The hours passed in a blur of explanations and questions and the pure, unbridled joy of a child discovering a whole new world.
Elena was an exceptional listener.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, her chin propped on her tiny hands, her violet eyes fixed on Yuuta with an intensity that would have been intimidating in anyone else—the kind of focus that suggested she was memorizing every word, every gesture, every inflection. But in her, it was just... Elena. Curious. Hungry for knowledge. Absorbing everything he said like a sponge absorbing water, like the world itself was a story she couldn't hear fast enough.
Dragon children, Yuuta was learning, were basically walking cheat codes.
They learned faster. Understood deeper. Retained everything with perfect clarity—a gift that was also a curse, as Erza's earlier words about memory had hinted. Elena asked questions that cut straight to the heart of concepts he hadn't fully explained, piecing together the structure of school—classes, teachers, recess, friends, all of it—with an intelligence that would have made any human parent proud.
"Papa, so there are many children? All together? In one room?"
"That's right, sweetheart."
"And they all learn together? And play together?"
"Exactly."
Elena's eyes sparkled. "Elena has never played with other children."
The words hit Yuuta harder than Loid's fist had.
Never played with other children.
A four-year-old. In a world full of children. And she'd never had a single playmate.
He swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Well, little princess, you're going to have so many friends. More than you can count."
Elena bounced with excitement.
And through it all, someone else was listening.
Erza.
She hadn't moved from the sofa. Her book was open in her lap, pages that hadn't turned in thirty minutes. Her eyes appeared to be scanning its contents, following lines of text that she probably wasn't processing.
But Yuuta noticed.
Noticed the way she turned pages without really looking. Noticed the slight tilt of her head toward their conversation, the almost imperceptible angle that suggested she was tracking every word. Noticed that she hadn't insulted him once during the entire hour-long explanation.
She was interested.
She would never admit it.
But she was interested.
Finally, Yuuta stretched.
His arms rose above his head, reaching toward the ceiling, and his spine cracked in three places that had been tight for hours. A massive yawn escaped him before he could stop it, the kind that came from somewhere deep, from exhaustion he'd been ignoring.
"So," he said, smiling down at his daughter, warmth flooding his voice despite everything, "I hope you understand now, little princess. School. What it is. How it works. Why it's exciting."
Elena's eyes went wide.
Wider than should have been physically possible for any creature, human or dragon.
"PAPA!" She shot to her feet like a spring uncoiling, bouncing on her tiny toes with an energy that seemed inexhaustible. "School is AWESOME! When can Elena go?! Tomorrow?! Can Elena go TOMORROW?!"
Yuuta laughed, the sound genuine and warm.
"Not tomorrow, sweetheart. We have to wait for the interview date. They need to meet you first, to make sure you're ready."
"But Elena IS ready!"
"I know you are. But there are rules we have to follow."
Elena pouted magnificently.
Then Yuuta paused dramatically.
"But in the meantime..." He let the words hang. "We have to buy school accessories. "
Elena froze.
Her head tilted at an angle that reminded him unsettlingly of her mother.
"School... access... accessjj?"
"Accessories." Yuuta grinned, enjoying her confusion. "It means we get to buy you new books. And a bag. And colors. And pencils. And all sorts of fun stuff so you can enjoy your school days even more."
Elena's brain seemed to short-circuit.
Her eyes went distant.
Her mouth opened slightly.
Her wings fluttered.
Then—
"LET'S BUY PAPA! LET'S BUY ALL OF THEM! RIGHT NOW! THIS VERY SECOND! LET'S GO!"
She grabbed his hand with surprising strength and tried to drag him toward the door, her tiny legs pumping, her wings fluttering with excitement, her entire body vibrating with the kind of joy only children could produce.
Yuuta laughed again, letting himself be pulled.
From the sofa, a voice interrupted.
Cold.
Sharp.
Unwelcome.
"How much money are you planning to waste on useless things?"
Yuuta froze.
He turned slowly.
Erza was still on the sofa, still looking at her book, still appearing completely disinterested in anything but the pages in front of her. But the words had definitely come from her. The tone had definitely been hers.
"Don't you have savings to think about? Future plans? All those human concepts you're always worried about?"
Yuuta stared at her.
Did I just hear that right?
The Queen of Atlantis—the woman with unlimited wealth in her own world, with mountains of gold and treasure beyond counting—just asked about my SAVINGS?
She's worried about MONEY?
"Are you okay, Erza?" The words slipped out before he could stop them, born of genuine confusion. "Are you feeling... something wrong?"
Her eyes snapped to his.
Narrowed dangerously.
"What are you saying?"
Yuuta quickly raised his hands in surrender, the universal gesture of someone who knew they'd overstepped.
