"Hello, Mumbo!" NPC Grian yells with a giant, beaming smile stretched along his lips. Mumbo groans momentarily and slams his forehead on one of the pistons of the new machine he is building for Iskall. This is not how he wanted to enjoy the day before Valentine's Day. Valentine's Eve if you will.

"I told you to stay in your sandbox thing and build your sandcastle," Mumbo growls before pulling out a redstone block into his hold. NPC tilts his head, dropping his smile and acting like a confused canine.

"I got bored!" NPC says shortly, his smile perking right back to his face. Mumbo sets the redstone block down and shuffles over to one of the many observers.

NPC runs over to the contraption, swings himself up and hangs his body, scaring the daylights out of Mumbo when he swings his upside-down face towards Mumbo. NPC giggles, his hair hanging as his red replica t-shirt (Gifted by Grian himself) flops down to divulge his skin on his stomach.

"Why can't you hang out with Evil Xisuma or something? You two are good friends!" Mumbo growls and places down another piston. He widens his eyes when the piston shoots up before he looks around the dozens of comparators to see why the piston got activated and what his mistake was.

"Grian wanted you to watch over me, remember!? You are honestly fun!" NPC continues on with occasional giggles, still hanging upside down. Since he was a malfunctioned robot who accidentally broke the code, he can hang upside without any blood rushing to his head or experience any sort of pain. 

Mumbo creases his eyebrows downwards and begins to rub the temples of his forehead, gritting his teeth behind his lips to avoid showing NPC how agitated he is beginning to feel. NPC flips upwards and hops down, landing behind Mumbo and giving Mumbo a big hug despite the height difference. 

The raven-haired Hermit pushes NPC off his lanky figure with a huge frown, trying to concentrate on his ice creating machine since Iskall requested it for Sahara.

"Seriously, why did my boyfriend ask me to take care of you?" Mumbo asks with a sigh of exasperation, running a hand through his obsidian dark hair and pulling a plastic bag full of redstone dust. He uses his forefingers and thumb to grab a pinch full and start to sprinkle the red dust across the grass blocks. 

NPC watches with wide eyes, his gaze sparkling with little cartoon stars in fascination. Mumbo can feel the pair of eyes staring him down, but he proceeds to sprinkle redstone in a straight line across from one redstone torch to a repeater.

"Grian wants you to know that your redstone abilities are amazing!" NPC begins, chirping and closing his eyes with delight. He sits down while crossing his legs, leaning forward with a cute, innocent smile playing on his lips.

Mumbo sighs and watches as the little line of redstone meet the repeater, but since the redstone torch isn't lit up, the redstone and repeater isn't lit up.

Redstone dust, when activated, gets extremely hot. Mumbo learned that the hard way and touched redstone dust while it was activated once too many times in the past. He becomes careful, warning the NPC not to light the torch or he is going to drop-kick the robot to space.

"Mumbo!" NPC calls out, making Mumbo flinch and drop a handful of red dust by mistake. He sighs loudly and groans, not wanting to collect and scoop up the dust from the grass, so he moved on to the next part, trying to be clear that he doesn't want NPC Grian around.

"What do you want?" Mumbo pushes a sticky piston down to avoid it getting stuck in a dispenser. He pulls on it, getting his fingers all over the slime before gagging at the sudden feeling of glue-like slime slowly sliding down his fingers.

He cracks his knuckles, shrugs his blazer off to toss it to the side, and rolls up his white dress shirt with the slime still on his fingers, meaning he got the sleeves of his white shirt to stain green.

NPC's face flushed heavily and he toppled backward, squeaking by mistake. He lifts himself back up and observes how Mumbo moves fluently between all the circus, using his toned arms to pull heavy iron observers and water buckets around to fill the dispensers. 

"Grian wasn't kidding!" NPC breathlessly yells out with huge, cat-like eyes, examining Mumbo's body rather than the redstone he is making. Mumbo either didn't hear or simply ignored him. The Hermit can still feel the robot's eyes following him, so he sends a glare at NPC. When his averted eyes notice the strawberry red cheeks on NPC, he pauses and raises one of his raven eyebrows to show confusion.

