A Date with a Dragon
I figured a lot of people would find the various situations around me hard to understand.
If I could bend the whole world to my will with magic alone, why bother with all this tedious nonsense?
But no matter that I was a dragon, I still had no idea whose child I was, or whether any other dragons even existed on this Earth.
On top of that, the other mages—the ones who would go wild at the mere mention of magic—still had no idea that a dragon like me was walking among them.
Ha-yan's family excepted, of course.
I could blame all this inconvenience on Ha-yan's mother's "education," but I could just as easily call it my own choice.
Even if I'd been taught, nothing would have stuck if I hadn't accepted it.
Of course, the aftermath of refusing… ugh. Just imagining it made my knees go weak.
Since then I'd adapted pretty well, and I even had a few projects I was running on my own.
Either way, I was more than satisfied with my life as it was, and I fully intended to keep living it happily, snuggling up with Ha-yan.
"Alright, Siu. Come sit over here."
And that conversation had been about me becoming her son-in-law—which meant there was absolutely no way I could ever refuse Ha-yan's mother.
But then again—
"Mom! If you're drunk, just go to bed already! Rhea! Please take my mom to her room!!"
"Rhea! Rhea! I'm the adult here! I'm Ha-yan's mother!!"
"I apologize, ma'am, but my Master is Cha Siu, and the person who stands as Cha Siu's partner is Miss Lee Ha-yan. I hope you will understand that I have no choice but to follow the orders of the second-highest person in my hierarchy."
"Mmmpf! D-don't press there! I'm dizzy… mmmpf!!!"
With her husband absent, Ha-yan's mother had completely thrown off the reins. The moment she walked through the door she threw open the liquor cabinet and poured every expensive bottle of foreign whiskey straight into her stomach.
I'd asked Rhea to keep it stocked just in case company people dropped by, but that cabinet had long since stopped being mine. It had become the private liquor stash of Ha-yan's mother and father whenever they visited.
I didn't particularly enjoy drinking, so as long as the two of them made good use of it, I had no complaints at all.
After another solo bender, Ha-yan's mother was scooped up in Rhea's arms and hauled off to the guest room.
She always used the same room whenever she stayed over, so it wasn't a big deal.
We'd both known exactly what would happen the second she walked in and made a beeline for the booze. We casually used magic to put the bottles back in the cabinet, then sat side by side on the sofa and laced our fingers together.
Anyone else watching would have gotten secondhand embarrassment, but it was something we did all the time—whether at my place or hers.
Even at school, for that matter…
Still, being alone together like this at my house created a slightly different, nicer atmosphere than when we did the same thing at hers.
Holding hands in her room had its own charm, sure.
But as a dragon instinctively drawn to shiny things and material wealth, I really liked sitting in front of a crackling fireplace inside this glittering mansion while holding Ha-yan's hand.
After a quiet moment, she asked me:
"My PE grade… it's really going to be rough, isn't it?"
"You're still on about that? I thought you'd given up."
"Mmm. I did give up, but I can't help being disappointed."
"You've always been terrible at anything that involves moving your body."
"Hmph. Th-that's true, but still…"
She kept muttering about everything that had happened in PE earlier, clearly still nursing the regret.
Finding even that adorable probably meant I had it pretty bad myself.
Ha-yan scooted a little closer into my arms and started grumbling under her breath.
"Ugh… why does Mom always say not to use magic in situations like this? One little spell on the teachers and my grade… my status… my dignity…"
"Your dignity doesn't really have anywhere lower to—ahtatatata!!!"
"You're supposed to comfort me and say it's fine!! You're such a T!!! You're absolutely a T!!!"
"D-don't drag MBTI into this!!!"
One wrong word and I'd gotten smacked again. Just another evening with Ha-yan.
The day of the PE performance assessment had been Friday.
Which meant that when I opened my eyes, today was Saturday.
The precious start of the weekend.
We'd never actually said the words "let's date" to each other.
But both of us had already accepted everything.
I liked Ha-yan, and Ha-yan liked me.
And we had for quite a long time.
You might think, If you never say it out loud, how would you know? But there was no real need to worry about that.
Mana had a way of letting us feel each other's moods and emotions.
And to sense something like that through mana, you had to share everything related to your mana—something more precious than your own life—with the other person.
With that level of trust, how could we not be dating?
I wasn't some dense idiot from a web novel, thank you very much.
Ha-yan had said she didn't really dwell on that part either.
With a relationship like ours, there was no way I was going to waste a weekend.
It wasn't like I was short on money.
"And yet a person of your stature is about to waste an entire Saturday because you botched one piece of work?"
