“This… This… This!”
“Why… Why? What did Mom say?”
Tarjei’s hand holding the letter trembled. Tarjei took a deep breath, pressing down on his throbbing temples.
“…I have a disease that makes me burst into tears when I hear the truth…”
“Ah.”
Tarjei, who had been grumbling for so long, drooped his shoulders. Asha patted the old knight’s arm with a slightly pitiful look.
“Are you really okay?”
“It’s all my fault…”
“Yes. That’s true but…”
“…”
“What does Mom say?”
“That it’s too late to make amends with a few letters after she’s left…”
Tarjei looked emotional.
“No one else’s daughters do this! Only her! She’s so stubborn, so mean to her father…”
“Do you want to be a grandfather from another family?”
“…”
Tarjei looked at Asha with a look of great shock. Asha tilted her head.
“Don’t you think Mom might think the same? Other dads don’t do that.”
“No father treats their children as well as I…”
Tarjei mumbled his lips. Asha put her hand on her waist.
“How about we score then? A score for a good daughter and a good dad.”
“A score… you say?”
“Let’s start with mom. What would be the criteria of a good daughter? Hmm… Healthy daughter twenty-five points, daughter doing what she wants twenty-five points, a daughter giving as much as she receives twenty-five points, a daughter who follows rules well twenty-five points.”
Asha counted on her fingers as she spoke. Tarjei, who had been taking careful note of this, hesitantly opened his mouth.
“For a healthy daughter… Irina never got sick once she grew up… but, when she was young, she once got a sudden fever. Even so, she grew up perfectly fine after that, so twenty-five points.”
Asha held back her laughter. After that, Tarjei continued to score like an excuse.
She has an unrivaled resolve to do what she wants, so inevitably twenty-five points. As for giving as good as she gets, she was heartless and insensitive to her father, which irked him greatly, but she was a loving daughter until she left, so twenty-five points. As for following rules, she wasn’t much confined by the rules of the civilian world, but she did keep her own rules, so twenty-five points.
“Well, if you add it all up, it’s a perfect score?”
Tarjei glanced back at Asha with an expression of resentment.
“You’re saying Irina got a perfect score?”
“Yes. Healthy daughter twenty-five points, daughter doing what she wants twenty-five points, a daughter giving as much as she receives twenty-five points, a daughter who follows rules well twenty-five points.”
“…”
“Then shall we score the good father this time? First, a good father who believes in and supports his daughter, with a perfect score of twenty-five points…”
“…”
Tarjei was crying.
“Five points…”
“Five points. Then next is a father who knows his daughter’s dream, out of twenty-five points.”
“That’s twenty-five points!”
“What’s Mom’s dream?”
“It’s to be a knight!”
“A knight? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure…”
“…”
“Ten points…”
Tarjei’s shoulder sank.
“For a father who doesn’t get mad when his daughter does wrong but talks it out rationally…”
“…One point…”
“For a father who tries to reconcile actively after a fight…”
“…”
“I’ll give you ten points because you wrote a lot of letters. So, all in all…”
“Don’t say it…”
“Twenty-six points…”
“…”
“…”
Asha eventually held Tarjei’s hand in the heavy and sad blue airflow, which submerged to the ground.
“Grandpa.”
“…As one ages… it becomes hard to admit when you’ve done something wrong. That may seem a distant concept to you. If I admit I did something wrong now, it feels like all the time I’ve been alive, I’ve been mistaken…”
To this, Asha shook her head.
“Something must’ve gone wrong between Grandpa and Mom.”
Holding the weathered, rough hand of the old knight, Asha spoke deliberately.
“You have to wait three minutes to enjoy tea. A cake needs to be baked for thirty minutes to be delicious, and bread dough needs over a day to rise. Did you know that marron glacé takes three days to make? But nobody says that time is meaningless. Because some things need time. Because there’s a right time for everything.”
“…”
“Camellia blooms in winter, and you have to wait until sunset to meet the night’s angel.”
“…I guess you are my angel.”
That was not what she meant, but Asha kept silent to soothe the now-crying old knight.
“How fortunate we are to reconcile now. Imagine if I did this during my coming-of-age ceremony. Ten years later! Wow!”
Tears welled in Tarjei’s eyes, and it seemed like he might choke up. As Asha stretched out her arms with a laugh, Tarjei lifted and held his granddaughter lightly, wiping his tears with his shoulder. Asha whispered into Tarjei’s ear.
“Grandfather already wrote back to Dad.”
“…!”
“Grandpa, write quickly, too. You can’t lose. Got it?”
“Oh, I understand!”
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
“The Spirit of Alyosha is Fafnir, but why… My hands are this cold.”
Asha sat beside Alexei and rubbed her hands. While Alexei worked with his left hand, a gentle smile graced his face. The candle he started to light during the day, trembled slightly.
<This evil peach is trying to blame me whenever she has a chance.>
Phoebe, who was lying on her side brushing the feathers of her yellow wings, snapped her beak.
<Does this dying matchstick never get tired of attacking?>
<You’re just a flying chick!>
<He can’t even speak with his own contractor.>
<A lecture for just saying a word!>
<Didn’t you say two words? Three words? Four words! Five words!>
The candle danced fiercely.
“What do Fafnir and Phoebe say?”
Asha shook her head and pushed the ginger milk in front of Alexei. Unable to hold back that moment, Fafnir said again.
