The morning of the interview arrived faster than Yuuta had expected.
It felt like only yesterday that he was scrambling through books and papers, trying to absorb everything the Headmaster had told him, practicing dance steps until his feet ached and etiquette rules until his head spun.
But the calendar on the wall did not lie, and the sun streaming through the windows was the sun of the day everything would be decided.
He stood outside the apartment building, waiting near the small flower patch the landlord insisted on maintaining despite the building's general disrepair.
The morning air was cool against his face, carrying the distant sounds of the city waking up, cars starting, birds calling, the murmur of voices from the street beyond.
He was wearing the suit the college had given him. A formal charcoal gray coat, tailored by someone who knew what they were doing, originally intended for a hotel interview he had been preparing for before everything changed.
The fabric was good quality, the fit was right, and for once in his life, he looked like someone who belonged in a place like the Morning Star Elite Academy.
He tugged at his collar, adjusted his tie, smoothed down the front of his jacket. His hair was carefully styled, he had used gel, which he almost never did, and the result made him look almost professional. Almost like a real father. Almost like someone who deserved to be standing beside the woman who was going to change everything.
His mind wandered back to the past few days.
The dance practice, with Erza's hand in his and her waist beneath his palm, her voice sharp and her corrections brutal and her patience, somehow, infinite.
The etiquette lessons, with her showing him which fork to use, how to hold his glass, how to sit without announcing to the world that he had never sat at a table like that before. He had been nervous. He was still nervous.
But she had made him practice until his feet moved without thinking, until his hands found the right positions without searching, until the panic in his chest had quieted to something he could almost ignore.
He owed her for that. More than she knew.
He waited by the flower patch, watching the street for the car the Headmaster had promised to send. The morning light was gold and soft, the shadows long, the air cool enough that he could see his breath misting in front of his face.
He heard footsteps behind him.
"What are you mumbling to yourself?" Her voice was cold, as always, cutting through the morning quiet like a blade.
He turned.
And stopped breathing.
Erza stood in the doorway of the apartment building, wearing the dress she had worn on the first night she appeared in his life, the white imperial dress with golden flowering stripes, the one that made her look like she had stepped out of a painting or a dream or another world entirely. The fabric caught the morning light and held it, shimmering like snow in sunshine, the gold thread gleaming with every breath she took. Her hair was loose, cascading over her shoulders like a waterfall of silver, and her horns, clean now, gleaming, white at the base and black at the tips, rose from her temples like a crown she had been born to wear.
She was not just beautiful. She was something beyond beautiful. Something that made the word feel small and insufficient.
His mind went blank. His heart stopped. His face flooded with color so fast he felt dizzy.
"Beautiful," he blurted, then shook his head.
"No… that's not it. It feels like I'm reducing something endless into a word that can't hold it."
Her eyes went wide. Her heart stopped.
Ba-dump.
Ba-dump.
She had heard compliments before from poets and princes and warriors trying to capture what she was.
She had never cared.
Never listened.
Never let their words touch her.
But his words, stumbling, fumbling, completely inadequate, hit her somewhere she did not know she had.
Her face turned red.
"What the hell. What are you, you cannot just."
He realized what he had said.
"No! I didn't mean, I mean, I did mean, but I didn't mean to say it like that, I was just, you took me by surprise."
She grabbed his hair. His carefully styled, gelled-into-place, absolutely-not-meant-to-be-touched hair.
"You!" She yanked, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make him yelp.
"How dare you flirt with me! A queen! A royal blood! How dare you speak to me like I am some, some."
"My queen! Mercy! Please!" He bent over, following the pull of her hand, hands raised in surrender. "My hair, I just used gel, I spent twenty minutes on it."
"I do not care about your hair!"
"Elena is going to see us!"
She stopped. He stopped. They both looked toward the apartment door, where Elena stood in the doorway, already dressed in the little dress Yuuta had bought for the interview, her hair brushed and braided, her eyes bright with excitement.
She looked at her mother, who had her father by the hair. She looked at her father, who was bent over like a sapling in a storm. She tilted her head.
"Mama," she said, "why are you grabbing Papa's hair? Is it a new game?"
Erza let go. Yuuta straightened, face still red, hair now pointing in seven directions, his carefully constructed professionalism in ruins.
"It is not a game," Erza said, her voice returning to its usual cold, though her face was still pink. "Your father was saying something foolish. I was correcting him."
"Oh." Elena nodded sagely. "Papa says foolish things a lot. That is why Mama hits him."
"That is not true," Yuuta started.
