Five Plus One
Even when I had first arrived at work, the office had been bustling, yet now only the Second Department Head and I remained.
Everyone had their own duties, and with the year-end upon us they also had to compile the documents each team leader submitted, so gathering in one place was hardly practical. It was strange enough that they would leave their own department offices to crowd into the Director’s office in the first place.
“Why are you still here?”
That single question proved, beyond any doubt, that the Second Department Head was the strangest of the lot.
“Me? Well, I prefer to finish what needs doing first and then rest, don’t I?”
“No—so why are you resting here?”
This bastard seemed to think the place was a break room.
Even at my grumble, the Second Department Head paid no mind. He merely snickered and tipped his canteen to his lips. A faint scent of alcohol drifted out; he had clearly filled the thing with liquor.
Fine. Just drink yourself under the table. Better that than staying awake and being a nuisance.
“Did you make the First Department Head cry again this time?”
Unfortunately, the moment the thought finished he started being a nuisance, so I quietly raised my left hand. Showing rather than telling was always best.
“Whoa.”
The Second Department Head let out an admiring sound the instant he saw my left hand.
An understandable reaction. Thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky—half-rings on every single finger of the left hand.
“Cool, right?”
“It’s cool, but I have no desire to copy you.”
“You bastard.”
I snorted a laugh at his answer. It wasn’t as though I wore them because I enjoyed it, so if others found the sight off-putting there was nothing to be done about it.
If the number had been even I could at least have split them between left and right hands, but as if on purpose it was five, and this disaster was the result. With an odd number you always end up fretting over which hand gets more.
“Still, you’re faster than I expected. I thought it would drag into next year.”
I gave a light shake of the head at the Second Department Head, who muttered as though puzzled. He was the one who had heard my joint-marriage nonsense and the bulk ring-purchase joke. Naturally he knew exactly who had confessed to me.
He simply had not expected me to give those people an answer before the year even ended.
“When have our predictions ever been right?”
“That’s true enough.”
Of course I hadn’t known either. Life never goes the way anyone plans.
“Anyway, congratulations. As long as you’re happy, right?”
The Second Department Head took another swig and smiled with a warmth quite different from his earlier snickering.
“It does feel a bit sudden, but you must have decided because you have feelings of your own, Director. Even if the affection is still thin, you can simply build it from here on, can’t you?”
At those world-warming words of congratulations and advice I smiled back.
“Got a date set?”
“…Yes.”
I sneered at the gaze that dropped so rapidly.
That earlier speech had been thoroughly calculated. Now that his own marriage was imminent, a hasty request for ceasefire—an appeal that we stop hammering each other’s weak points and simply live in quiet. Obvious. This bastard was never the type to offer warm words out of pure intent. After two years of bickering, how could I fail to know that much?
“Yeah. Congrats.”
I saw through it and accepted it anyway. If the fight dragged on, I was the one who would lose—having to marry five times. Better to end it here.
A strange silence lingered for a moment in the office.
Marriage is the tomb of life.
A place where one man about to enter the tomb and another who would enter it five times had gathered.
No wonder it was quiet.
The walk home was a little longer than usual. Because of the First Department Head flailing about wanting to leave together, I had to go all the way to the Masallo family mansion.
Still, it was fortunate the place lay along my route; if the mansion had been in the opposite direction, how long would the walk have taken? The Imperial Capital was fairly large—far too large for casual wandering on foot.
“We’re going to work together tomorrow too, right?”
“Like hell.”
“Hiiing…”
I raised an iron wall against the First Department Head, who spoke while wriggling her whole body, yet she had not really expected agreement, so we could let it pass.
Going home together was one thing; arriving together was impossible. Leaving times could somehow be matched, but arrival times were all different.
“But Director… can’t you split those up? It looks a bit much.”
At the front gate of the Masallo mansion, the First Department Head—about to step inside—carefully opened her mouth. Five rings on a single hand looked unsightly, she meant.
“Should I put only yours on the right hand?”
“You’re a real bad man.”
I snorted a laugh at the way she pouted. I had just finished explaining why there was no choice but to wear them all on one hand.
“If I split them for no good reason they might think I’m discriminating. They’re already self-conscious about not being able to wear them on the ring finger.”
At first I had tried slipping all five half-rings onto the ring finger—thinking that, being halves, they might fit—but it proved impossible.
To be precise, I could get them on, yet then I could not bend the finger at all. Better not to bother.
“What are you going to do if you end up putting on one more?”
She tossed out something so casually horrifying that I instinctively caught her lips between my fingers.
This was not bullying. It was merely a small bit of skinship between lovers—or the act of scolding a lover who had said something bad.
“Don’t say things like that.”
I spoke gently. It would be troublesome if I had to add one more here. Five that can be counted on one hand and six that require two hands simply feel different, do they not?
In a dimly remembered past even the Golden Duke had said something similar. While he could still count his wives on ten fingers he had carefully considered each addition; once the number passed ten he simply attained enlightenment and let go.
For all that talk, he did stop at twelve.
“Mmmph!”
Fortunately the First Department Head seemed to reflect; she vigorously patted my hand and nodded.
She was mischievous, yet not the sort whose intelligence one had to lament. Once properly scolded, she would not say such things again.
“B-but you never know with people…”
Whether my hope had been pure delusion, the moment I released her lips she began flapping her mouth once more. A sad affair. Hurting a fiancée-to-be pained me as well.
With a regretful heart I slowly reached out again; she quickly shut her mouth.
