"Do you want to die?"
The words came out flat, absolute, the kind of question that was not really a question at all.
Yuuta's brain stopped working.
"Ehhhh...???" The sound escaped him before he could stop it, a high, confused noise that seemed to hang in the air between them. His face went blank.
His hands dropped to his sides. His entire body seemed to deflate like a balloon losing air, all the hope and nervous energy draining out of him in an instant.
He stood there, completely shocked, completely unprepared, completely unable to process what had just happened.
What?
What did I say wrong?
I just asked if she would dance with me. For Elena. For the interview. For—
Erza watched him. She watched the confusion spread across his face, watched his mouth open and close like a fish pulled from water, watched the hope drain away and something else take its place.
Her expression did not change, but something in her eyes flickered—something quick and sharp, there and gone before he could name it.
"I said," she repeated, her voice dropping lower, "do you want to die? Asking a queen to dance.
Expecting a queen to participate in your human rituals. Assuming I would lower myself to—"
She Paused and said, "You should drop the interview."
Yuuta was still staring at her, his face pale now, his hands hanging limp at his sides.
"Are you serious, my queen?" His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. "You're actually serious about this?"
"Of course I am serious." Her arms crossed tighter, her jaw set. "You should drop the interview. This is absurd. You are absurd.
The whole idea is—"
"No." The word came out sharper than he intended, cutting through her dismissal like a blade. "I can't do that. It's Elena's future. It's the only chance she has to—"
"Elena's future." Erza's laugh was cold, brittle. "You talk about her future as if you will be there to see it. As if any of this matters."
She stepped closer, and Yuuta found himself stepping back without meaning to, his body reacting to the weight of her presence before his mind could catch up.
"What is wrong with you?" The words came out raw, frustrated, torn from somewhere deep.
"You don't even have a future. You are going to die in one year. One year, mortal. And you are still acting as if—as if you will be there to see her grow up, to watch her graduate, to—" She stopped, her breath catching.
Yuuta stood very still.
Erza continued, her voice rising, the cracks in her composure widening. "I am staying in this world for one year. One year, because of your ridiculous promise about graduation.
After that, I will kill you and return to my world, and I will take Elena with me. So what is the point?" She gestured at the books, the papers, the mess he had made of their home trying to prepare for something that would not matter.
"What is the point of any of this? Why are you struggling? Why do you care? Why do you—"
She stopped.
Yuuta was looking at her.
Not with fear. Not with the panic she expected. His face was calm, his voice steady when he finally spoke.
"I know I will die," he said slowly, as if the words were something he had made peace with long ago. "I know that. I've known it since the moment you told me what I did, what I'm responsible for. I'm not pretending I have a future. I'm not pretending I'll be there to see any of it."
Erza said nothing.
"But I want to be a good father to Elena for one year." His voice cracked on the word father, and he did not try to hide it. "I want to be the man who gives her the experiences she deserves.
Who takes her to school, who helps her with her homework, who makes her breakfast and tucks her in at night and tells her that she is loved."
He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, rougher.
"I can't imagine how she was raised without a father. I can't imagine what it was like for her, growing up not knowing why I wasn't there. I don't know how she doesn't hate me.
But I want to give her something. Something good. Something that will last." He swallowed hard.
"So that when I die, she remembers my sacrifice. So that when she looks back, she can say that I was good to her."
The words hit her like a wind she had not seen coming, strong and sudden, knocking something loose inside her that she had kept locked away for a very long time.
She had expected selfishness. She had expected fear, desperation, the frantic clawing of a creature trying to escape its fate. That was what humans did. That was what they had always done. But this—this quiet acceptance, this strange determination to use the time he had left for someone else—
It made her chest ache in ways she did not understand.
Her mind caught on his last words.
So that when I die, she remembers my sacrifice. So that she can say I was good to her.
Something about what he said didn't sit right with her—but not in the way she expected. It wasn't anger. It wasn't disgust.
It was… something else.
Then her expression changed.
Her eyes narrowed.
Her fists tightened.
Her knuckles went white.
"So that was your plan." Her voice was cold. Colder than it had been all night. Colder than he had ever heard it.
Yuuta's eyes widened. "What plan? I don't—"
"You make yourself a hero." She stepped closer. "A good father. A loving parent. You give her memories, experiences, happiness. And then when I kill you—"
Her voice cracked.
She forced it steady.
"When I kill you, Elena will not see justice. She will not see her mother doing what must be done. She will see a villain. A murderer. Someone who took her beloved father away."