"That is correct," Erza said.
He stared at her. She stared back.
Elena clapped her tiny hands together. "The car is coming! Papa, look!"
Yuuta turned. And his soul left his body.
The car gliding down their cracked, uneven street was not a car. It was a dream given metal form, a machine that belonged in magazines and billionaire documentaries, not on the potholed road outside his apartment building.
A Rolls-Royal, the kind of vehicle that cost more than his apartment building, more than his entire neighborhood, more than he would earn in a lifetime.
Its body was sleek and black, polished to a mirror shine that reflected the morning clouds, and the tech design had been touched by Tesla engineers, meaning somewhere inside that perfect exterior, there was an AI more intelligent than anything Yuuta had ever encountered.
The car stopped. The people on the street stopped too. Mr. Yamamoto froze with his broom mid-swing. Mrs. Hayashi stood in her doorway with her mouth open. Children running to school slowed to a halt, eyes wide, games forgotten. Everyone who had ever lived on this street stood frozen in the presence of something that did not belong here.
Yuuta understood. He could not look away either. This was the car he had seen in articles, in videos, in the fever dreams of people who would never touch anything like it. It was here. In front of his building. Waiting for his family.
Erza looked at the car. She looked at the people staring at it. She looked at Yuuta, who appeared to have forgotten how to breathe.
"It is a box," she said flatly. "A metal box with wheels. I do not understand the fascination."
Yuuta made a sound that might have been agreement or his last breath leaving his body.
Elena tugged at her mother's dress. "Mama! It is so shiny! Like a beetle! A very rich beetle!"
Erza looked at the car again. She still did not see what everyone else saw. It was functional. Adequate. Nothing more. But she looked at Yuuta's face, at the wonder there, and held her tongue.
Elena tugged at his sleeve. "Papa, can Elena touch it? Please?"
Before he could answer, the car door opened, not with a handle or latch, but with a soft hiss of hydraulics, swinging outward to reveal an interior of cream leather and polished wood and screens embedded in surfaces that had no business having screens.
"Greetings, Konuari Family," a voice said. Smooth, warm, perfectly modulated, designed in a laboratory to make people feel welcomed and important. "Please, be seated. I will ensure your journey is comfortable."
Yuuta's mouth fell open. The car talked. The car knew their name. He was going to faint.
Erza did not wait for him to recover.
She walked to the open door with measured grace, her dress brushing the pavement, her horns catching the light, her presence making the gleaming car look like what it was, a machine waiting to serve her.
She ducked slightly to enter, the door was wide, but her horns required space, and settled into the back seat with the ease of someone who had spent her life sitting on thrones.
Yuuta stood frozen for another moment. Then he stepped to the open door, one hand on the frame, and leaned in carefully.
"My Lady," he said, "please allow me to escort you."
Erza looked up at him. He stood like a footman at a palace, his suit neat (if rumpled from her earlier assault), his expression earnest, his hand extended as if she needed help stepping into a car she had already entered. Her face went pink.
She stepped past him without taking his hand, but her steps were slower than necessary, and her eyes stayed on his face longer than they should have. When she settled into the cream leather seat, she looked out the window and said, very quietly,
"Well. That was... adequate. I did not expect that from you."
Yuuta's heart soared. His chest expanded.
His back straightened. His face split into a grin so wide it almost hurt.
After days of being called an idiot and a fool and a pathetic mortal, after all the insults and corrections and times she had hit him for being stupid, he had finally earned a real, genuine, from-the-Dragon-Queen compliment.
"Finally," he breathed. "Finally, I have earned your respect."
Erza's face did not change. Her voice did not change. She looked at him through the open car door with the same cold expression as always.
"Do not get carried away. What you just did is something a child could do. A trained monkey could do it. A particularly well-behaved dog could."
His hope shattered. His grin faded. His shoulders dropped. His heart crashed back to earth and buried itself somewhere near his shoes.
"I see," he said. "Yes. Of course. That makes sense."
He turned away so she would not see his face, walked around the car to the other door, and told himself he had not expected anything different.
Erza watched him go.
Her hands curled in her lap.
She had meant it, the words, even if not the way she said them.
He had been better than good.
He had been something she did not have words for, something that made her heart beat faster and her face go warm and her throat close up so she could not say what she wanted to say. But she was the Dragon Queen. She did not admit that a mortal had made her feel something new.
She looked out the window and pretended she did not care that his face had fallen.
