6
Surprisingly, the main Rutim house actually wasn’t all that big of a family.
Aside from Dan Rutim, Gazraan Rutim, and Ama Min Rutim, the only ones living in the house were the former clan head, Ra Rutim, and the youngest daughter, Morun Rutim.
However, that wasn’t to say Dan Rutim hadn’t been blessed with children. He had another son and two more daughters in addition to Gazraan and Morun Rutim, but they had all found partners and moved out from under his roof.
Apparently, the second son was living with his wife just next door, whereas the daughters married into one of the branch families and the Lea clan. That meant that until Ama Min Rutim married in, there were just four people living here.
And since the whole Rutim settlement was currently short on women, that meant the main and branch families were joining together to take care of the day’s work, manning the stove included.
“Of the 25 folks in the Rutim clan, 11 of them are women, right? In most houses, the women would hold the majority by a bit.”
“That just goes to show how tough the Rutim men are! Plus, the main Ruu house is taking way too long when it comes to marriage! They have seven kids, but only the oldest son is married!”
Dinner in the Rutim settlement sure was lively. Well, the main one making all that noise was the clan head, though...
The former clan head, Ra Rutim, was the tall and lean old man who had led their clan at that banquet, which meant he must have been the Rutim elder. I figured he had to be under the age of 70. His head was bald, and he had a long white beard and a piercing gaze like a hawk... Apparently, he was also the man who had once been married to Granny Jiba’s daughter.
This was my first time meeting the youngest daughter, Morun Rutim, and she was apparently 15. She had a bit of a round physique and a charming face, and well, she somehow looked a bit like her dad. She may have only been 15, but she really seemed like she would make a good mother in the future.
The elder wasn’t very talkative, but the other folks were all friendly and easy to deal with, and the clan head was especially noisy. It made for a real harmonious dinner, without any of the tension I had faced when dealing with the Ruu clan.
“Today we learned how to bake poitan, but we didn’t have the time to do it ourselves, so this is a big help. Asuta, Ai Fa, thank you,” Ama Min Rutim, who we had only just been able to say hi to in the morning, said with her usual gentle smile.
Ama Min Rutim had given off a refreshing neat and tidy impression to start with, but now that she was married, she somehow seemed even more gentle. It was getting harder and harder to remember that she was the same age as me.
On top of that, she had cleanly chopped off her blackish brown hair behind her neck. Yes, she was wearing her hair boldly short, which was a little rare here at the forest’s edge.
Lastly, there was the single piece dress wrapped around her healthy figure, neither too full nor too thin, which served as proof of her married status.
“Man, that sure was good! Rib meat’s always tasty, but this baked poitan sure is something else, too! Now that I’ve had this, it’s like I couldn’t even get that heated up poitan broth to go down my throat anymore!”
Of course. In fact, that was exactly how Ai Fa and I ended up accepting the offer to man the Rutim stove.
Anyway, we ended up smoothly preparing a dinner of rib and thigh meat steak, baked poitan, and giba, aria, and pula soup.
We continued to chat for a short while afterwards, and then the folks living there started to return to their rooms.
“Ai Fa, Asuta, we have two rooms to spare, but are you alright sharing just the one?”
“Yeah. We have all sorts of things to discuss, after all,” I responded in a totally natural tone, but something bothered me a bit when we were shown to the room.
It was a room that was about 10 meters squared in terms of size, without any proper furnishings to speak of.
There was unsurprisingly a fur rug spread out at our feet, but there was also a single bit of cloth matting laid out at the back of the room, which may have been the source of my discomfort.
“Ah, you need another set of bedding, right? I’ll go get it,” our guide to the room, Morun Rutim, stated.
However, Ai Fa replied, “I don’t especially mind. I don’t normally use bedding anyway, so this won’t be an issue.”
“Is that so? Well then, please excuse me,” Morun Rutim said with a smile, and then she left.
We had been supplied the room farthest in on the right, and there was just one vacant room between us and the newlywed’s room.
“Man... This is a strange feeling, somehow, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Ai Fa asked as she walked right on in, placing the candlestick she had borrowed from the main hall by the window.
And then, she sat down atop the bedding.
The bedding had been laid out near the window, so her actions were totally natural.
I closed the door behind me, then plopped down atop the rug in front of Ai Fa.
A private room.
Bedding.
Someone else’s house.
What was it? It felt like I was just as close to Ai Fa as usual, but my heart rate seemed to be weirdly on the rise.
At any rate, I did that little ritual where you write out “calm” on your palm and then gulp it down to ease the tension.
