Dinner was... peaceful.
That was the only word for it, the only way to describe the strange, quiet warmth that had settled over the small apartment like a blanket against the night. The three of them sat around the tiny table—Yuuta on one side, Erza across from him, Elena perched on a cushion between them like a small, happy queen presiding over her domain. Steam rose from bowls of curry rice, fragrant with spices and warmth, carrying the smell of home through every corner of the space. The evening light filtered through the windows, painting everything in soft gold, making even the worn furniture look beautiful.
Elena ate with the enthusiasm only a four-year-old could muster, her small hands wrapped around her spoon like it was a precious treasure.
"Papa! This dish is so good!" She shoveled another spoonful into her mouth with reckless abandon, her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk storing nuts for winter. "What is it called?!"
Yuuta smiled, the expression reaching his eyes in a way it hadn't all day.
"It's called curry, sweetheart. Made with spices and chicken."
"Curry!" Elena tested the word, rolling it around her mouth like a new flavor. "Cur-ry! Papa loves this dish too!"
She giggled, a sound so pure and joyful that it seemed to chase away every shadow in the room.
Her joy was infectious.
Yuuta laughed despite himself, despite everything.
"I'm glad you like it, Elena."
He looked down at his own bowl, at the food he'd prepared with such care.
His smile faded.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
Across the table, Erza noticed.
She always noticed.
It was a skill honed over centuries of court politics, of assassination attempts disguised as compliments, of enemies smiling while holding knives behind their backs. She had learned to read people the way others read books—every flicker of expression, every shift in posture, every shadow that passed behind the eyes.
Her chopsticks paused mid-movement, hovering over her bowl. Her violet eyes fixed on his face, studying him with the intensity of someone who had spent centuries decoding the secrets hidden in human expressions. Something was wrong. She could feel it—a shift in the air around him, a weight in his posture that hadn't been there before, a shadow behind his eyes that spoke of thoughts he wasn't sharing.
"What happened?"
The words came out colder than she intended.
They always did.
It was safer that way.
"Why do you look so pathetic today?"
Yuuta looked up.
Forced a smile.
It was a good smile. Convincing, even. Anyone else would have believed it.
But she wasn't anyone else.
"I'm okay." He took another bite, chewing mechanically. "Just thinking about something."
He ate without tasting.
Stared without seeing.
Erza's chest tightened.
She didn't understand the feeling. Didn't want to understand it. Had spent centuries cultivating distance precisely to avoid feelings like this—complicated, messy, human feelings that served no purpose and brought only pain.
But watching him sit there, watching him pretend to be fine when clearly something was wrong, watching him carry whatever weight had settled on his shoulders alone—
It made her feel... uncomfortable.
More than uncomfortable.
Upset.
She didn't like it.
Didn't want it.
Didn't know what to do with it.
So she did what she always did when confronted with something she couldn't handle.
She used magic.
"Memory Reading."
The words were barely a whisper, barely a breath, less sound than thought. A gentle probe, the lightest touch of her power against the surface of his mind. Nothing invasive. Nothing harmful. Just enough to see what he was hiding, what was troubling him, what had happened while she wasn't watching.
Yuuta didn't hear.
Didn't notice.
Didn't feel the brush of her consciousness against his.
But Erza felt everything.
The memory unfolded before her like a play staged for an audience of one.
She stood on a rooftop—invisible, intangible, a ghost in someone else's past. The wind moved through her without resistance. The evening light passed around her like she wasn't there. And before her, Yuuta and a girl she didn't recognize faced each other against the fading sky.
The girl was beautiful.
That was the first thing Erza noticed.
Young. Maybe early twenties. Dark hair that caught the light, amber eyes that burned with intensity, the kind of face that made men do foolish things. She stood close to Yuuta, too close, her expression a mixture of desperation and conviction.
"I love you, Yuuta."
Erza's blood went cold.
"Let's run away together."
Run away?
Together?
With her?
"Your wife is a monster! We can get rid of her!"
The words hit Erza like a physical blow.
Get rid of her.
Get rid of me.
Her hands curled into fists beneath the table where she still sat physically, even as her consciousness remained trapped in the memory.
"She cast a spell on you. She's made you forget who you really are."
Erza's jaw tightened.
Her teeth ground together.
For one terrible moment—one frozen heartbeat where the world seemed to hold its breath—she wondered.
Is he planning to get rid of me?
Is this what he wants?
Is this why he looks so troubled?
Her heart—that ancient, frozen heart that she'd thought incapable of feeling anything but cold—clenched with an emotion she couldn't name. Rage? Jealousy? Fear?