"What are you looking at?" Mumbo looks with a scowl dawning on his face, coming closer to snapping at NPC since he was coming closer to being done with dealing with his annoying antics. NPC Grian gulps and he looks away.

"Grian said you were breathtaking, and he wasn't wrong!" NPC begins, raising his hand to twirl one of his fingers in his curly locks. "Grian has been talking about you non stop! He keeps saying that you are handsome and smart and I wanted to see it for myself!" NPC huffs out and tugs his hair a little bit, shyly looking back up at Mumbo.

NPC suddenly spoke in the softest voice anyone has ever heard him say in "He really loves you..." before he huffs again, crossing his arms in a childish manner. "It makes me jealous!"

Mumbo can feel the tips of his ears flare and continues to do his work. He shouldn't be getting flustered by the fact that his boyfriend is complimenting him, so why is he being embarrassed about it?

"What else has he said about me?" Mumbo asks quietly, trying his hardest to concentrate on the task at hand. NPC looks away and starts to pick at the grass blades, peeling and plucking them from the soil.

"Loads of things. He loves your company. He loves it when you give him tutorials on redstone since he loves your presence. He enjoys hanging out with you and he grows extremely jealous when he hears about your past with friends. Like, how you and Iskall hung out before he joined Hermitcraft. He exploded on me once, yelling at no one in particular about how you are perfect..." his voice begins to trail off, not sure if he should continue. He guessed this is revenge on Grian.

Mumbo drops an anvil with shock, the heavy anvil nearly missing his feet by a few millimeters. He attempts to lift it up again, but he finds his thoughts rummaging around to even concentrate on picking the heavy iron object from the ground. He sighs and leans over the anvil, using his arms to hold himself up and relax a little bit.

"He... He actually said that about me?" Mumbo begins to trip over his words, his face putting stop signs more and more into shame as NPC keeps spilling secrets. NPC nods his head with a new, but small, smile tugging on his face. 

"Y-Yeah! But it sometimes scares me... I caught him crying one time." Mumbo leans in closer, enlarging his eyelids at the thought. Crying? "He broke down recently, saying how he doesn't deserve anyone like you. Honestly, anyone, guy or girl, can fall for you easily. You are incredibly attractive." NPC says without blushing that time, being true and honest.

Mumbo falls into silence, listening to the wind rustling the limbs of trees and the birds chatting about. He sighs and looks down after a moment of silence and thinking.

"I didn't know," the raven starts off quiet and looks at the large contraption. "Mmm, Iskall can finish this then. Come on, NPC, let's go," Mumbo stands up and grabs his blazer to stuff into his inventory. NPC gasps with another beam, hopping up from his sitting spot and bounding next to Mumbo.

"About time we move somewhere new! Where to, Captain Mumbo?" NPC asks, looking up at Mumbo. Mumbo looks down at NPC and begins to walk into the forest that encircles the ice creator.

"Just trust me. You know him better than anyone else, so you are going to help me."

Maybe it's time for the question he has always been wanting to ask for the past four years...

"Okay!"

---

Valentine's Day came by sooner than Grian thought. He finished his pink shulker monster build inside the second layer of the base.

He didn't want to build with NPC Grian bugging him, so he asked Mumbo to take care of him. Then, Grian said Mumbo can return NPC back to his base on the 14th.

NPC Grian is missing. Grian noticed this greatly since the loud replica of his own voice is missing. It was truly pleasant, not hearing his own voice yelling out in obnoxious and happy tones, and demanding for a rustic house.

Seriously, NPC needs to learn how to make his own house. Well, first he needs to learn how to open a damn door.

But that also left Grian with a few questions. Where was he? Surely Mumbo didn't want the robot around, so why was he gone? Did his boyfriend really keep NPC for another day for the company?

Grian hops down the little hole that is in the center of his base, falling down before splitting his elytra wings apart to evenly glide down. His feet knocked over a few torches, but he didn't care since the flames can't catch white concrete on fire.

When he landed fully on his feet, he noticed a little pink shulker box with a heart in the lid. He walks over towards the shulker, thinking it is from one of the Hermits when he wasn't looking.

Since he was so engrossed with his monster build on the floor above, it would be believable that someone came in to drop off a Valentine's Day gift.

