“……”

-……

“……Ah, Dad?”

The sleepy child rubbing their eyes, half-awake, soon realized that Lutis was next to Aeli and opened their eyes wide.

Their face, full of confusion, changed in various ways before the child opened their mouth.

“Uh…… uh-uh……”

“……”

“Oh my…… I’m so surprised.”

Dad, why are you there like that? The child asked boldly, as if deciding to feign ignorance.

To that, Lutis didn’t answer and kept his tear-stained face fixed on the ground.

Aeli, instead of Lutis, observed the situation and opened her mouth.

It was to say that Dad was now also included in those who shared the secret.

-Adi……

“……”

-……Adi?

“Ah, aren’t you going to sleep, Dad? It’s totally bedtime now!”

Urgency appeared on the child’s face.

If it could be drawn as a picture, it should be drawn as sweating profusely, Aeli thought distractedly to calm herself as she looked at the child and said.

-Adi…… Dad can see Mom now too.

“……Huh?”

-……Really.

“……?”

It was a face that didn’t understand.

That was understandable, as even Aeli herself was so shocked, there was no way this young child would calmly say, “Oh, I see?”

The child rolled their eyes for a moment and then slowly got out of bed.

Tottering.

The child walked barefoot to where Aeli and Lutis were and looked at Lutis.

“Umm…… Dad, I have something to ask……”

“……”

When there was no reaction, the child tried to grab Lutis’s face to bring it into their line of sight, but quickly let go when Lutis didn’t budge.

Then, puzzled by the sticky wetness on their hand, they bent down completely to look at Lutis’s face.

“……Huh, huh.”

Eyes unfocused like a dead fish, face completely wet with tears.

Although the child themselves had cried like that countless times, seeing their father Lutis cry like that seemed to be quite a shock.

The child unconsciously took a step back and turned to look up at Aeli.

It was a gaze full of shock, as if asking if Mom had done this.

-……

Unfair…… no.

‘Come to think of it, it’s right that I made him cry, so I shouldn’t feel unfair, right?’

As there was no answer, the gaze deepened further, and Aeli, looking troubled, sighed before speaking to the child.

-Dad…… says he’s sorry for keeping you locked up in the annex all this time.

“Uh, uh? Huh? ……What?”

-And he says he’s sorry to Mom for making you like that.

“……”

-He seems to be crying because he feels bad about that. Your dad has been holding back a lot until now.

At Aeli’s words, the child moved their eyes back and forth between Aeli and Lutis.

They moved so quickly that it was dizzying just to watch.

“Ah, Dad?”

“……”

“I’m fi…… fiiine……”

“……”

The child, who had been rolling their eyes for a long time, suddenly said this towards Lutis.

When there was no response and only round tear stains were falling to the floor, the child stopped mid-sentence, panicked, and abruptly hugged Lutis.

“It’s…… it’s okay. There, there, don’t cry.”

Aeli was dumbfounded watching the two as the child spoke while patting Lutis’s head, just as Aeli often did.

Then she belatedly realized.

‘Oh, but Lutis is definitely……’

The type to feel even more sad when someone tries to comfort him.

Sure enough, as the tears showed no signs of stopping, the child’s face turned pale.

Except for when he was very young and when his plan to propose to her had gone spectacularly wrong, he had almost never cried, so she had forgotten.

Aeli watched the two and slowly opened her mouth.

-Um, Adi.

“……?”

-Shall we treat Dad?

“Tr-treat?”

-Um…… Dad’s hand…… No. It might be a bit too cruel for you to see, so don’t look.

However, by the time she said this, it was already far too late.

From the moment the hand was mentioned, the child reflexively looked down and a scream burst from their mouth.

“Hee…… Heeek! What is this?!”

Aeli belatedly covered the child’s eyes with her hand.

Even so, being translucent, it only made things look blurry and didn’t really have much effect.

Thinking it would be better to divert attention, Aeli said to the child.

-Adi, do you know where the emergency medicine is? If there’s none prepared in the room, we might have to find the doctor……

It was strange to assume that emergency medicine would be prepared in a noble’s room in the first place, since they would just call a doctor if they were sick.

