And then we had children. At first it was hard, strange, awkward - we were both completely unprepared for this role. But with each passing day we learned, made mistakes, laughed and continued to move forward.
Our first child was a girl, born exactly nine months after our wedding. Her birth was accompanied by a not very pleasant conversation with the doctor - a gray-haired old man with thick bushy eyebrows. He shook his head reproachfully, like a professor lecturing careless students:
"Forty-two? It's a bit late, you know... Risks..."
But Asia didn't even listen to him, and, as it turned out, she did absolutely the right thing. It was as if she knew in advance that she would cope, that everything would be fine. Her calm confidence was transmitted to me, although in those days I still doubted myself, us, our future.
When our baby cried for the first time, I stood there, stunned, as if the world had suddenly taken a sharp turn. I looked at Asia, her tired but radiant face, and I knew that everything that had come before - the doubts, the difficulties, the fears - seemed like a prelude to this moment.
One of the most famous psychiatrists in the city worked in the maternity hospital where all this was happening. He was a notable figure, almost legendary, with a reputation for always saying what he thought and never hiding his opinion. Seeing Asia with our tiny daughter in her arms, he stopped, looked at them with some kind of quiet admiration and, slightly raising an eyebrow, said:
"You really did THIS."
This was said not with reproach or surprise, but with genuine respect. He immediately understood: her husband, that is, me, was not afraid to take this step, despite all the warnings. And Asia, having decided to give birth to a child at forty-two, did what for many seemed if not impossible, then risky.
He expressed his admiration in an unusual way - he gave our daughter a gift. It was a small pendant, carved from polished wood, in the shape of a heart.
"This is for her," he said. "Let her grow up brave and strong like her mother."
That moment, so unexpected and personal, remained in my memory forever. It seemed to emphasize that our action, our decision, was not just a private story, but something more, something that inspired sincere respect in people like this doctor.
At first, fussing with the child was far from pleasant. The baby screamed, wet herself, demanded attention every minute. For Asia, who was used to a completely different life, this became a real test. Almost every night she did not get enough sleep, and during the day, exhausted by constant worries, she looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
If it weren't for the support of my friends, with whom I used to hang out at anime parties, I think it might not have held up. These guys, seemingly completely removed from the family routine, unexpectedly showed their best side.
"Well, senpai," said Ilya Silantyev, one of my old comrades, that same silent anime fan, "are we managing?"
They came, brought food with them, some small gifts for the baby - diapers with prints from favorite anime and a small figurine of a very cute Gojira (some Jap Shit), which later took its place on the shelf in the nursery.
"And you, brother, don't be shy," teased Pavel Solonin, my long-time cosplay partner. "It's like a challenge: the child is your ultimate boss!"
Asia, who at first greeted them with caution, later got used to their strange but good-natured presence. And although their jokes and manners sometimes showed childishness, their support became our salvation.
So, thanks to this unexpected help, we were able to get through the most difficult period. Asia began to cope with the role of a mother a little more confidently, and I, in turn, again felt that there are friends who are ready to help, even when life changes in the most radical way.
And who would have thought that this was only the beginning! A year ago, I couldn't even imagine that I would plunge headlong into child-making! The first child was followed by a second, then a third... It seemed that Asia and I had found our calling in this, although to say that it was easy would be a blatant lie.
When the sixth (sic!) crying baby appeared in our house, the neighbors began to look at us with such surprise that I felt like I was participating in some strange experiment.
"You guys are something else, Skovorodnikoffs!" said my neighbor Aunt Marion, watching me unload three high chairs and a box of diapers from the car. "You look like rabbits, honestly!"
I just chuckled. I could have been offended, but I wasn't. She was partly right. Asia and I had a real conveyor belt of babies, and life, which became more difficult with each one, somehow made us stronger.
Friends couldn't help but joke:
"So, bro," Ilya Silantyev said, handing me a box of diapers at another "family" gathering, "when are you going to organize your own anime club? You have more participants than we have at our festivals!"
Asia just shook her head and smiled, becoming an absolute bastion of calm in this storm.
"I don't know how you do it," I told her one evening as I put my youngest to bed. "But you're like... some kind of superpower generator."
She just shrugged:
"And I always thought that it was you who was dragging it out."
In those moments, I realized that despite the sleepless nights, chaos, and constant baby crying, we had become a real family. Life had become a chaotic symphony, and, oddly enough, this noise was the best music for us.
But alas, what had to happen soon happened. Asia and I had an age difference of seventeen years. In my youth, this seemed like something completely insignificant to me, just another trifle that was not even worth thinking about.
When I met Asia, her forty-two years seemed to me the pinnacle of maturity and beauty, and her experience a source of wisdom that cannot be overestimated. She was a woman outside of time for me, as if her age existed somewhere separate from herself. But the years passed, and it was only when I myself reached the age at which I first met her that I began to notice the changes.
It didn't happen suddenly. There was no specific date or event that opened my eyes. It was just that one day, looking at her, I realized that Asia had aged before me. Not outwardly, although that was noticeable, but internally, in her spirit, in her response to life.
