Splash!

There was no time to properly check what it was.

It was because I had fallen into the water the moment I spotted a blurry shape.

For a while, I was frozen and couldn’t even think of swimming up. Lutis came to his senses only after hearing the child’s cry.

“Ah… Father has died…!”

A small figure could be seen peeking out at the edge of the lake.

It seemed the child had woken up from sleep after hearing the sound of me falling into the water.

Just as Lutis slowly began to move his limbs to rise up, the next sentence reached his ears.

“Um, now that mother and father are both ghosts, am I the only human?!”

Lutis, who had almost reached the surface, froze again at those words.

Mother is… a ghost, he said.

As the child’s face got closer and closer to the surface, to the point of almost submerging their face in the water.

Lutis habitually recalled someone who had done something similar about ten years ago, after graduating from the academy and coming to the lake.

A person who, instead of enjoying the scenery as told, got curious if there were fish in the lake, leaned their upper body out of the boat, and fell right in.

Because of that, the proposal plan prepared for several years had gone to waste.

“…”

Lutis blinked a couple of times underwater before surfacing.

As he dragged himself onto land, the child was looking at him with a surprised face.

“…You didn’t die.”

Unable to bear that gaze, Lutis opened his mouth as if to make an excuse, briefly glanced at his right hand, then slowly extended it towards the child.

He had reflexively loosened his grip while holding it, worried the petals might get damaged, but because of that, water had seeped in through the gaps, leaving it completely soaked.

After a moment’s hesitation, he apologized and handed the petals to the child, who took them and said,

“I’ll put this on the rock and wait for it to dry.”

“…Alright.”

“But…”

“…”

“If this puts father in danger… it would be better not to do it.”

The child said this while rolling their eyes somewhere.

Realizing that direction matched where he had turned his head before falling into the water, Lutis swallowed dryly.

The sound of his quickened heartbeat from tension seemed to ring in his ears.

It became certain by grasping the petals just now. Whatever its identity, the ‘apparition’ was not an illusion.

And the petals were probably a medium that allowed the child to see ‘something’.

‘It was said to be a cherished item from when alive…’

The fact that the petals were an item cherished when alive meant that the being the child was seeing and touching was the owner of that item.

Which means…

He felt like a wry laugh might escape his lips at the surreal situation.

How ridiculous he must look, desperately clinging to such uncertainty.

Lutis looked down at the child while desperately trying to resist turning his head in the direction of the child’s gaze. Just then, the child opened their mouth again.

“It’s important… but I like father much more than this.”

“…”

“If only I were fine without father… it would be better not to have it…”

“…”

“So, I wish daddy would love father a little more.”

Even if you knew what this thing in your hand is, would you still be able to say such words to me?

It was uncertain.

Unable to open his mouth or take any particular action, he just stood still.

It felt like he might make a mistake if he said anything other than an answer. Likewise, if he moved his body and accidentally looked in the wrong direction, it would be irreversible…

“I want to go to sleep now…”

After a while without an answer, the child spoke up while rubbing their eyes.

Lutis quietly nodded in agreement.

Whether out of habit or not, the child reached out their arms to be held, and as Lutis was about to bend down, he noticed his own still-dripping state and had to shake his head.

Disappointed, the child came closer to Lutis’s side and started walking, then asked.

“…Can I hold your hand?”

“It’ll be damp.”

“…I still want to.”

Before he could answer, the child was already grasping the tips of his fingers, and Lutis simply held them back.

Only the irregular sound of footsteps echoed, as if something was occasionally pushing the child’s back.

“Gasp, it’s already this late…”

“No one’s gone to check even though he hasn’t returned until now?”

“You didn’t know either…!”

As soon as they set foot inside the mansion, voices could be heard.

When the son of the current capital mansion’s butler glanced at the servants, silence fell instantly.

According to the butler’s previous report, he had temporarily delegated authority to his son when coming up to the capital, so he must now be the overall manager of this mansion.

‘Though the successor hasn’t been decided yet, so the capital mansion’s butler position is still maintained.’

Anyway, from now on, the young man before him was the butler.

The butler approached Lutis and began to bow, then stopped abruptly.

“Your Grace…”

“…”

Seeing their considerably shocked expression at his appearance, Lutis raised his hand to stop those trying to approach.

The fact that no one had come despite him not returning until sunset due to accidentally falling asleep was likely due to the aftermath of what he had ordered.