"Nothing! Nothing! I just—I didn't expect you to understand human finance systems. Or care about my savings. That's all."
Erza sighed.
The sound was long-suffering, the sigh of someone forced to explain the obvious to a particularly slow student.
"Listen, mortal. I am a dragon. I can learn anything I want in hours—sometimes minutes—if I choose to focus. And last night, while you were sleeping like the dead, I read about how this so-called 'GDP' works and your ridiculous economic systems and the concept of 'running out of money.' "
She closed her book with a definitive snap.
"And surprisingly, you are an idiot who spends money on us without any thought for your future."
The shift in Yuuta's expression was subtle.
But Erza caught it.
Her dragon senses, always attuned, always watching, registered the flicker of something in his eyes. Pain. Resignation. The acceptance of someone who had already made peace with an ending.
His voice dropped.
Lost its lightness.
Became something else entirely.
"My future..." He paused, the words seeming to cost him something. "It's already decided."
The words hung in the air.
Heavy.
Final.
Wrong.
Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the shadow passed. The smile was back in place, bright and warm and utterly unconvincing to anyone who was really looking.
"What's the point of thinking about the future," he said brightly, too brightly, "when I have you both now?"
Erza felt it.
The weight beneath those words.
What's the point of planning for a future I won't have?
What's the point of saving when I'll be dead in a year?
What's the point of anything except making these last months count?
He wasn't talking about money.
He was talking about her.
About the death she had promised.
About the end that was coming.
About the fact that everything he did—every meal he cooked, every penny he spent, every moment he gave to them—was borrowed time.
Borrowed time.
Guilt crashed over her like a wave.
Unimaginable.
Unbearable.
I could have killed him last night.
The thought surfaced unbidden.
He was sleeping. Vulnerable. Helpless. His neck exposed. His heart beating beneath my hand.
I hesitated.
I should have done it then.
I WILL do it.
Eventually.
She looked down at her book, hiding her face behind its pages, hiding from the weight of what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what she couldn't stop.
"I should just kill him," she whispered to herself, so quietly that only she could hear, that even her dragon ears barely registered the words. "The moment he sleeps again. No hesitation this time. I will surely kill him."
Elena puffed out her cheeks in that adorable way she had perfected over the past weeks—a look of exaggerated frustration that she had learned got her exactly what she wanted from her father.
"Papa," she said, her voice carrying a hint of genuine frustration beneath the performance, "where can Elena buy school acces—acces—the thing you said?"
"Accessories." Yuuta corrected gently, unable to hide the smile spreading across his face.
Elena's cheeks puffed out even more, ballooning like a tiny chipmunk storing nuts for winter.
She was angry now.
Or pretending to be.
It was, without question, the most adorable thing Yuuta had ever seen in his entire twenty years of existence.
He laughed softly and reached out, brushing his hand through her silver hair, letting his fingers run through the soft strands until her pretend anger melted away like frost in morning sun. Her eyes closed slightly, leaning into his touch with the instinctive trust of a child who knew she was loved.
"Don't worry about the place, little princess." He grinned down at her. "I know somewhere we can buy anything we want."
Elena's eyes went wide—wider than should have been physically possible, the kind of wide that suggested her whole world had just expanded.
"ANYTHING?"
"Anything." Yuuta said it boldly, confidently, with the kind of certainty that only came from years of shopping at the same place, from knowing every corner of that massive building, from the comfort of familiarity.
From the sofa, Erza's voice cut through like a blade.
"That's a bold claim, mortal." She didn't look up from her book, but her tone carried that familiar edge of challenge, of testing, of needing to puncture his confidence. "Do you know that you can actually lose your life making claims like that?"
Yuuta shrugged, completely unfazed by the threat.
"I don't know about losing my life, but I'm pretty sure this place has almost everything."
"Everything?" Erza's eyebrow arched, the first crack in her mask of indifference. "Define 'everything.' "
"Well..." Yuuta ticked items off on his fingers, counting them out. "Clothes. Food. Games. Books. Kitchen supplies. Home furnishings. Electronics. Toys. Pretty much anything you could possibly want in this world."
Erza's eyes changed.
Just slightly.
Just enough for Yuuta to notice.
The curiosity was there, hidden behind that cold exterior, buried beneath centuries of practiced indifference—but unmistakable to someone who had spent weeks learning to read her, to see through the ice to the being beneath.
She wants to come.
The realization settled into his chest with quiet warmth.
She's curious about human shopping centers. About this world. About the things we have.
And she's too proud to ask.
At the same moment, Elena bounced on her toes and grabbed his sleeve, her small voice rising with excitement.
"Papa! I asked first! Tell Elena! Please please please!"
Yuuta laughed at their synced curiosity—mother and daughter, both wanting the same information, both expressing it in completely different ways.
