She Didn't Care
The awkward silence in the workshop thickened the moment Kang Jinwoo vanished.
Scarlet kept glancing at Yuna, inching farther away in small, deliberate steps. Yuna watched her with a short sigh.
“You’re that curious about the Silvera?”
Scarlet’s eyes lit up again at the question.
“Of course I am!”
She clenched her fist in excitement.
“Getting to see the most advanced custom mecha in existence with my own eyes? Who wouldn’t get excited?”
She continued calmly, as if trying to reassure Yuna.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to disassemble it or touch it however I please. I just want to see the structure, the design, the organic connections between the parts with my own eyes.”
Yuna stayed quiet for a moment, absorbing Scarlet’s pure technical hunger.
She studied the girl’s eyes. There was no deception, no hidden agenda. Only a fierce thirst for unknown technology burned within them.
“How did she achieve such perfect mobility and performance? I want to see it with my own eyes and learn directly.”
“Scarlet, do you really think it’s technically and realistically possible to install the graviton damper and pile bunker?”
Yuna asked, as if probing her limits.
“Possible? I can’t say zero.”
Even so, she answered carefully.
“The recoil problem with the pile bunker is solvable in theory. The real issue is energy consumption and the massive load on the frame. The instantaneous energy needed to fire a GX-Final Impact is on par with a capital ship’s main cannon.”
Scarlet recalled the last time she had seen Jinwoo’s Bugbear and went on.
“Even with a Grade C booster attached to a spherical reactor, it would be ridiculously insufficient. A dedicated capacitor is essential, but there’s no room for one. And even if we somehow solve the energy problem, it’s questionable whether the mecha frame could withstand that load.”
She sighed and shook her head.
“We’d better not find out. It’s an insane idea.”
She nodded as if calculating in her head.
“It’s the worst choice in terms of stability, efficiency, and tactical value. If it weren’t for that promise, I, as a technician, would never touch that thing. No matter how much money they offered.”
She spoke with absolute conviction.
Yuna listened silently to Scarlet’s technical explanation.
She had reached the same conclusion.
Jinwoo’s plan was, in theory, no different from suicide. But because she knew his skill better than anyone, she felt no doubt.
“From the beginning, the guy just wanted to use close-range weapons. That’s crazy.”
“Still…”
Yuna said softly. She manipulated her terminal and projected a holographic video into the air.
“This might change your mind.”
The video showed a Bugbear, accidentally recorded by an Icarus reconnaissance drone, swinging its drill bit to take out six pirates.
“Eh?!”
Scarlet’s mouth fell open as she stared at the hologram in a daze.
Her eyes were filled with shock and disbelief.
“W-what is this? How can it move like that? It isn’t… Jinwoo, is it?!”
She turned to Yuna and shouted.
Yuna nodded without a word.
Scarlet replayed the video once more.
She focused so intently on every swing of the drill bit that she almost missed something.
And finally she let out a long, astonished gasp.
“With that level of piloting skill… I get it…”
She kept glancing back and forth between the hologram’s Bugbear and the real one in the workshop.
“If someone can pilot like that, then maybe the limits of the machine’s specs are being overcome by the pilot’s skill.”
“Even a third-generation mass-produced Bugbear was able to scratch Silvera’s paint.”
Yuna remembered their simulated battle with Jinwoo and spoke.
“Seriously?!”
Scarlet’s voice rang out loud enough to echo through the maintenance bay.
“I fought it directly, so I know it’s true.”
Yuna gave a faint smile and began to explain the simulated combat situation in detail.
Scarlet nodded with interest, and soon the two women were sitting side by side, deep in an animated discussion.
Yuna recounted every detail of the simulated battle she had personally experienced with Jinwoo.
Scarlet listened, eyes sparkling, hanging on every word.
She occasionally asked technical questions or offered bold hypotheses based on her own experience.
“Reading and dodging the beam rifle’s trajectory? That’s impossible with just simple reflexes or prediction. Could there be some high-performance predictive computing device hidden in the frame?”
“No. There was no such hardware reaction. It was closer to the pilot’s nervous system and the mecha’s control system synchronizing abnormally. It felt like the machine was already reading the pilot’s will and moving before it even happened.”
“Synchronized nervous system… Then a superhuman? No, that doesn’t fit. Her frame is completely normal.”
