Chapter 31
“Why?”
“Because I have already decided to accept you as one of us.”
He slowly closed his eyes and then opened them again, continuing,
“You—and your family—have already shown me.”
“……”
“That even without sharing blood, one can still be family.”
“Hehe.”
Flustered, I scratched the back of my head for no reason.
Mm-hm.
Grandfather was definitely won over by me now.
“In any case, if it is Verbium you need, then I shall grant it to you.”
My jaw dropped at his next words.
Wait.
Isn’t this a little too generous?
“Y-you mean you can just give something like that to me?”
Sure, I did need it, but…
Still, I hadn’t expected it to come so easily.
“I give it because I know you won’t waste it.”
Still dazed, I asked again,
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I need it?”
He didn’t even ask what I was planning to do with it.
“Think about whose child your father is.”
“Ah.”
Right. To Grandfather, I probably didn’t seem all that unusual.
After all, he had the precedent of Dad—Harzen.
“Really, truly! Thank you, Grandfather.”
At my words, he gave me a faint smile.
“Be grateful to yourself for earning this much of my trust.”
“Huh.”
Well, well. Someone’s praise skills have improved dramatically in just a few days.
I think you could retire from practice now, Grandfather…
“Then, um.”
Anyway, this is that, and that is this.
My eyes sparkled as I added quickly,
“Just like last time, please keep this a secret from Mom and Dad.”
“That is not difficult. But why do you wish it kept secret?”
He hadn’t asked a single question about the Verbium, but this he was curious about.
I rolled my eyes thoughtfully.
The reasons were many and complicated, but even setting them aside…
“Because I still want to be spoiled a little longer.”
To Mom and Dad, I still wanted to remain their endlessly adorable daughter.
“Hm.”
Grandfather tilted his head, considering my words, then said softly,
“No matter what kind of person you grow to be, you should always feel free to be spoiled.”
His gaze softened, his voice warm.
“Because you are still a child.”
At the same time, a look of sudden realization crossed his face, only to twist into anguish.
He clutched his head with trembling hands and murmured,
“Why… why could I not see this simple truth back then?”
Perhaps he was thinking of his son—the one who had never been allowed even the most ordinary indulgence of a child.
“If only Verbium could work on me instead.”
He exhaled a long breath, his voice breaking with regret.
“Then perhaps I could have conveyed my true heart to that child…”
“Grandfather.”
I turned my gaze firmly toward the door and spoke clearly,
“You don’t need it to convey your true heart.”
And there, standing at the end of my line of sight, was a figure all too familiar.
Dad—Harzen.
Grandfather, too, looked up and finally met his son’s eyes.
Behind Dad, the knights fidgeted nervously.
So, they had silenced the knights and snuck in to watch.
‘At least they only came in after Grandfather’s words of regret. That’s something.’
Yes, I had heard the door creak open around then.
“Dad.”
I called to him in a low voice, not taking my eyes off him.
But the expression on his face… I had never seen it before.
So unfamiliar, so impossible to guess at its meaning, it almost frightened me.
“Dad!”
Driven by a wave of fear, I hurried to him with a bright smile, taking his hand in both of mine.
Maybe if I did that, he would at least put on one of his practiced smiles for me.
“……”
But though Dad’s hand closed firmly over mine, his gaze never left Grandfather.
It was an expression that looked angry, yet at the same time on the verge of tears.
“……Grandfather.”
In the end, I had no choice but to turn my head and signal him.
I’d done everything I could to lift Dad’s spirits.
‘Well… it is what it is.’
Still, our plan would move forward, step by step.
For now, I would just act as Dad’s squishy stress ball…
“What…”
After a long silence, Grandfather finally opened his mouth heavily.
“What can I even say…”
“Say something.”
Dad’s voice was cold as ice.
“Stop whining at the child and tell me directly. Anything at all—say it to my face.”
Wow.
I pressed my lips together, eyes darting nervously.
Grandfather hadn’t even picked a fight this time, and yet Dad reacted so sharply.
If this kept up, it would only end the same way as before…
“Phew.”
But Grandfather, though his jaw tightened for a moment, drew in a long breath and steadied himself.
Finally—my coaching was bearing fruit.
“In these last few days, through Sisi, I have realized many things.”
He lowered his eyes to the table and began to speak slowly.
“How much I neglected you. How much I wronged you.”
“……”
“It was never my intent from the beginning. True, I was blinded by my own obstinacy, but to let things come to this between us… that was never what I wanted.”
His weathered hands, marked by the passage of years, trembled faintly.
As though they carried fear, shame, and guilt all at once.
“I tried, in my own way, to mend things between us. But when you never opened your heart, I only—”
“You tried?”
Dad cut him off, his voice rising.
“You call that trying to mend things? When? When did you ever try?”
“……”
“I still—up until the very end—hoped for your affection.”
Dad’s hand shook as violently as Grandfather’s, clutching mine desperately, as though if he let go of even this, he could not endure.
“And yet, did you ever once answer that hope?”
“……”
“I swallowed my pride, I even wrote you letters—”
“……Letters?”
At that, Grandfather, who had sat bowed like a penitent all this while, cut in abruptly.
“You mean the one you left on my desk when you were fourteen?”
Then his voice rose, sounding indignant.
“And how can that be called an attempt at reconciliation? I truly cannot understand.”
“You dare—”
“I waited that entire night at the place you wrote in that letter. But you never appeared.”
Grandfather’s blue eyes grew distant, shimmering with the memory.
“In the end, was it not you who deceived me?”
“…What are you saying?”
Dad’s face contorted at once.
“Stop spouting lies. It was I who waited the whole night—for you. At Lake Serenus—”
“Lake Serenus?”
Grandfather frowned.
“Didn’t you write you would wait in the Viridis Garden?”
“So now you make up lies to cover yourself? I wrote clearly—Lake Serenus!”
“What reason would I have to lie? I read it with my own eyes: Viridis Garden. I went there and waited. If you don’t believe me, ask my aide.”
Listening to them, the truth clicked in my mind.
Dad had written: I’ll be waiting at Lake Serenus.
But somehow, the letter Grandfather received said instead: I’ll be waiting in the Viridis Garden.
“That’s how it happened.”
Both of them had waited, until dawn broke, each in a different place—nursing only bitterness toward the one who never came.