“What are you doing?” Ai Fa questioned, but I had no idea how to answer that.
“Well, we gathered up all sorts of information over the course of the last two days, so how are you feeling after everything, Ai Fa?”
Ai Fa looked to be thinking a bit as she started to let down her long hair.
As her blonde hair flowed over her shoulders and chest, Ai Fa responded, “I... don’t think it should be a problem.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Even if you happen to fail, all that will be lost is coins. And I can make up that much of a loss by hunting giba... Fortunately, it’s possible to hunt a truly shocking number of giba at the moment.”
“Hmm...”
“The only thing that bothers me is that it was that Kamyua Yoshu man who raised the idea.”
“You really just can’t trust that old-timer, huh?”
“More than that... I cannot understand him. I can read neither his thoughts nor his feelings. And it seems like the more that we talk to him, the more confused I get.”
Then, Ai Fa leaned forwards with a bit of an uneasy look in her eyes.
I almost reflexively leaned back, but fortunately I managed to stop myself just in time.
It wasn’t as if Ai Fa had come in unnaturally close. If I pulled back now, it’d probably cause Ai Fa to feel suspicious or upset. Heck, I’d probably feel hurt, myself.
But still, the pounding in my chest wouldn’t calm down.
“That man ate giba meat of his own volition. It was my first time seeing such a person from the city of stone. I was of course completely surprised, and I thought it may ease my distrust of the man... but instead it only grew stronger.”
“I see. I can’t say I really get how you’re feeling there. But well, I can totally get not understanding him. Saying it’s not that you can’t trust him, but you can’t understand him may just be the perfect way to phrase it.”
“You feel that way too, Asuta?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I see... I’m glad,” Ai Fa said with a relieved sigh. I didn’t usually see her like that. “If you didn’t think that way, then I may not have been able to understand you anymore, either... So I’m glad.”
“R-Right. But well, after hearing what Dora and Gazraan Rutim had to say, I don’t think there should be any serious issue with the act of opening a shop in and of itself. Regardless of Kamyua Yoshu’s intentions, we’re free to act as we please... right?”
“That much was clear from the start. No matter what we may do, the responsibility will always fall on us and us alone.”
“Hmm... I’d hate to cause you issues by going forward with it, though.”
With that, Ai Fa’s face shifted from being incredibly serene to slightly annoyed.
This was a lot more like her, but had I gone and said something I shouldn’t have?
“Asuta, you’ll be selling cooking made with the giba meat from my hunts, and the ingredients obtained from those tusks and horns, will you not?”
“Yeah, though I intend to contribute this time around, too. But there’s naturally no way I could ever do it without you.”
“In that case, why are you acting as if our positions are different?”
Her expression made her look more frustrated than angry.
It was as if her blue eyes were uncertain as to just what emotion they should display.
“When you manned the stove for the wedding, that was a personal agreement between you and the couple. But this time, do you not intend to tackle this matter as a member of the Fa clan? Do you plan on taking everything on by yourself again? If that’s the case, then why do you profess to be a member of the Fa clan?”
“S-Sorry. Did it somehow come across like I was treating you like a stranger? I mean, I was born in another country, so I’m sure how I treat family is a bit different than how you do it here at the forest’s edge. But I wasn’t trying to make light of you, Ai Fa.”
I tossed aside the embarrassment I was feeling before and leaned forward without even thinking.
We were separated by no more than 30 centimeters, and Ai Fa was staring firmly into my eyes as if searching for something.
“...Your happiness is my happiness.”
“Yeah.”
“Your suffering is my suffering.”
“Right.”
“If that weren’t the case, then what point would there be to you being part of my house?”
As she said that, Ai Fa suddenly averted her gaze.
If we had our usual relaxed mood between us, her lips would be pouting around now... but instead, they were quietly forming words.
“If we can’t understand one another on that point, then there’s no point to us being part of the same house. Why exactly did you turn down the invitation to join the Rutim, then?”
“That’s because I want to be with you. Sorry... Back where I come from, it’s normal to not want to cause trouble for your family. I didn’t think it would cause you to feel badly.”
Wanting to do something to soften her pained expression, I took Ai Fa by the hand. Her fingers weren’t soft but also hadn’t lost their smoothness, and I felt them ever so gently grip my hand back.
“I feel happy when you’re glad and pained when you’re sad too, Ai Fa. I don’t think we’re feeling differently deep down, so could you please forgive me? I’ll try to take care not to make you feel bad.”
