My Happy Marriage (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.2

The rains of the past rapidly faded into the distance.

He was pulled back into the present by the steamy aroma floating up from his coffee cup.

Across from Kiyoka, Koumyouin, too, looked as though he had left his soul somewhere in the past.

“Never mind actually, I take back what I said,” Koumyouin suddenly murmured.

“Take back what?”

As far as Kiyoka was concerned, Koumyouin had plenty of indelicate or inconsiderate comments he needed to take back. Which one was he referring to exactly?

He blinked in genuine confusion, and Koumyouin scratched his cheek awkwardly.

“When I said you never really change.”

“Oh, that one.”

“…Don’t make it sound like there was a buncha options to choose from.”

“Well, there were.”

Stone-faced, Kiyoka brought his coffee cup to his lips.

The coffee that slipped down his throat was slightly tepid yet still delicious and aromatic. They must have used good beans and brewed it meticulously.

He would have liked to replicate it himself, but he wondered what Miyo would say to him if he began to get obsessive about coffee at home after leaving the military.

“You’ve changed. I didn’t really think that when you became commander, but now that you’re hitched? Yeah, you’ve changed all right.”

“…I’m still the same as I’ve always been.”

“Nah, you’re different. You don’t get the sorta face you wore back at Commander Godou’s funeral, do you?”

Kiyoka had no way of verifying what his own face looked like. When he remained silent, pretending not to know what Koumyouin meant, the man continued.

“Up until I saw you the other day, you always had this tense, strained look on your face. Like a string or thread wound up tight enough to snap at any moment… Part of that’s my fault, huh? I’ve wanted to apologize to you for a while.”

Kiyoka had an idea of what Koumyouin was trying to say.

Obviously, he had matured since that day. While not perfect, he could imagine and understand what Koumyouin had been feeling back then…and what Yoshito had been, too.

“You remember what I said to you when we met at the funeral?”

“…”

“I probably wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t right of me to say, neither. Anyway, that wasn’t what I should’ve said to you back then.”

Given Koumyouin’s lack of sensitivity, Kiyoka wondered how much worry, reflection, and regret it had taken for the man to eventually arrive at this conclusion. Just imagining this gave him a pretty good idea.

Of course he remembered what Koumyouin had said to him. It would be hard for him to forget.

He’d said that Itsuto had thrust two choices in front of Kiyoka—his dreams or his duty as a Gift-user—to make him come to grips with the heavy responsibility he bore.

“Now I get it, too. The commander wanted to question if you truly had resolve. No doubt ’bout that. It’s just, I bet that even if you chose a path outside of using your Gift, he would have planned on supporting you, too.”

“…”

“The commander wasn’t just asking if you had the resolve; he probably wanted to give you the last chance to choose a different life for yourself. You were really important to him, and all.”

Kiyoka quietly returned his cup to its saucer. There was a light clinking sound.

“And ’cause I didn’t fully think it through, just laid everything out to you before I could really get to the answers, you blamed yourself way more than you should have.”

“…You may be right.”

Letting out a sigh, Kiyoka looked straight back at Koumyouin.

As ever, the man’s kindhearted way of thinking was totally at odds with his features. Leading the way to a hopeful conclusion was his forte.

“Both you and I were too immature. Hopelessly so.”

“Sure were.”

“Once time passed, my emotions cooled, and my positions changed… Only then did some things finally become clear.”

Like Koumyouin, Kiyoka had ascertained Itsuto’s true intentions for a while. He’d understood only after becoming the unit commander, gaining many subordinates of his own, and fighting alongside them.

Kiyoka now knew that Itsuto had been primarily testing his resolve. However, there had to be a part of Itsuto that wanted Kiyoka to have a dream of his own, too. He must have believed it would be alright for Kiyoka to have a path of escape, away from the heavy responsibilities he had shouldered from a young age.

To Kiyoka, Itsuto had been a consistently kindhearted mentor; a guide, a father, and an older brother.

“Y’know, Kiyoka, thing is…”

“Yes?”

