Chapter 103: Things He Can’t Buy

A few days had passed since Lily dragged Reinhard through half of Marvello and came home with a stuffed monster the size of a sedan.

Reinhard had slipped back into his usual routine, between Eclipse matters and investments that never seemed to stop needing his attention. He had no shortage of work. What he’d started noticing instead was how different the mansion felt now, lived in rather than merely built, people moving through the halls without asking permission first.

The training room got used.

The research wing stopped being empty.

The kitchen was never actually empty either, which for once had nothing to do with him managing it.

One evening he came home later than usual, and the smell hit him before he even reached the kitchen. He followed it in to find Emily at the counter, ingredients scattered everywhere like she’d lost a fight with a vegetable stand.

She glanced over her shoulder. "You’re cooking?" he asked, stopping in the doorway.

"Yes."

He looked at the mess, then at her. "For everyone?"

"For you."

"Me?"

"Yes."

He glanced around like a second Emily might step out from behind the pantry to explain this. "You know I can cook."

"I know."

"You also know I can buy literally any meal in this city within the hour."

"I know that too."

"Then why are you cooking?"

She turned back to the ingredients, a small smile tugging at her mouth. "Because I wanted to."

There wasn’t much he could say to that, so he walked over and picked up a knife instead.

"What are you doing?" she asked immediately.

"Helping."

"I didn’t ask you to."

"I know."

She studied him for a second before giving in. "Then you’re cooking with me."

"Fair enough."

It didn’t take long for him to start stealing ingredients off the cutting board. Emily caught him mid-reach the third time.

"Reinhard."

"What?"

"That’s for the meal."

"I was checking the quality."

"You’ve checked it three times."

"Quality control requires consistency."

She laughed and dragged the ingredients out of his reach. "Then control yourself."

"That’s asking a lot of a man with my particular weaknesses."

A few minutes later he leaned in to taste the sauce, and she caught that too. "I said wait."

"I was making sure you didn’t poison me."

"You ate half of it."

"Thorough testing requires sacrifice."

She laughed again, loud enough that he looked pleased with himself for the rest of the vegetables. Nothing about the evening was particularly special on paper, a messy kitchen, Reinhard constantly in the way.

Emily stealing her own knife back from him twice because he was apparently holding it "incorrectly" by some standard only he understood. Neither of them minded. They were just spending time together, which had somehow become its own kind of luxury.

At one point Emily paused and looked around the kitchen, and for a second the whole scene struck her as almost unreal. Here she was standing in her own kitchen making dinner for her husband simply because she felt like it. Instead of having to stare out the window waiting to be given food.

The difference between those two women still occasionally caught her off guard.

She smiled quietly to herself.

"What?" Reinhard asked, catching it.

"Nothing."

"Liar~."

She looked at him a moment longer. "I was just thinking I like this."

"Me too," he said, and meant it enough that neither of them needed to say anything else about it.

Once the food was done, they sat together, and the meal wasn’t quite perfect, one section slightly oversalted, which Reinhard clocked instantly but handled with surprising tact.

"Is it good?" she asked, watching him carefully.

"Yes."

"You’re not just saying that?"

"I’d tell you if it was terrible."

"That’s not reassuring."

"It’s honest."

She laughed and took another bite anyway. The conversation drifted easily from there, the mansion, Lily’s latest training demand, Maki’s research, what Emily wanted changed in the training room.

Reinhard eventually leaned back and surveyed the scene, food on the table, Emily beside him, the kitchen a gentle disaster around them both.

"What a lovely date," he said.

She smiled back at him. "We should have more of these."

"More dates?"

"Not just cooking." She rested her hand beside his. "More days like this."

"I’d like that," he said, and her smile widened enough that neither of them bothered filling the silence that followed. There wasn’t anything left that needed saying.

...

Later that evening, walking through a quieter stretch of the mansion, Reinhard heard footsteps behind him.

"Reinhard."

He turned to find Yuna a short distance away, holding a small case.

"What is it?"

