Children Don’t Understand a Parent’s Heart
Talking with someone you hadn’t seen in a long time was always pleasant.
And if that person wasn’t merely an acquaintance, but someone who had shared the same memories with you for years, it was even better.
“You’ve always been like this. Do you know what everyone else says when I ask them what’s so hard about dealing with you? They say you work them too hard. In all my life, I’ve never heard anyone say that to someone who wasn’t even their education director.”
“…Nobles are slandering me—”
“If it were only nobles from noble families, I wouldn’t even say a word. Which is why you’re such an extraordinary fellow. You managed to do what even Garid couldn’t and unite nobles and commoners at last.”
“They’re all just exaggerating….”
“Exaggerating, my foot. Do you think everyone in the world is like you? I’ve told you again and again—people aren’t all built like you, and they’re certainly not all geniuses.”
“U-ughh… stop nagging….”
…Still, this was a bit much.
They said people got more nagging as they grew older. Maybe that was why.
Hearing a lecture far more advanced than the ones I’d gotten as a child made my head swim.
I couldn’t believe that all this relentless scolding had started from nothing more than one throwaway remark about me teaching someone.
The long, spirit-draining lecture finally came to an end when Aaron cleared his throat and picked up his cup.
I sat there, dazed from the mental assault more terrifying than any physical attack, and Aaron, after another careful throat-clearing, asked, “...So.”
“...Yeah?”
“The person you’re teaching—is he a man?”
“...Huh? She’s a woman for now. Why?”
For what was supposed to be the closing remark of a long lecture, the question was so abrupt that I tilted my head.
I answered because he asked, but why was he even asking something like that?
“Thank goodness. ...No, wait. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean I can relax. There are all sorts of weird people in this world. Hmm, that’s right.”
“...?”
What on earth was he thinking about?
It felt like he was mulling over something serious, but also like it was the kind of thought I’d be better off never hearing the answer to.
“What does she do?”
“...What do you mean, what does she do?”
“You know, all sorts of things. Her job, her tastes, that sort of thing.”
“Her tastes?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning to make a move on her?”
People’s feelings didn’t exactly obey their own wishes, but even so, wasn’t it a bit much to develop dirty thoughts about someone whose face you didn’t even know?
And if you considered the age difference between Aaron and Journy… well…
I didn’t know Journy’s exact age, of course, but from the way she spoke and acted, I could make a rough guess.
She was clearly on the younger side—even if not as young as me.
On the other hand, Aaron was over fifty.
Sure, he looked young for his age and was more handsome than most men, but still, wasn’t that a little much?
“Uh, um….”
...Still, if the two of them liked each other, who was I to stop them?
Some women liked mature men, didn’t they?
Maybe Journy was one of those women.
“Yeah. I’ll support you.”
“...You’re thinking something strange again, aren’t you?”
Unfortunately, Journy and I had never had the chance to sit down and chat sweetly about each other’s tastes, so I couldn’t exactly help her, but I could at least cheer her on…!
I clenched my fist with real determination and gave my support, only for Aaron not to look especially pleased.
“Kana. You have this oddly clueless side to you, so I wanted to see whether she was someone trustworthy. She might have approached you with bad intentions.”
“...Clueless side?”
...Me? Clueless?
If Eric had just heard that, wouldn’t he have said, “Vice-Commander, have you lost your mind?”
And then, as payment, Aaron would have kicked him and sent him rolling across the drill yard.
“All right, let’s test this properly. How did you end up spending time with her?”
“She gave me food.”
“...She gave you food?”
“Yeah. I saved her from a cockatrice, and she brought me food every day as thanks. To the mountain where I was staying.”
“Hmm….”
Aaron’s expression grew surprisingly grave.
“That’s not impossible to accept…. In that case, has she ever shown any suspicious behavior?”
“Suspicious behavior…?”
“Like touching you, or looking at you in some lecherous way.”
Touching me or looking at me lecherously….
“...No.”
Too many to count.
She hugged me all the time, patted my head, held my hand.
Even if she had never looked at me in a lecherous way, she made enough strange laughing sounds.
As I started listing everything that came to mind one by one, Aaron’s face, which had been quietly listening, grew darker and darker until, by the time I finished speaking, it had twisted into something like the visage of a demon.
“...That person.”
“Ah, her name is Journy.”
“Fine, Journy. Is this Journy person here now?”
“Yeah. Journy’s with Liberi too.”
“...I see.”
Aaron rose to his feet.
I looked up at him, surprised by how suddenly he was preparing to leave. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see this Journy person.”
“Then why are you taking a sword?”
“Ah. Because I’ll need it. You know as well as I do—there’s no tool more useful for pest control.”
“...”
Useful, my ass.
I let out a sigh.
“You’re overprotective, Aaron. I’m not a child.”
“...”
“If it had been what you’re thinking, I wouldn’t have just sat there and let it happen.”
He’d gotten his eyes all turned inside out over a little joke, and if I left him alone, he looked ready to murder someone.
Even if he looked this way now, Aaron knew my actual age well enough, and yet the way he treated me was like I was some innocent child who knew nothing of the world.
My words seemed to have their effect, because the ferocious energy roiling around him settled a little.
He sank back into his chair and said in a weary voice, “If this were the old days, I’d have grabbed you and spanked you for that.”
“Eek, you have that kind of taste?”
“That’s not what I meant. You worry me, then go around joking like that….”
“Ah. Caught me.”
“You weren’t even trying to hide it in the first place.”
It had been several years since I first began learning the sword in earnest, and I had already surpassed Aaron’s strength.
But even knowing that I was stronger than him, his overprotectiveness had never stopped.
After I took the captain’s seat, he no longer showed it as much.
