By Zephyria 
I wanted to go see Nasser right away, but I couldn’t. I decided to postpone meeting him and deal with the immediate matter first.
Following Mahir’s suggestion that we shouldn’t make a big farewell since we weren’t parting forever and would meet again soon, I simply waved my hand lightly.
“I’ll be back.”
Aska also waved his hand, following my lead. Mahir, who had been watching us, reached out and hugged both of us at the same time.
“Don’t get hurt, don’t get sick, and eat well.”
“Don’t worry.”
I hesitated for a moment, but soon relaxed and leaned into Mahir’s embrace. Aska glanced at me, seemingly surprised. Since our marriage, I hadn’t had such close contact with anyone else. But perhaps because I was calmly accepting the hug, Aska’s expression soon softened.
“I will take good care of him.”
“I’m counting on you.”
Listening to their conversation, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of emotion, but I kept my mouth shut. Instead, a sudden thought occurred to me, and I asked a different question.
“Why were you so kind to me when I was little, Brother?”
At my unexpected question, Mahir tilted his head slightly to look at me. I suddenly felt nervous. It was a question I had wanted to ask for a long time, but for some reason, I could never bring myself to say it.
I had a feeling that now, he would tell me the reason, whatever it might be.
For example, because he felt sorry that I, his nephew and not his biological son, had monopolized Khalifa’s favor instead of him…
“When you were little…”
As if reminiscing about the past, Mahir looked into the distance before turning back to me and continuing.
“When you were little, you were very cute.”
“…”
But the words that came out of Mahir’s mouth were completely different from what I had expected. Yet, I didn’t think he was lying.
On the day of Khalifa’s birthday banquet, the day I first realized that Mahir and I weren’t actually biological brothers, I probably wouldn’t have believed him if I had heard the same words then.
“You’re still cute now…”
As I moved my lips, feeling complicated, Aska, who had been quietly watching us, muttered with a somewhat dissatisfied expression. The voice that cut through the heavy atmosphere suddenly deflated my mood, and I let out a hollow laugh.
I wanted to say more, but my thoughts were disorganized. Just as Mahir had said, we weren’t parting forever, so we decided to continue the conversation when we met again later.
“Don’t get sick either, Brother, and return home safely. Eat well. And give Nadia and Nasser our regards.”
“If an emergency arises, don’t hesitate to return to the Imperial Castle. I’ve explained it to Aska, so listen to him later.”
I couldn’t help but be puzzled by those words. Just how much had they talked about? I felt left out because I was the only one who didn’t know what they were talking about.
“Now, go.”
With Mahir’s firm farewell, the moment of parting that seemed like it would never end finally came to a close.
We packed our simple luggage, took the map Mahir had given us, and left the Imperial Castle. We bought candies from a street vendor and leisurely walked along the road, eating them one by one.
“By the way, when did you talk to Mahir so much?”
“While you were sleeping. We didn’t talk about much. Just about your condition and stuff? And Mahir told me the coordinates to use the teleportation magic to get to the Imperial Castle immediately if there’s danger.”
“Coordinates? What are they?”
I didn’t know about that? As I asked with a bewildered expression, Aska subtly avoided my gaze.
“It’s supposed to be a secret. He told me never to reveal it to anyone.”
“What? So you’re going to keep it a secret from me too?”
“You can’t use teleportation magic anyway.”
“That’s ridiculous. Didn’t you say you wouldn’t keep any secrets from me anymore?”
I asked, feeling absurd, but Aska was unashamed.
“That’s why I told you. Mahir told me the coordinates.”
“But why won’t you tell me the coordinates?”
“It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“…”
At the same answer as before, I realized the important fact that what is considered a secret ultimately depends on one’s own perspective.
“I have something else to tell you.”
“Again? Just how many secret things did you talk about?”
I put the candy in my mouth and chewed, tasting the sweet and sour fruit flavor. Aska turned his head to look at me. I was even more annoyed because I couldn’t see his face under the hood.
“Mahir bowed to me, asking me to take good care of his younger brother.”
“…What?”
At first, I thought I had misheard. It wasn’t because the words were embarrassing. He bowed? I was so surprised that I almost dropped the candy I was holding.
“So I bowed too, thanking him for raising you well.”
No, what on earth did they do together? I suddenly felt goosebumps and my heart started racing. An indescribable, unbearable emotion surged, and my body trembled.
“Are they crazy, what’s wrong with them…”
I muttered to myself, and a laugh leaked out from inside the hood. I looked at Aska with disgust, and then I burst out laughing too.
“Ever since you asked my grandmother to take good care of you in front of her grave, I’ve wanted to do that to Mahir too.”
“…”
Aska muttered after we had been laughing for a while. His voice was somehow full of excitement. I wanted to see his face right away, so I grabbed Aska’s wrist and dragged him into a secluded alleyway.
When I took off his hood, I saw a flushed face, as expected. I pushed Aska against the wall and kissed him. Aska’s hands wrapped around my waist, creating a position that allowed us to kiss more comfortably.