Although Duke Duran had deliberately set up in Rattliffe, it wouldn’t be impossible to find out if one tried.

Yet to have known nothing while the territory became like this, how bewildering the situation must be.

It had only been a few days since he said everything would become interesting if not handled properly, so he guessed they must be busy without a moment to breathe both inside and outside the mansion.

‘Even so, not checking even once was a situation that deserved reprimand, but…’

Lutis didn’t have the presence of mind for that right now.

Lutis headed straight for the bathroom.

After washing, there was something he needed to check.

After hastily rinsing off his body, Lutis immediately headed somewhere. His newly changed clothes were getting wet again as he hadn’t even properly dried his hair.

Inside the duke’s office where he arrived like that.

Lutis picked up the handkerchief he had left in a corner of the office on the first day he arrived at Rattliffe territory.

More precisely, it was something wrapped inside the handkerchief.

Clatter.

“…”

As he untied the knot binding the handkerchief, the contents inside were revealed.

It was a pile of fragments, already broken beyond recognition.

Lutis slowly blinked as he gently stroked the engraved grid pattern on the white background with his fingertips.

‘I brought it just in case…’

Lutis looked out the window, taking a deep breath. It seemed to be an unusually bright moonlit night.

“…I didn’t expect to use it like this.”

At the point when it became certain that something was beside the child, if the medium that allows one to see it is ‘a cherished item from when alive’ as written in the old book earlier today…

…He had one too.

Wasn’t there one more besides the flower petals?

Although neither was in perfect shape, as confirmed earlier, there was no problem in acting as a medium.

Then it was worth trying.

The deliberation was brief, and grasping the fragment was as simple as the thought.

Lutis grabbed the vase fragment tightly and was about to leave the office when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“…Ah.”

The destination was, of course, the child’s room.

But if the child woke up on the way and saw Lutis looking down at them while holding a sharp fragment, he suddenly worried about what they might think.

It didn’t seem like they would be scared, but he felt uneasy just in case.

Lutis turned back and wrapped his hand holding the vase fragment with the handkerchief that had been covering it.

Thud.

Then Lutis left the office and moved to stand in front of the child’s room.

He had often heard what sounded like the child talking alone in the adjacent bedroom, not only during the day but late into the night as well.

“…”

So the probability of that being beyond this door, which he had glimpsed briefly at the lake earlier, was high.

Though he said probability, it was close to certainty.

So he just needed to open the door. If it was there, he could confirm what it was, and if not, he could think he had just been mistaken and look for a new way to return himself and the child to normal.

He thought rationally, but strangely, he couldn’t move his hand placed on the doorknob.

Perhaps he had unconsciously gripped the handkerchief-wrapped hand, as blood was seeping through the white cloth.

He was blankly staring at it, not feeling the pain of the sharp fragment digging into his flesh…

Creak.

‘…!’

He accidentally leaned forward.

As his body weight shifted, the doorknob turned with embarrassing ease, and Lutis quickly regained his balance to straighten his upper body that was about to spill through the opened door, then raised his head.

“…”

And there he saw it.

As if unaware that he had entered.

The figure standing by the window bathed in moonlight, looking up at the sky, filled Lutis’s vision.

The semi-transparent body through which the window and wall behind faintly showed was incomparably alien, but the clothes that being wore were terribly familiar.

Because he had personally dressed them and even pinned a red flower to their chest at the end.

There was no way he could forget.

He had longed for it for years even on the battlefield, and even after returning, he longed for it while looking at the lying figure.

But now that you’re here before my eyes in this form…

“…”

He couldn’t smile, despite having wished to see the whole figure just once.

You who couldn’t rest peacefully even in death…

“…Ah, Aeli?”

Then, since when have you been watching over the child in this form?

At the name that unconsciously escaped his throat, the being looking out the window turned around.

With that small action, long, fine black hair fluttered.

So the face he finally came face to face with…

“…”

The eyes were not visible. Whether because the vase was already broken and couldn’t show perfectly, or because it was smudged black like ink spilled above the bridge of the nose.

Nevertheless, the lips that parted slightly in surprise upon discovering him were familiar.

So Lutis, cowardly, once again made his paradise out of one who had already died and couldn’t find peace.

It felt like it didn’t matter anymore even if he went mad.

Why on earth did you come to see me.

Aeli slowly opened her mouth, frozen at Lutis who was staring at her with a dazed face.

−…Lutis.

Tears were flowing from the eyes of the one who looked out of his mind.