Since it seemed like the same thing happened during mother’s marriage.
“...”
While thinking about such things I continued clearing out my room and in no time, I was finished. It was never a room that had much in it, but now that my personal belongings were no longer here it was completely empty. It seemed like this room would be used by Lucy-chan and other kids but it should be fine if it’s cleared out this much.
Now all I had to do was to take my belongings and some keepsakes and go to Ruijerd-san’s house. To Ruijerd-san’s house in the Superd village.
Honestly, it felt like I was in a dream or something. Marrying that Ruijerd-san that I admired for so long since way back then. My heart was beating like crazy. It seemed it was the same for Sylphy-neesan, starting a married life with the person you love gives birth to expectations mixed with tension.
Ruijerd-san was way older than me but after I married him then I would have to do what Nii-san and Sylphy-neesan and the others do. I knew how it’s done but I didn’t really put into practise. I’m a little nervous. I wonder if he’ll be gentle. I wonder if I’ll be able to do it properly.
But my mind tilted more towards the expectations rather than tension. I was really nervous. That day, the moment I heard Ruijerd-san’s name I immediately asked Nii-san to go ahead with the marriage proposal, I was really glad about that. I thought that from the bottom of my heart.
“Hey, Norn-ane… do you have a moment?”
Suddenly, I heard the knocking on the door. There was only one person who would call me Norn-ane.
It was Aisha.
“Yeah, what’s the matter?”
“Umm… can I talk to you for a bit?”
Aisha entered the room with a somewhat fidgety look and closed the door behind her.
That was unusual. It’s possible that this might be the first time I saw Aisha acting like this towards me.
“How about we sit down there?”
“Okay.”
With a suggestive tone she sat on the bed. I put my luggage away which held my belongings which I was going to take to Ruijerd-san’s place, and sat on a chair.
“Uhh… Norn-ane, congratulations on your marriage… no, engagement?”
“Thank you.”
Now that I recalled, when Nii-san announced my marriage, I was then congratulated by various people but never by Aisha.
“It’s a somewhat strange feeling. That Norn-ane is getting married.”
“Did you come here to say only that?”
“No, not that… umm… Norn-ane, how does it feel to get married?”
Aisha wasn’t facing my way. She was averting her eyes away as if trying to ask something that shouldn’t be asked.
“How… meaning?”
“Why are you getting married, Norn-ane?”
… Ah, now I remember. Aisha had said something like that to me before. That “Even though you know you don’t have any talent, why would you still try?”
She was the same as usual little sister.
Still, those things sounded like sarcasm or insults back in the day but I’ve come to realise that those were quite the different things. Because Aisha is Aisha, she has so much talent in so many things, she ends up getting puzzled in various ways. Because she ends up doing everything easily, she can’t understand someone who tries to do something which they cannot do.
No… words spoken by Aisha back in the day were mixed with a considerable amount of sarcasm. That’s why I really disliked her in those days.
But that dislike had already gotten away.
I wonder just when the sarcasm got out of Aisha… I am not sure right now but I do think that she changed a lot after Lucy-chan was born.
“Even if you ask me why… well for once this marriage has meaning to it, and I love Ruijerd-san as well.”
“What’s it like to love someone?”
“... A desire to live together or the desire to hug your lover or be hugged back, those kind of feelings gush up naturally.”
“I love my Onii-chan but is that the wrong kind of love?”
“That’s… I don’t know because I’m not you.”
“Right…”
After that Aisha stretched her legs out while sitting on the bed and fell on it with a thud.
“I really don’t get it…”
While flapping her legs around, Aisha groaned in puzzlement.
“These days, both Pursena and Rinia talk about nothing but marriage, it’s so annoying. They keep talking about how I’ll miss my chance or how I can’t compromise after having come this far. Is marriage such a desperate thing to do? Do I have to do it? Is there really a need to do it theoretically? But it isn’t like everyone is thinking that far right?”
“Do you not want to marry, Aisha?”
“I don’t know know whether I want to or not.”
“Don’t you have any one you like?”
“Nope.
I decided on marrying Onii-chan when I was a child but even he seems to think differently of that idea, but then I can’t even imagine leaving this house…”
Aisha was all over Nii-san ever since she was a small child. She was like that since I met her for the first time in Millis, around the time when father recovered and began to work splendidly for a short while.
Honestly, no one really knew that Aisha was my sister. It was like if you asked someone from the hostel, they would go “Ah, so she’s from a previous marriage”. Even Lilya-san said to see her as a fellow maid rather than my sister.