~Chapter 87~
“They thought I was your ex-husband…!”
Kyle’s voice echoed through the reception room.
My mind went completely blank as I stared at him in shock.
“Sorry, I think I misheard you?”
“T-They thought I was your ex-husband. I heard he’s supposed to be… a really awful person, so they were planning to catch him and punish him…”
His words faded into the distance.
So.
They mistook him for my non-existent ex-husband.
They kidnapped him—
AND used magic to open his mind?
Suddenly everything fell into place.
Felix carrying my photo everywhere, Aska reading someone’s memories without permission, Reyester saying I’d “hear good news soon.”
It felt like someone had smashed the back of my head with a drumstick.
“Why…?”
I asked, barely able to form the words. Aska pulled something out of his clothes and placed it in front of me. It was a wrinkled piece of paper.
I unfolded it. It was a drawing.
“Did Shiz draw this? Why are you showing me this…?”
When I looked at him in confusion, Aska finally explained.
“Whenever you or Shiz are asked about her real father, you both avoid the answer. As if you don’t want to think about him.”
Well, that’s because the man doesn’t exist.
“And second, this drawing. I heard it was a family drawing, and based on the situation, I thought she drew her real father.”
It was a black-haired figure drawn in a scary, ominous way. Seeing that, Aska assumed the father must be a terrible person.
“And third, you…”
“…”
“I was afraid you might go back to that person, so I wanted to stop it before it happened.”
“Y-You…”
My breath caught. I couldn’t even speak.
I pointed at Shiz’s messy drawing.
“This… this is just scribbling… nothing more…”
So Felix and Aska spent the entire exchange event searching for potential “ex-husband candidates”?
Because many people from the Southern Continent were here?
“…Wait.”
Don’t tell me… from the very beginning… this whole exchange event—
I slowly turned my head to look at Reyester.
I didn’t even say anything, but he started shaking his head violently.
“No. Absolutely not.”
His denial was way too fast and too strong, which meant—
I dropped Shiz’s drawing from my hand.
“So the three of you were planning all of this behind my back, huh…?”
All three men flinched at the same time. I gave them a crooked smile.
“You turned Kyle into an idiot and tried to hide it from me? Wow. Must’ve been fun doing all this behind my back…”
“Um, Magician…”
I stood up from my seat.
“W-Wait, you’re leaving already?”
“S-Should I escort you, Magician?”
Reyester and Felix both tried to stop me, but I didn’t even look at them.
“Get up, Kyle. We’re leaving in the same carriage.”
Kyle looked helplessly between me and the three men, clearly regretting telling the truth.
“Uh… Relshiz, are you… angry…?”
I clenched my teeth and answered,
“Yes. Very. I can’t stand the sight of any of them right now!”
* * *
At some point, Aska had forgotten how to endure things.
He watched Relshiz and Kyle leave the palace together through the window.
Watching them walk side by side so naturally filled him with that same unpleasant feeling again, even though he knew Kyle was already a married man.
As Relshiz walked farther away, she suddenly stopped. Warm sunlight dyed her amber hair a soft gold.
Without warning, she turned around. Her face was full of anger as she glared at the building—maybe even at him.
The wind blew, lifting her hair like thin threads of gold.
On that angry face, Aska saw overlapping images—Relshiz smiling, Relshiz crying.
Aska stood frozen, as if time had stopped, quietly absorbing the sight.
But Relshiz soon turned away again and walked forward.
As he watched her grow smaller in the distance, Aska suddenly felt the urge to grab her.
To turn her around.
To make her keep looking only at him.
Just that one thing.
Until now, patience had always come easily to Aska Willovis. He had never strongly wanted anything in the first place.
But lately… something was different.
He felt unbearably frustrated, and from time to time, a hot emotion surged inside him.
Ever since hearing Relshiz speak about her ex-husband, these symptoms had gotten even worse.
Aska felt like something inside him was broken.
Why?
Questions kept piling up.
What makes you so different?
Why was she so special then, and still so special now?
What am I trying to get?
Why was he wandering like this, unable to find stability?
Following that long chain of questions led him back to the past—
To the day when he was six years old.
Standing behind the orphanage, watching six-year-old Relshiz sobbing alone.
In the tangled mess of memories, Aska carefully analyzed his own emotions.
He hated that someone other than him recognized Relshiz Baltain’s value.
He hated that Relshiz Baltain treated someone else as special instead of him.
If you like something, I like it too. If you hate something, I hate it too.
But if you end up hating me… what am I supposed to do?
He suddenly lifted his head and realized it was midsummer.
A distant memory resurfaced.
“Hey, Aska.”
Back then, it was also summer. Hotter than now, and he was younger.
Young Aska was learning common emotions one by one—
Joy, sadness, anger, fear…
And the last thing he learned was this:
“Mother, what is love?”
After thinking for a while, the Duchess of Willovis made an unexpected request:
“Aska, can you run once around the mansion?”
Even when he asked why, she gave no answer. So Aska simply did as she said.
Under the hot sun, he quickly grew tired.
When he returned, his body was burning, and his breath was ragged.
His mother approached him silently, lifted his hand, and placed it over his chest.
He felt his heartbeat clearly.
“How is it?”
“…Really fast.”
“Right?”
Her gentle voice echoed in his ears.
“When you think of someone, your face gets hot, your heart beats fast, and even when they’re not in front of you, you keep thinking about them.”
“…”
“Most people call that ‘love.’”
Rel. Relshiz Baltain.
He repeated the name over and over in his mind.
“How do you know who that someone is? What if I meet them but don’t realize it?”
“Oh Aska. Don’t worry. You can’t fail to recognize love.”
Aska slowly lifted his own hand and placed it over his chest—just like that day.
“Because it is the strongest and clearest feeling a human can have.”
His heart was pounding.
Hot and fast.
And at that moment, the realization hit him without any doubt.
A bird cried loudly in the distance—
A newly hatched summer bird.
* * *
At the quiet mansion, Shiz leaned her face against the window frame, lips pouting.
Outside, the sky was dark and looked like it might rain soon.
“Hngh… I’m bored. It’s so boring. No one is coming to visit.”
“Give up hope. No one will be coming to this mansion anytime soon.”
She wasn’t planning to see those three men for a while.