Ai Fa was silent.
“If we just take the time, we’ll come to understand one another, right? I don’t care if we were born in different countries or worlds or whatever, I want us to really know one another, Ai Fa.”
“...Do we have such time?” Ai Fa whispered. “There’s no telling when I may meet my end in the forest. Nor is there any knowing when you may disappear from this world... So do we really have that time?”
“We do. All the time till we die or disappear belongs to us. So we can just keep on trying our hardest till that time comes, right?”
I tightened my grip, and Ai Fa looked my way as if in response.
I couldn’t quite make out the emotion in her eyes as she stared at me.
“If you worry about stuff like that, isn’t it like saying it’s ridiculous to think about tomorrow? I’d hate living like that. What matters most is the here and now, but I don’t want to treat tomorrow and all the rest of my future as secondary.”
“I... understand all that,” Ai Fa said, her mouth moving in a bit of a strange way. It was like she was laughing, or crying... Yeah, it was a truly complex, vague expression, like she was unable to control her own emotions.
“There’s no point to you telling me that at this point. As if I could be a hunter without even knowing that much, you fool.”
Then, Ai Fa did something unexpected: She bumped her forehead up against my right shoulder.
“H-Hey, Ai Fa...?”
“Don’t look at my face for a little while. I’ll be done soon.”
It wasn’t as if she was crying, like she’d done a while back. No, she just pressed her forehead up against my shoulder and stopped moving.
I could feel her warmth through my shoulder and fingers.
Her long hair reached all the way down to my crossed legs.
She had said she hadn’t done sacrificial hunting for a while, but the smell of her hair really was still sweet.
A few seconds later, Ai Fa suddenly lifted her face, and somewhat roughly shook free from my fingers.
“...So, what are you thinking, Asuta?”
She had been hanging her head down, so her long hair hid her eyes. However, her mouth had the same gallant expression as always.
“My opinion is just as I said before. What are your thoughts on whether or not you should open a shop in the post town?”
“Right, I... I think I’d like to give it a try,” I earnestly replied, still a little worried about how Ai Fa was doing. “Just like you said, Kamyua Yoshu is just impossible to understand. And I also haven’t experienced or truly seen the suffering of living in poverty, so I don’t think I can truly understand that, either. But... It pissed me off the way the townsfolk look down on the people of the forest’s edge even before we met Kamyua Yoshu, and I also want to teach them how delicious giba meat really is.”
“Right.”
“Plus, there are folks like Tara and Dora in the post town, too. Even if we don’t end up smiling hand in hand, I think there’s still room to meet each other part way. And I believe this is a good chance for that, too.”
I scratched my head a bit as I talked.
“Well, I do still have doubts about whether or not it’s alright for an outsider like me to be so involved with the future of the forest’s edge... But if that’s going to happen, I want it to be in a good way. So as long as I have the approval of folks like you and Gazraan Rutim, I think I’d like to take on the challenge.”
“I see. So you still think of yourself as an outsider, do you? Sometimes, that irritates me so greatly I feel like it could kill me,” Ai Fa bluntly stated, then turned away in a huff.
Her tone and actions were the same as always, but I still couldn’t see her eyes, so I really couldn’t tell what she was feeling.
“You are a member of the Fa clan. You live here at the forest’s edge, so refer to yourself as a person of the forest’s edge.”
“Right. But anyway, I really think I’d like to give it a try. I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but I want to take on the challenge and see if my skills will be enough.”
“...Then it’s decided,” Ai Fa quietly responded, still facing away. “I will keep hunting giba as I’ve done up till now, and prepare the meat and coins. You will use that to carry out your work.”
“Got it... I’ll give it my all, as if my life was on the line.”
“Right. Just know that you shall not be permitted to shirk your duties manning the stove in order to treat townsfolk to your cooking.”
“I’m not treating them, I’m selling to them.”
If Ai Fa was going to behave like normal, then I should do the same.
That was what I thought, so I responded in a deliberately cheery tone, “And now that I’m taking on this challenge, I’ve got a whole lot to consider. It goes without saying that I need to figure out what dish I’ll go with, but I also need to carefully calculate out the ingredients, plus how to transport them and my pot to the post town is also a tough problem. This whole thing’s gonna be easier said than done.”
“What, you’ve already thought things through that far? Are you sure you weren’t planning from the very start to open a shop no matter what anyone said, Asuta?”
“Of course not. But it’s fun to think it over more and more. I think I’ll have to try talking to Gazraan Rutim again tomorrow.”