The two women lost track of time, lost in discussion about the mysterious Jinwoo and his technology.
Though they came from completely different backgrounds and had different personalities, the common interest in mechs and the curiosity about this enigmatic figure quickly drew them together.
Yuna was captivated by Scarlet’s intuitive, bold insights born from field experience, while Scarlet was stunned by Yuna’s vast, data-driven knowledge and systematic analytical ability.
As they acknowledged each other’s strengths and learned from one another, a strange bond of mutual respect—first as technicians, then as warriors—began to take root between them.
After a long, intense discussion, Scarlet noticed a faint brown stain on the sleeve of Yuna’s pilot suit.
Coffee stains from the cafe, splashed because of Jinwoo.
“What’s that stain on the suit? Coffee?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried at all.”
Scarlet waved it away with a carefree laugh.
“Perfect timing. He’s probably going to take some time to get back anyway, so I’ll lend you some clothes. I have a shower in my private room over there too. Watching you in that tight suit makes me want to pull my hair out.”
She pointed at her own oil-stained work overalls.
“I’ve worked up a sweat too, so I need to wash up.”
“…Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Finally Yuna nodded.
Scarlet led her to the private space connected inside the workshop.
It was surprisingly tidy compared to the workshop, yet still full of the quirky items that reflected Scarlet’s taste.
Scarlet pulled a black T-shirt with a skull print and comfortable training pants from the wardrobe and handed them to Yuna.
“I don’t know if the size will fit, but wear these anyway.”
She tossed the clothes at her and immediately headed into the small bathroom attached to the side.
Soon the sound of water running came from inside.
Yuna looked down at the skull T-shirt in her hands.
It was a million light-years away from her own taste.
But there was no choice.
She let out a small sigh and carefully removed her pilot suit on Scarlet’s bed, then changed into the borrowed clothes.
#
I pushed the anti-gravity pallet into the workshop carefully and climbed out of the cockpit after parking the Bugbear in front of it.
The door to Scarlet’s private space, visible inside the workshop, was slightly ajar, and I could hear two voices inside.
Unable to contain my curiosity, I approached quietly in the direction of the voices and peered through the gap.
There was Yuna.
She wasn’t in her tight pilot suit. Instead, she was wearing the skull T-shirt Scarlet had apparently given her, lying sprawled on the bed with one hand supporting her chin as she stared at the data pad in front of her.
‘Wait.’
And even more surprising was Scarlet’s appearance.
She had just stepped out of the shower, red hair damp and tousled as she wiped it roughly with a large towel in front of the bathroom door.
She was wearing nothing but an old sleeveless T-shirt with a neckline stretched loose over her shoulders, and short shorts below.
Her wet hair, neck, and the bold, unadorned figure visible beneath the thin fabric were… intensely stimulating.
I felt my face flush from the unexpected sight.
My mind went completely blank.
I stumbled backward with a sound and reflexively slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
“What the hell did I just do? My heart was racing like crazy.”
I had no idea what was happening on the other side of the door, but it felt like I had walked into something I absolutely should not have seen.
At that exact moment, a cheerful laugh burst from the other side of the door.
“Fuha! What was that reaction?”
A small, clear laugh followed—a laugh I had never heard from Yuna before.
My face grew even hotter from the sound.
“You two, when did you become this close?”
I stood there in confusion, not knowing what to do, in front of the closed door.
Scarlet’s voice came back from beyond the door, still full of laughter.
“Peeking is your hobby?”
She asked, still giggling.
“N-no! I was just…!”
“Then why did you suddenly slam the door shut?”
Scarlet teased.
“Are you embarrassed about something? What did you see?”
“It’s not that!”
A moment later the door opened again, and Scarlet emerged.
She was wearing the worn work jumpsuit over the sleeveless T-shirt from before.
She was still unable to stop smiling as she looked at me.
Behind her, Yuna had returned to her usual cool expression, following her out.
But her ears were faintly red.
“Hmph.”
Scarlet let out a small cough and her eyes sparkled as she looked at the parts on the anti-gravity pallet I had pushed inside.
The playful look from earlier was gone; she was once again the serious technician.
“Oh… Is this the thing you mentioned?”
She walked over to the graviton damper first and carefully examined its surface, as if handling a priceless artifact.
“It’s the real Atlas V graviton damper.”
She murmured, unable to hide her excitement.