical telescope is not as good as the photos. It is just a string of ordinary steel spacecraft or small steel satellites. However, Shinji Ikari's heart still had some kind of touch that would only appear if he saw it with his own eyes.

"That is the kingdom of the new human beings... it is also the frontline base of human beings P.L.A.N.T...."

"Yes, P.L.A.N.T. is a frontline base established by humans in the universe to save energy from the earth's gravity. It is mainly composed of various industrial colonial satellites and a few agricultural colonial satellites.

As for that part of Macross... Perhaps the school teachers have already told you the truth, it is actually the cosmic immigration ship built by humans.

If humans cannot resist the invasion of interstellar alien insects, they can only embark on a journey of escape with the zenith star who escaped to the solar system."

Chu Xuan pushed down his reflective glasses expressionlessly, pointing out the cruel future that no one is willing to mention to Shinji Ikari, then raised his head and looked at the direction where P.L.A.N.T. was, as if he could directly see those artificial satellites that were too small compared to real "satellites" with his naked eyes.

Chu Xuan's cold words made Shinji Ikari's body pause for a moment, and then replied softly:

"Well... a teacher once told us."

——Although the teacher didn’t say it clearly, his words were implying that Shinji Ikari and other children who were still young, if they wanted to escape, those Macross would definitely not be able to accommodate all the humans on Earth, and perhaps even one-tenth of humans could not be able to accommodate them. At that time, the incompetent humans who did not study hard would be abandoned.
Chapter completed!