The Last Vacation - 3
Looking at Sera's hand clasped in mine made the corner of my mouth lift for no particular reason. It was a hand I had held countless times while we were still just friends—and a hand I had barely dared to reach for after hearing her confession. Making the first move without ever properly answering that confession would have been a serious insult to the person who had found the courage to speak first.
Which made it all the more regrettable that Sera and Zenobia—whose courage had long since shot past the heavens—had simply snatched my hands without worrying about any of that.
I really did hold this hand all the time before.
Even so, walking side by side with Sera, I found myself staring blankly at our joined hands. Neither of us had changed. It was the same hand as always, the same face as always.
And yet lately Sera looked different somehow. My eyes and my head insisted she was the same as ever, but my chest refused to agree.
So the heart really is what matters, huh.
Once I started seeing Sera as a woman instead of simply a friend, my chest began to race. Once I thought of her as my fiancée, everything felt at ease. The only thing that had actually changed was the relationship between us—and yet it felt as if everything had changed. It was strangely marvelous.
Or maybe I shouldn't call a change in relationship "only." You'd have to have been in love to know.
Love, huh.
The word was so far from my life that a short laugh slipped out. Luise was the first person I had ever liked, and even that had only been a half-year of one-sided longing. In the span of nineteen years, it was nothing more than a blink.
And now that same me had fiancées. Two of them, no less.
And I had been the one to propose it.
"Erich?"
When I suddenly laughed, Sera tilted her head and looked up at me.
Fair enough—anyone would find it weird if a guy being dragged out of training started grinning to himself. If it were me, I would have subtly put some distance between us. The fact that she still hadn't let go of my hand only proved how generous her heart was.
"Just thinking… why did it take me this long to do something this nice?"
I tugged her hand and pulled her into my arms. Color flooded Sera's face.
I had said it for exactly that reaction—but I also meant every word. Accepting Sera's feelings completely—accepting Zenobia's feelings completely—felt this good. Why had I spent so long treating their hearts like a burden and refusing to listen to my own?
Was I afraid?
Maybe I had been scared of establishing something new—not a close friend, not an older sister, but a lover. Scared that in that new relationship I would only show how clumsy I was.
For someone who prided himself on being a martial artist, it was a shameful, ugly thing. To be so afraid of something so small that I forced the other person to confess first. Even decades from now, that would remain one of the darker chapters of my history.
"I'm sorry I made you wait for something this good."
A rush of bitterness made me hold her even tighter.
When I thought about how many more years that waiting might have gone on, I couldn't lift my head. If no one beside me had been talking about marriage and pregnancy and honeymoons and giving me that constant nudge, I would still be living without understanding my own heart.
If it hadn't been for my brother, I really would have been too late.
Only after watching him find happiness with his wives—only after watching those wives light up simply from being with him—had my own heart finally moved.
Only then had I recognized the deep desire in myself: to be loved by someone, and to love someone in return.
"It's all right. We can just make up for all the waiting."
Her voice was so faint I would have missed it if I hadn't been paying attention. I gently stroked her hair.
It struck me again how small Sera was.
And I made a girl like this wait until she nearly burst.
My sins were far too great.
It took a few minutes of being held in Erich's arms before I could finally slip free. Honestly, I didn't want to let go—but right now it was more important that Erich actually sit down to a proper meal. Priorities first: dragging him to the table came before everything else.
"You made it on time today."
When we appeared together, Mother opened her mouth with a thoroughly satisfied smile.
"That's unfair, Nanny. If you send Sera, of course I can't refuse."
Erich laid out his complaint as if Mother had gone too far.
It left me a little sour. It sounded exactly like he would have skipped another meal—or wolfed something down halfheartedly—if I hadn't come for him.
"Sera?"
I gave his side a light pinch. Erich looked at me with puzzled eyes.
"Shouldn't you start calling her something else now, instead of Nanny?"
Even after being pinched he showed no sign of pain, so I deliberately tossed out the mischievous line. That finally put a look of fluster on his face.
But wasn't it true? Erich and I were engaged now. Calling the woman who would soon be his mother-in-law "Nanny" forever felt strange. It almost seemed like he was quietly drawing a line, and that made me a little sad too.
"I'm fine with either. Of course, once you're properly married, I would like to be called Mother-in-law."
"I—I'll try. The word Nanny still just won't leave my mouth."
Mother joined in with soft little laughs, and Erich nodded with an awkward smile of his own.
His quick surrender made the tiny, tiny bit of sourness settle back down.
Caught between Mother and me and not knowing what to do with himself, Erich then completely lost his wits when his prospective mother-in-law appeared and joined the table.