"…Tsk."
"There's a saying that even monkeys fall from trees. That describes you perfectly right now."
I shot a look at Rhea, who stood beside me in a full traditional maid uniform, coolly muttering while I furiously reviewed the documents on my computer.
She glanced at my glare and opened her mouth again.
"Staring at me like that won't get you anything. Oh. Surely you wouldn't make my mouth disappear with magic again just because I ran it a little, the way you did last time? When I think about how I couldn't eat anything decent for a whole week and suffered like a dog, I still grind my teeth."
"Ugh… fine. My bad. I was wrong."
"Could you clarify whether you mean you were wrong for failing to finish the work and missing your date, or whether you were wrong for giving a homunculus like me the ability and knowledge to verbally destroy her Master?"
"…You little—seriously, I swear…"
"Here is the final document. Finish this and you can teleport straight to the house where Miss Ha-yan is waiting and enjoy a nice, steamy date. Are you really planning to throw away this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity just because of a lowly homunculus like me?"
"…"
In the end I couldn't say a word. I stamped the last document she handed me and immediately cast teleport.
The fact that she could run her mouth like that was ultimately my own fault, which meant it was an argument I was always going to lose.
And in the instant I teleported away, I caught the extremely satisfied smile curling at the corner of Rhea's lips.
…This brat?
"What? Did something happen with work?"
"Sorry I'm late, first of all."
"Aww, what's there to be sorry about? I already know perfectly well that you pile company work into the weekend."
"Still. I had everything ready for our date, and then something suddenly came up…"
"It's not like our dates are anything fancy anyway. We just eat something good near the house and then talk at the café or the playground out front."
"Even so…"
In the company—or in society in general—I might have been someone of rather high status, a man without blood or tears. But not in front of Ha-yan.
And when it was just the two of us, she was almost always the one who took the lead.
I did take the reins sometimes… but that was usually when other people were around.
When it was only us, I didn't particularly feel like caring about social appearances either.
"Ehehe. Still, sitting together on our living-room sofa like this reminds me of yesterday. Yesterday was nice, but I think our house is even better."
"To be precise, the person who enjoyed yesterday the most was your mother."
"When Dad's around she always pretends to be so proper, but the second he's gone she just drinks. Look at her."
"…"
I simply watched Ha-yan chatter away, clearly having a great time even though I wasn't answering.
Ha-yan was a mage, but she was human.
I looked human, but I was a dragon.
Well. I had no idea what some ancient dragon would say if they saw us now, but if the present felt good, wasn't that enough?
After staring at her face for a while, I stood up, offered her my hand with polite formality, and said:
"In that case, would you do me the honor of going on a date outside with me today?"
"Tch. You're just going to take me to a café for dessert or walk around the nearby park, right?"
"I was thinking of trying something a little special today. Your mother's not around, after all."
"Special how?"
"You'll know when we get there. It should be nice for some fresh air, too."
"???"
Ha-yan's face filled with question marks, but she still let me lead her out of the house by the hand.
Her place was a mid-floor unit in an ordinary older apartment building.
And like most older apartments, it had a rooftop painted a tired shade of green.
Naturally the door was locked because of the little kids in the building, but a simple spell opened it and we stepped out onto the roof.
The rooftop was a bit dirty with fallen leaves and dust, but that didn't matter.
"What are you planning to do up here? It's almost evening anyw—whoa!!!"
"Stay still, okay? It's dangerous if you fall."
"W-what are you trying to do?"
I scooped Ha-yan up the way you'd lift a child and pulled her into my arms.
And then—
Crack. Crrrack-crack.
"Huh? Wings? All of a sudden? Here?"
"It'd be a shame to stay on the ground on such a nice day. Oh—don't worry about people seeing us. I already cast an invisibility spell."
"Mm-hmm!!"
She trusted me completely, of course, but flying off a fifteen-story rooftop with no safety gear still seemed to scare her a little.
I gently covered the hands that were gripping my collar like she was about to throttle me, and said:
"Want to go a little higher?"
"Huh? Higher than this? Waaaaah!!"
I didn't fly far—just rose much higher than the rooftop itself.
And the view that unfolded before our eyes was perfectly timed:
an evening sky washed in the orange light of a setting sun.
The moment that scenery hit her eyes, Ha-yan seemed to relax. She threw both arms wide open and shouted at the sight she'd never been able to see before.
"Wooooooooow~~!!"
I, too, soaked in the magnificent sunset in front of us, feeling Ha-yan's warmth against me and savoring a long-overdue taste of freedom.