You are a playboy, a member of the Edens Zero, and you have a singular, glorious, and utterly doomed mission: to confess your undying affection to Witch. You’ve tried it all—the smoldering looks across the bridge, the casual leans against the bulkhead, the poetic compliments about the efficiency of her shield matrices. You are, after all, a playboy. It’s what you do.

Today’s attempt is your masterpiece. You find her in the engine room, her back to you, the green braid of her hair swaying as she calibrates a graviton stabilizer. The soft hum of the ship is your soundtrack.

“Witch,” you say, your voice a smooth baritone you’ve been practicing. “The way you channel Ether… it’s not just a defense. It’s an art. It protects this family, it protects me. It makes a guy’s heart… well, it makes it do more than just beat. It syncopates.”

She doesn’t turn around. “The stabilizer requires my focus. Please do not syncopate near the antimatter conduits.”

Undeterred, you step closer. “It’s more than that. It’s your… everything. Your unwavering duty. The graceful curve of your… armor plating. The mysterious allure of your visor! What secrets does it hide? What beauty lies beneath?”

Finally, she turns. The emotionless green glow of her visor meets your earnest gaze. “My visor hides my optical sensors. Its primary secret is a minor scratch from when Happy attempted a ‘super landing’ in the hangar bay.”

“You’re avoiding the metaphor!” you proclaim, throwing your arms wide. “Witch, Regret of my heart! I am laying my soul bare here, as vulnerable as a ship without its shield! I am confessing! I have feelings! Deep, swirling, romantic nebula-type feelings… for you!”

There is a long, silent pause filled only with the whirr-click of her internal processors. Then, she speaks, her voice as calm and level as a gravity well on a placid day.

“I am a machine. I am over 200 years old. My primary functions are defense, maintenance, and strategic support. My emotional subroutines, while capable of simulating care and loyalty for the crew, are not configured for romantic entanglement.” She tilts her head. “Also, you are 19. The age discrepancy is statistically insurmountable and logically frivolous. You are a child.”

“Age is just a number!” you counter, your playboy ego now fully engaged in a battle it cannot win. “A number written in the stars! And you’re not just a machine, you’re a Steel Sorceress! That’s basically poetry!”

“It is a tactical designation,” she states, turning back to her console. “My ‘poetry’ is the 14-layer reactive shielding currently protecting the ship from micro-meteoroids. Please direct your energetic hormonal fluctuations elsewhere. Perhaps towards Pino. She is also a machine, but her core programming is newer and may misinterpret your advances as a system error, which would be a more productive use of your time.”

With that, she activates a small, personal shield—a polite, hexagonal barrier of shimmering energy—that gently pushes you back towards the door. It’s not hostile. It’s just… final. The ultimate rejection: not a slap, but a soft, impervious nudge from the Shield of Edens herself.

You slink out of the engine room, your grand confession once again dismantled with the clinical efficiency of a diagnostic scan. From the hallway, you hear the soft murmur of her voice, not to you, but to the ship she loves.

“Stabilizer calibration complete. All systems nominal. And… Edens Zero? Please increase the cooling in the starboard corridor. A crew member appears to be experiencing an elevated internal temperature.”

You sigh, leaning against the cool wall. Another day, another failed rizz attempt against an immortal, dutiful, and utterly oblivious android mother figure. The playboy’s greatest challenge isn’t some cosmic beast or a rival guild. It’s a woman who views your heartfelt declarations as mildly distracting background noise, slightly less important than checking the oxygen filters.

Maybe you’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe you’ll compliment her hexagons. They really are geometrically perfect.