“The end!” Aisha closed the book after finishing the story. “Hm, that ending was kinda dark, huh? I guess the moral of the story is that true happiness is closer to you than you think. I prefer happy endings, though, to be honest.”
I was seated on her lap and staring down at the cover of the book.
“This is probably from around the time of the First Great Human-Demon War, so maybe it’s a spin on the legend of the hero, Arus? It’s a little different than the one I know. None of his allies show up in this one, and there’s one more sage than there should be. Plus, the moral of the story is kinda off. Who is this even for? I guess this is what happens when you do your own spin on things.”
Aisha twirled the book in her hands as she shared her observations. It was an old text, older than any others the Greyrat family had. The cover was made of white leather. Even Aisha didn’t know what specific kind it was, but it was a familiar shade.
As old as the cover was, there wasn’t a single crack in it, though the paper itself was in tatters. That being said, if the book was written immediately following the end of the First Great Human-Demon War, one could argue the paper was actually incredibly durable.
The book was called The Story of Arus—a name lacking in any and all showiness.
“I read this for you because you asked, but where’d you get this? It’s written in Fighting God Tongue.”
“I got it from Sir Orsted’s office.”
“Huh? Don’t tell me you took it without asking. You shouldn’t do that sort of thing.”
“I-I didn’t! When I went with Dad to hang out, I saw it on the bookshelf and just kinda flipped through it. Sir Orsted said I could take it home with me…”
I must have looked pretty disappointed by the story at the time. I don’t quite remember what was going through my mind, but I recall being pretty shocked by the ending—it was terribly tragic. Because I shared the same name as the protagonist, Aisha put her all into reading it for me. Maybe that contributed to me overly empathizing with the protagonist.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey, don’t you worry your little head. You’ll be able to find happiness just fine, Arus.”
Aisha embraced me in her arms and ruffled my hair. This had once always cheered me up when I was in a sour mood, but that was only when I was little. After I turned ten, it’d become harder to distract me from my feelings.
“Hey, Aisha?”
“What is it?”
“What could Arus have done differently to find happiness?”
“Huh? Well, um, if he stayed with the girl, she still would’ve died. Maybe he could’ve left the demon king as is and asked the sages to save her instead. Then, they could’ve gotten married and lived happily ever after. I mean, if Arus the hero didn’t defeat the demon king—in this case, Lady Kirishika, I think—then the world would never be at peace, but I doubt humanity would’ve been exterminated within their lifetime, at least,” Aisha answered as she puzzled over the question.
She must’ve thought it was a perfect answer, but at the time, I wasn’t satisfied. I furrowed my brow and frowned.
“Aisha?” I asked.
“What is it?”
“What’s marriage?”
“It’s when two people who love each other come together.”
“I know that. I mean, what exactly do you do?”
“You live together in the same house, of course. Eat the same food, have children, raise them…”
“How do you have children?”
“Uh, I have to start there? I’m not sure that, um, I’m the one who should be teaching you about that. I think you should probably ask White Mama or Blue Mama,” Aisha answered, her face slightly red.
Maybe she thought that I was close to the age where I’d be interested in that kind of thing.
“Then being happy means getting married and having kids?” I pressed.
“I guess so, yeah.”
“Really? Is that really true happiness?”
“Hm, I don’t know. My brother’s happy, for sure, but I’m not married, so…”
“Why not?”
“There’s no one I love like that. I mean, I loved my brother—your dad—but that was a little different from the love you’d need to marry someone. Actually, really different. Maybe because we’re blood siblings.”
I wasn’t particularly pleased by this reveal. After all, I was hearing that my first love had loved my own father. She said it was a different kind of love, but I had no way of knowing what that meant, and there was one other concern I had.
“Dad says I’ve gotten a marriage proposal,” I said.
“Huh?”
“She’s royalty from Asura and around the same age as Sieg. He said if I like her, we could get engaged.”
That was apparently the first Aisha had heard this. I found out later that she was pretty shocked by the news. The little boy in front of her was potentially getting engaged. If that happened, we’d be wed after coming of age. This little boy, the one she looked after since he was born…engaged?
“Ah.”
