Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 20 - Chapter SS2

An Adult Secret

He often felt that something as simple as surviving a little longer than the people around you can become a weight on your shoulders, making it impossible to move. It wasn’t just about age. The name Akira had been around so long that, despite the fact that it belonged to him, it had taken on a life of its own, narrowing his path.

Even as he lay next to his wife Miho in their tent, he could sometimes feel his heart trying to act in ways that were like someone else who was not him. For example, though he heard Miho’s shallow breaths next to him, and their arms were touching, he still felt an indescribable loneliness occasionally. When he had felt that way in his younger years, he would have hugged her tight, or kissed her. And even if she acted like it was a nuisance, she’d accepted him indulgently.

Even now, if he did the same thing, she might be a little surprised, but she wouldn’t go so far as to push him away. They had tried for a long time, but were never able to have children. They had talked about it, though, and had made a decision one night. There was something wrong with one or perhaps both of them, and it meant that the future they had been hoping for would never arrive. They hadn’t so much given up as accepted the way things were, and that they had to move on. That was the conclusion they had reached.

After that, the two had stopped having sex. They even hesitated to kiss. That irritated him sometimes. Even if she would never have his child, he still loved her. And surely she loved him as well. There shouldn’t have been anything stopping them from making love like before.

He had considered asking her about it. In fact, if the opportunity arose, he still wanted to ask her this very moment. But how was he supposed to go about it? Even though he wanted to hold her in his arms, he couldn’t help but hesitate. Could he just talk to her about his desire for her honestly? If he spoke up, she’d give him some kind of answer. She might even put up with him making love to her once in a while. But did he need to ask her to ‘put up with’ it? Maybe she wanted it too. Perhaps she felt the same hesitation he did. Although, thinking about it a little, she had almost never been the one to initiate. Once she had no reason to respond to his advances, she might not have wanted it anymore. In other words, if there was no hope of them having children, then she didn’t need to accept him anymore.

No one would have imagined that the man called a living legend was agonizing over something like this.

The man who often went on about how he wasn’t young anymore, or how he was getting on in years, didn’t even have the courage to hold the one woman he loved when she was sleeping right next to him. He spent his sleepless nights feeling alone and empty.

“Miho,” he called her name.

Her soft breathing remained unchanged.

His faint hope that she would wake up deflated, and the loss left him with a cold pain which quickly spread throughout his whole body.

He’d never thought getting old would feel like this. He had thought that as he grew in years, he would become more mature. Was he still not an adult even at his age? No, of course he was. That was why he wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anyone. It was his secret, and he would carry it to the grave. Now he just had to hope he’d die in a way that let him have a grave.