Elena, who had been watching everything with sharp eyes, did not wait to be escorted. She ran toward the open door, launched herself into the car, and landed on the seat beside her mother with a bounce that made the suspension complain.
"Papa! Come! The car is waiting!"
Yuuta climbed into the seat across from them, the backward-facing seat, which felt strange and wrong, and buckled his seatbelt. The door closed on its own, soft and final, sealing them in a world of cream leather and dark wood and the faint smell of something expensive.
"Mr. Yuuta. Miss Erza." The AI's voice was warm and patient. "Please let me know which temperature you would prefer for the interior. I can adjust the climate to your exact specifications."
Yuuta blinked. "Temperature?"
Erza's head tilted slightly. Confused, curious, and, he realized, not going to ask what temperature meant because asking would mean admitting she did not know something.
Elena had no such reservations. "Temp-a-ture! What is temp-a-ture, Papa?"
Yuuta laughed, a small laugh, surprised out of him by her earnest little face. "Temperature, sweetheart. It means we can make the inside of the car hot or cold. Whatever we want."
Elena's eyes went wide. Her wings fluttered. Her tail shot straight out and wagged like a puppy's. "Cold? We can make it cold?"
"Very cold. Cold like Antarctica. Cold like the top of a mountain. Cold like."
"Like home," Erza said quietly.
The words slipped out before she could stop them. She looked out the window, face carefully blank, pretending she had not spoken.
Yuuta did not look at her. He simply turned to the dashboard, where a small light pulsed gently.
"AI. Make the inside cold."
"Of course, Mr. Yuuta. What temperature are you looking for?"
Yuuta thought about Erza's dress, thin and white, the kind of fabric that would not keep anyone warm. He thought about Elena's small body, still growing. He thought about the way Erza had said like home, soft and quiet, like she was letting him see something she did not let anyone see. He thought about the cold that did not bother dragons but would freeze a human solid in minutes.
"Two degrees."
The AI paused. "Two degrees Celsius, Mr. Yuuta? Are you certain?"
He looked at Erza. She was still looking out the window, still pretending she did not care, but her hands had uncurled in her lap, and her shoulders had relaxed, and there was something in her face he had never seen before.
"Yes," he said. "I'm certain."
"Proceeding. Interior temperature will reach two degrees Celsius in approximately thirty seconds."
The air changed. Cooled. Shifted from damp spring warmth to something sharper, cleaner, the kind of cold that made you want to breathe deep and feel it fill your lungs. Not uncomfortable for him in his suit, and not for them, dragons born in places where this cold was summer.
Elena sighed, a long, happy, contented sigh.
Erza closed her eyes. She did not say thank you.
She did not look at him.
But her hand, resting on the seat beside her, uncurled fully, palm up, fingers loose, and she let the cold wash over her like she was coming home.
Yuuta watched her for a moment.
Then he leaned back in his seat, let the cold settle around him, and smiled.
The car rolled onto the Ocean Bridge, and Yuuta forgot how to breathe.
It stretched before them like a ribbon of white concrete suspended between sky and sea, so long that the far end disappeared into the haze of morning light.
Below, the water was deep blue, almost purple, churning against massive pillars that rose from the ocean floor like the legs of ancient giants. Seagulls wheeled overhead, their cries lost to the rush of wind, and in the distance, so far that Yuuta had to squint, an island waited.
The bridge was the longest in the country.
He had seen pictures, read articles, marveled at the engineering.
But pictures had not prepared him for this, the way the bridge seemed to go on forever, the way the sea opened up beneath them like a living thing, the way the island grew larger until it filled the windshield.
The palace rose from the island like something from a dream.
It was not a school or a building. It was a kingdom carved from stone and gold and the ambitions of people who had believed they could create something that would outlast them.
Towers spiraled toward the sky, their roofs tiled in silver that caught the morning light and scattered it like stars. Walls of white stone stretched between them, so tall that Yuuta had to crane his neck to see where they ended.
And everywhere, gold trim on windows, gold leaf on domes, gold light reflecting off surfaces polished for centuries.
This had been a palace once. A real palace, the kind kings and queens had lived in, the kind wars had been fought over. Now it was a school, but it had not forgotten what it was. The Morning Star Elite Academy wore its history like a crown, and Yuuta, who had never been anywhere more grand than the university library, felt very, very small.
He looked at Erza.
He had been waiting for this. All day, through the dance practice and etiquette lessons and endless preparation, he had been waiting.
She had dismissed everything human, the cities, the technology, the small wonders of his world, as primitive, as the efforts of children playing at civilization. But this. Surely, she would have to admit that humans had made something great.
