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It has been fifty years since His Majesty left.
That’s more than a third of Wolfram’s life. Heck, that’s almost ten times as long as the time His Majesty spent here. Sure, that time was pretty unforgettable, but still—why can’t Wolfram just forget him already?
Lord von Voltaire finally collapses onto his table, resting his deeply creased forehead against his arms.
“Getting cold feet?” Conrad says from where he’s leaning on the door frame. “Don’t forget, you were the one who said he could go after he finished his term as consul.”
“That was—I thought—” Gwendal sighs so deeply it seems to reach into his bones. “Fifty years, Conrad. I don’t even remember what the boy looks like anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Conrad replies blatantly. “We pass by his portrait in the hallway every day.”
“So? I’m sure a lot of time has passed over there. Would you swear that you could recognize him if you saw him now?”
“Yes.”
It’s not like him to hide, but the eldest son is really feeling his years. He goes back to the table, his voice muffled. “You’re just as hopeless as he is.”
Then he blinks, and shoots back up, his spine so straight it nearly snapped backwards. “Don’t tell me you want to go too!?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Thank goo—”
“I wish I could, though.”
It’s been a while since His Excellency Gwendal howled like that. Dacascos thinks to himself rather nostalgically. The world really is peaceful now, huh.
Of course, he knows that other things are still boiling under the surface. For instance, His Excellency Wolfram’s term is almost up. Well, mostly people wondered why it took so long for Wolfram to get a term, since he was the one who suggested the consul system in the first place. Maybe it’s precisely because the system was his idea, so he spent the next few decades after its conception as the main advisor.
After His Majesty left, His Excellency Gwendal took up immediate responsibility as interim ruler so things wouldn’t fall apart. His rule was afterwards extended to the whole ten years, and he became Shin Makoku’s first consul. After him was Lord von Wincott, and then His Excellency Günter—
Dacascos chuckles a bit at the memory. That was when everyone realized that His Excellency Günter was a great advisor, but maybe not so suited to be commander. Even during his term, he kept looking to His Majesty for advice.
His Majesty wasn’t there, of course, and every time he remembered, His Excellency Günter would cry for another half hour. Still, that was what the advisors were for. Especially His Excellency Wolfram—as expected of His Majesty’s fiancé, he knows what His Majesty would have wanted best.
If His Majesty saw Shin Makoku now, Dacascos is sure His Majesty would pat his shiny head and tell them all, “Thank you for the hard work.”
Especially His Excellency Wolfram.
Speaking of whom—Dacascos stops outside those familiar large doors.
It used to be His Majesty and His Excellency’s room. Oh, and sometimes Princess Greta would sneak in and spend the night too. That felt like such a long time ago… and it kinda was, actually.
Now it’s only His Excellency’s room.
Or so Dacascos thought, until a sexy blonde beauty emerged from the room in her lingerie.
“…Lady Cheri!”
I know he’s your son—No, I should say, he’s your son! And you’re married! Again!
The seductive temptress of the night just puts her finger to her lips, and winks at him. He blushes a bright beetroot, clamping his mouth shut and trying to mime with his arms instead.
“You look like you’re having a seizure,” she laughs, but softly. “Tell me, what do you want with my son? Quietly, though. He just got back.”
From overseas, Dacascos knew that. His time with His Majesty had given His Excellency Wolfram a habit of wanderlust. Whenever he got too lonely, he would start travelling on his own, sometimes to the places he went with His Majesty, sometimes to places neither of them had been before.
He would always carry out his diplomatic duties at the same time, however. It’s amazing how responsible His Excellency Wolfram is for his age.
“Uh—this, this just came in today…” Dacascos holds up a package. “From the princess.”
Wolfram isn’t the only one who travels a lot recently.
“I see.” Lady Cheri feels slightly different today. Dacascos scratches his head as he lets her take the package tenderly from his hands. “I brought something for him too. Tell you what, I’ll put this in there so he can take it with him when he goes—”
“Goes where, Mother?” Gwendal comes storming down the corridor, ignoring all of Dacascos’ frantic gesturing. “Do you really intend to let your son go off to another world!?”
“Gwendal! It’s been so long, let me take a good look at you—”
“Mother, please.” Conrad sounds a little helpless. “And Gwendal, do calm down, it’s unbecoming.”