She watched Yuuta's reaction, waiting for the betrayal she knew would come. This was how humans worked, after all. She had learned that lesson centuries ago, in the frozen wastes of her childhood, in the courts of her youth, in every interaction she'd ever had with their kind. They were weak. They were fickle. They ran from responsibility. They abandoned their commitments. They chose the easy path over the right one, every single time.
He would agree.
He would leave.
He would choose this pretty human girl over the monster who threatened his life.
He would—
"Stop calling her a monster."
Erza froze.
"She might be exactly what you say. A demon. A witch. A being from another world who could kill me without effort."
Yuuta's voice was quiet.
But firm.
"But she has never harmed me. Not really. Not in any way that mattered."
The girl argued. Her voice rose, desperate and shrill, the words tumbling over each other in their rush to convince him. Erza didn't hear them. Couldn't hear them. Her entire focus was on Yuuta—on his face, his voice, the absolute certainty in his words.
He didn't waver.
"I know she'll probably kill me eventually. I have one year. One year to prove myself. One year to convince her not to end my existence."
He laughed.
Bitter.
Sad.
True.
"And you know what? Compared to what I deserve, that's mercy."
"What are you talking about?"
"What I did to her... before she came here... before Elena..." He couldn't finish. "I deserve worse than death, Fiona. Much worse."
Erza's breath caught.
He thinks he deserves death.
For what happened that night.
For something he doesn't even remember doing.
"Don't take away my only comfort." His voice cracked, raw with emotion. "Don't try to destroy the first happiness I've ever known. Even if it's temporary. Even if it ends in death."
"You will die by her hand."
"Then let me."
The words hung in the air, heavy with meaning.
"I would rather die by her hand than live alone, Fiona."
He turned away.
Walked toward the door.
Paused.
"Do whatever you want. I don't care anymore."
The door closed.
The memory faded.
---
Erza sat at the dinner table.
Her face was pale—paler than usual, which was saying something for a woman whose skin already held the translucent quality of moonlight on snow. Her hand trembled slightly as she held her spoon, a barely perceptible tremor that would have been invisible to anyone who hadn't spent centuries learning to control every muscle, every breath, every sign of weakness.
Anyone except her.
She noticed.
She always noticed.
And the fact that she couldn't stop it, couldn't control it, couldn't banish this physical manifestation of her inner turmoil with all her centuries of discipline—that frightened her more than anything.
Her mind raced through centuries of experience, searching for precedent, searching for explanation, searching for any framework that could make sense of what she'd just witnessed in Yuuta's memory.
She found none.
In all her years—
All her centuries of rule and war and survival—
All the humans she'd encountered, conquered, dismissed as beneath her notice—
She had never met one like him.
He fought for me.
The thought echoed through her mind, refusing to be silenced.
Against a beautiful girl who wanted him.
Against the chance to escape, to run away, to return to a normal life.
Against his own survival instinct.
He chose me.
Knowing I might kill him.
Knowing I've threatened him repeatedly.
Knowing I've given him no reason to trust me, no reason to care, no reason to do anything but fear me.
He chose me anyway.
Her eyes lifted to his face across the table.
He was eating.
Quietly.
Unaware of the storm raging behind her carefully controlled expression.
Still carrying that weight he thought she couldn't see, those thoughts he believed were hidden, that impossible burden of guilt for something he didn't even remember doing.
Why?
The question burned in her mind like acid.
Why would anyone—especially a human, especially this weak, pathetic, fragile human—choose certain death over a comfortable life?
Why would he—
Erza set down her spoon.
The sound was soft—barely a tap against the ceramic bowl, barely audible over Elena's cheerful chatter about her drawing. But to Yuuta, it might as well have been a thunderclap, a warning, a declaration of war.
"Fiona."
She said the name like it tasted bitter, like it was poison on her tongue, like it was something to be scraped off and discarded and never spoken again.
Yuuta's face twisted.
Not with guilt.
Not with the shame of being caught.
With fear.
Genuine, primal fear.
"Who is she?" Erza's voice was quiet. Controlled. The kind of quiet that preceded avalanches, that warned of death approaching. "This ugly human who clings to you like a parasite?"
Yuuta's mouth went dry.
His heart stopped.
Then started again, twice as fast.
How does she know Fiona's name?
How does she know anything about Fiona?
He hadn't mentioned her. Hadn't spoken about the rooftop. Hadn't said a single word about the conversation that still echoed in his mind, the desperate pleas, the accusations, the offer of escape that had tempted him for exactly one moment before he remembered what he'd be leaving behind.
