Papa, Once More
Snow fell in soft, steady flakes, and I ducked inside to escape it, coming to a stop in front of Aria's door to wait while she changed her clothes.
It was nearly time for lunch anyway, so traveling together seemed like the sensible choice.
But I had only been standing there idly for a short while before Lapis came drifting toward me.
“……I didn't come here to keep watch over you, or anything like that.”
That much I already knew.
Still, now that I had been granted this relationship, it wasn't hard to guess that insecurity was what had brought her here.
Perhaps this was what it looked like when a child who had once basked alone in a parent's love caught sight of a sibling born late into the family — happy to have more family, and at the same time unsettled by the way that love was now being divided.
Clang.
Just then Aria emerged, freshly changed, and spotting Lapis standing beside me, she let out a soft snort of laughter.
Having read the girl's mind so easily, maybe Lapis looked endearing to her too.
“If someone as kind-hearted as you ever had a little sibling, I doubt the two of you would have been very close.”
“Please don't say such baseless things.”
“Don't wear yourself out over this. I won't cross any lines just to spite you. And besides, there's an upside for you — you won't have to pity yourself anymore for toppling over now and then like a frog on a rain-soaked road.”
“Wh-who are you calling a frog…?!”
“Care to deny it?”
“Well, that's……”
Even against that roundabout jab, Lapis couldn't muster a denial.
At that, a faint pang of sympathy crossed my face.
I had thought I was pacing things carefully, keeping the burden within reasonable limits — but from her side of things, clearly not.
After all, no matter how well I moderated myself, my body was conditioned to rival an Aura Master's. There was no way she could physically keep up.
Still, the three of us standing together in the mansion's corridor having this conversation felt so absurd that I shook my head and quickly urged the two of them along.
After lunch, I sank into a long reverie.
I had received Lapis's blessing, and I had proposed to Aria.
Which meant only two steps of the process remained.
I had planned to raise one of them casually someday, when Lapis and I shared a bed together — but Aria had dragged her off, insisting the two of them had some serious girl-talk to finish, and the pair ended up sharing a room for the night, leaving me suddenly banished to sleep alone.
Well, what can you do.
So I sat on the edge of the bed in my empty chamber and let my thoughts from midday run on.
First, we would have to go to the Asis Duchy and tell Lapis's parents the news.
Frankly, it had been less than a year since Lapis and I married. If I announced I was taking another woman now, wouldn't the Duke fly into a rage?
He was a devoted husband, but the Duke of Asis was conservative at heart — he wouldn't find my taking a second wife distasteful in principle.
It was only the timing that was the problem.
If I did it after fully inheriting the throne, as Emperor, that would be one thing. But for a mere prince to do it now — to anyone watching, it would look as though my heart had already wandered from Lapis.
And Aria, half-sister or not, still shared my blood. He wouldn't stand for her very existence casting a stain on the reputation of his beloved only daughter — especially when anyone could see there was no political advantage tangled up in the match.
Which was exactly why I had planned to hold Aria's wedding as modestly as possible, only after the public tide had been carefully turned.
Haah.
They do say the walk to receive your beating is the worst part.
So I groaned half to myself as I drifted off, and the next morning, Lapis showed me a kindness.
One, however, that I found hard to accept.
You're going yourself?
“It would be better coming from me, after all.”
I'm grateful for the thought… but this isn't something I can hide behind you for.
“What a relief, then.”
“……”
Lapis's radiant smile vanished, as though it had been nothing but a performance all along.
No — the beautiful smile was still on her face. But where moments ago it had been so natural I couldn't have told it was an act, the smile she wore now was stiffly, deliberately artificial, practically announcing itself as a performance.
An involuntary shiver ran through me.
Sometimes, a honeyed, measured voice is far more frightening than a shout.
“You had better come back properly scolded by my father.”
As if to say she would hear no further objections, Lapis swept the artificial smile away, stuck her tongue out in a tiny pout, and left the room.
Had the two of them talked about something last night, after all?
In any case, before descending to the Asis Duchy, I had to see my own parents first.
And of course, Aria would be at my side for that.
If anything, her presence was indispensable.
I've already given Father a hint of it, and he carries an enormous weight of guilt where Aria is concerned…
There might not even be an outburst at all.
It hadn't been so long ago that close blood marriage wasn't considered strange in this world. Even now, it wasn't so much frowned upon as simply never spoken of aloud. Disapproval was the honest truth of it — but it fell short of being something I couldn't justify.
Besides, Aria and I weren't full siblings. We were half-siblings, born of different mothers.
With my preparations made in short order, Aria and I descended to the Capital together.
We didn't bother with spatial teleportation.
Both of us needed the journey to steady ourselves, to ready our hearts for what was coming.
“This is the second time, isn't it… me asking Father for something.”
Something complicated flickered across Aria's face as she leaned her shoulder against mine.
The first request, I imagined, had been back in her childhood — a plea to save her mother and her wet nurse.
Now I stood in that empty place her mother had left behind, and we were on our way to seek permission for her to marry me — or rather, truthfully, to announce it.