Aaron, along with Garid, had been one of the only two people who had ever worried about me.
Ah, now it was three.
“Well… seeing you tease me like that, I do feel a bit more at ease.”
Aaron’s tone had now fully returned to the formal speech he used when he was truly composed.
“I was worried you might march off to invade the Empire with a sword in hand, but thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“What exactly do you take me for?”
“Anyone who saw the captain back then would think the same.”
“Hmph.”
After overprotective, now it was exaggeration?
...Well, I had been a little sharp-edged, that much was true.
“I wouldn’t call beating someone into a pulp because they got on your nerves ‘a little’ sharp.”
“He had it coming.”
I said it without hesitation.
No matter what, I didn’t go around beating people to a pulp just because they’d irritated me.
That bastard had crossed the line, and that was why.
When Aaron realized I had no intention of backing down, he lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“In any case, I’m glad you don’t seem to have fallen into bad company. Still, just in case, be careful. She might suddenly try to hug you or touch you.”
“...Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“That wasn’t a joke?”
Hand-holding, hugging, patting.
“She was doing that this morning, too.”
I wasn’t born a woman, and I’d grown up in a sweat-stinking knightly order where, even if you scrubbed your eyes raw, you wouldn’t find a single woman in sight, so I didn’t really know, but….
Didn’t women usually enjoy that kind of physical affection?
That had been the case in my past life, I thought, so surely this world couldn’t be different, could it?
At my words, Aaron stood up again.
“Aaron?”
“...”
“Hello, Eerrrooon?”
“...”
“Yeah.”
This was hopeless.
I nodded as I looked at Aaron, who no longer seemed even faintly receptive to conversation.
Sorry, Journy. I couldn’t protect you.
But hey, you’ll be revived, so it’ll be fine, right?
* * *
“...”
“...”
Hoooook.
Munch munch.
The air in the reception room had grown even colder than the frozen northern wind.
Not even the sound of breathing could be heard inside; the only noise was the sound of Kana stuffing snacks into her small mouth and chewing them noisily.
“This is good.”
“...Are you seriously eating at a time like this?!”
That was what Journy wanted to shout at Kana with all her heart, but the fact that she couldn’t was the greatest regret of her life.
If she did, the man seated across from Kana—the one glaring at her with terrifying eyes—would never sit still.
What on earth is going on? Why did this suddenly happen?
She had only meant to finish settling her performance report after a long wait and then go looking for Kana….
Instead, she’d been guided into the reception room by the man who had suddenly appeared with Kana.
Guided was putting it politely; if she hadn’t followed him, she was pretty sure he would have killed her on the spot, so she’d basically been dragged here.
“Your name is Journy?”
“Y-yes!”
It was the kind of deep, resonant voice people called a cave voice—one she would normally have loved, but now it sounded no different from a tiger’s growl, and she had stiffened rigidly.
Seeing how tense Journy was, Aaron tossed out a question. “Why did you do it?”
“Y-yes?”
At the question, which came from nowhere, Journy reflexively blurted back, but the man didn’t give her any answer.
And Kana, sitting beside him and busily picking at snacks, didn’t seem interested in satisfying her curiosity either.
Is he one of Kana’s acquaintances…?
If he was Kana’s acquaintance, then he must be someone from the same knight order, right?
Journy strained her brain desperately and made her guess before asking cautiously, “Were you perhaps in the same knight order as Kana?”
“...Did she tell you she’d been in a knight order, too? Yes. I’m Aaron, former vice-commander of the Red Flame Knights.”
“Hiieeek…!”
A pitiful squeak leaked from Journy’s mouth.
He was even higher-ranking than she’d thought…!
...Huh? Wait a second.
Why am I shocked?
The man in front of her was a vice-commander.
Kana was the captain.
For all the time she had spent with Kana, why was she only now surprised that a vice-commander had shown up?
Thinking that and lifting her head with some dignity, Journy then—
“...”
Kyaaaah!
—met Aaron’s fierce gaze and quickly dropped her eyes again.
She understood that Aaron had once been Kana’s subordinate, but why on earth had she been dragged here just to meet that look?
And as she sat there, it suddenly reminded Journy of a scene often seen in dramas.
A man going to meet his girlfriend’s father for the first time, asking for his daughter’s hand.
Different gender, same exact feeling.
Journy felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
“Um, may I ask what kind of relationship you have with Kana…?”
“I don’t know how Kana sees me, but I think of this rascal as a niece no different from my own daughter. I’ve been watching her since she was very young.”
“Ah, I see.”
Journy had succeeded in getting a clear answer from Aaron for the first time.
It didn’t make her especially happy, though.
So, the man named Aaron was extremely close to Kana.
Maybe not as much as the father Kana always longed for, but far beyond anything she could compare to an ordinary person.
After that, the conversation once again died.
Feeling like she’d suffocate if this went on, Journy gathered her courage.
“So, what brings you to me….”
“I hear you laid hands on Kana.”
“...Pardon?”
“You held her hand, hugged her, and patted her. Is that right?”
“Th-that’s true, but… I think there’s been some misunderstanding….”
One wrong word here and she dies…!
Instinctively sensing that death was right in front of her, Journy rolled her eyes around for the lifeline that might save her.
Glance.
“...”
Slink.
But what she found was a rotten rope.
The only person in this room who could help her—the very person who had been the reason she was here—Kana turned her head away to avoid Journy’s gaze.
She tried her best to look natural, but Journy could still sense a faint awkwardness in her behavior.
Kaaaanaaaaa…!
I thought I’d treated you well enough—how could you do this to me?
If you had a grievance, you could’ve just said so! Trying to kill me like this is going too far…!
Journy, who had trusted that person with all her heart and soul, was crying tears of blood inside.