“I think it’s rather romantic, actually.” Josak Gurrier saunters up to the little family reunion, as though he wasn’t the reason the eldest son finally exploded. “Star-crossed lovers, the love that transcends worlds, the ultimate sacrifice—Ah, it’s making my heart go doki!”
“What sacrifice!? Wolfram is not sacrificing anything!”
“Indeed. He’s just choosing love over the world he was born in, how so very—”
“Josak Gurrier!”
“All of you, quiet!” Lady Cheri’s voice isn’t loud, but suddenly everyone remembers that this woman in front of them was once the maou as well.
It’s funny, actually, how Shibuya Yuuri’s name is now synonymous with ‘His Majesty’. He was the last maou, the one who defeated Shinou and brought Shin Makoku into a new age. And since there was no one after him, it was as though he kept the title of ‘Maou’ with him to this day.
And besides, everyone knows that his successor, in spirit if not in name, is the one sleeping inside that room.
They push past the doors quietly, led by Lady Cheri. Inside, the curtains are drawn, but not too tightly. Some light seeps past to illuminate the scene inside—tranquil, beautiful, yet ever so slightly… sad.
“Oh, Wolf…”
Wolfram is asleep on the table, paints and papers sprawled in front of him. In fact, there are paintings everywhere, half-finished ones on their racks, completed ones hanging from the walls or kept in rolls. Gwendal’s gaze falls on the sheet on the table, and his expression crumples.
The painting on the table—and indeed, almost every painting in the room, is of the same man. Not much more than a boy, actually, but the same black eyes that stare out from the paintings are exactly the ones that watch over them every day.
Everyone thought that His Majesty’s portrait, the one that hangs in the place of Shinou’s, was His Excellency von Bielefeld Wolfram’s greatest masterpiece. But it seems that Wolfram hadn’t been content with just one.
Lady Cheri picks up one of the papers on the table, and Dacascos recognizes what it is that makes her feel different today. Those—those are the eyes of a mother, and nothing else.
“The poor boy… Is he worried he would forget what His Majesty looked like?”
That is the feeling everyone got, looking around the room. Every painting is of Yuuri, but in different places, poses… ages. Conrad studies one where Yuuri is standing on the beach of a country they just discovered, the one that Wolfram just came back from. Gurrier whistles appreciatively at one where Yuuri looks slightly older, to fit how Wolfram himself has matured. He rather fancies His Majesty would have more laugh lines around the eyes, but the artist definitely managed to capture the Young Master’s bright determination.
Each painting is done so lovingly, you could feel Wolfram’s heart and soul radiating off the paper.
“…What if he breaks his heart?”
Gwendal’s voice is dangerously tiny. Fifty years—Wolfram lost his heart fifty years ago, to that boy from the other world. He thought… No, he hoped that it was just a young crush, that Wolfram would get over it with time. Heck, even Günter stopped crying eventually. But Wolfram…!
“We don’t even know how much time has passed over there—We don’t know if the boy has forgotten Wolfram!”
Josak sighs. “Like I said, ‘Excellency… You’re like a father unwilling to marry his daughter off.”
“I raised him!” Gwen’s voice rises, no longer in the mood to deny it. “I watched him grow up, I watched him fall in love” –because even he can’t deny what this entire room is telling him—“but if he goes there, and that boy has forgotten him, or even, even married someone else, who’ll be there for him!?”
Wolfram would be all alone in a foreign place with a broken heart, and no way to come home.
Just the thought of it feels like a stab in Gwendal’s chest.
“Even so, you can’t stop him.” A small hand wraps into Gwendal’s and squeezes it hard. Very hard. Too hard, in fact.
“Anissina…”
“Isn’t that right, Your Excellency?”
Wolfram gets up from the table slowly, sorting out the cricks and cracks in his back.
“You shouldn’t sleep like that, it’s bad for you,” Lady Cheri scolds. She really seems to be in a motherly mood today.
“I won’t ask what all of you are doing in my room,” Wolfram says deliberately, but Dacascos trips over himself to get over to the table anyway.
“Y-Your Highness! A package from the princess!”
Wolfram looks surprised, relieving some of the pressure in the room. “From Greta?”