Her movements became slower, her enthusiasm quieter. She was still the woman I had admired, but now her smile seemed a little sadder, and there was more weariness in her eyes than I had ever seen.
I didn't know what to do with it. I often sat there, remembering how we used to live, and tried to find an answer. Why? Why hadn't I seen this before? Why did age suddenly become significant?
It wasn't that I had fallen out of love with her. But I felt that our paces of life had begun to diverge. She already wanted peace and quiet, and I was still striving for something new. And this realization, unexpected and painful, became the first stone in the wall that was slowly being erected between us.
And then one day, while looking through old photographs on the occasion of our eldest daughter's eighteenth birthday, I involuntarily stopped to look at a picture taken the year she was born.
The photo was of Asia, young, smiling, with sparkling eyes and a soft blush on her cheeks. There was a lightness in her pose that I took for granted at the time. I looked at the picture, and a strange mixture of admiration and sadness rose up inside me.
Now, eighteen years later, the Asia in the photograph seemed almost a stranger. Her face then lacked the fine wrinkles that now filled the space around her eyes. Her posture, so proud and straight, had become slightly stooped over time, as if her shoulders had sagged under the weight of cares and years.
I glanced back at Asia, who was sitting in a chair nearby, and for the first time in a long time I saw a different side of her. Withering… That word, so cruel, flashed through my mind. She looked tired, and even her smile was different now, more reserved than sincere.
And the realization struck me: the years had taken away what I had admired about her in my youth. But at the same time, I felt a pang of shame for my thoughts. After all, over all these years, Asia had given herself to our family, our children, our lives. Her beauty had not disappeared - it had simply changed, become deeper, more complex, having absorbed everything she had been through.
But at that moment I realized: my view of her was still full of contradictions. Either because I compared her to the image of the past, or because I was afraid to see myself next to her in the future.
And then something happened that I didn't expect, didn't want to understand, but that inevitably had to happen. Asia died.
There was no tragedy, no dramatic event, no accident. She was not killed by illness, she was not taken by circumstances. She was simply gone, as the day goes when night comes. Old age had done its work - her body simply could not cope.
I remember the evening when it happened. She was sitting in her favorite chair, wrapped in a blanket. There was a cup of unfinished tea on the table next to her, and her hands were strangely cold when I approached her. I realized that she had left without even waiting for me to say anything. She had just quietly left.
Her face was calm at that moment. It was as if she knew this moment was coming and accepted it. I was probably the only one who couldn't accept it. I stood there, unable to move, feeling the emptiness rising inside me, flooding everything.
Asia's death was like the silence left behind by a long, complex melody. It brought with it not only the pain of loss, but also a strange sense of finality. Everything that could happen between us had already happened. All the words, all the hurt, all the love - all had been said and lived.
And only now did I realize how much she meant to me. Her absence was deafening. It wasn't just the loss of a wife or the mother of my children. It was the loss of someone who had once been the beginning of a new life for me, albeit one with rough edges.
That day I gathered all our children around me. Six different destinies, six faces that reflected something of Asia and something of me, sat with me on an old garden bench. The evening sky was already beginning to fill with stars, and a light wind rustled the leaves of the trees, as if someone was trying to whisper something important to us.
We were silent. I looked at the sky, and the children looked at me. Their gazes were filled with questions they did not dare ask. And what could I answer? What would happen next? What to do now that Asia is no more?
I didn't know. I didn't know how to live in this world without her. But in the silence, among the stars that began to shine one after another on the dark canvas, a thought suddenly came to me - unexpected, bold, but incredibly bright.
"I must fly to the stars," I suddenly said out loud, surprised by my own words.
The kids looked at each other. Some smiled, some frowned, but no one asked what it meant. They knew I had always been a little strange, a little dreamy. And perhaps at that moment I felt that these were not just words. This was a real decision.
I couldn't sit still any longer, watching life go by, watching everything I loved grow old and die. Asia always told me I was capable of more than I thought. Maybe she was right. Maybe this world, this life, was just the beginning for me.
I looked at the children, at their faces, illuminated by the faint light of distant stars.
"You can join me if you want," I said. "But I have to do it. For myself, for your mother. I have to fly to the stars."
And at that moment I felt a strange relief. This was not just a dream, not just an escape. This was a continuation of our story - mine and Asia's. A story that, as it turned out, was not over yet.
My words were not just empty words - I actually started to act. Immediately after the funeral, I packed my things and went to Bangkok. There was to be a ceremony to open the new spaceport, which was making all the world news. But I was interested not so much in the ceremony itself, but in the man who stood behind it - Professor Trottelreiner.
This name became legendary thanks to his revolutionary theory of gravity, which opened up completely new horizons in astronautics. He was not just a scientist, but a visionary, a man who was able to prove that traveling to distant stars is not a dream, but a technical problem that can be solved.
Reading about the OMEN project, I learned that the second phase of the program involved volunteers. These people would be trained, prepared, and sent into the real unknown. I knew this was my chance. Not just to escape the pain of loss, but to do something that would matter.