Yuuta's face went white.
"That is your plan," Erza said. "That is why you care so much. That is why you sacrifice so much. Not for her. For revenge. To turn my own daughter against me."
She laughed. It was not a happy sound.
"I knew it. I knew humans could not change. Selfish. Always selfish. Even in death, you find a way to wound."
"That is your plan, isn't it? To make me the villain."
Yuuta's mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
"I... wait..."
His brain scrambled to catch up.
"That's not—I didn't mean—"
He paused.
Then his eyes widened.
"But it does make sense, doesn't it?"
The words came out before he could stop them.
He slapped his hand over his mouth.
"Oh shit."
Erza stared at him.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and terrible.
Then her voice came, low and dangerous.
"You idiot mortal."
What happened next was too intense for the author to describe. The neighbors heard sounds that they would later describe as "a small earthquake" and "someone being thrown into furniture repeatedly" and "what sounded like a grown man begging for mercy in a language they didn't recognize."
When it was over, Yuuta lay on the floor among the scattered books and papers, a fresh bump on his head, his dignity in ruins, his plan—if it had ever really been a plan—thoroughly, completely destroyed.
Erza stood over him, breathing hard, her borrowed clothes askew, her hair wild, her face still flushed with something that might have been rage and might have been something else entirely.
"If I find out," she said, her voice still shaking, "that you have been trying to make me the villain in my daughter's eyes, I will not wait one year. Do you understand?"
Yuuta nodded weakly from the floor.
"I understand."
Erza stood over Yuuta's crumpled form, her chest heaving, her fists still clenched, her entire body vibrating with the effort of holding back.
She had pulled every punch, restrained every instinct, controlled every surge of power that had screamed at her to let loose—and it had been exhausting. More exhausting than any battle she had fought in centuries.
Dragon strength was not something that could be turned on and off like a switch. It was always there, always present, always ready.
The precision required to strike a mortal without killing him, to hurt without destroying, to punish without obliterating—it took more control than most beings could ever understand. Like an elephant using its trunk to pick a flower without crushing it, or a blacksmith shaping glass without shattering it. Every blow had been calculated, measured, restrained.
She let out a breath, long and slow, and pressed her palm against her forehead.
"Damn it," she muttered to herself. "That was exhausting."
Yuuta lay motionless on the floor, his face marked with the evidence of her restraint, bruises already forming on his cheek and jaw, a bump rising on his head where she had knocked him into a stack of books. He was breathing, which was more than most mortals could claim after making her that angry, but he was not moving.
He has no idea, she thought, looking down at him. If I had used even a fraction of my true strength, this entire apartment would have crumbled before he knew what happened.
She sighed again, longer this time, and crossed her arms.
"Fine," she said, her voice flat. "I will help you with this interview."
One of Yuuta's eyes cracked open, squinting against the pain. "Wait... really?" His voice was weak, uncertain, as if he was trying to convince himself that he had not misheard her this time.
"Do not make me repeat myself." She looked away, her jaw tight. "Only for this interview. Only this once."
She paused.
Then, slowly, a smile crept across her face. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of someone who had just found leverage.
"If you help me with something first."
Yuuta swallowed, his throat working against nothing. "Help you? With what?"
She sighed again, the sound heavy with something that might have been embarrassment, though she would never admit it. "I want you to wash my tail and horns."
Yuuta stared at her.
"Pardon?"
His voice cracked on the word. He sat up slowly, wincing, one hand pressed to his bruised face, his expression a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
"Did I just hear that correctly? You want me to—"
"I said what I said." Her voice was sharp, but her face was turning pink. "Do not make me repeat myself again."
Yuuta shook his head slowly, wincing as the movement aggravated his injuries. "No, I understand what you said. I'm just... confused. Why would the Queen of Atlantis need a mortal to—"
"That is none of your business." She cut him off, her arms tightening across her chest. "I will help you with your interview, and you will help me with this. That way, we are both free of obligation. No debt. No gratitude. Nothing owed."
Yuuta studied her face, looking for the trap, looking for the angle, looking for whatever hidden cost she was not telling him about. He had learned, over these past weeks, that nothing with Erza was ever simple.
Every agreement had layers. Every deal had consequences. And the fact that she was offering this so casually, so quickly—
It made him nervous.
What is she really after? he wondered. Is this some kind of test? Some kind of trap?
But Erza was not thinking about traps.
She was thinking about her horns.