He waited for her to speak.
She did not.
Her face was turned toward the window, her profile sharp against the gold light, her expression unreadable. She was watching the palace grow closer, the towers rise, the walls expand. She said nothing.
Elena pressed her face against the glass, breath fogging the window, eyes so wide they seemed to take up her whole face.
"Mama! Look! It is like our Hydra house! It is so big!"
Yuuta's attention snapped to his daughter.
"Hydra? What is Hydra?"
Elena turned to him, words tumbling out in the way children's words did when they were too excited to care about order.
"Hydra is a dog! A very big dog! We had a Hydra at home! It had five heads! It was very fierce but also very friendly! Its house was this big!" She threw her arms out to demonstrate.
Yuuta caught her before she hit the door. "Hydra is a dog with five heads that lives in a house the size of a palace."
"Yes, Papa!"
He looked at Erza. She was still watching the palace approach, but there was something in her face now, a tilt at the corner of her mouth, a lightness in her eyes he had never seen before. She was waiting. She was enjoying this.
"The Hydra house," she said, her voice perfectly composed, "is smaller than my palace. Much smaller."
Yuuta stared.
Then he pointed at the palace outside the window, the towers, the domes, the walls that stretched for what seemed like miles.
"This is the size of your dog house? This enormous, ridiculous, I-cannot-believe-this-exists building is where your dog lives?"
Erza turned to look at him fully, and this time she did not hide the amusement, the warmth, the thing she kept hidden behind her cold mask. Her lips curved, just slightly, just enough to let him know she was enjoying this more than she should.
"You think I would be impressed by a dog house?" Her voice was light and teasing and almost playful. "You thought the Dragon Queen would look at this and find it remarkable?"
Yuuta's face went red.
"I did not, I was not, I just thought maybe for once you would admit that humans had built something worth noticing."
"Well." She leaned back, her tail curling around her ankle.
"It seems someone is disappointed that I am not impressed by his little dog house."
"I am not disappointed!"
"You are pouting."
"I am not pouting! This is my normal face!"
"This is your pouting face. It is very unattractive."
Yuuta opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.
Nothing came out. He turned to the window, face burning, and stared at the palace that was no longer a palace but a dog house, and told himself he was not pouting.
Behind him, Erza smiled, a small smile, the kind she did not let anyone see, the kind that only appeared when he was being stupid enough to make her forget she was supposed to be untouchable.
She thought about her palace.
The halls that stretched so far she had gotten lost as a child. The throne room that could fit this entire building inside it.
The towers that touched clouds humans had never seen. She would watch Yuuta wander those halls, she decided, from the highest tower. She would not help him. It would be the most entertaining thing in centuries.
She smiled again, and did not hide it. "Someday," she said, so quietly that only she could hear,
"I will throw you in my palace and watch you run. Like a mouse in a maze. It will be very entertaining."
Yuuta shivered, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. He looked around the car, at the cold air still circulating, at the windows fogged with Elena's breath, at Erza's face, which was... was she smiling? No. She was looking out the window, cold and distant, the same as always.
He must have imagined it.
"Someone is planning to torture me to death," he muttered, and did not notice the way Erza's eyes flickered toward him, bright and amused, before turning back to the window.
The car passed through the palace gates, and the world changed.
The bridge was behind them, the sea hidden by walls of white stone, and ahead, the grounds of the Morning Star Elite Academy spread out like a kingdom waiting to be explored. Gardens where soldiers had once drilled. Fountains where horses had once drunk.
Courtyards where armies had once gathered. Everything had been transformed, barracks into dormitories, training fields into sports grounds, the armory into a library, but the bones remained. This had been a fortress, a palace, a place where power lived. And power, Yuuta was learning, did not forget where it had been.
The car stopped in a parking lot that had once been an army camp.
The asphalt was smooth, the lines freshly painted, the spaces marked with gold lettering.
There were cars here already, expensive cars, the kind that made the Rolls-Royal seem almost ordinary, and people in suits and dresses that cost more than Yuuta's entire wardrobe.
He looked at them.
He looked at his borrowed suit.
He looked at Erza, already out of the car, her white dress catching the morning light, her horns gleaming, her face the cold, untouchable mask she wore when she was about to remind the world what she was.
Elena was the last to leave.
She took her father's hand and her mother's hand, and walked between them like a princess between her guards, head high, steps sure, tail curling behind her like a banner.
"Papa," she said, her voice small but steady, "is this where Elena goes to school?"