"She's..." He swallowed hard, his throat working against nothing. "She's my childhood friend."
"Childhood friend." Erza repeated the words like they offended her, like the very concept was an insult to her existence. "A childhood friend who wants to get rid of me. A childhood friend who calls me a monster. "
Yuuta's spoon slipped from his suddenly numb fingers.
It clattered against the table.
Rolled in a lazy circle.
Fell to the floor with a soft thud.
He didn't pick it up.
Couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't do anything but stare at the woman across from him, because in that moment, he saw death standing before him.
Not metaphorically.
Not as a figure of speech.
Death.
Violet eyes burning with an inner fire that had nothing to do with heat. Silver hair crackling with energy that made the air itself feel charged, electric, wrong. An aura building around her that made the temperature drop and the light dim and the very fabric of reality seem to bend under its weight.
"How..." His voice was barely a whisper, barely human, barely existent. "How do you know that?"
Erza's lips curved.
It was not a smile.
It was the expression a predator wore when it had finally cornered its prey.
"Do you think I am unaware?" She rose from her seat, and the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees. "Do you think your pathetic human brain can hide anything from me?"
Yuuta's mind raced.
Her magic.
Memory magic.
She can... she can see...
"Who is this girl?" Erza's voice grew colder with each word, each syllable dropping the temperature further, each breath frosting in the air between them. "How dare she claim she can eliminate me? Me? Who rules the entire Atlantian Continent? Me? Whom even gods fear to challenge in fair combat?"
The aura erupted.
Not physically—not yet. The apartment didn't freeze. The walls didn't crack. The world didn't end.
But Yuuta saw it.
For just a second—a fraction of a heartbeat, less time than it took for a thought to form—the air around Erza shimmered. Shifted. Became.
A dragon.
Massive.
Terrible.
Real.
Its scales gleamed like frozen moonlight. Its eyes burned like dying stars. Its presence filled every corner of the room, every corner of his mind, every corner of existence.
Its eyes burned into his soul.
Its presence crushed his chest.
Its existence overwhelmed everything he was, everything he'd ever been, everything he could ever hope to become.
Yuuta's body reacted before his mind could catch up.
He doubled over.
His stomach heaved.
Bile rose in his throat, hot and acidic and undeniable.
He vomited onto the floor, clutching his stomach with both hands, his body convulsing with the force of it. The pressure—the weight of her aura—was too much. Too immense. Too far beyond anything a human should ever experience, should ever survive, should ever be expected to endure.
"Papa!" Elena's voice cut through the haze like sunlight through clouds. "Papa! What's wrong?! Papa!"
She ran to him.
Her tiny hands pressed against his back, warm and solid and real.
Her tiny voice filled with fear that broke his heart even as his body continued to rebel.
"Mama, what's wrong with Papa?!"
Erza's aura vanished.
Instantly.
Completely.
Like it had never been there at all.
She stared at Yuuta—at his shaking form hunched over on the floor, at the vomit spreading across the worn tatami, at the way he gasped for air like a drowning man finally breaking the surface. Her hand twitched at her side. Reached out. Almost touched him.
Then stopped.
Her ego.
Her pride.
Her centuries of never showing weakness, never admitting care, never letting anyone see that she was capable of anything but cold indifference.
They held her back.
"Tch." She looked away, her voice flat and dismissive. "Useless mortal. How weak you are."
She sat down.
Picked up her spoon.
Continued eating her curry like nothing had happened, like the man on her floor wasn't gasping and shaking, like her daughter wasn't crying and scared.
But her eyes—
Her eyes never left him.
They tracked his every breath, every tremor, every sign that he was still alive.
And beneath the cold mask, beneath the centuries of control, beneath everything she'd built to protect herself—
Something cracked.
Just a little.
Just enough.
---
Yuuta stayed on the floor for a long moment.
Breathing.
Just breathing.
The world had narrowed to the simple act of pulling air into his lungs and releasing it again, the most basic function of life, the thing he'd been doing without thought since the moment he was born. Now it required focus. Now it required effort. Now it was the only thing he could manage.
Elena patted his back with her tiny hands, her little face scrunched with worry that looked far too old for her four years, her voice murmuring reassurances that sounded nothing like the words she was actually saying. She didn't understand what had happened. Didn't understand why her father was on the floor, shaking and sick. But she understood that he needed comfort, and she gave it without hesitation, because that was who she was.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, he pushed himself up.
His body protested.
His legs wobbled.
But he made it to the sink, grabbed a glass of water, drank deeply. The cool liquid helped settle his stomach, helped clear his head, helped him remember how to be human.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Sat back down at the table.