Dragon horns were sensitive. More sensitive than any other part of a dragon's body. They were conduits for magic, channels for power, extensions of everything a dragon was and could be.
And this world—this filthy, polluted, dust-choked world—had been coating them in grime for weeks. She could feel it every time she used her power, every time she reached for her magic, every time she tried to sleep. The constant irritation was driving her insane.
She could not wash them herself. She could not see them properly, could not reach them without contorting herself into positions that would embarrass even a queen. And Elena—Elena was too small, too young, too likely to turn the whole thing into a game and leave her horns covered in chocolate or glitter or something worse.
So she had to ask him.
She bit her nail, a habit she had picked up in this world and despised. "Damn it," she muttered to herself. "My ruin has come. This is worse than anything. I have to ask a mortal to—" She stopped herself,
Her face burning. "If Elena were older, I would have her do it. But her hands are too small, and she is... she is the mischievous type. I cannot trust her with something this important. That is the only reason I am asking you."
Yuuta watched her, seeing the discomfort she was trying so hard to hide, the way her cheeks had gone pink, the way her fingers kept twitching toward her face. And something in his chest softened.
"Okay," he said. "I'll help you. And you'll help me. That sounds fair."
Erza's shoulders relaxed almost
imperceptibly. "Good. Then we have an agreement."
She straightened, her composure returning, her face smoothing back into its usual cold mask.
"So," she said, her voice businesslike now, "I assume you know how to dance, mortal?"
Yuuta blinked. "Huh? No. I don't know how to dance."
He said it with a smile, as if it were nothing, as if his complete lack of preparation for the most important interview of their lives was a minor inconvenience rather than a disaster.
Erza stared at him.
She smiled back.
"Then let's drop the deal."
"No! No, wait!" Yuuta scrambled forward, grabbing at her leg, his panic rising. "We have two days! Two days is enough time to learn!"
"My ass you will learn in one day." She tried to step away, but he held on, his fingers wrapped around her ankle like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline.
"I can learn! I promise! Just teach me! Please!"
Erza looked down at him—at the bruises on his face, the desperation in his eyes, the way he was clinging to her leg like she was the only thing keeping him from drowning—and felt something twist in her chest.
She sighed.
"Fine. I will try. But at least tell me you know etiquette. Table manners. Which fork to use. How to address important people. Basic things."
Yuuta hesitated.
Erza kicked him in the face.
"You uneducated idiot!" Her voice rose as she kicked him again, and again, her frustration finding an outlet. "How do you not know anything?! What have you been doing your entire life?!"
"I'm sorry!" Yuuta's voice was muffled behind his hands, his body curled protectively on the floor. "I grew up in an orphanage! We didn't have etiquette lessons! We didn't have multiple forks! We were lucky if we had one fork that wasn't bent!"
She stopped kicking.
He was still curled on the floor, still covering his face, still waiting for the next blow.
She looked at him. At the bruises already forming. At the swelling around his eye. At the way he had not once, in all of this, tried to run.
She sighed.
"Get up," she said.
He looked up, cautious, one eye visible between his fingers. "Are you going to hit me again?"
"Not immediately."
He lowered his hands slowly, watching her, waiting.
She crossed her arms. "We have two days. In that time, you will learn how to dance without stepping on my feet. You will learn how to eat without embarrassing yourself. You will learn how to speak to people who think they are better than you without proving them right."
She paused.
"And I will let you wash my horns. My tail. If you do well enough, perhaps I will not kill you when this is over."
He stared at her. Then slowly, carefully, he smiled.
"I can work with that."
She turned away before he could see her face. "Good. Now clean this room. I refuse to practice dancing in a space that looks like a paper factory exploded."
She walked toward the hallway, her steps measured, her back straight, her dignity somehow still intact despite everything. She was almost to the door when Yuuta's voice stopped her.
"Hey, Erza?"
She paused. Did not turn. "What?"
"So... when I wash your tail... do I need special soap? Or just regular shampoo? Because I have this stuff from the convenience store that's supposed to be for damaged hair, but I don't know if that works on scales, and—"
She turned.
He was smiling. Actually smiling. Like he was enjoying this.
She picked up a book from the nearest stack and threw it at his head.
He ducked.
"Shut up and clean!"
She disappeared into the hallway, her face burning, her heart pounding, her tail—which she could not see, which was covered in filth, which she had just agreed to let him wash—twitching behind her in a way she could not control.
She heard him laughing as she closed the door.
She was going to kill him.
Not in a year.
Tomorrow.
---
To be continued...