"Your gift."

His interest sharpened instantly. "Is that a relic?"

She nodded, and he took the case from her, opening it to find a beautifully made relic set in a dark metallic frame, Mana crystals embedded along its surface in a pattern too deliberate to be decorative. Even without using his Mana Sovereignty, he could tell it wasn’t an ordinary piece.

He turned it over carefully. "This is good."

"I thought you’d like it."

"What does it do?"

She explained, and his interest only deepened as she went, powerful, useful, genuinely beautiful, exactly the kind of thing he liked owning. "You have good taste."

"I’ve had a lot of practice watching you," she said.

"That’s true," he admitted, setting the relic back in its case, where he noticed a small card tucked beneath it. He picked it up and read the short message written there.

I know you’ve been getting into dangerous things.

I know you don’t tell us because you want to protect us.

I won’t ask.I only hope you continue coming home with a smile.

Reinhard went still. He read it once, then again, the mansion quiet around him in a way that felt suddenly heavier than it had a moment ago.

"You’re not going to ask?" he said finally.

"If you wanted me to know, you’d tell me."

"You know I’m hiding things."

"I know."

"And you’re fine with that?"

She considered it for a moment. "I don’t need to know everything." She looked at him steadily. "I just need to know that you’ll come home."

He hadn’t expected this.

Yuna wasn’t asking him to explain himself or demanding him to tell her anything. She was simply telling him she already trusted him enough to let him decide when he was ready to share the rest.

He looked down at the card again. I know you’ve been getting into dangerous things. She wasn’t wrong.

The Collectors had already tried to take him once, and what he’d found in their records since told him they’d use the people around Emily as leverage without a second thought if it got them what they wanted.

Silent Night wasn’t an organization he could afford to underestimate either, and House Baal’s interest in Emily meant that if any of them decided they couldn’t reach her directly, the people standing near her became the obvious target instead.

None of that was new information to him. What was new was the thought that followed it. Maybe they should know too.

He’d always told himself that keeping things from them was a form of protecting them, that if they didn’t know the danger existed, they wouldn’t have to deal with it.

If he could handle the problem alone, there was no reason to hand anyone else the burden. The longer he sat with that logic now, the less solid it felt.

If the mansion was attacked, would not knowing actually make anyone safer. If one of them was taken, would ignorance give them any kind of advantage at all. If the Collectors, Silent Night, or House Baal finally made their move, wouldn’t knowing what he already knew give his family an actual chance to prepare instead of simply reacting.

He looked at Yuna again. He could tell her about the Collectors, Silent Night, House Baal, Emily’s place in all of it. Those were things his family might genuinely need to know.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Yuna nodded and didn’t push for anything more.

After she left, Reinhard headed back to his room and sat down in the chair beside his desk. The relic was still in its case, and Yuna’s card rested beside it.

He picked up the card again, reading the words one more time. I only hope you continue coming home with a smile.

For some reason, his thoughts didn’t stay on the card.

They went back to the past few days instead. Lily suddenly appeared beside him because she was bored, dragging him to Marvello without asking for anything in return. She had remembered which pastries he liked, noticed when he had actually relaxed, and kept the day going simply because she was having fun with him.

Emily had cooked dinner because she wanted to make something for him, even though he could have bought the same meal without lifting a finger. She had then asked for more days like that, not because either of them needed anything, but because she wanted to spend that time with him.

And now Yuna had watched him closely enough to choose a relic she knew he would like, then given him a card that asked for nothing except that he come home safely.

"Have they been worried... About me?"

Everything they did for the past week was about making him happy or doing something for him.

A small smile slowly appeared on his face. He had spent so much time thinking about what his family needed that he hadn’t noticed when they had started thinking about what he needed.

That realization felt strangely warm.

He could buy almost anything in the world, but he couldn’t buy this. They had chosen to give it to him because they cared about him. For once, Reinhard wasn’t the only one taking care of everyone.

His family had been taking care of him too.

He just hadn’t realized it until now.