The curry sat before him, cold now, the steam long since vanished, the surface congealing into something unappetizing. He didn't care. Food was the furthest thing from his mind.
"My Queen." His voice was hoarse, scraped raw by vomiting and fear. "Please don't kill her."
Erza's spoon stopped mid-air, frozen between bowl and mouth.
"What?"
"Fiona." He couldn't meet her eyes. Looked at his hands instead—at the hands that had held hers on that bench, at the hands that had touched her cheek, at the hands that were trembling now for reasons that had nothing to do with cold. "Please don't kill Fiona Your Highness."
The temperature dropped again.
The familiar chill crept across his skin.
"You dare make requests of me?" Erza's voice was ice, sharp enough to cut. "You, who can't even withstand my presence for a moment? You, who collapses at the merest hint of my power? You dare ask favors?"
"Please."
"Why should I spare someone who wants me dead? Someone who calls me a monster? Someone who plots to take you away from—" She stopped herself, the words catching in her throat.
Yuuta finally looked up.
Met her eyes.
"She's like me."
Erza paused.
Her expression flickered—just for an instant, just enough for him to notice.
"She lost her parents when she was young. She grew up alone in that orphanage with nothing and no one. She's scared and confused and making terrible decisions because she doesn't know what else to do, because no one ever taught her how to be better." His voice cracked on the last words. "She's like me, Your Highness. She's exactly like me before you came into my life."
Erza stared at him.
Unreadable.
Impenetrable.
"And what? I should forgive her because she shares your tragic backstory? Because she grew up sad and lonely? That doesn't excuse trying to destroy me."
"No." Yuuta shook his head slowly. "I'm not asking you to forgive her. I'm asking you not to kill her. There's a difference ."
He swallowed, his throat working against nothing.
"I don't want blood shed in my presence. I'm afraid of blood. I've been afraid of it my whole life, ever since—" He stopped. Shook his head. "Please. Just... just warn her. Tell her to stay away. Tell her what happens if she comes near us again. But don't kill her. Your highness."
Erza was silent.
The silence stretched.
Grew heavy.
Became unbearable.
"I don't care about your human sentiments," she said finally, her voice cold and dismissive. But something in it had shifted—a subtle change that he couldn't quite identify. "If you want that girl to live, tell her not to mess with me. That's all I can offer."
Yuuta looked at her.
At her cold face, carved from ice and centuries of solitude.
At her unreadable eyes that gave away nothing.
At the queen who had just offered him a mercy she never gave anyone, who had just bent her own rules because he'd asked.
And in that moment—
He understood.
She doesn't love me.
The realization hit him like a physical blow, like the lion's claws all over again, like falling thirty-three feet onto hard ground.
She's never loved me. The hand-holding, the zoo, the protection—it was all to keep me alive. To ensure she could kill me herself when the time comes. To maintain her claim.
I'm not her partner.
I'm not her family.
I'm just... prey she's not ready to eat yet.
He stood.
Slowly.
Mechanically.
His body moved without his mind's participation, going through motions that required no thought.
He picked up his bowl—cold, untouched, forgotten.
Walked to the sink.
Placed it inside.
Then Elena's bowl.
Then the utensils.
His movements were automatic. Empty. A body going through the motions while the mind retreated somewhere far away, somewhere safe, somewhere he couldn't feel the weight of what he'd just realized.
"Papa?" Elena's voice was small, confused, worried. "Where are you going?"
Yuuta grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door. His fingers fumbled with the fabric, clumsy and uncoordinated.
"Well, little princess..." He didn't turn around. Couldn't. If he turned around and saw her face—saw their faces—he would break. "Daddy has to go to work. He has to run the house, you know?"
"But it's night time."
"Work doesn't stop at night, sweetheart." His voice was wrong. Too bright. Too cheerful. The voice he used when he was falling apart inside.
He opened the door.
Paused.
Looked back.
Elena stood in the middle of the room, her rabbit costume dirty from the zoo, her drawing clutched in her hands, her eyes confused and sad and searching for an explanation he couldn't give.
Erza sat at the table, still as stone, watching him with that unreadable expression that he'd just realized meant nothing. Nothing at all.
"I'll be back," he said.
And left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Elena stared at the closed door.
Then at her mother.
"Mama?"
Her voice was small.
Frightened.
Confused.
"What?"
"Is Papa sad?"
Erza didn't answer.
Didn't move.
Didn't blink.
But her hand—
Her hand tightened around her spoon.
To be continued...
.