Chapter 57: Aftermath – 2

Chapter 57: Aftermath – 2

A warm light filled the entire top floor.

And… at the same time, Lucia’s warmth returned.

It was a warm presence, feeling as if her fading life was slowly returning.

“……It seems that child was very precious to you.”

“Ah, Father? How did you get here so quickly…?”

And, suddenly, my father’s voice came from behind me.

His usually impeccable demeanor, the one who always spoke of noble dignity, was disheveled in a way I had never seen before.

As if… he had run with all his might.

“I merely followed because you were in such a hurry.”

“…Is that so?”

It was a side of my father I had never experienced.

No, it was the image of my father from my very early childhood, faintly remaining from the time he was with my mother.

An image he hadn’t shown once since my mother passed away.

He had always only spoken to me about how to live perfectly and without wavering, and he himself had only ever shown that side.

“……You know, I don’t know how you and this child met, nor do I know anything about this child.

But… the fact that the brooch’s power manifested means that this child’s existence is that precious to you.”

“…The brooch’s power manifested because she’s a precious person…”

“…Looking at that child, I have something I want to say. Will you listen?”

For the first time, my father made a request, not a command, for me to listen.

No, in fact, even though I had acted so emotionally, and done things far removed from the ‘perfection’ he always spoke of… he wasn’t even scolding me.

“Actually, I’ve wanted to talk about this for a long time, but seeing how you treat that child… I finally found the courage to speak. To speak about a precious person.”

“…What did you see in Lucia?”

“……It’s embarrassing to say, but it felt like I was seeing myself and Cathy. Cathy, who loved me for who I was, and that child, who trusts and likes you for who you are.

The way you both genuinely cherish each other.”

……This was also a first.

My father placing someone on the same level as my mother.

And… just as Lucia recognized and liked my true self, my mother had also recognized and liked my father’s true self.

……Even recognizing and liking my father’s true self, which I didn’t even know.

“Cathy, that is, your mother Catherine… somehow found my true self in my rigid past self, just as you’ve seen, and boldly laid it out, telling me what kind of person I was.”

“…Mother did…?”

“Yes. She was a terrifying woman who dragged me, who had no thoughts of marriage whatsoever, into marriage.

She was the first person… who loved me for who I was. Just as you cherish and love that child for who she is, and she doesn’t like you simply because you’re the Duchess.”

“H-how did you know that…?”

I knew my father was keeping an eye on Lucia.

Because he had asked her many things during dinner.

But… I never thought it was based on positive emotions or thoughts.

Rather, I thought he was just putting pressure on Lucia out of caution.

But… perhaps, in that moment, my father was seeing my mother’s reflection in Lucia.

Just as my father said… just as my mother had recognized and loved my father’s true self,

Lucia had also recognized and loved my true self.

“More importantly, you called someone ‘unnie’ for the first time and said you’d protect them. Did you think I wouldn’t know that much?”

“N-no, how did you even hear that?!”

“Every story in this mansion eventually reaches my ears, Duchess.”

Saying that, my father smiled comfortably.

Was it because he saw his relationship with my mother reflected in my relationship with Lucia?

Deep in my memory, in a realm I had asserted was gone after my mother’s death, my father’s image was slowly reappearing.

……Of course, my face was burning a bit at the fact that what I had said had reached my father’s ears.

“Do you know? The day Cathy died, I wished on that brooch even more desperately than you did, for Cathy to be brought back to life.”

“But a mere object can’t bring someone back to life. I wished countless times too, and it failed.”

“Duchess, no… Christie. I know what you’re thinking. And I know how desperately you wished for Cathy to be brought back to life.”

“……”

Christie, not Duchess.

It was a title I hadn’t heard from my father in a very long time.

A title I never heard even when I always acted the way he wanted me to in front of him,

I heard it now, when my ‘true’ personality and appearance were revealed.

The me now, and the me originally… were far from the perfection my father desired.

Because I had worked hard since childhood, I could force myself to maintain a perfect expression, voice, and actions in most situations.

But… not this time, absolutely not.

