Only Two Days Left
“Only two days left now.”
We had originally planned to stay a full week at each person’s house before moving on to the next, so it was almost time to leave Yuri’s home and head over to Anne’s. That was probably why Yuri’s complaint came out thick with lingering regret. When I first arrived she had been all smiles; the longer I stayed, the more often she started grumbling.
“Can’t I just… not go?”
“We already made plans with everyone. It’s way too late to change the schedule now.”
I flopped down onto Yuri’s bed—now completely familiar territory—and reminded her of the week-long agreement.
“But it’s still a shame. Ah, El! You can’t just lie down right after eating. It’s bad for you.”
“La-la-la, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.”
I clapped my hands over my ears and rolled around on the bed, cheerfully ignoring her. I had trained hard all morning; a little rebellion was allowed. So rest to your heart’s content, my body.
“Are you going to keep acting like a child? Sometimes you really do have a childish side, El.”
If we were soldiers or knights whose training counted as actual work, maybe. But there was no real need for us to join the afternoon drills as well, so I figured this much laziness was fine.
Apparently I was the only one who thought so. Yuri grabbed my hand and hauled me upright anyway. She sat down beside me on the edge of the bed.
She pressed her index finger to her lower lip and started fretting, clearly turning something over in her mind. Then her eyes lit up; she clapped her hands lightly and sprang to her feet again.
“That’s it! I’ll just flip it around—I’ll go with you, El!”
“No.”
The moment she made up her mind, Yuri dragged me straight to Craig. The answer that came back was a razor-sharp refusal. He had just finished morning training and was only now starting his paperwork; documents were already piling up on his desk in real time.
“…Why not?”
Yuri couldn’t quite bring herself to protest loudly; she asked the reason in a timid little voice. Craig’s busy hands stilled. He lifted his head and looked at her.
“You’ve already been away for months at the Academy. Now that the two of us can finally spend some ti— ahem, ahem—now that we can finally train together again, I can’t waste a single moment.”
?
He definitely just changed what he was going to say, right? Craig didn’t show the slightest sign of it, and Yuri, bristling with indignation, seemed not to have noticed. But from my perfect observer’s seat I heard it crystal clear: “the two of us can finally spend some ti—” He smoothed it over so naturally I almost wondered if I’d imagined it. Then I thought back over the last few days and knew it was no illusion. Suspicion hardened into certainty.
The way he glued himself to Yuri the entire training session under the excuse of “instruction.” Sure, her level was lower, so of course he’d focus more on her. Except for the way the corners of his mouth kept twitching upward even while he claimed she still had a long way to go.
The way he would clap her on the shoulder in praise whenever she managed a decent swing. Of course you can’t just crack the whip all the time; sometimes you have to offer a carrot. Except for the way his hand would start toward her head, freeze, and then settle for the shoulder instead.
The way he would drop by every evening after dinner while Yuri and I were having tea, listening for ages to stories about her—or sometimes about me. Of course a father would want to know how his daughter had been doing at the Academy and what sort of friend she had made. Except for the way he never actually listened to my stories and just kept sipping the tea Yuri poured for him.
This old man… maybe the real reason he opposed Yuri taking up the sword wasn’t talent at all. There was a very good chance of that.
“If you have nothing more to say, you may go. I have a backlog of work to clear.”
Once I was sure, everything I saw and heard looked different. Craig’s claim that he was “busy with work” now sounded an awful lot like “I neglected my work because I was spending time with Yuri.”
Yuri herself still had no idea. Half disappointed, half resigned, she turned and headed out of the room. I gave Craig a polite bow and followed her.
“I really wanted to go…”
Back in her room, Yuri hugged a pillow and grumbled in a voice thick with regret. That pillow looked exactly like the ones from the Academy dorms. She wouldn’t have deliberately brought a dorm pillow home, so they must simply have bought them from the same place.
“Hey… Yuri?”
“Hm?”
Still face-down in the pillow, she only peeked out a little to answer.
“I’ve got an idea… Want to hear it?”
Just like every other evening after dinner, Yuri was setting out three teacups when a knock sounded at the door. I opened it in her place while she prepared the tea; Craig walked in with perfectly natural steps.
Same as yesterday, same as the day before—we chatted about this and that over tea. Then the conversation lulled for a moment. Yuri shot me a sidelong glance, clearly asking with her eyes:
Is it really okay to do this?
I flicked my gaze toward Craig, urging her on. This was an attack that simply could not fail. I knew that from personal experience.
In the end Yuri steeled herself and shot to her feet.
“Father!”
“Hm?”
Startled by her sudden rise and call, Craig set down his teacup and looked at her. Yuri squeezed her eyes shut and launched herself at him.
Whump.
She threw her arms around the seated Craig and buried her face in his chest. Then she peeked up at him and spoke.
“Can’t I please go with El? Just this once?”
She had clearly never pulled a spoiled-daughter act like this in her life; her face was bright red. Craig, equally unused to the situation, was frozen solid and speechless.
Only the corners of his mouth were moving—twitching far more violently than any of the times I had caught him before.
I already knew exactly how powerful Yuri’s spoiled-daughter attack was. Anyone who was even a little fond of her would never be able to dodge it.
Just as expected, permission began to leave Craig’s lips.
“Of course…”
It should have fallen.
“Of course…”
His stern face was crumbling; his eyes were trembling. How was he still holding out?
“No!”
Ah. I realized my mistake. Yuri’s request was to leave home and stay at a friend’s house for several weeks. In other words, granting it would mean Craig lost that much time alone with her. That tiny gap in the attack was enough; Craig managed to overcome it in the end.
If it had been me, I never could have refused her. But Craig forced his will through with the resolve of a Sword Master. Truly worthy of one of only eight Sword Masters on the continent. I found myself respecting him all over again.
“See you after vacation, then.”
“Hiiing…”
I waved goodbye to Yuri, who had come out to see me off, then bowed my head in thanks to Craig standing beside her.
“Thank you for your generous hospitality. Please take care.”
“Of course. Drop by anytime, as if it were your own home. Travel safely.”
After Yuri’s spoiled-daughter performance, Craig’s voice had grown noticeably softer. Once she got past that first awkward attempt, she seemed to understand his true feelings and piled on the affection again and again. Thanks to that, the distance between father and daughter had closed even further, and every last shred of suspicion toward me had vanished from Craig’s attitude. It might still feel a little disappointing from Yuri’s point of view, but I thought things had worked out more than well enough.
“Sir Lupin, thank you as well. I really learned a lot.”
I turned to Lupin standing behind them and offered my thanks. Even though it had only been a week, it was no empty courtesy—sparring with him had given me insights completely different from the ones I gained training with Cielian.
“I’m glad this old body was of some use. Next time we meet, I hope to see the continent’s ninth Sword Master standing before me.”
“Haha…”
A servant who had arrived with Anne’s carriage took the bags from my hands. When I first came to Yuri’s house I had only one travel bag; now I was leaving with an extra one full of clothes she had given me.
I climbed into the carriage and looked out the window. Yuri was still waving toward us. I opened the window, leaned halfway out, and waved back. Even as the distance grew and grew, her hand never stopped. I kept waving just as hard until I could no longer see it. Only a few months ago I never would have imagined myself doing something so embarrassingly sentimental. I really had changed a lot.