That’s right, Conrad thinks with one part wonder and one part melancholy. His baby brother has the aura and dignity of a leader now. When he got serious, the soldier in Conrad instinctively wanted to get down to one knee.
“These are…” Wolfram smiles. “Matching family necklaces.”
He still keeps the one she made for him so many years ago, with a stone the same color as his eyes. The ones lying quietly in the package paper now had a defiantly black pendant, and he is sure she made one each for all her children and grandchildren as well.
There are two in the package. He quickly puts one on.
“Mama got something for you too, Wolfie.” Lady Cheri hands him a pair of silk scarves from her latest trip.
Josak packed some of his bar’s best sweets in a ma-powered container to keep them fresh.
Conrad has an extra pair of the Shin Makoku baseball team’s official uniforms, as well as a sheepskin mitt, courtesy of old T-Bone.
“Don’t you have anything to pass to His Majesty, Gwendal?” Anissina asks curiously, adding her newest invention –a Poison Lady recipe power drink—to the pile.
Gwendal grits his teeth. “I still think you’re making a mistake.”
“Then let me. It’s my mistake to make.” Wolfram stretches and gets up from his chair. “Anissina, are you ready?”
The petite little redhead shrugs. “If you’re ready, then I have no right not to be.”
Wolfram nods. “Then tomorrow morning we will have the passing-on ceremony. And in the afternoon—” He looks around at his family, gathered around him. “—I will leave for Earth.”
“Conrad, are you sure?”
The second son smiles, but it’s a little tight around the edges. “Someone has to stay behind. And I think he needs you more than he needs me.”
“…Are you sure he needs me?”
Those words are said so softly Conrad almost thinks he imagined them, but before he can ask Wolfram is already looking down the hall.
At the end of the carpet is a small pool, the pool where just that morning, Lord von Bielefeld handed over the position of consul to Lady von Karbelnikoff.
“I just hope I can live up to you, Wolfram.”
“That’s not like you, Anissina. I’m sure you’ll do well. After all, you’ll have Brother and the others to help you.”
But not you. This is just like fifty years ago, all over again. Conrad looks at his back, and resists the urge to reach out to him.
Right now, the image of Wolfram’s back overlaps with his memory of his godson’s. The children he once raised, the babies he once carried—They really are all grown up now.
“If he looks back, even once—” Gwendal is growling, making sure everyone knows just how ready he is to pounce onto his little brother until the latter comes to his senses. “If he hesitates, just a bit, so help me, I will—”
“C’mon, Papa Bear, you gotta let go someday.” Josak laughs. Conrad is still thinking about what Wolfram said, and is about to ask him about it when his thoughts are abruptly cut short. The priestess has finally activated the portal.
Wolfram’s breath catches, and he’s not the only one. Everyone can sense it.
That familiar feeling – that is the smell of Earth. Of Yuuri.
For a moment it seems as though Wolfram has frozen. His legs feel heavy with fifty years’ worth of anticipation, and the reluctance of his family behind him to let him go. Gwendal’s gaze seems to bury into his back, anchoring him to this world, but ahead of him is—
“Yuuri!”
The string is broken, and he takes off into a run.
“Wolfram!”
“Wolf!”
“Your Excellency!”
He never once stopped, or looked back. In one swift moment he has jumped into the portal, his thoughts so loud they seemed to echo around the hall—
Yuuri, I’m coming!
Once the blue light faded, Gwendal smiles bitterly to himself. In the end, he still lost.
“Oh, Wolfie…”
“What is it, Mother?” Her woeful tone makes him snap. “I thought you wanted him to go?”
“I did, but…” She sighs. “He never looked back… which means he left behind everything he was supposed to bring to His Majesty.”
Gwendal stares at the large pile of luggage. So Wolfram went to that foreign world with nothing but the clothes on his back…
“Heh.”
It really was inevitable from the start, and he was a fool to think he could stop it.
A few months later—
“Y-Your Excellency! T-the priestesses have received an extraterrestrial message!”
“A what!?”
“A m-message!” Dacascos tries to catch his breath. “F-from another world! From Earth!”
Gwendal smiles for the first time since Wolfram left.
Everyone… I’m here, and so is Yuuri… We got here safely, so don’t worry…