Chapter 26: Chapter 26

I hadn’t cried much, even when I was a crawling baby. So this was the first time I’d cried so hard in front of my father. He looked quite shocked, and tried to get out of bed in a hurry.

“Aren!”

“Stay where you are. You haven’t fully recovered from your wounds yet. Arendine, stop crying and go to your father. If you’re like this, won’t your father be too worried to rest?”

Uncle Holt quickly stopped father. He then pushed my back carefully.

Then I found myself holding onto the door and wailing and crying. I was momentarily embarrassed, but couldn’t stop crying. Tears and snot poured out. Diligently wiping my eyes with my small palm, I approached my flummoxed father’s bed.

“Aren, I’m fine. Stop crying.”

Big, rough palms gently wiped my cheeks. It was my father’s hands, which I thought were impossible to reach for again. I almost lost this.

Suddenly, resentment filled my heart, drowning the relief I felt at seeing my father was fine. I clenched my hands and pounded my father’s thigh. It was so hard that my fists hurt more from hitting it, but I didn’t stop. And I let out the fear I’d suppressed.

“How could you get hurt? How could you get hurt! I was scared! I thought Dad was dead, and I was so scared!”

My father silently accepted my tantrum. He quietly stroked my head with one hand and wiped my tears with the other.

“Are you going to get hurt like this again? Huh? Are you going to get hurt?”

“I won’t. My Aren is so worried, so I definitely won’t get hurt again.”

“Just see if you get hurt! I’m not going to let you off!”

I don’t know what I was talking about, and throwing a tantrum like I was really a kid.

I didn’t notice then, since I was crying so hard, but I called my father ‘dad’ and threw a tantrum for the first time in my life.

As a baby, I was so full of myself, since my mental age was that of an adult. So I didn’t act like a child, thanks to which my words came out extremely precocious and unbecoming.

At first, I started calling him ‘father’ instead of ‘dad’, and then it became hard to call him ‘dad’ after that. My father didn’t ask me to change it either, so of course, I continued calling him ‘father’.

We had a relationship where we never asked anything of each other. We’ve been living just like housemates. It was too formal to share warmth like any other father and daughter.

That’s why I didn’t know I could be a baby like this and rely on my father, instead of being a person consciously being cute for earning the necessaries.

On this day, like I’ve held it in for too long, I played the baby, held my father’s hands and acted spoiled. However, after letting loose like this, I felt the boundaries between us were somewhat broken. My father’s expression also seemed a little less gruff than usual.

Since I decided to act like a baby, I insisted on sleeping next to my father and unexpectedly got an easy consent.

That day, for the first time, I held my father’s little finger and fell asleep in the same bed.

***

Suddenly, I felt a movement next to me in my sleep and came to my senses. And then I heard a voice responding.

I’d cried a lot before falling asleep, so I couldn’t open my eyes easily. But, somehow, my mind gradually awoke and the conversation could be heard more clearly.

“Alas, I’ve made your daughter cry so much.”

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault; because I got hurt.”

Listening to the conversation, it seems that the Grand Duke has come to visit my father. To my dismay, my father answers much too honestly.

But the Grand Duke is a nasty opponent who caused my father to get hurt. So I didn’t want to bother myself with waking up, and kept pretending to sleep.

“The child’s eyes look swollen… I’m lacking, to have hurt her like this.”

“It’s my job to protect the Grand Duke. And I’m sorry to say this, but I’m even grateful. I got to see my daughter acting childish for the first time.”