…It’s worth worrying about.
In truth the First Department Head’s concern was not entirely baseless. I was already a man wearing five rings. It would not be strange if one more appeared in a single day.
“If it increases, I’ll just split them half and half. What else can I do?”
I patted her head with the hand I had reached out.
Of course I did not believe it would increase any further.
The chain of confessions had already burst; what more could possibly remain?
The Director patted my head a few times and then simply turned and left. Even though I am the older one, does he really think I’ll like being patted like that?
Of course I do. I am confident I would enjoy it even if he stroked my chin.
But this was no time to revel in such small joys.
It will be trouble if things drag any later.
From the Director’s reaction it seemed I truly was the last to confess. Four ahead of me, none behind.
Even those four were Lady Margeta, the Magic Lord, and the two students at the Academy. It was a little bitter that girls who had met the Director later than I had confessed first, yet that was not the real problem.
Penelia isn’t among them.
This will not do. It cannot be without Penelia. Penelia clearly likes the Director as well.
But just how long had she been rolling around up in the North that no contact got through at all? Because of that, while everyone else was confessing to the Director, only Penelia had been unable to make a single move.
Moreover the Director already seemed to be solidifying his wives at five. And with every confession finished, the year about to turn into the next?
No.
The situation becomes even more disadvantageous. The burden of going from five to six, the burden of the calendar flipping into a new year—shackles that absolutely cannot be ignored.
So I tested the waters, asking the Director what he would do if one more ring were added—
“If it increases, I’ll just split them half and half. What else can I do?”
…At least I had avoided the absolute worst answer of “That will never happen!”, yet his indifferent attitude still showed through without filter.
Seriously, what is she doing?
Even when I tried to hold the sigh back I could not. Now it was not Penelia I resented but the Ministry of Special Affairs—and Enen. Why send her on dispatch at such a critical moment? Why did an incident requiring dispatch have to erupt at a time like this?
With a miserable heart I quietly took out the communication orb. She would not answer today either, yet I had to contact her once a day. That way, seeing the piled-up contact list, she would eventually call me—
“This is the Dark Light Squad Captain.”
?
The contact I had been certain would never connect… connected. Penelia’s face, which I had not seen since the Red Wave subjugation, appeared.
My mind went blank at the unexpected sight, yet I quickly pulled myself together.
“Hey! Why are you only picking up now!”
Still, it was a relief. She had answered before the year ended.
At my shout Penelia’s face frowned ever so slightly.
“I already got scolded by Yuris too. You don’t have to keep talking about it.”
I did not know who Yuris was, yet it seemed someone else had been exploding inside just like me.
As I drew near the mansion an unexpected sight came into view.
Who is that?
A brown-haired little girl chattering away with the guards. If it was a child the strict, solemn, serious guards would treat so familiarly, there were only two possibilities. And in the first place there were only two brown-haired little girls in my mansion.
“Ah, Master!”
As I gradually approached, the girl who spotted me bowed at the waist. From the voice it was Yuris.
I nodded to the guards who greeted me after her, then stroked the head of Yuris, who had been loitering outside alone.
“You finished all your work before coming outside, right?”
“Hehe, of course!”
“Still, it’s cold, so play inside.”
I turned Yuris’s body toward the mansion and gave her a light push.
It was extremely worrisome for a little kid to play outside on a cold day. Even a simple fall could lead to far worse injury than in any other season.
“Master, come in with me too.”
“Sure.”
Since that was only natural, I walked into the mansion side by side with Yuris.
While patting her head again I opened my mouth.
“So—what did you want to say?”
At those words I felt her head give a tiny flinch. She was a diligent and clever child, yet still young enough that everything showed far too clearly.
If she’s suddenly waiting outside, it’s obvious.
There was no way Yuris, who hated the cold, would come outside merely to play. If she truly wanted to play, Sophia would have been with her as well.
That meant she had been waiting for me—whose arrival time she could never know—because she had something important to say.
“Um… Master…”
“Yeah. Speak comfortably.”
What would a young girl want to tell her master? From everything I had seen so far, Yuris was not the type to ask for anything large.
At most a dessert that made the mouth happy? A bonus that fattened the wallet? Perhaps a banquet that could give the house a proper year-end and New Year feeling.
“What do you think of Big Sister Penelia?”
At the unexpected words I tilted my head. Why the Fourth Department Head all of a sudden?
“She’s a good kid. Good as a bureaucrat, good as a person. You don’t easily find someone like her anywhere.”
The answer came at once. To me, who had been tormented by that hopeless trio of department heads, the Fourth Department Head had been no different from a ray of light. Thanks to the lineup of Deputy Director, Fourth Department Head, and Fifth Department Head I had been able to breathe and keep living.
Moreover she had excellently led the Fourth Department—my and those fellows’ home base—was polite, and delivered excellent results.
Shortcomings… I could not even think of any for her.
“What about as a woman?”
At those words the hand stroking Yuris’s head stopped.
No way. It isn’t what I’m thinking right now, is it?
“Big Sister Penelia is a wonderful woman too, you know.”
But Yuris drove the nail in as if denying my thoughts.
This timing. This kind of question. As a veteran of the miraculous chain of confessions, I could not possibly fail to understand.
…The sixth?
I was left speechless. I had thought it was all over—yet there was more?
“What are you going to do if you end up putting on one more?”
The words the First Department Head had spoken floated up unbidden.
Was it a prophecy…?