[cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by memeguy

I've been reading CONNECT recently, especially because I too was confused by the pictures in question and all the speculation about them.

Spoiler for details of one of the CONNECT stories:

What's most confusing is the picture on the cover of CONNECT, which turns out to be a high-school aged Airi Hasegawa (nee Aaron) in her St. Chronica school uniform with Kobato on her lap. As explained by the author in the afterword, this is a poignant "impossible pairing" image with Kobato at an age when she was obsessed with "ketsu de waribashi ni waru", literally "splitting chopsticks with her butt".

The picture of Hayato and Pegasus with the two women is, from left to right, Airi Aaron in a black dress and wearing an eyepatch, Noel Redfield in the red dress, Hayato Hasegawa and Pegasus Kashiwazaki, and is from the short story "Hajimari no Tsubasa" or "First Wings". Hayato had been pestering Pegasus for opportunities to meet women, but since they were high-school students at an all-boys school, chances were limited. As Pegasus was heir to the Kashiwazaki estate and the designated next School Director of St. Chronica (which was then an all-girls school), he had already met Noel, a senior student from England who was, amazingly enough, also the Student Council President at St. Chronica.

Pegasus called Noel to set up a small mixer and asked her to invite a friend for Hayato, and she decided to bring Airi, her exceedingly shy and somewhat strange friend. Airi, who was of British heritage but had been raised by her family in Japan, was wearing the eyepatch because she was currently enthralled with the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" story, possibly the "Sangokushi" manga version (1971-1986) but more likely the "Yokoyama Mitsuteru Sangokushi" anime which ran between 1991-1992, not really specified but which seems to make the dates work out right. She was particularly fascinated by the one-eyed general "Xiahou Chun" or "Xiahou Dun" [Chinese] or "Kakoujun" [Japanese] who most famously pulled an arrow that had been fired into his eye and then ate his own eyeball.

Hayato was immediately taken with Airi, and their relationship progressed very quickly. Noel and Pegasus would often go on double dates with Airi and Hayato, but for the most part Noel and Pegasus just remained friends. But as Noel was preparing to leave St. Chronica, she met with Pegasus for the last time in her own room on campus, and one thing led to another ...

Noel returned to England without knowing she was pregnant and never told Pegasus that they had a daughter. He only found out when when Stella approached him, after Stella had convinced her mother that she was going to find her father one way or another, even if that required talking to people her mother knew when she lived in Japan. Stella introduced herself to Pegasus at the end of the "Hajimari no Tsubasa" story.

I'm currently working on "Supernova", which is the story of Stella's life with the Kashiwazaki family. My reading speed in Japanese is not great, and I often have to look up the more difficult kanji.

Nothing on Sena's mother? also what had Pegasus so riled up in that picture?