Chapter 40
“Really?”
“Yes.”
That was a huge gain. I nodded as I looked at the Grand Duke.
“All right.”
“Me too.”
“…Pardon?”
“At the very least, I worry about my children.”
He said he was worried, but his blank expression was more than enough to make him look like someone who wasn’t worried at all.
“Ah. Yes.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“It’s because of the way you say it. Anyone would think, just from looking at you, that you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t worry about things like that at all.”
Only then did he clear his throat.
“…….”
“So when you really are worried from now on, um… I think it’d be better if you softened your eyes a bit like this.”
In place of touching his body—which I wouldn’t dare do—I brought my hand to my own eyes and pulled the corners down slightly with my fingers.
“Like that? Is that a worried expression?”
“Yes. If you speak with that expression, people will think you’re at least a little worried.”
I thought he’d scoff and call it nonsense, but unexpectedly, the Grand Duke let his eyes droop slightly.
“Like this?”
“Uh… probably. Ah, it’s better than before!”
But there was no way his expression could actually improve just from that. He was clearly trying, yet it didn’t look any better at all. If anything, it just gave the impression that he was glaring at someone with a strange expression.
Even so, I lied and smiled awkwardly.
If I said something like, Even if you do that, your expression still isn’t getting any better, it felt like the Grand Duke might get angry.
“Really?”
“Yes! It’s very good. Since you’re good-looking to begin with, even this kind of expression suits you well.”
“Hmph…”
Did I overdo the praise? It wasn’t entirely wrong. As the father of Rohen and Lari, the Grand Duke was quite handsome. Half flattery, half truth. But his reaction was underwhelming.
Maybe I should cut back on the flattery next time. I only said that because I felt bad about lying.
Then—
“I’ll try to make this kind of expression more often. At least in front of my children… I want to be an ordinary father to them.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Honestly, I don’t really know how. I’ve never properly loved or held my children. In truth, it’s the same with these twins.”
Of course, of course. Still, these twins are special to you.
They’re the children born of your first love. The children you searched for so desperately.
Beyond the children who look exactly like him, he must be picturing his first love—the one he tried to protect, even going so far as to make his first request of the Grand Duchess.
“I know.”
“In any case… well, it’s not that I’ll listen to everything you say, Aisha. I’ll just take some of it into consideration.”
“All right.”
“But the children follow you more than anyone else.”
He seemed like he had more to say, but the Grand Duke didn’t add anything further. He simply watched me in silence.
Instead of looking at me like you have so much to say, it’d be nice if you’d just let me stay in this house now that things have come to this.
But he didn’t seem to have any such intention. He was still cold toward me.
“In any case, we’ll see each other the next time we go to the temple.”
“Yes~.”
“If I ask you various things—”
“Yes?”
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m just asking about things I’m curious about, since you were with the children during their early years. There’s absolutely no other meaning to it.”
Of course. Naturally, it should be that way.
But among people who say there’s absolutely no other meaning, there’s rarely anyone who truly has no other meaning at all.
He must have been quite curious.
Strangely enough, the Grand Duke favored the twins. In his own way. There was the eldest son, Ron, but Ron was a separate matter. Perhaps because the Grand Duchess was especially doting on her own son, the Grand Duke had never even spoken kindly to him.
But with the twins, it was different. His way of expressing it was flawed, but he showed them a great deal of interest.
As if the twins were his only children.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“If you’re thinking of having expectations, don’t. Even if I speak to you more, I have no intention of retracting what we agreed on back then.”
“Yes.”
“…Then I’ll be going. If anything strange comes up, tell me anytime.”
It was a very small change, perhaps. But for someone who barely tried to listen to anything I said before, it was a remarkable one.
With that, the Grand Duke left. Rohen, who had been keeping his mouth tightly shut as if he didn’t intend to speak to the Grand Duke at all, finally approached us.
“I don’t like it.”
“Why do you hate it that much?”
“He ignored us all this time, and now he’s acting like he cares. It’s disgusting. He abandoned us, and now—”
“That’s understandable. I get it.”
At my words, Rohen’s eyes darted around.
“You get it?”
“Of course.”
“Well… you were abandoned too. Don’t worry. I won’t abandon you, big sister.”