Sitting on the plane, I looked out the window at the clouds passing under the wing and felt a strange combination of fear and excitement burning inside me. I imagined Trottelreiner, a man with an undeniably unusual view of the world who might not even look my way. But I knew I had to try.
When the plane landed in hot and noisy Bangkok, I knew I would do everything I could to get into this project. This was more than a chance to reach for the stars. It was a way to prove that I could go beyond the ordinary, beyond my fears, and leave something important behind.
Bangkok has a variety of venues to suit all tastes, from cozy bars with street-style vibes to luxurious lounges with views of the city. As soon as I stepped onto the hot sidewalk, I felt myself being taken over by the energy of the place. Despite the purpose of my trip, I decided to give myself a short break first and visit one of the famous rooftop bars that are mentioned in guidebooks.
The choice fell on a place with a breathtaking view of the city's glowing skyscrapers. As soon as I walked in, I felt a mixture of refined atmosphere and easy relaxation. I ordered something local, a cocktail based on lime and coconut liqueur, and sat closer to the edge, where the noise of the crowd gave way to a light evening breeze.
The thought was spinning in my head: what if the professor really was here? Such places always attract people with money, ambition and a taste for the unusual. However, reality looked different for now - there were tourists, businessmen and couples around, but not a single person who could pass for the famous scientist.
My gaze wandered around the bar, and in my head I was running through the words I could say when we met. How to explain why I wanted to join the project? What should I give this chance? With these thoughts, I knocked back my drink and asked for another.
But then, just when I had almost given up hope, my attention was drawn to a man at a distant table. About sixty years old, slightly graying, in a white linen suit. He was talking leisurely to the bartender and writing something down in a notebook. He looked completely ordinary, but something in his posture and demeanor told me it was him. Trottelreiner.
I took a deep breath, put the glass on the table and headed towards him. Yes, it was him. More precisely, almost him - it was his closest colleague, Tarantoga. This became clear from the way the man raised his eyes, how he immediately recognized me not as a local tourist, but as someone who was still looking for something more important. His gaze was penetrating, but there was neither surprise nor condemnation in it, rather - understanding.
"Ah, you are probably looking for Professor Trottelreiner," he said with a slight smile, his accent soft but distinct, with a tinge of some European language I couldn't quite place. He pulled out a chair, inviting me to sit down. "But I understand that you won't find him so easily."
I sat down opposite him, watching the man with surprise. His appearance was modest, his face deeply wrinkled, but there was something unusually alive in his eyes. He was old, but he had not lost his self-confidence, as if he could still leave a mark on the scientific world.
"Trottelreiner is currently busy preparing the final part of the theory," Tarantoga continued, "but I am glad that you found me. He often turns to me when he needs to solve the most difficult questions. And I, in turn, am his support. We are both working on the OMEN project, and this, believe me, is truly not an easy task."
I felt my heart beat faster. This was my chance. My breathing slowed slightly as I realized that talking to Tarantogha might be as important as contacting Trottelreiner itself.
"I've heard about the OMEN project. But I can't figure out what exactly you want from me," I said, trying to gather all my thoughts into one point. "Why me?"
Tarantoga glanced at me, as if trying to discern something behind my words, and then slowly answered:
"Because you have exactly what it takes. The professor always said that real progress requires unconventional solutions, people who can look beyond the obvious. You will be the one who can look at it from a different angle. We must, after all, prepare not only for flights, but also for what awaits us in the future. We are on the verge of becoming something more than just people on Earth."
I was silent, listening to his words, trying to comprehend what was happening. He was right. I might be far from the science and knowledge that Trottelreiner possessed, but I now understood that I had my own qualities that could be useful in this project. And perhaps something greater awaited me in this new world full of unknown possibilities.
As we were talking about this and that, Tarantogha and I left the bar. Nearby, in the gutter, someone was groaning. How strange, I thought, if the professor were there! Indeed, it was him. I went up to him and extended my hand, helping him up. He rose with difficulty, leaning against me, as if he did not fully realize that his situation was not as bad as it could have been.
"Oh, my God," said Trottelreiner, feeling himself for his glasses, "I somehow didn't notice how I ended up here. But I think I'm all right."
He looked a little confused, but surprisingly he didn't panic. His face remained calm despite the awkwardness of the situation. This was, of course, the professor - the very man I had so hoped to meet.
"Professor, are you okay?" I asked, supporting him.
"I'm fine," he replied with a slight smile, now checking to see if he had lost anything valuable. "I got a little distracted by the details, and here you go... It happens."
I was puzzled. Could such a great scientist, who was on the verge of opening a new stage in astronautics, really find himself in such a situation? But it seemed that for Trottelreiner this was nothing unusual.
"Can I help you?" I asked, feeling that the moment I had been waiting for so long was not what I had imagined.
He finally found his glasses and looked at me, smiling.
"Yes, thank you. Everything is fine. It's just that sometimes the mind gets distracted by more... mundane things."
I looked at him again, knowing that this was my chance. It was right there, despite the oddities of the moment. And if I wanted to get into the OMEN project, I had to act fast. But how do you talk to someone like this, someone who was, in fact, one of the greatest minds of his time?