And just as he surely was for me, Father must be an object of bitter love and resentment for Aria both.
In my case, that bitterness had long since turned back into affection.
But between the two of them — could their tangled resentment find its way back to something like a father's and daughter's love?
I'll see my parents first, send Aria on ahead to the duchy, then find the coordinates and teleport to the Asis Duchy myself.
Honestly, part of me had wanted to go to the duchy first.
I knew perfectly well that if a beating was coming, better to take it quickly and be done with it.
And yet, foolishly, knowing all that, I had put it off.
…What can I say.
That's simply what being human means.
By the time they reached the Capital, the hour was quite late.
Calling on the Emperor and Empress at that hour would have been awkward at best, so Rohen proposed raising the matter the following morning and retired to his bed — but while Aria voiced her agreement, she did not stay in her own chamber.
Instead, she walked to the door of the room where her father, the Emperor, was sleeping.
Rohen had gathered his courage and secured Lapis's blessing, and soon enough he would make his way to the Asis Duchy as well.
So surely it was right that she be the one to finish things here.
Having decided as much, Aria told the imperial guard standing nearby that she had business with the Emperor, and had him wake her father.
She was well aware of the impropriety.
But her father would not rebuke her for it.
She had noticed long ago the deep guilt he carried as the father of the daughter she had become.
And sure enough, her father emerged quietly, a light robe thrown over his shoulders, and looked at her.
There was not a trace of sleep still clinging to him.
He only seemed curious — why a daughter who always carried her unspoken sorrow would come to him without so much as a message, going so far as this unreasonable ruse just to see him.
“Hmm… no word, no letter — what brings you here at this hour?”
Just as she'd expected. The moment they had moved to the quiet study, her father opened his mouth into the awkward silence, and Aria felt a wave of fond exasperation.
He's hopeless…
How nervous must he have been, that he couldn't even manage the simplest, safest pleasantry before plunging straight to the point?
To him, she was surely both the child who hurt him most to look at, and the one he found hardest to face.
“Dad.”
He flinched.
So that was why, then.
She hadn't called him by the stiff, formal word for father — she had called him Dad, warm and familiar.
And at the sight of her father, the corner of his mouth twitching upward despite himself, fidgeting and at a loss for what to do, Aria felt a laugh rise in her before she could stop it.
“I… have someone I love now.”
“Wh-what? Ha! Haha! Why, that is wonderful news indeed! Will you tell this old father who it is?”
“It's Rohen.”
“Cough—!”
The words came straight as an arrow, and the cough that answered them was thunderous.
“Could you… say that once more?”
“It's Rohen.”
“……”
“This isn't some whim. I've carried these feelings for a long time now. I thought Lapis's blessing had to come first, so it took a while to win that… ah, and it isn't one-sided. Rohen came with me — he's asleep right now, since it's late. We meant to tell you in the morning.”
“If that feeling is true, then why did you never reach for it?”
“Dad. That's a cruel thing to say. You watched the outcome of all those petty, tangled love affairs unfold alongside me.”
“…I'm sorry.”
At the sight of her father bowing his head, his expression hardened with remorse, Aria let out a small sigh and stepped closer.
“I won't pretend I wasn't, in part, trying to make use of the guilt you carry toward me. But seeing you like this… it does hurt, honestly.”
“If it is my answer you wish to hear… then have it. A life lived bound by your mother, whose fate I twisted with my own hands. Setting you free to live as you please — that is my penance.”
“And here I'd braced myself for hours of persuasion. That's a surprise.”
“It is no business of the Emperor's, and the father in me resolved, after that day, to hear you out no matter what you asked. When the day comes that I pass the throne to Rohen — if you should demand my head, I was prepared to offer it gladly. Once the resurrection of the Demonic Tree is behind us, that is.”
At those words, Aria's eyes went round for a moment before she turned her gaze to the window.
“To be honest with you… even now, you still feel like a stranger to me, Dad. I don't mean to defend my mother from back then — but that doesn't mean I can understand the man you were then, either.”
At the way his daughter's word for him had slid, by the end of her sentence, back to the formal father, the Emperor could do nothing but smile bitterly.
“…Maybe this is just my own selfish greed, because that old wound hasn't healed. If I couldn't understand the father of back then, then my loving Rohen wouldn't make sense either, would it. Mm. I'm sorry. I'll say Dad again. The formal word feels too stiff.”
“Call me whatever feels natural.”
“If we take today as a start and close the distance little by little… then maybe this bitterness I hold toward you can turn, bit by bit, into something like a father's and daughter's love.”
“……”
“Well. For now — thank you for saying yes without any trouble, Dad.”
As Aria stepped close, spread both arms around him in a hug, and pulled away again, the Emperor at last let a sheepish smile cross his face, and remained alone in the study.
Dad, she'd said…
He had thought he would never hear that darling, endearing word again.
He poured no tea leaves into the cup that sat on the study desk — only plain, clear water — and drank. And for some reason, it tasted unmistakably, impossibly sweet.