Chapter 16 (2/2)

Things like anniversaries were very important to girls. However, Clayman shook his head, dismissing my theory.

“f.u.c.k you. Of course I remembered. The thing is, I had to think of a present to get her. It was too much of a ha.s.sle so I procrastinated, and then the day of the anniversary came…”

“So you didn’t get her a gift at all? That’s how you ended up like this?”

“Well, I was out looking for a present, so hard infact, I wound up in a daze, and before I realized it, it was the middle of the night. I hurried back to the house, and my always expressionless wife was even moreexpressionless…”

“You’re an idiot.”

There was no hope of not ruining the anniversary. The present is optional, the important thing is celebrating and spending time together.

“Geez, it’s all such a pain in the a.s.s…”

“It’s your own fault. You need to apologize to your wife!”

If he did it soon maybe he could still salvage this situation…or maybe not, but at least he might be able to avoid divorce!

“Naw, she ain’t mad anymore. Plus, she’s gonna come pick me up after she’s done with work today. She’s gonna nurse me back to health at home~”

‘I bet you’re jealous, right~?’ his smiling face seemed to brag. …I knew it, it was deja vu, him talking like this. The truth was so far out of my expectations, I ended up just asking Clayman out of the blue—

“…Clayman, your wife, she’s a maid, right?”

“Oo! So you knew. But she’s not just any maid, she’s the Head Maid. Amazing, right?”

He proudly announced, almost as if he was praising himself, but it was at that moment I finally figured out who exactly Clayman’s wife was.

“Sophia-san…”

“Huh? How in h.e.l.l do you know my wife’s name?”

s.h.i.+t, I accidently said it out loud. It wasn’t really something to panic about, so I wasn’t exactly worried. But, I didn’t want Clayman to get any funny ideas, so I quickly explained.

“Actually, I’m an acquaintance of the Young Mistress of the Aquarain household. Also, one of the maids there is my old friend. That’s how I knew about her.”

And with that, the case should close without any further suspicions. Sure enough, that skeptical look soon returned to his usual unmotivated gaze.

“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to doubt you. But that’s right, there was that one time the Young Lady at my wife’s job dropped by to visit. I’m relieved, just thinking about if someone’d done something to my lovely wife…someone~”

For a split second I felt a large amount of killing intent directed at me.

With a face that serious, it was hard to believe this was the same lazy guy I knew. I guess he wasn’t the a.s.sistant Guildmaster just for show.

“Hey hey, point your hostility somewhere else! I’d never lay a hand on Sophia-san…”

“Ah, is that so. Okay then. Sorry ’bout that.”

What’s wrong with this guy? If he’s that possessive of Sophia-san he shouldn’t be s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his wedding anniversary. And where’d that serious face from just a moment ago get off to? It’s already turned back into his dull everyday face.

Still, first Sophia-san, now Clayman, both of them were pretty big deals.

…It made me wonder how exactly they’d met.

“So uh, just where and how did you meet Sophia-san?”

“Huh? What’s with the bolt from the blue?”

Probably because of the sudden change of topic, he gave me a dubious look. But as someone who’d fallen in love, this guy was more or less a success story if there ever was one. If I heard it from the source of a man whose love had turned into marriage…it could serve as great reference material.

“Come on, come on. Out with it.”

“Hmm, well, I was getting tired of sleeping anyway. All right, I’ll tell you the story of our fateful encounter all the way through our lovey-dovey marriage ceremony.”

He clearly put on an att.i.tude of looking down on me as he began, and I suddenly wanted to punch him in the face.

But, I was the one that brought it up and wanted to know, so I kept my fists down with all my might.

“So it all started when…”

From there, Clayman proceeded to regale me with his tale. It was supposed to be the story of how he met Sophia-san, but turned into how when he was young, he was hailed as a genius, and how awesome he was.

I hoped that it would lead into something more relevant soon, and nodded and responded when appropriate while listening intently. Apparently Clayman was a Solo Adventurer up until he was 18, and made Rank A all by himself.

He was such a genius that he could complete anything and everything with ease, and just when he felt his life had become boring, he met Sophia-san.

“So I was in the Guild, just sipping away on some alcohol at a table, no interest in anything. The Adventurer business was too d.a.m.n boring, I just couldn’t get into it anymore.”