But Aisha was as smart as she was a realist. If I married into the Asuran royal family, I’d be kin to Ariel. Ariel was trying to maintain a strong relationship with my father, and marriage was a great way of guaranteeing that. If my future fiancée was younger than me, then it was even possible she was Ariel’s daughter. That line of thinking was enough to get Aisha to accept the news quickly.
“Well, you are the eldest son, so I guess these things happen,” she said.
“Am I gonna be forced to marry her?”
“Don’t worry. If you tell your dad you don’t want to, I’m sure he’ll understand. But do you really not want to get married?”
“I mean, how can I get married to someone I’ve never even met?”
“What type of person do you want to get married to, then?”
From Aisha’s perspective, there was nothing deeper behind this question. She probably expected me to say something like A girl with big boobies! I mean, I do like big knockers—who can blame me? Whenever I see a girl like that on the roadside, I can’t help but follow her with my eyes. Been like that since I was little. Hell, everyone always whispered about how I was gonna grow into a womanizer when I got older. But that’s not what I said. I told it to her straight.
“I want to get married to you, Aisha.”
“Huh?! Me?” Aisha stared at me with widened eyes.
I was incredibly serious. Maybe the most serious I’d ever been in my life up to that point.
“Um, err…” She paused. “You should give up on that. I mean, I’m an old lady compared to you. You’ll regret it if you marry me. You’ll wish you’d married someone younger forever.”
“I don’t care how old you are. I mean, Norn and Ruijerd are even further apart, right?”
“Ruijerd’s a demon, so he doesn’t look old.”
“Then doesn’t that mean he married someone who will age faster than him?”
“Well, I guess so, yeah.”
“In that case, age doesn’t matter. I love you, Aisha.”
I didn’t mean that as a compliment or in jest. I was truly, genuinely serious. I’m sure Aisha had been confessed to at least a few times. She had the chance to meet lots of men while working at the mercenary band, but I was just as serious as them about her—no, much more serious.
“Um,” she murmured.
Aisha and I gazed at each other for a time. I have no idea what she was thinking as she looked at me back then.
Well, she might have been thinking that I was just like my father. To her, my father was someone she respected, someone who was funny and even dashing.
I continued to gaze at her face. Eventually, little by little, she started to turn red. Her expression changed a little too, you see. She didn’t have her usual catlike smile. Her eyes were wide open, her lips were pursed, and I could tell her heart was aflutter. If it had happened now, I’m sure we would’ve kissed. However, Aisha managed to hold herself back.
“Heehee. Thanks, but no,” she finally said.
“Why? Do you hate me?”
“No, that’s not it at all. We’re basically like siblings. There’s no way your dad, your moms, or my mom would ever allow it,” she said, even as she held me in her arms.
She was holding me like she always did, like nothing had happened between us, but her heartbeat was louder than normal. Her arms squeezed extra tight around me.
“I want you to know that I super-duper love you too, so hearing you say that made me really happy,” Aisha said as she patted my head.
I stayed silent and let her do as she pleased. Aisha gave me hugs for everything, and I liked being hugged. We were the same as always. Nothing had happened. Things were normal. That’s what her hug was saying.
“Don’t worry. You’re going to find someone way better than me when you get older,” she said.
“Okay…”
But there was something different in her hug. I can’t quite explain what that difference was, but I know I sensed it. While enveloped in Aisha’s scent, I could intuitively feel that something had changed between the two of us.
In reality, our relationship did undergo huge changes after that day.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was how I ended up proposing to Aisha for the first time. Man, talking about this sure is embarrassing, huh? I was young at the time—the same age when daughters say they want to marry their dads.
Still, it was the moment I became certain of my love for her, and I was serious about it. That’s why, from that day forward, I went on the attack.
As for Aisha, she apparently wasn’t entirely against the idea, but she had reservations about getting together with a child—her brother’s son, no less. Nevertheless, those reservations faded over time. She began to accept my feelings eventually.
I mean, it’s commonplace among Asuran nobility for blood-related relatives to get married, you know? She probably felt that as long as my feelings for her didn’t change, our relationship wouldn’t be bad. Even though her mother, Grandma Lilia, would object, I imagine she thought it wouldn’t be an issue otherwise.
It’s just, well, I can explain things as I read through The Book of Rudeus, I suppose. After all, I’m pretty curious about how my father felt at the time.