Richard, as the central figure of this discussion, was being bombarded by balls of information bouncing off the wall of Saul the intermediary. Curious to see how he was taking it, I turned my head back over my shoulder. I’d have thought that Richard would be looking at me, but the beautiful man was turned in the other direction altogether. He muttered something, and I only caught the final “trouble for me.”
“Hm? What was that?”
“I said, that would not pose any trouble for me.”
“That’s hardly an answer. Should we take it to mean a reluctant yes? Then say so, my goodness! Seigi is just as eager to know.”
“Yes. You may consider my answer an enthusiastic yes.”
“Well, you heard the man, Seigi.”
I cheered and jumped for joy. Richard commented that all my time around Jiro and Saburo was turning me into a dog. But I didn’t care. I was thrilled. It felt like God was telling me that the job was set in stone. After the longest period in my life wondering what I wanted for myself, I finally realized that this was my only option. And it had all paid off. Thank goodness.
This also solved the thorny issue of who would gain custody of Jiro and Saburo. Sure, it may not have been the most important thing in the world, but it still mattered to me. Thank goodness for that, too. Now I only hoped our neighbors, the three-person Yapa family, would still agree to take care of them the next time Richard and I were away.
“…I need to see if Jeffrey will take me in as his apprentice. First things first, I need to learn how to write schedules.”
Richard ignored my babbling and asked Saul to do something. “Yes, yes,” Saul said and, laughing, retreated to the back room.
I saw a glimpse of the room when he opened the door. The furniture was the same as the last time I’d seen it. Saul closed the door with a heavy thud, at which point Richard turned to me with a furious scowl.
“Why on Earth did you not enlighten me beforehand of such a momentous proposition?”
“I knew you’d tell me to reconsider.”
“Well, that’s some comfort. You evidently have a shred of self-awareness.”
“Right. And I had no plans to reconsider, so I didn’t tell you.”
“…What am I going to do with you?”
I beamed at him. Seigi Nakata was a smart cookie now, and it was all thanks to him.
I had already addressed anything I thought Richard might have been concerned about. If he had any further arguments, I didn’t know what they were but had to be ready to handle them all the same. What if he said something like he’d had enough of me and wanted me to leave him alone? I knew I would break down in tears. Not like I could imagine Richard ever saying that, but it was still technically possible.
I continued to grin at Richard’s silent glower. “Hey. I’ll gladly say it as many times as you need to hear it: I care about you, I want you to be happy, and I’ll do anything to support you. Maybe that’s my dearest wish right now—let’s do away with all the self-sacrifice and recklessness. Let’s get rid of these cycles of paying each other back and worrying about who owes what. Or not! Even if life with you includes all that, that’s fine. I still want to spend the rest of my life with you. Maybe I’ll wear a lot of different hats along the way. Your personal secretary, your fellow jeweler, even your bodyguard—that’s fine. In the end, it would make me happy to fill all those roles for you.”
Richard was silent.
“Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian, would you make me the happiest man in the world?”
As an afterthought, I added that I had already talked this through with my parents.
The silence that followed made my ears ring. No doubt Saul was listening in from the next room over. We would surely have heard him moving around, otherwise.
Richard sighed quietly, then looked right at me and asked, “What is the projected term?”
“For what?”
“I am asking for how long I would contract you as my personal secretary, Seigi.”
“Oh, uh…ten years, give or take?”
“Don’t be absurd. That is far too long.”
“No, no, wait. Ten years will be over before we know it. That’s no time at all.”
“In ‘no time at all,’ you shall be thirty-five and I shall be standing on the cusp of fifty. And yet you would still wish—”
“To be with you? Yeah.”
Richard went quiet. After a pause, he glanced up at me like a thought had just occurred to him. His face was so stunningly beautiful, so icy cold, that for a moment I felt taken aback.
“Ten years, you say? And what if, in that ten-year interim, I should develop a steady relationship with someone? What if I were to get married?”
“Uh… I could get a babysitter certification?”
“May I please punch you?”
“It was a joke! I’m just messing with you.”
Although if he were to get married—well, I knew I’d figure it out somehow. Besides, even clueless ol’ me knew that probably wasn’t going to happen.
All things considered, it didn’t seem like I was making time for Richard. I was demanding his time. But how else was I supposed to make Richard as happy as I possibly could?
I smiled weakly, daring him to issue another rebuttal, to which this beautiful man grumbled before gifting me one of his usual smiles. I loved Richard’s smiles. They were beautiful, pretty, all the usual adjectives—but more than that, they calmed me. For some reason, that sense of calm had become my favorite feeling as of late.