Upon further inspection, Grian opens the lid. He notices the bundles of flowers and chocolates with a card on top of the sweet gifts. He reaches his hand inside and grabs a hold of the card before reeling back to open it.

I love you for a lifetime. Not only for a day. I love you for what you are. Not for what you do or say.

~ It would seem pointless to tell you who I am, so I guess you should follow the events that led my heart to you so you can see for yourself who I am <3

"Haha, Joe much? But... wait," Grian rereads the poem again before looking down at the box. "Give me a clue or something! I don't understand!" Grian whines out. "The Hermits know I am dumb, why must they play me like this?" Grian shuffles his attention back to the shulker box and he begins to venture through it after putting the card in between his lips.

When he pulls back, he notices a red color on his hands, tangling. Redstone. He looks inside and notices there is redstone dust on the vase holding the flowers and the box of chocolates. It was a faint amount, but still there, and it was impressive Grian noticed since the box of chocolates was red.

"Alright then. 'I guess you should follow the events that led my heart to you'? I need a clue! This sort of sounds like Mumbo..." Grian sighs and pulls all the items out. 

And then he saw something. A note, an answer to his prayers, a piece of paper taped to the bottom of the shulker box. Grian reads it aloud.

"Remember the first place you tagged the tallest Hermit along, think of it today. The first time you ever sang your first song, about taking a certain Hermit's mustache away.... Wasn't that in Mumbo's base underground?" Grian questions himself and thinks, squinting his eyes."Yeah.. Yeah! Because I tagged Doc, the tallest Hermit, and I sang the AFK song when I was sick, I remember!" 

Grian begins to sing his older song and flies out of his base by using one of the open gaps in the walls, him claiming those holes to be entrances. He flies across the open sea, getting whiffs of the salty scent as he flies over to Mumbo's base.

He lands down near the centerpiece and goes down to the very first place he remembers Mumbo's base was located before he built the entire mini-city outside the small island.

He doesn't bother to climb down, just hopping down to fall before grabbing the ladder last minute to avoid killing himself by accident from a high height. He climbs down the last few ladder pieces and hops off when he can confirm he is at a good distance from the ground, just so he can save himself some time.

Grian sighs with content, smiling when he remembers the memory of Mumbo being AFK in the corner as Grian runs around Mumbo, throwing chicken eggs everywhere to leave Mumbo to deal with the dozens of chickens.

He notices a fresh-looking shulker box, with the same heart pattern on the lid. His smile grows large and he opens the lid, only seeing another card inside with nothing else. 

"Do you remember the first infinity room you made? It honestly made me afraid. Oh yeah, the one next to my bubble elevator," Grian smiles, "I think I know who this is..."

The day went on with that, more and more hints being dropped. He ended up flying to G-Team base, the golf course him, Iskall, and Mumbo played on, the build-off building where Mumbo surrendered, he went through the Architech mailing system tubes, Mumbo's mustache removal machine, the hole blasted in the Sahara meeting room, and a few more places where Grian reminisced happily about.

The last place was the most recent place. Boom Box, the explosive TNT game made by Tango. Grian and Mumbo were partners during the event, winning the first round before losing the second.

But they still had fun, whether it was because Grian screamed for Mumbo when Mumbo exploded or when Mumbo obtained the other team's flag, they still had fun together.

Grian noticed the shulker box in the center of the Boom Box arena, sitting there on top of the glass floor. He wonders over to the shulker box, noticing the same heart pattern engraved at the top. He pulls the lid off, surprised to find something other than a note. Seemed to be more than one pair of clothes, in which it looks as if Grian can choose which pair he wants.

"Put this on, just for me, please? Then meet me back where this journey started, overseas. This is payment for the journey you have brought me onto years back. Just follow the path or follow the track. You will find a light, don't worry, it will be outright."

---

"NPC, I'm nervous..." Mumbo says. NPC waves him off and raises his hands to fix Mumbo's crooked black tie. 

"Nonsense! He will enjoy this night! He spent all day venturing, finding your gifts and enjoying the past memories you made him journey through. I think he had a good day, and then this will just top it off. I am your wingman if anything happens!" NPC smiles before patting the tie to confirm that it is now straight.