Other than drinking alcohol, that wasn’t much different from how he was now. But anyhow, he had lost his motivation to work.

“Then someone called out to the likes of me, and that someone was Sophia!”

It looked as if he remembered that day in great detail, and his whole face lit up. Then, without any of his usual laziness, the tone of his voice became empowered.

“And what do you think she said when she walked up to me?”

What was this, a pop quiz? I didn’t really give it much thought and just gave an offhanded answer.

“Did she want to be friends with you?”

“Ha!”

Clayman snorted at my answer. Is that how you treat someone after they’ve been listening intently to your story?

“Sophia came up to me and said, ‘You look like you’re strong and have some free time. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to form a Party.'”

“Woah…”

Hearing the response, it definitely sounded like Sophia-san. ‘You look like you’re strong and have some free time’…her insight was impeccable. It was easy to spot someone with a lot of time on their hands, but it was much harder to tell if someone was strong.

“I turned her down at first, but because I was drunk off my a.s.s at the time, before I answered I copped a feel. Sophia’s a beauty after all.”

“You really are an idiot.”

And just what would Sophia-san do if someone did that to her? Even without asking I knew the answer.

“She soon removed herself from my embrace, and with that expressionless face of hers, she knocked me around good. She mercilessly beat me without holding anything back until she was satisfied. Drunk though I was, in my whole lazy life of being able to do anything and everything, losing to Sophia was more than a little shocking.”

“Let me rephrase that, you’re a huge idiot.”

There’s no reason Sophia-san shouldn’t have won against that carelessly lazy Clayman. Or maybe I should point out the fact that up to that point he thought he was the strongest person around?

“And that’s how Sophia and I met.”

“Wait, that’s it?! What the h.e.l.l happened after that?”

“The next day, I was the one who asked if we could be a party, and Sophia very willingly agreed.”

Agreeing to be in a party after this guy just copped a feel…but she was the one who originally asked him, so I guess it’s not completely implausible?

“After that Sophia and I were golden. We even made a big name for ourselves.”

‘A big name for ourselves’, normally in a fantasy setting an awesome pair would be known by some kind of special t.i.tle, wouldn’t they?

“I bet it was some embarra.s.sing chuuni couples name that would turn your ears red just from hearing it.”

“They called us ‘The Invincible Languorous Couple’.”

“What’s with that totally unenviable pair name?!”

That name is 100% Clayman’s fault. And with Sophia-san normally being expressionless, she may have actually appeared that way to some people. Poor Sophia-san.

“So after that you two were going steady?”

“That’s just what the a.s.sholes around us called us. It was too much of a ha.s.sle for me to do anything about it, and Sophia just thought the whole idea was stupid and never rejected the name. And so it became permanent.”

“Is it really alright to leave that alone…? So soon after that you two tied the knot?”

Even if they were called such a weird couple, that might not have actually been the case. There should have been a moment when the magic happened.

“Yeah…marriage. Marriage, huh…”

He suddenly closed his eyes, immersed in his own memories, leaving me sitting here dying to know what happened… If I let him go on like that, I’d never hear the ending, so I made quick work of waking him up.

“Hey! I’m beggin’ ya, finish the story!”

“Uwa?! Ah, sorry, sorry, I suddenly got hit with a wave of nostalgia.”

I successfully pulled him out of his world of memories and back into the real world. Did I maybe do something bad…? Nah, he can reminisce after I go home.

“First of all, maybe I should tell you about the proposal that led to our getting married?”

“Eh?! Did that really happen?”

“You betcha, as our little duo became closer, seeds of love began to sprout. On one of our days off, we were on something of a date.”

“Love can come out of nowhere, huh?”

Rather than spontaneous combustion, it was more like spontaneous companions.h.i.+p.

“Well, right when I popped the question, a really terrible incident occurred…”

“…Do I really want to hear about this?”

Maybe he had to convince her parents, or maybe he had another lover on the side, or some other daytime soap opera scenario. Was it all right for an outsider like me to hear about this? Feeling my worried tension in the air, Clayman lightly laughed.

“I think you might be thinkin’ a bit too hard there. I’ll tell you this, it’s certainly not whatever you’re imagining.”

What Clayman said relieved me. Honestly, I’d seen so many soap operas in my previous life, I’d almost forgotten that they don’t actually happen in real life.