“When I heard you were planning to leave the military, lemme tell ya, that came as a shocker to me.”

“I can see that. Even I didn’t think that the day would come where I could make a choice like this.”

Then, why? Koumyouin’s eyes were filled with this question.

Kiyoka gave a strained smile.

Of course Koumyouin would be confused. From the day Kiyoka had chosen to join the military, he’d avoided all other pursuits entirely, to the point of writing his notice of withdrawal from school. Naturally, his parents hadn’t permitted him to drop out altogether, but Kiyoka had been serious about it.

He only did the bare minimum for the lectures, coursework, and research he had once worked so hard at, and instead spent all his time exterminating Grotesqueries.

Kiyoka had isolated himself to the point where everything else became a nuisance to him, and he continued confronting Grotesqueries until he graduated, whereupon he immediately joined the military.

His professors, upperclassman, and other classmates had seemed to lament the change in Kiyoka, and Chida, who’d spent a fair amount of time with him, had pressed him to know what had changed, but Kiyoka couldn’t possibly answer him. Before long, everyone had distanced themselves from him.

Although he’d never had trouble being alone to begin with, from that day forward, his descent into solitude accelerated even faster.

This was likely why he’d grown so stubborn about fulfilling his Gift-user role and treating all the marriage prospects that came his way so coldly.

Before he knew it, he’d developed the habit of going into relationships with people expecting rejection.

Being a military man was, to Kiyoka, a sort of symbol for who he had been ever since that day. Not something trivial that he could cast aside on a whim.

However.

“If Mr. Godou saw me after I got engaged, he probably would’ve shoved the same two choices in my face again.”

As if to tell him to choose one or the other, and not be half-hearted about all of it. Kiyoka was sure that Itsuto would surely have tried to guide him again like that.

“And if I chose my duty as a Gift-user this time…he probably would have punched me.”

Itsuto had also cherished his family.

The woman who had become Kiyoka’s wife was a bit different from the average wife of a distinguished family, who stayed at home and took on all the domestic responsibilities. While she was a perfect fit for the Kudous, Kiyoka needed to give everything he had to protect her, or she could get wrapped up in someone’s trouble at a moment’s notice.

Nevertheless, he could no longer imagine himself without her by his side.

That meant he needed to look out for her, even if he left the military and cast aside the choice he’d made that day, along with everything that had become part of his identity up until now.

Koumyouin laughed, a wry smile coming to his face.

“Ha-ha-ha. Oh yeah, that’d be a justifiable reason to hit you all right. No doubt about it. This time, there’s no question you’re making the right decision.”

The spring sun streamed through the window and onto the table, giving off a soft light. The two men were enveloped in radiant warmth.

The sound of rain that had remained so long inside Kiyoka’s mind had gone utterly silent.

By the time Kiyoka got home, the sun had completely set.

He and Koumyouin had talked into the afternoon, then parted ways before dusk set in. Kiyoka had gone back to the station for work, and it had gotten late in the blink of an eye.

While he certainly was a bit displeased that he was forced to work this much just after getting married, if the Earth Spider had revived and was attacking people again, he couldn’t afford to be careless.

This’ll probably be my last job as a military man.

This time, he would defeat the Earth Spider for good and retire without the slightest misgiving whatsoever. Now was the time to exert himself to make that happen.

Kiyoka stopped his car on the grounds of the house, getting out and walking toward the entryway.

As he did, Miyo came out to greet him, wrapped in a delicately colored kimono with a pattern of tiny flowers, a slight smile on her face.

She came up to him with short, tottering steps. Adorable.

“I’m home.”

“Welcome home, Kiyoka.”

Their eyes met, and they both smiled.

Mr. Godou, I’ll do it right his time.

He thought of his dear, deceased friend. If Itsuto was watching over Kiyoka somewhere, then Kiyoka was certain that at that moment, he would be cheerfully smiling just as he had in the past.

The long rains had abated, fall had come and gone, and with winter past…now spring had come.