"Heh, thanks. But also, give us privacy or I am locking you in the closet again." Mumbo scolds softly, he couldn't act harshly since his mind is fixed only on Grian. NPC gulps and gives Mumbo a small salute.

"N-Not the closet! I don't know how to open doors! It's dark and cramped in there!" NPC gasps with a worried expression. "I promise to leave you be!" 

"Good," Mumbo looks around, staring at the colors that are molding together in the sunset infested sky. NPC begins to wander around on the large rooftop of the Sahara building, growing bored instantly since his attention span is unbelievably small. Mumbo keeps whipping his head around, trying to see if he mistakenly missed Grian. 

He told NPC to keep a close watch also and promptly alert him if NPC finds Grian coming out from the Nether portal near iTrade. In return for all the help, Mumbo promised NPC a rustic house when Season 7 begins. 

"Red bird! Red bird is coming!" NPC yells out, running towards Mumbo and clinging onto him like a koala. "He came out of the portal!" NPC lets go, runs to the edge of the Sahara roof, and salutes towards Mumbo before hopping off. Mumbo lights a torch, raises his hand, and waves the torch to gain the attention of the flying Hermit. 

Grian notices almost instantly, turning to steer away from his base and heading over to the Sahara building. Mumbo blew out the torch as Grian landed. When Mumbo's eyes adjusted to the upcoming dark, he felt his face fall into instant blush. 

Grian smiles happily, gyrating around as the skirt of his pretty red dress twirls. Mumbo gulps with a gentle smile.

For the last shulker, Mumbo put a black tuxedo, a red tuxedo, and a red dress inside the box, and it seemed Grian chose the adorable, cute dress. (Grian in a dress is cute-dnefnjefnef)

"Hey, Mumbo!" Grian giggles, running towards Mumbo and engulfing him in a big hug by wrapping his skinny arms around Mumbo's neck. Mumbo hugs back, twirling Grian around as they laugh together. 

Under the thousands of stars peeking out from the dark sky, they twirl around together and laugh on the giant rooftop of Sahara. 

"I figured it was you who set up this entire thing," Grian says with a gentle smile after giggling so much, his face flushed and reflecting the red color of a firetruck. They both stop spinning around and just simply embrace each other closely to enjoy each of their presences.

"Grian, I didn't really notice until recently that I should've seen how amazing you are. I'm so happy you are here in my life," Mumbo keeps his arms wrapped around Grian's waist and rests his head on top of Grian's, gently closing his eyelids. "Not everyone is gifted with today. And not everyone is gifted with tomorrow either, so I am happy to be here with you. I am happy you are alive and in my life since not everyone can be gifted with that sort of thing."

"Mumbo..."

"I wish I saw it sooner. The dazzling happiness in your eyes, your incredible personality, your mischievous, yet cute, attitude... Grian, you are so perfect..." Mumbo lifts his head and pulls away, Grian reaching out almost instantly since the warmth of his lanky boyfriend disappeared.

Before Grian can complain, he watches as Mumbo's nervous self pulls out a small black box from his pocket. "For the rest of the night and every day for that matter," Mumbo smiles gently, placing one knee on the rooftop and opens the box to reveal a gorgeous, white diamond ring. "Will you be not only my Valentine but my husband?"

Grian's eyes went large and began to shine with incoming tears, his jaw-dropping like an anvil. Mumbo's face continues to grow into a big blushing mess, his cheeks blazing and the tips of his ears being dark pink.

Grian finally closes his mouth and smiles greatly, a teardrop escaping the corner of his eye.

"I thought you would never ask, you spoon! I want to be your husband!" His voice begins to crack as he cries out. "Yes! Yes!" Mumbo happily pulls the ring onto Grian's ring finger on his left hand.

Grian literally jumps up and wraps his legs around Mumbo's waist, hugs Mumbo's neck with his arms and presses his lips onto Mumbo's to engage in a deep kiss. 

They continue the night like that, twirling around, dancing under the stars and sharing hundreds of kisses together. Grian giggles again, keeping his smile steady since the night was perfect.

Mumbo gives another kiss and looks longingly into Grian's diamond blue eyes, sharing another smile, one that only Grian is allowed to see.

After dancing and holding each other for hours without the breeze affecting their warmth, Mumbo says softly, "Happy Valentine's Day, love."