“Then what actually happened?”

“…I was the one to propose. With all the time we were spending together, I was falling more and more in love with Sophia every day. I had spent a life lazing away, but for the first time in my life I wanted to take something seriously.”

I’m sure he agonized over how to propose seriously without any hint of his normal laziness. All he had to do was just declare his honest feelings. There shouldn’t have been any terrible occurrence about it.

“Ring in hand, I made sure to invite her out to a real cla.s.sy place to eat. And then I asked her, ‘Wanna get married?'”

“Isn’t that normal?”

It wasn’t even interesting, much less a disaster. What terrible thing could possibly happen?

“Sophia normally went along with whatever I said…but this time, when I asked her, she completely snapped. The result was me being laid up for half a year recovering from her a.s.sault.”

Clayman went pale at the mere memory of the incident. I vaguely recalled Celia-san telling me a similar story. So it was about the day of their proposal.

“She should have said yes, what reason was there for her to refuse?”

“…I told Sophia she should stop being an Adventurer. Around that time, I talked about how I might like becoming the a.s.sistant Guildmaster. I mean, we were talking about marriage, so I didn’t think I had to tiptoe around the subject. And so, she snapped. Apparently, Sophia wanted to continue to be the ‘Invincible Languorous Couple’. And while she was beating the s.h.i.+t out of me, I kept trying to convince her…and eventually she gave in.”

“……”

There were so many comebacks I could make, I didn’t even know where to start.

Why on earth did Sophia want to continue being known as the ‘Invincible Languorous Couple’, where the h.e.l.l did talk of becoming an a.s.sistant Guildmaster come from, but what I wanted to know the most was…

“…So in the end, you got married and have been living a lovey dovey life every since?”

“That’s right!”

Clayman cracked a wide grin. I don’t know why he didn’t want to tell the story at first, it was certainly worth a listen, wasn’t it? While I was lost in my own thoughts, there was a clanking sound as the door opened up behind me.

“Dear, I’ve come to pick you up…why is Youki-san here?”

Coming through the door was Sophia-san in her ever present maid outfit. I heard she was going to come see him, but wasn’t this a little early?

“Ahaha…I’m always bothering Clayman at the Guild, so I came to see how he was doing. But I just noticed, it’s not even noon, don’t you have work Sophia-san…?”

“I see, you know my husband through the Guild. Today I was actually supposed to be on leave. But we suddenly had a new hire brought on board, and Hapyneth skipped out on the job, it was just one problem after another, and all this before morning was even half over.”

Sophia-san answered in her normal expressionless and indifferent tone. So that’s why when she was chasing after Hapyneth earlier she seemed to be in such a bad mood.

“Honey, you came for me.”

“Honey?!”

Clayman calls Sophia-san Honey?? … But Sophia-san very quickly went to Clayman’s side and said,

“And just who is your ‘Honey’?”

Sophia-san delivered a beautiful dropkick right into Clayman’s gut. Sophia-san watched, still expressionlessly, as Clayman clutched his stomach and tried not to blackout.

“You always call me Sophia, right?”

“No, it was just a little joke. Also I can see up your skirt.”

Clayman switched back to his usual lazy self and said something completely unnecessary. If you say something like that, she’s gonna kick you again…

“And what of it? It matters not.”

“It doesn’t matter?!”

This was definitely a strange turn of events, so surprising my jaw dropped and the words just flew out. To answer my outburst, Sophia-san turned around and stated—

“He’s my husband after all.”

I was left at a loss for words. Leaving me like that, Sophia-san put her arm under Clayman’s shoulder to help stand him up.

“Well, I’m off, see you back at the Guild. My body is ridiculously hardy, so I should be back in about a week.”

“Now then Youki-sama, if you’ll excuse us. For visiting my ailing husband, I humbly thank you.”

No matter how many times I saw it, Sophia-san’s bows were always beautiful. She left with Clayman, him waving his hand goodbye. After saying their farewells, they both left the room.

“…I better get home.”

I headed out of the clinic back to my lonely abode by myself.

Walking back in with a deflated aura, the Guy-turned-Sphinx asked what was wrong, but I ignored him and threw myself on the bed.

Seeing those two happily together, I wasn’t able to admit how jealous I was. I also wanted to have a happy marriage like that.

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