<Ahh, but it really isn’t my fault!>
Asha glanced at the candle. Fafnir seemed to feel wronged.
<No matter how much I tell him, Alexei doesn’t sleep, just studies, reads books, meets people… and doesn’t eat snacks…>
The last part was sobbing. The melted candle wax flowed down like tears.
“Ah, I get it. I got it.”
Asha quickly made another candle for a servant to fetch. As she lit several candles, she gave Alexei a stern look.
“Just now, Fafnir confessed.”
“Really?”
“Alexei isn’t sleeping enough or eating snacks.”
“That’s not true. I’ve been eating the snacks you made me.”
<You only ate a little every day to save it!>
Asha paused. It was a bit embarrassing to convey this.
<Hahaha! It must’ve been so delicious since my kid made it.>
<My kid is so nice that he can eat all the snacks she made even if she baked cookies with mud!>
<My kid wouldn’t make things like that?>
<He ate the cookies which got overcooked last time only because they were made by that peach!>
<Why did you overcook it!? Why!? You overcooked it!>
“Asha? What did Fafnir say again?”
“Ah, no. About the snacks… He said you ate them…well… but you still shouldn’t eat burnt cookies.”
“…Ah.”
“Also, you must get enough sleep. More than now.”
“Okay, I understand. I’ll listen to your words.”
“Liar. You didn’t listen.”
“From now on, I will listen properly.”
Asha let out a sigh and nodded. Alexei, with his eyes closed, looked down on Asha and asked in a soft voice.
“How’s Uncle and Aunt doing?”
“They’re fine. They worried a lot about you too. They say you shouldn’t overdo it.”
“They’ve always been kind people. That’s why you…”
“Stop it.”
“Huh?”
“Alyosha just says things that are so embarrassing sometimes.”
“Do you know what I’m going to say?”
“…!”
Asha’s eyes widened. Then, as if she had guessed something wrong, her ears turned red. Alexei, watching her face, laughed and tapped Asha’s nose lightly.
“I guess that’s why my uncle and his wife made you so adorable, just like a cute little pea.”
“Ah! Alyosha! Alyosha, really!”
Asha’s face turned a deeper shade of red, but she couldn’t achieve what she wanted because she was caught rubbing Alexei’s hand. Alexei, who was looking at Asha, put down his pen and smiled softly.
“Asha.”
“Why, why are you calling me?”
“Actually, I thought you might not come back.”
“…Yes?”
Asha looked at Alexei with her eyes wide open, her face red.
Alexei just smiled, a hint of sadness in his smile.
“I’m sure you were worried about that, too. That you might not come back again.”
“Ah…”
Indeed, because it came close to that, Asha was forced to shut up awkwardly.
Alexei gently covered his hands as he looked at Asha.
“I was really worried about that. What should I do if she doesn’t come back like this? But when the day you said you would come came, I worried that you might have been forced to come back.”
Asha was deeply buried between the gently wrapping amethyst particles and the gentle and warm creamy aura.
“I’m still worried.”
“To be honest. Actually, I could have stayed.”
“Is that so?”
“But it’s not because I didn’t like it here. I thought my parents were too sad…”
Asha was worried whether she should talk about her parents, but she learned while watching Karnov These two people were not the kind to ruminate on those who have what they don’t have.
“However, that’s not why my parents were sad.”
“…”
“They were sad because they saw I was doing so well in the palace and felt regretful that they couldn’t have made me happy all this time.”
Asha tilted her head and smiled.
“I told them it wasn’t for that. I was happy with Mom and Dad, and that’s why I chose to stay with them.”
“Asha…”
“But if it seemed to my mom and dad that I was doing well in the palace, that’s how I felt because Alyosha was next to me.”
Asha said so and smiled broadly.
“And I came back to the palace because I wanted to do something.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Yes. The first thing is to make Alyosha a lot of snacks and get you to talk to Fafnir, the second is to bake a lot of snacks, the third is…”
Asha paused for a moment. She had more things to do than she thought. It felt a bit odd to say all of them. Asha decided to succinctly sum it all up.
“Third, get pocket money from Uncle Valery?”
“Are you short of pocket money?”
“No! It’s not! That’s not what I’m saying!”
Asha shook her head quickly.
“You’re saying the same thing as Grandpa. As if anyone would say you’re not really his grandson.”
Alexei smiled again. Asha’s heart tingled at the thought that her words pleased Alexei.
Nobody had told him before. That the emperor and Alexei, grandfather and grandson, were similar.
“Is there anything else you want to do?”
“There’s one thing.”
“What is it?”
“You have to swear that you’ll listen first.”
“Well, I promise.”
“Do you know what I’m going to say?”
Asha spoke coyly, but Alexei just urged her to say what she wanted. Asha drooped her shoulders.
“Alyosha goes to bed early and wakes up late. If possible… for the next five years?”
“Five years?”
“In five years, Alyosha will be an adult, so you can do as you please then. Do you promise to listen?”
“In five years…”
While Alexei was mulling over the words, Asha had to gaze at him as if she were slightly enchanted.
It was a brilliant shower of light, as if sunlight was pouring in from the windows behind him. It was a dazzling group of lights, creating an aurora from pearls and gemstones, freezing it, smashing it, and scattering it in all directions.
“Okay, I promise if it’s that.”
“Ye…yes. You promised.”
Asha nodded her head hurriedly. Alexei smiled brightly.
