"WE DON'T CARE."

Those were the only bolded words written in the letter of reply my parents sent me back about two months later. One fateful morning, Cecily burst open the door to tell me my parents had replied to our wedding invitation. Obviously, I already knew their answer by then, because if they wanted to attend, then they wouldn't have sent a letter. This answer was within expectations, but the short and strong message was a tad on the harsh side. This handwriting too, it feels way too scribbly to belong to mom, so I assume dad was the one who bore such strong feelings against it.

"Sigh, well, I guess that's fine..." I carefully put the letter in the envelope it came in.

"Hey now, don't give up!" Cecily wanted to cheer me up, "Maybe they'll change their mind! Regardless of what they may have felt about you leaving home, I'm sure they wouldn't wanna just skip out on their son's wedding."

"No, dad's the most stubborn guy I know, even to this day." I shook my head dejectedly, "He's not changing his mind, but I expected this, so I won't let it get to me. Besides, they weren't present for mine and Marina's wedding, and I didn't care at all."

"But..." She finally heaved a deep sigh as if giving up, "Alright, if you say so."

"Yeah, but don't worry!" I smiled, "We've got enough guests to worry about as is, so you could say it works out in a way."

"How can you say such a thing about mister and missus Grimheart!?" Eleanor piped up from the couch, "Such kind and chivalrous people, getting disrespected from their lousy son... It's despicable!"

"Eleanor, shut up." Ed quieted her down.

"No, she said nothing wrong." I chuckled, "I know they're cool, awesome and whatever else you may describe them as, but no matter what kind of person someone is, there is always a limit to their kindness. If you think about it in another way, then the story goes that their lousy son ran away one day, caused them immense worry and fear, and now, after years of going no-contact, sends them a letter acting like nothing ever happened and suddenly wants to rebuild the bridge he himself burnt down."

"You're being too hard on yourself." Cecily gave me a worried gaze, "It's not your fault. Besides, had you never left, then we would have never met in the first place."

"I'm just putting myself in their shoes." I shrugged, "If Cene ran away from home and forced us to go out looking for him for then next 15 or so years, then I'd be at the very least ticked off. Granted I would let bygones be bygones, but as I said, my dad's not like that."

"Isn't that exactly what happened with Nelly, though?" Aru smirked as Cene tried and failed to braid her hair, "She went to her loverboy across the sea, and since graduating takes over a decade if she plans to go the full course, then she's basically not gonna be in your lives for a while."

"Yeah, but she'll be visiting us often." I retorted, "As will we them. It's not the same."

"Or so you say, but in reality..." Aru smirked, "Think of it this way - If you had to pick between uninterrupted quality time with your wife and having to visit your parents across the sea every so often, you'd surely pick the former, no?"

Wait... Dammit, is this another one of her premonitions!? Nelly better come and visit us often, otherwise Cene is gonna feel super sad! Or worse, since he has a replacement Nelly in the form of Aru, he might actually forget about his big sister altogether! To have my children not know about each other is a fate worse than death! I-I should probably make it a rule for her to come visit us often next time we see each other...

"By the way, neither Nelly nor Meil sent us back their reply." Cecily frowned, "I'm worried they might not come either."

"Well, that just means they're taking their studies seriously, so I don't mind at all." I replied, "Though it is odd to not get a reply at all from Meil. Nelly I can understand, but he never leaves a question unanswered. Did all the letters get lost in the mail?"

"No, it certainly reached them." Aru looked in a seemingly random direction, "Yeah, it's sitting there on their bedside table. They read it, but they haven't sent a letter back."

"Why would they do that?" I then asked a way more important question, "H-Hold on, THEIR bedside table?! A-As in, they share a bed!?"

"Oh yeah, now that you mention it, they do." She explained, "See, Meil gets these night terrors pretty often after the war affected him, so to get him to sleep more soundly and not wake up screaming in the middle of the night, Nelly thought it'd help to have someone close to him. Don't worry though, it's not like they did it or anything."

"I don't care how clairvoyant you are, Aru, but hearing this just doesn't sit well with me at all..." I deflated, "But Meil's traumatized from the war? Then shouldn't he be more eager to reply to the message that specifically came from me?"

"See that's the thing." Aru giggled smugly, "They're both pretty logical thinkers, and logically speaking, people don't just revive out of nowhere and get married."

"Yeah, I can understand that line of thinking as well." I chuckled, "So, then?"

"So, they had just assumed that the letter that arrived at their doorstep one day was actually written by you before you went to the war, and subsequently died." She explained, "They think it just got majorly delayed and felt a slight kindle of nostalgia about your handwriting, but didn't bother to take it seriously, hence the lack of a reply."