I felt like if we continued like this, we would end up doing things that shouldn’t be done outdoors, so I stopped at a reasonable point. With my experience, I knew how to stop right before my body became too hot, and we hurried back on our way.
As I unfolded the map to check our location again, Aska, who was looking at it with me, said,
“If we’re going this way, we can stop by the merchant guild on the way, right?”
“Then let’s stop by. We need to tell Sakira and Abyss too. Didn’t you say Chichi is there too?”
“Pipi and Popo should be there as well?”
When did Pipi go? I wondered why I hadn’t seen him.
“I was supposed to give Pipi a cake. Oh, are the kids moving with us too?”
Considering that they had been following us without being seen until now, I figured they probably would this time as well. Now that it was just us anyway, there was no need to hide, so we could travel more comfortably.
But Aska shook his head.
“I’m going to tell them not to follow us.”
“Why?”
“I just want to be alone with you.”
“…”
When I came to my senses, I was kissing Aska in the corner of an alleyway again. I put my tongue in his open mouth and licked urgently, and Aska gasped and asked in a low voice.
“Should we just leave tomorrow?”
I was about to answer yes without thinking, but I stopped. I tried my best to hold onto my fading brain and shook my head.
“Since we’re going anyway, let’s just go quickly. It’s not like there’s only one birch forest in the world, and it’ll take a lot of time to find it.”
“What’s going to change if we’re a day late?”
He was right a hundred times over, but it was obvious that one day would turn into two, and two days would turn into three. I desperately wanted to roll around naked with him, but my priority was to restore Aska’s body.
But that wasn’t as easy as I thought. After that, we went to secluded alleys several times, and once we left the city in a carriage, there was no need to be discreet.
We stuck together without a moment’s rest, and after many twists and turns, we finally arrived at our destination.
“Theodore!”
Sakira, who seemed like I hadn’t seen her in ages, greeted us with a bright face. Abyss and Zero were next to her.
“If you had told us in advance, we would have come to meet you… Were there any inconveniences?”
I paused for a moment at Abyss’s question. Honestly, the carriage shook much more than the ones I used to ride, and the ride was terrible. My back and butt hurt everywhere, and I even had motion sickness symptoms that I didn’t have before.
I probably would have gotten off a long time ago if Aska hadn’t been by my side. But isn’t that the charm of traveling? Whether it’s a good experience or a bad one, everything is good as long as I’m with Aska.
“It was fine.”
As I answered, I suddenly realized that Aska wasn’t next to me. When I turned my head, I saw him handing out cookies, one by one, that I didn’t know when he had bought. He must have bought them with the snacks we were going to eat while we were briefly stopping by before we came here, why didn’t I know?
“This one has peanuts in it.”
“I’m allergic to that.”
“Then don’t eat that one and eat something else.”
“Thank you.”
He handed them out to all the Servants who had come to see me, without missing a single one. He even said a kind word to each of them, but his tone was just like a neighborhood friend.
Finally, Aska handed cookies to Abyss and Sakira as well.
“Yours are a little bigger.”
“Thank you.”
“I will cherish it as a family heirloom.”
“Why would you cherish a snack as a family heirloom? Don’t talk nonsense and just eat it now.”
Aska was taken aback by Abyss’s words. But I understood the sentiment of cherishing it as a family heirloom. It was from Aska, after all.
I nodded to myself and made eye contact with Zero. I said, looking at his face as he chewed on a mouthful of cookies,
“If you’re going to continue researching Magical creatures, go to Actan.”
“Yes? Actan? Aren’t we not supposed to go there? I swore that before I left…”
That was because we were afraid of being caught by Khalifa. He was already dead, so the oath was invalid.
“It’s okay now, so go. If you want to continue your research, it’s best to do it in Actan. If you mention my name, they’ll give you a suitable position.”
“Yes? Isn’t that a backdoor entry? I’ll just try to get in on my own. Anyway, thank you for looking out for me.”
“…”
No, I didn’t necessarily mean for him to get in through a backdoor… Still, I felt relieved to see his spirited attitude. When Zero first came to the Harem, he was just a small child.
“If you guys are going back to Actan, do that too.”
I said to Sakira and Abyss as well.
“Well, we… This is already our home. I’d like to go on a trip sometime, though.”
The two of them looked at each other and smiled before cautiously asking me.
“But are you perhaps going far away?”
This time, Aska and I looked at each other. It wasn’t me who answered, but Aska.
“We are going far away, but we’re not leaving for good. There’s something we need to find, so we have to travel around. If we leave now, we won’t see you for a while.”
“I will accompany you.”
As Abyss said with a solemn expression, Aska looked disgusted.
“Stop butting in without reading the room. It’s annoying, really.”
Abyss was momentarily taken aback by the sudden criticism. Then, he seemed to realize something and was startled, and I finally burst out laughing as I watched him. As I started laughing, laughter began to be heard here and there.
The happiness that had spread like an epidemic filled the surroundings.