I was so disheveled that words were coming out comfortably without me even realizing it.

However, my father said nothing.

Instead, he spoke to me more gently than ever before.

“Christie. That brooch is indeed a miraculous item that can even bring the dead back to life. However, the condition for its power to manifest is not simply to make a wish.”

“…Then what is it…?”

“Desperation, and a blindness that says this wish must be granted, even if I have to give up myself and everything around me.

And a sense of crisis that if this wish isn’t granted, I, as a person, might collapse. All three of these must be met.”

Hearing that, I suddenly reflected on the situation just now.

Did I desperately wish for Lucia to live? Of course.

Then, did I wish for Lucia to live, even if I had to give up myself and everything around me? …I’m sorry to say, but for a moment, I even thought I should have taken care of Lucia first, not my father.

Of course, if the price of the wish had been my father’s life, I would have fallen into deep contemplation, but I was at least ready to offer my own life as the price of the wish.

Then… if I had lost Lucia right before my eyes just now, could I have continued to live without collapsing?

Honestly, I don’t have the confidence to live properly. If Lucia, who affirms and likes the inherent, clumsy ‘Christie’ rather than the ‘Duchess’ who stands in the eyes of others, isn’t there…

‘I would have wandered in some way, and collapsed.’

Therefore… my wish for Lucia sufficiently met the brooch’s conditions.

At some point, this girl, who affirmed and liked my unadorned self in my life, had become as precious as family.

“…Judging by your expression, it seems all conditions were indeed met.”

“……Then, why didn’t the wish to save Mother…?”

“There was probably a disqualifying factor in the second condition. …I was the same.

And it’s also undeniable that the criteria for the condition are much stricter compared to healing someone who isn’t dead.”

“What does that mean…?”

I didn’t quite understand.

Because I thought I could sacrifice my own life countless times if my mother could live.

But… my father quietly shook his head and continued.

“Christie. You are a good child. A child who resembles Cathy much more than me. Therefore… you are a child who would sacrifice yourself countless times to save those around you.”

“……”

“But, at the same time, because of that… you wouldn’t have thought that your family and servants, who were with you, could die for your wish.

Even if that wish could be granted, if the price was my death and the servants’, you would have gladly given up that wish.”

He was right.

No matter how precious my wish was… it wasn’t equivalent to the lives of my father and those who had been with me since childhood.

“The blindness required by a wish to heal the living is, if someone asks for your life as the price of the wish, whether you can gladly give it…

The blindness required by a wish to revive the dead is, whether you can truly gladly give up the lives of everyone around you if they are demanded as the price of the wish.”

“……You couldn’t grant the wish either, Father? Because of the second condition?”

“I was no different. Cathy was certainly the most precious person in my life. I wanted to bring Cathy back to life, even if I had to give up everything.”

“But you gave up, didn’t you? Because that wasn’t the ‘perfect’ Duke you speak of?”

My father, who would have judged rationally and reasonably even at the moment of making such a wish, would naturally have calculated the pros and cons.

Because he would have thought it was more advantageous for my mother to remain dead than for himself and the capable servants of the Duke’s family to all die to save just my mother.

…But, contrary to my expectations, my father’s expression looked infinitely bitter.

“…Yes. That’s how I appear to you. No, it couldn’t have been any other way.”

It was the first time. My father was so shaken.

For a moment, it seemed I saw moisture in my father’s eyes.

My father, who had paused and fallen into thought, looked at me with a long sigh.

……Not with the gaze that always seemed to evaluate me, but with a very faint gaze that remained in my childhood memories.

“…I couldn’t grant the wish because I couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice you for my wish, for the wish to save Cathy.”

“Why? Because I’m the last remaining bloodline of the Duke’s family?”

“……It seems my karma is indeed great. Seeing you say that.”

Saying that, my father sighed softly.

…Actually, I had my suspicions.

Thoughts like, my father actually loved me, or he didn’t want me to be hurt and wounded by trusting people carelessly like my mother.

Hopes I had always harbored while watching my father, thinking, ‘What if…?’