“You certainly are a calculating man,” Ai Fa threw out there, rolling on her side atop the bedding.
So she’s sleeping there after all, I thought to myself with a strained smile.
“Well, I’ve got to get my thoughts in order a bit, too. Since I’m taking on this challenge, I want to be successful for sure.”
I stretched out atop the rug, facing towards the ceiling, and Ai Fa called out, “Asuta.”
“What is it?” I replied, and then she sat up and kneeled atop the bedding, pulling it down just a bit.
“This bedding thing feels surprisingly nice to sleep on. You come here too and rest.”
“...What?” I questioned, tilting my head.
Ai Fa laid down on her side again, and then stretched out both arms.
“It feels nice to sleep on. They went and prepared it, so there shouldn’t be any issue with using it.”
“N-No, you go ahead and use it if that’s what you want. I’m fine just sleeping atop the rug.”
“...Do you not trust my words?”
“That’s not it. I mean, everyone used bedding back where I came from, so I’m plenty aware how nice it is.”
“Then come here.”
“No, no, no. That bedding’s too small for the two of us, right? Please, don’t worry about me and just get some sleep.”
“...Why are you refusing so firmly?” Ai Fa quietly muttered, still facing the ceiling. “Did I do something to hurt your feelings?”
“That’s not it at all! It’s just back in my country, as long as they’re not a child and parent or husband and wife, two family members would never sleep together atop the same bedding.”
“...This isn’t your old country. It’s the forest’s edge.”
“Uugh...” I mumbled.
I didn’t know if it was intentional or what, but Ai Fa’s eyes were still hidden behind her long hair, so it was incredibly difficult to read the expression on her face.
Maybe her eyes actually hadn’t regained that perfect calm, and were flickering with unease... The thought made my heart ache.
Was this yet another trial someone was forcing upon me?
It sure was a fitting challenge, if so!
“...If you hate the idea that much, then just do as you please.”
Ai Fa turned her whole body towards the wall, so I could no longer see her face at all.
It was time to make a decision.
But well... No matter how I thought about it, Ai Fa had firmly declared that she didn’t want to take me as a husband, so there shouldn’t be any misunderstandings from this.
And to start with, I was only conscious of it because this thing was laid out on the floor, as we normally slept together super close anyway. Thinking of it that way, it was just like moving a mere couple dozen centimeters closer.
If that small of a difference in distance would bring Ai Fa peace and relief, then what need was there for me to hesitate?
I got my breathing in order, held my heartbeat back as much as I could, said, “Excuse me,” and then got atop the bedding.
Ai Fa didn’t move.
While taking care not to look too much at her beautiful back, I gently laid down on the bedding.
Well, it really was decently soft and comfortable. If you asked me, I honestly longed more for a pillow, but well, I wasn’t about to go demanding such luxury. At any rate, as my thoughts raced through scheduling everything out for opening a shop in the post town, I decided it was best to get to sleep early for today and closed my eyes.
In that very instant, Ai Fa suddenly rolled her whole body to face me.
“Oh... So you came after all, Asuta?”
“Y-Yeah. I mean, you went and invited me, after all.”
Ai Fa was using her right arm as a pillow and lying on her side, and now she was staring right at my face.
Her eyes didn’t have a hint of sadness or unease about them. No, they just looked happy.
“You should have just listened to what I told you from the start...”
Ai Fa just looked so earnestly joyful at the moment that I was finding it hard to even quip back.
I’d seen Ai Fa mad and sulking an awful lot, but expressions like this were rare... Actually, this may be my first time seeing one since we met.
As I was busy being all confused about how to feel, Ai Fa quietly started talking.
“Asuta. Your strength when it comes to cooking is immeasurable. Even so, no one can say for certain if you really will find success the way that Gazraan Rutim described.”
“Yeah... Of course that’s the case.”
“Still, no matter how things turn out, I will have no regrets. You simply need to keep on mustering your own strength as you’ve done up till now.”
“Right, that’s what I intend to do.”
“...I’m proud of you. I find such great joy in having met you, and welcoming you into the Fa Clan.”
With that, Ai Fa closed her eyelids.
A smile of such pure joy crossed her face.
“Well then, I’m going to sleep. We can discuss the rest tomorrow...” she said, drifting off into sleep incredibly quickly as that sentence trailed off.
Her face was so remarkably at ease, she almost looked like a small child.
That was my line...
As that thought passed through my head, I just couldn’t bring myself to look away from that adorable sleeping face and close my eyes, kicking off a sleepless night for me.
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