“…Huh?”
“No— not me. We won’t. Lari and I… we won’t abandon you. So… ah, forget it. I’m going to sleep.”
For some reason, Rohen suddenly hopped onto the bed where Lari was and hugged him as if holding a doll.
It was a really nice sight. I sat on the chair beside the bed and watched them.
“It’s really nice seeing you two like this.”
But perhaps embarrassed, Rohen buried his face into Lari’s back.
“So shy.”
“I’m not. I’m just… sleepy.”
I smiled broadly as I looked at the two of them.
I’ve been waiting for a time like this.
Of course I had. Then, at that moment, a thought surfaced in my head without warning. It felt like my memory, like my thought—yet strangely, it didn’t feel like mine at all.
This is strange…
Why is this happening? I keep having strange thoughts.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh? No, it’s nothing. I was just… thinking about something. Since it’s come to this, I should sleep too.”
I quickly slipped under the blanket.
“Is it okay… to sleep in the same bed?”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay? Why—do you not like it, Rohen?”
“No, I like it. It’s just…”
Rohen was unusually strange today, hesitating over and over.
Is he embarrassed? He’s so cute.
So cute, so lovable—why did they have to walk such a painful path? The lives of these two children really are tragic.
That’s why I exist, I suppose. So that the same things as in the past won’t happen again.
No—to keep the events of the novel from repeating. Without realizing it, strange words kept surfacing in my mind.
“Maybe I’m just tired…”
“Tired? Go to sleep quickly.”
At the word “tired,” Rohen jumped up as if startled and gently patted my head.
“Y-yeah… I should sleep.”
“You’re weak, yet you’re always running around trying to do things. Of course you’re tired. Go to sleep. Don’t just collapse.”
Just then, as Rohen half-lay across Lari while speaking, Lari opened his eyes, apparently uncomfortable.
“Uuung… Lari die, Lari!”
“You’re not dying. Drama queen.”
Rohen snorted with laughter and ruffled Lari’s hair. He must toss and turn a lot in his sleep—his hair was stuck all over his face.
“Uuung…”
I brushed the strands of hair off Lari’s face as he waved his hands in the air.
“Lari.”
“Uuung…”
After the Duke left, Lari, who had woken up in a daze, looked at me with a sullen expression. He still seemed half-asleep.
“You said you’ve been sleeping more ever since you came here, right?”
“Yeah!”
It isn’t poison. No—there isn’t only poison you ingest. What that physician said must mean it wasn’t caused by just one thing being given to him.
Well, the Duke’s children, due to their innate constitution, aren’t easily affected by ordinary poison. But the fact that they were affected… the fact that it was discovered means…
I nodded slightly as I looked at Lari.
At least it was fortunate that from now on, the Grand Duchess would know that the Duke was keeping a close eye on things. If so, she wouldn’t be able to act easily.
Suddenly, parts of the novel I had forgotten came back to me. Since arriving here, the story from the novel had been growing increasingly vague. Some days, I’d suddenly wonder why I was even here.
Then I’d remember again why I was here. That this was a novel, and the twins in front of me were the so-called “beasts,” the black-masked villains of the story. If I didn’t keep recalling it, thinking about it again and again, it felt like the thought would stop right there and disappear. So I recalled my memories over and over.
This is a novel. Don’t forget. A novel. I’m a supporting character, and the children in front of me are the novel’s villains.
The villain and villainess who come to love the female lead obsessively. They become fixated on her, even kidnapping her, only to be executed in the end by the crown prince, the protagonist of the novel. Because they are beasts, the children’s emotions are unusually raw and unfiltered.
Among the not-so-many descriptions, there were some about Lari and Rohen as well.
There was definitely a situation like this.
In the novel, Rohen excessively took care of his younger sibling. Partly because Lari was born with a weaker body than Rohen, and partly because his health deteriorated rapidly after coming to the ducal household. So Rohen, fearing that something might happen to his only ally, his sibling, pitied him deeply and did everything for him.
The Duke was the same.
Though he tried his best for the twins, the Duke spared nothing when it came to Lari. And that only made the Grand Duchess angrier.
“For some reason… I feel like we’ll be hearing from them soon.