……But, thoughts that always completely faded in front of my father, who always treated me rigidly.

No matter how great a thing I did, he never said ‘well done’…

And in situations that were almost dangerous, he never offered help, saying I had to become strong myself.

These were thoughts that faded away because he acted as the Duke, not my father, even in private, when no one else was around, and because he never once said ‘I love you’.

…Perhaps I didn’t want to be hurt.

Therefore, I might have abandoned the goal of being loved by my father and, at some point, set the goal of being recognized instead.

Since I wouldn’t hear ‘I love you’ anyway, I wanted to at least hear ‘well done’.

And that thought, cultivated over several years, was shattered into pieces by a single word from my father the very next moment.

“……I love you, Christie. ……I’ve kept this simple phrase unspoken for too long, only shouting it in my heart.”

“Then, why only now? You could have just kept……”

My throat tightened.

I should be angry. I should be asking why.

But such harsh words wouldn’t come out.

Inside, I had thought of what to say countless times, dreaming of such a situation… but now that it was actually happening, I had nothing to say.

“Honestly, I was hoping you’d give up. I wanted you to live comfortably, not get hurt in the midst of those noble bastards.

That’s why I was even harsher, and demanded perfection even more. ……Yet you grew up to meet all my standards.”

“……I’m a member of the Duke’s family, you know…? Did you think I’d live like that…?”

My voice was choked and didn’t come out properly, but I still opened my mouth, trying to convey a sense of protest.

…Though all the words I wanted to add disappeared behind my father’s clumsy but proud smile.

“Yes. In that regard, you resemble me again. …God mixed me and Cathy too perfectly. It would have been better if you had completely resembled one of us.

That’s why you struggled but didn’t give up, took the position of Defense Commander, and now you’ve even achieved the feat of eradicating a part of ‘the organization’.”

“……It feels very strange to be praised by you, Father.”

“Until now, I… under the pretense of doing it for you, under the pretense of protecting you from harm, never properly expressed myself… This too, must be my karma.”

After saying that, my father turned his body again.

As if to say, that’s enough for today.

However, I didn’t stop or hold my father back.

I too… needed time to immediately process the current events and my father’s words.

“……It’s too long a story to tell all at once, and my eloquence is lacking. Can you… wait a little?”

“Of course. But answer me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Why… are you suddenly telling me all this?”

At first, he said he was saying these things because he saw his relationship with my mother reflected in my relationship with Lucia.

But simply put… it was hard to understand why he was only now saying things he hadn’t said for so long.

“…It’s an acknowledgment, so to speak.”

“Ac…knowledgment…?”

“An acknowledgment of everything you’ve achieved so far, and an acknowledgment that you are no longer a child I need to dictate to.

For the first time… you’ve found someone who will genuinely follow and like your true self, an acknowledgment that you’ve grown enough that I no longer need to force ‘perfection’ upon you.

And an acknowledgment that you are strong enough to protect yourself from those dirty nobles. “

“……”

I felt an indescribable emotion.

I wanted to say something… but the words wouldn’t come out easily.

Therefore, I couldn’t say anything.

“And… ahem. I’ll tell you this later.”

Of course, my father cut himself off before saying anything more and had already disappeared, but that wasn’t very important.

In the top floor, where my father had left and the brooch’s light had faded, only quiet breathing could be heard.

Lucia’s quiet, regular purring breaths, as she fell into a deep sleep.

Looking down a little, I saw Lucia’s cute face, which I might have mistaken for a large doll if not for the body heat I felt in my arms.

“……Another reason to like you has grown.”

Honestly, my father’s change was sudden for me.

I didn’t quite understand what he saw in Lucia to make him act this way, but…

……At least, I could see my father’s image from the happiest time in my memory, and I even received his acknowledgment, so that alone was good.

We could learn about each other… starting now.

“Meeting you… might have been the greatest fortune of my life.”

And all these miraculous things were brought about by this small girl.

In that sense, I took out a piece of paper I had carefully folded in my pocket.

The paper that read ‘Sponsor Proposal’.