He looked down at her, at her silver hair and red eyes, at the face that held his world. "Yes, little one. This is where you go to school."
She squeezed his hand.
"Then Elena will be very brave. Like Papa. Like Mama."
He looked at Erza.
She was not looking at him, her eyes fixed on the palace ahead, on the doors opening, on the future waiting.
But her hand was in his.
And she did not let go.
Yuuta stretched, rolling his shoulders to shake the last traces of nervousness from his muscles. Beside him, Erza stood with her back straight and chin high, her white dress catching the morning light, her silver hair falling around her face like something from a dream.
They looked, Yuuta realized with a strange jolt, like they belonged together.
Like the parents around them, the rich, the powerful, the people born to places like this, were the ones who did not belong.
The other parents had noticed them.
He could feel their eyes on Erza, on her beauty, on her dress, on the impossible perfection of her face. He could feel their eyes on him too, and for once, it was not because he looked out of place.
He had thrown away his contact lenses weeks ago, the morning after Erza had seen his real eyes and not run away.
Now his crimson eyes were bare to the world, catching the light, making him look like someone who had secrets. Like someone who was not ordinary. Like someone who belonged beside her.
He took a breath. He stepped forward. He offered his hand, just as she had taught him, palm up, fingers relaxed, the gesture of someone inviting, not demanding.
"My lady," he said, his voice steady, "let me escort you."
Erza looked at his hand. Something flickered across her face, something she tried to hide. Her heart, which had beat steadily for centuries, beat faster. Her face, which had been cold, warmed. Her hand reached for him.
Their fingers touched.
The world did not change.
The sun did not dim.
The palace did not tremble.
Nothing happened that anyone else would notice. But they noticed. Their hearts beat together, not one after the other, not fast and slow, but together, perfectly, as if they had always been beating this way and had only just noticed.
Yuuta felt her heartbeat through her palm. Erza felt his through his fingers. They stood frozen, their hands clasped between them, their faces inches apart, their hearts speaking a language neither knew how to name.
"Mama? Papa?" Elena's voice cut through the silence like a bell.
"What are you doing?"
They broke apart.
Their faces went red, red like tomatoes, like sunset, like the color that crept up their necks and spread across their cheeks.
Yuuta laughed, nervous, too high, unconvincing.
"Well, you see, sweetheart, Daddy was just being a gentleman. Escorting your mother. Like gentlemen do."
"Yes," Erza said, her voice too fast, too bright, too unlike her usual cold control.
"That is all. I was simply observing how your father was doing with the escorting. Which he did. Adequately."
She laughed, a small, nervous laugh, the kind she had never laughed before in her life.
She was hiding something, and doing it badly, and the fact that she was doing it at all was so strange, so unprecedented, that Yuuta forgot to be embarrassed and just stared.
Elena looked at her mother, then her father, then their red faces and clasped hands. "Mama, Papa, you look beautiful together. Like angels."
She turned and walked toward the palace, small feet echoing on stone, tail swaying behind her, unaware of what she had done.
Erza and Yuuta stood frozen, hands still clasped, faces still red, hearts still beating together.
Erza coughed. "Do not get your hopes up. Just because our daughter says something foolish does not mean, this is for the deal. The interview. Nothing more."
Yuuta looked away, face still burning, heart still pounding. "Yes. I know, my queen. Nothing more."
They walked toward the palace together, hands still clasped, steps matching without meaning to, hearts still beating in the same impossible rhythm. Neither let go.
The Grand Hall of Morning Star Elite Academy was not a room. It was a world.
Columns of white marble rose toward a ceiling painted with clouds and angels.
Floors of black and white stone stretched into a distance that seemed to go on forever.
Chandeliers of crystal scattered light into rainbows that moved across the walls like living things.
And everywhere, there were people. Parents in clothes that cost more than Yuuta's apartment. Children with the sharp, polished look of those trained for this moment since birth. Teachers in robes that marked them as something more than ordinary.
They filled the hall with their voices and their presence, all waiting for the interview that would decide who was worthy.
Yuuta stood at the entrance, Erza's hand still in his, and looked at the room.
His heart pounded.
His palms sweated.
Every instinct told him to turn around, to find somewhere small and dark and safe. But Erza's hand was in his, and Elena was waiting, and he had promised.
He straightened his back.
Lifted his chin.
Walked into the room, not like a boy who had grown up in an orphanage with nothing but a car that barely ran, but like a man who had a queen at his side and a daughter to fight for.
And for the first time in his life, he did not feel like he was pretending.
To be continued...