"You could've told us that earlier..." We frowned, "Dammit, I knew I should've written that "I REVIVED" part..."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"It didn't sound nice, though!" Cecily still defended her choice to omit such a crucial part of the letter, "It's a wedding invitation! It's to be expected that both the bride and the groom are alive if you get it!"

"Then we should've written a dispatch date, goddammit!"

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"And that's the story." I finished my retelling to Issei as the three of us were sitting atop the roof of the Saints' house, "Mom and dad aren't coming, and now we know Nelly and Meil aren't coming either."

"Damn, that's a shame." Issei took a swig of his beer can, "I really wanted to see that pragmatic bastard again, too. Did I ever tell you guys that we were cellmates back when we were in prison."

"You were what?" I opened my Eyes wide at that one, "Wait, pause for a second. It was already enough of a surprise to learn you two knew each other, but you were together in that prison!?"

"I had a similar reaction when I learnt it, too." Ed chuckled, "Seriously, back when we were kids, just going to the next town over seemed like a whole new world to us, but now when I hear stories like this of all sorts of people knowing each other, it seems like this world can barely fit all of us in it."

"Careful. Keep thinking like that and your Eyes'll turn Gray." I joked, although I half meant it.

"I've had enough conversions already, I think." Ed scratched his head as he looked over at the sunset, "I think Brown suits me the most. It signifies remaining in your comfort zone, and whilst before I assumed that was naturally bad, with the house now nearing its completion and Anna and I happy like this, I think it's just fine as it is."

"I'll drink to that." Issei raised his can of beer for all three of us to toast to, "The house really did turn out way better than I expected. We had a few mishaps, like some walls breaking or the roof falling through a couple times, but since we learned a lot from those issues, I'd say we did good overall."

Those aren't just some minor mishaps... But he's right, we really did an amazing job with this house. Given its foreign infrastructure, we were scared that it wouldn't have worked out even with all of Issei's and mine tension testing. Issei did mention that we made the base of the house too thick, replacing the traditional design with a sturdier build, but I don't think Ed particularly minds. Given his stance on safety, I'm sure he much rather prefers this anyways. The house was already finished, actually. Well, the first and second floors, at least, but the roof was still missing just one final tile before we could truly call it done. The Saints had already moved all their stuff from our house to their new one downstairs, so while they were busy fine tuning everything, we decided to celebrate in our own way as all three of us placed the final tile together. It was a blast, just goofing off with these two for the past two and a half months, but all good things must come to an end.

"After this, Cecily and I will only have a few more months before we get married." I smiled as I got up.

"After this, Anna and I are gonna start trying for a baby." Ed dusted himself off as he reached for the one remaining tile left to be put in its place.

"After this, Othelia and I are leaving for our last World Wonder." Issei revealed as he grabbed the tile with us, "And hopefully, if all goes well, the two of us can go back to Japan to live out our days in peace-"

"Hold it!" Both Ed and I stopped the heartwarming mood, "Y-You're gonna go already!?"

"Well yeah." He chuckled nervously, "Oh, but don't misunderstand! We'll stay until after Lune's wedding! But after that, we really don't have any other excuse to slack off on our primary goal."

"You're living under our roof, but don't think that we think of you guys as a burden." I added, "Please, stay a bit longer."

"Lune, what did I spend the last decade and a half doing if I'm just gonna give up at the very end, then?" Issei smiled, "Listen man, we've got plenty of time to do all sorts of things until your wedding, but I have to go home. If you guys are my friends, and I know that you are, then you'll understand and let me go. We disbanded on sour terms last time, so don't go making history repeat itself."

"You..." I finally sighed, "You're right. It'd be selfish of me to ask you to stay, so I apologize."

"Thanks." Issei then noticed Ed being oddly quiet, "And you, bud? Hey, don't go making a sad face now. Come on, let's finish this house project with bright smiles!"

"Mn..." Ed finally forced out a lonely smile, "Fine. Let's plop it in. Together."

"That's the spirit!" Issei then said a short prayer as we slowly lowered the roof tile into place, "May this house protect my friends."

As we finally put it in, we felt a tinge of melancholy befell us as we propped ourselves back up into a standing position. Still situated on the roof, we began packing all the celebratory beer cans as we thought to join the others downstairs. Of course, we didn't expect something grandiose like the house to start glowing or a spectacular mechanism to begin operating, but it was still a bit sad to have such a moment just... happen like that.

"Hey guys." Issei smiled as he had us look at the sun, "Look over there."

"Aw, snap." I admired the Red beauty of the great ball of heat, "Well, that's certainly a good enough view to accompany this moment."

"Yeah." Ed took one last swig of his can before scrunching and tossing it all the way down and into the trash can out in the garden, "I'll drink to that."

The house was complete. Now all we have to look forward to is a slew of good news... And a begrudging goodbye.