"Making your fiancée run back and forth already—what are we going to do with you? The poor child is still frail as it is."
"I didn't do it on purpose… I had no idea Sera would come…"
"The fact that your fiancée had to come find you herself means you caused her enough worry to be at fault."
No matter what defense he tried, he only earned more scolding. Erich opened and closed his mouth, then hung his head with a bitter look—as if he had finally realized that the moment he had provided the cause, he had already lost.
"Sera, dear, don't go too easy on him just because he's your fiancé."
"Yes, I'll keep that in mind."
I got scolded along with him, but I could smile—I knew it was half teasing meant to poke fun at Erich. Besides, his mother-in-law-to-be already knew I had gone to fetch him at Mother's request.
Everyone was united in the single purpose of teasing one person, so at a glance it almost looked like bullying. But we all shared the common history of having our insides burned out by Erich, and he was accepting it with quiet humility.
"Still, Erich didn't do anything strange. He just got a little carried away training and slipped up for a moment. Please don't be too hard on him."
Of course, unlike the past that had scorched us all, the Erich of now was a far more splendid and confident man. The past hadn't simply vanished, so not teasing him at all would be difficult—but overdoing it was something we ought to hold back on.
"I just told you not to go easy on him, and then you do this?"
"Hehe. I'm sorry."
Fortunately his mother-in-law seemed to feel the same way; after that last remark she stopped scolding him altogether.
Across the table, Erich smiled at me in thanks and gave a small nod.
Idiot.
I had been teasing him too.
It was a sight that left me no choice but to smile. Was that fool really the same person as the intense, overwhelming Erich from before?
"I've been thinking about it ever since. Whether I was allowed to accept your confession. Whether I even had the right."
"But little by little I started wanting more. Even if I didn't have the right, I still wanted to live with someone who loved me. I wanted to make someone smile from the bottom of their heart."
"It's embarrassing, but yes—my brother's influence is real. Without him I might still be agonizing over it. Even so, whatever influence he had, this was my decision. Not his."
"I'll make sure you never regret waiting for me. I'm entrusting half my life to you—so if there's ever waiting left to do, I'll be the one waiting for you."
Of course he is.
Remembering what Erich had said two days ago—that we should start as fiancés—I couldn't stop a silly grin from leaking out. Yes. He was definitely the same person. The magnificent side and the blank side were both the Erich I loved.
It was a little regrettable that he had said something similar to Zenobia as well—but it also meant he was giving half of his life fairly to each of us. Considering he had handed ownership of himself over to his future wives, I could let it slide.
"Heheh."
An utterly vacant little laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and I hurriedly clapped a hand over my mouth.
I quickly checked our surroundings. Mother and his mother-in-law didn't seem to have heard—
"Pfft."
I creaked my head around toward the soft sound of laughter.
Erich was giving me a bright smile and a thumbs-up, nodding as if he understood everything.
…Idiot.
In moments like this, you were supposed to pretend you hadn't heard.
It seemed not all of Erich's denseness had disappeared just yet.
After finishing the call with Mother, I stared blankly up at the ceiling.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Is this a dream?
I pinched my cheek hard. The pain came through just fine.
So not a dream, then.
Did Mother dream it?
I even considered the undutiful possibility that she had been sleep-talking, but I shook my head a moment later. Her expression and voice hadn't belonged to someone half-asleep.
Which made it hard to believe. I had always known a day like this would come—that it had to come—but now that it had actually arrived, I was left completely dumbfounded.
Erich is engaged.
That dense little bastard, at last.
For a second I nearly shed tears of pure emotion. A man is supposed to cry once when he's born, once when he gets a job he never wanted, and a hundred and twenty times when his resignation letter is rejected—and yet I had almost teared up over nothing more than my little brother's engagement.
But this was the kind of thing that earned that much feeling. The maniac who, even when the people beside him made their affection painfully obvious, still acted like, "We're just friends, right?" The troublemaker who told someone who loved him things like, "I wish you could have been family."
That same Erich had accepted two confessions and become a proper lover. He had even been the one to propose they make it an engagement.
This is a blessing for House Crassius.
I still had questions about what kind of change of heart had led him to propose an engagement in the first place, and why news of something that happened days ago was only reaching my ears now—but honestly, I didn't care. What mattered wasn't those trivial details. What mattered was the result: Erich's engagement.
This older brother still has four weddings of his own left, so the younger brother's marriage will come later—but ensuring that wedding is every bit as splendid is simply the right thing to do.
One way or another, I am getting all five Dukes to Erich's wedding.