"Libeus Shopping Center." He said it with dramatic flair, as if announcing the location of hidden treasure, as if revealing the coordinates to something magical. "The biggest shopping center in this part of the city. Five floors. More shops than you can count. Food court on the third floor with everything from ramen to ice cream."
Erza tilted her head.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
It was the most curious, most childlike gesture he had ever seen from her—that head tilt, those violet eyes, that genuine interest in something as simple as a shopping center. She looked almost... human. Almost approachable. Almost like someone who might actually enjoy herself.
Yuuta's heart stopped.
Oh God.
She's so cute when she's not wearing her cold face.
Why does she have to be so—
"What are you doing on the floor?"
Erza's voice snapped him back to reality.
He looked down.
He was, indeed, on the floor.
He had no memory of getting there.
"I... just missed someone," he said weakly, climbing back to his feet and brushing off his pants. "Someone was there a moment ago. I think."
Erza stared at him like he was insane.
Elena tugged his sleeve, completely unconcerned with her father's apparent mental state.
"Papa! Let's go to the shopping center! Elena wants to see! Elena wants to go NOW!"
Yuuta considered.
He had taken the day off from his part-time job. The apartment felt small after hours of explaining school and answering Elena's endless questions. And honestly—
He wanted to go too.
Wanted to see Elena's face as she discovered a shopping center for the first time.
Wanted to see Erza's reaction to the chaos of human commerce.
Wanted to spend time with them outside these four walls, in the world, living.
"Okay." He nodded, decision made. "Go get ready, Elena. Wear a nice dress. One of the new ones. We're leaving soon."
Elena squealed—a sound so high and pure it could have shattered glass—and ran for the bedroom, her tiny feet pattering against the floor.
Yuuta turned toward the kitchen, planning to grab his wallet and keys, when he felt it.
A gaze.
Burning into the back of his head.
He glanced over his shoulder.
Erza was still on the sofa.
Still pretending to read.
But her eyes—her eyes kept flicking toward him, then away, then back. She was waiting for something. Hoping for something. Too proud to ask. Too stubborn to admit she wanted what Elena had been freely given.
Yuuta smiled.
The bond between them had grown so much over these past weeks, strengthened by shared danger and quiet moments and the slow, impossible process of learning to trust. He could read her now in ways he never could have imagined on that first night when she'd appeared in his apartment like a beautiful nightmare. Could tell what she wanted without words. Could see through the ice to the being beneath.
She wants to come.
She wants to be invited.
She wants to be included.
He took a breath.
"Erza."
She looked up.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
"I bought you those clothes, remember?" He was staring at the wall, his face slightly pink, unable to meet her eyes for some reason he couldn't name. "Since we're going out... you could change. If you want. Into one of the new dresses. The ones that are actually yours."
Silence.
Long enough that he started to worry.
Then—
"Of course." Her voice was cold, dismissive, exactly the tone she always used. "If you hadn't invited me, I would have killed you on the spot. You chose wisely, mortal."
Yuuta smiled.
Not at her—he was still looking at the wall, still too flustered to turn around.
But inside.
Because he had heard that threat so many times now that he could read the variations. The tone. The intent. The subtle differences that separated genuine danger from... whatever this was.
That one, he thought, warmth spreading through his chest, meant 'thank you.'
That one meant 'I'm glad you asked.'
That one meant 'I would have been sad if you left me behind.'
He sighed.
Smiled.
And waited for his family to get ready.
HOUR HAS BEEN PASSED.
A full, complete, entirely unreasonable hour.
Yuuta sat in the driver's seat of his beloved blue second-hand car, the one that rattled every time he so much as looked at the brakes. The paint had faded years ago to a sad, uncertain shade of gray-blue. The radio only spoke in static, and the seatbelt clicked in with what sounded like a prayer to whatever gods might be listening.
He leaned out the window.
Craned his neck toward the third-floor balcony.
"ELENA!" His voice carried across the apartment complex with the desperation of a man who had been waiting far too long. "What's taking so long?! You said ten minutes! That was an HOUR ago!"
From above, a tiny figure appeared on the balcony.
"PAPA!" Elena's voice rang out like she was announcing the opening of a school play. "Mama's just locking the door! We're coming! Wait right there!"
As if he had anywhere else to be.
Yuuta sighed, slumping back into his seat. But despite the wait, despite the heat, despite everything—when he saw them both coming down the stairs, he couldn't help but smile.
Elena led the way, bouncing with each step, her silver hair catching the sunlight like scattered diamonds. She wore one of the dresses he had bought her—a soft pink number with tiny flowers along the hem—and she looked absolutely perfect.
Behind her, Erza descended with the grace of a queen entering her throne room.
She wore a flowing white dress with violet embroidery, the one he had chosen specifically because it reminded him of starlight. Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her face was its usual mask of cold perfection.
But she had come.
That was enough.
---
Elena hopped into the front seat with her usual explosive energy, immediately pressing her face against the window.
Erza, on the other hand, slid into the back like royalty boarding a royal carriage. She crossed her legs with dramatic flair, arranged her dress precisely, and announced:
"You mortals may now proceed."
Yuuta didn't even flinch.
This was normal now.
This was his life.
Elena clapped her hands together, bouncing in her seat.
"We're going shopping! To the mall! To the BIG mall!"
Erza scoffed.
"Honestly, shut up, Elena." Her voice dripped with disdain. "It's just a commercial structure. Don't act like a peasant seeing fire for the first time."
Yuuta groaned.
"Uff. Here we go with the royalty drama again."
Erza's glare could have started a wildfire.
"Right." Yuuta shifted gears, pretending he hadn't noticed. "Let's just... go."
"Hoho! Brum brum!" Elena giggled, mimicking car sounds even though the engine was already running.
The joy was contagious.
Yuuta grinned.
---
They hit the highway, and Yuuta carefully avoided any roads near the college campus.
He was skipping today—officially, unapologetically skipping. If one of his professors spotted him driving around with a beautiful woman and a happy child while supposedly sick in bed?
Well.
Let's just say he'd need to write a will.
As they drove, both girls stared out the windows like tourists visiting another planet.
Glass towers rose around them. Overpasses curved overhead. The metro train zoomed past on elevated tracks, sleek and silver and utterly alien to eyes accustomed to dragon kingdoms and ice palaces.
"Papa! Papa!" Elena pressed her face against the glass, her breath fogging the window. "Look! A metal anaconda!"
Yuuta followed her pointing finger.
The train.
She meant the train.
Erza leaned forward from the back seat, her curiosity getting the better of her despite her best efforts to appear disinterested.
"Yes... some kind of human technology." Her eyes narrowed, studying the train as it disappeared into the distance. "What is that thing?"
Yuuta saw his opportunity.
A golden, terrible, absolutely irresistible opportunity.
He turned with the straightest face he could manage.
"My Queen," he said solemnly, "that is a Steel Serpent. It carries humans inside its belly and transports them across the city."
Erza blinked.
"Wait... seriously?"
He held it for five seconds.
Five glorious seconds.
Then he burst out laughing.
"You actually believed that?!"
"How can you be so stupid."
The temperature in the car dropped.
Not metaphorically.
Actually dropped.
Yuuta could see his breath.
"Oh no," he muttered. "Why does my mouth always choose violence?"
---
They reached the mall.
Yuuta parked as quickly as he could, desperate to escape the frozen death that was slowly creeping toward him from the back seat.
Erza stepped out with icy grace.
Her arms were folded.
Her expression could have been used to preserve food.
"Don't you ever," she said, each word a frozen dagger, "try to deceive me again."
Yuuta raised his hands in surrender.
"Yes, yes—my bad, my Queen. Won't happen again. Ever. Swear it on my life."
"Which I'll be taking eventually anyway."
"...Fair point."
They walked toward the mall entrance.
Elena skipped between them, holding Yuuta's hand with the fierce grip of a child who refused to be separated from her father. Her eyes were everywhere at once—the fountains, the shops, the people, the lights.
Erza followed behind.
Her face was cold.
Her posture was perfect.
But she was looking.
Taking it all in.
Watching.
---
From the outside, they probably looked like the ideal family.
A father, a mother, a daughter.
Ordinary.
Happy.
Normal.
Yuuta smiled without meaning to.
"Man," he breathed, so quietly that only he could hear. "I really enjoy begin with Her."
---
But somewhere nearby, on the upper floor of the mall, behind a tinted glass window that looked down on the entrance—
An old man stood watching.
He wore round, silver-framed goggles that caught the light and reflected it back in strange patterns. A long coat hung from his shoulders, moving slightly in a breeze that shouldn't have existed indoors.
His eyes—visible even through the goggles—were fixed on the family below.
On the silver-haired woman.
On the red-eyed man.
On the child who bounced with joy between them.
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"Head Master." A security guard approached, his voice respectful, uncertain. "Is something wrong?"
The old man didn't answer immediately.
His eyes didn't move from the scene below.
"It's been a while," he said finally, his voice low and distant, like it came from somewhere far away, "since I've seen a happy family like that."
He paused.
Let the words hang in the air.
"They remind me of something I lost long ago." His smile widened, just slightly. "What a strange, strange little family I've met today."
He turned.
Walked away.
Disappeared into the shadows of the hall.
Leaving only the faint echo of his words behind.
And below, completely unaware, the Konuari family walked into the mall.
Ready for their adventure.
Ready for whatever came next.
---
To be continued...