However, she vaguely remembered that on the day they first came up to Rattliffe, among the luggage the child received, there were leftover motion sickness pills as well as bandages and ointment for external wounds.

The child thought hard for a moment before opening their mouth.

“Uh, some maid sister organized that. When she asked if she should organize it, I said I wanted to play, so dre… dre-”

-Dressing room?

“Uh, yes. I told her to put it there together.”

Aeli nodded briefly at the child’s words.

The bandages for external wounds were sturdy, and the ointment smelled nice, so they weren’t bad as tactile toys for a young child to play with.

‘The price is…… devilish, but that’s the only drawback.’

For a duke’s family, it wasn’t something they couldn’t give if their only heir wanted to play with it.

Aeli, nodding and about to head to the dressing room with the child, looked back at Lutis.

Even though the mood had improved somewhat due to the child waking up, it didn’t feel right to leave someone who had been crying and begging like that alone just now.

Noticing that Aeli’s gaze was lingering on Lutis for a long time, the child raised their hand and shouted.

“Me!”

-……Huh?

“I’ll go and come back alone.”

-What? That’s not okay. It’s still dawn, so it’s dark.

There were many angled places in the dressing room, so if you bumped into them wrong, you could get hurt.

The room itself wasn’t dangerous, but knowingly ignoring potential hazards wasn’t the duty of a parent.

“Uh, um…… Ah!”

That’s when it happened.

The child, pouting their lips, suddenly clasped their hands together as if they had thought of something.

Then a soft light rose up, illuminating the surroundings.

‘……Right, I forgot they could use magic.’

As Aeli slightly opened her mouth and blinked, the child puffed out their chest and showed a proud expression.

The child glanced at Lutis and said.

“I can make light like this, and I can also bring things down from high places with magic, so it’s not dangerous.”

-……

“I’ll go and come back, so Mom, please stay with Dad.”

-……

“No, I mean……”

-……

“……When you’re sad, being alone makes you feel even more miserable.”

I’m going! Before she could even answer. With those final words, the child turned around and slipped into the dressing room.

Aeli smiled faintly as if there was nothing she could do and turned her head towards Lutis.

He seemed to have calmed down somewhat as his tears had stopped.

Aeli opened her mouth.

-You saw.

“……”

-The child doesn’t hate you. I wasn’t by their side for that long either, but they’ve been like that since I first saw them.

Rather, didn’t they try hard to defend Lutis from Aeli when she got angry after hearing about the child’s situation?

“……”

-And I……

Aeli trailed off for a moment.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t hated Lutis at all from the beginning.

Of course she hated him and resented him. She had died and come back to life…..

……She had died and become a ghost, and in that time, seeing the child’s miserable state, how could she not be angry?

Even now, there was still some lingering resentment, but.

-……I’m trying to forgive you because Adi likes you so much.

“……”

-So let’s be good to the child. Both you and I.

We have an obligation to do so, don’t we? Aeli said.

“……Yeah.”

A voice tinged with moisture seemed to be faintly heard.

The statement that it wasn’t dangerous alone was true. The child returned not long after entering the dressing room, carrying a pouch containing ointment and bandages.

Saying they would do it themselves, the child pulled Lutis to the bed, clumsily applied the ointment, wrapped the bandage, and exclaimed.

“D-done? Done!”

Even to themselves it seemed sloppy, so they ended with a slightly questioning tone, but the child wiped their brow of non-existent sweat with a satisfied face.

One side was done, so now they reached out their hand for the other side to be presented.

Whoosh!

“……? Dad?”

“Ah……”

Just before the child’s hand could touch it, Lutis hid his arm behind his back like he had done with Aeli, letting out a small exclamation.

Looking at the child who was staring at him with a puzzled face, Lutis glanced at Aeli and said.

“This, I need to have it to be able to see……”

“……Huh?”

The child turned to look at Aeli with confused eyes.

However, Aeli was equally perplexed.

Aeli asked Lutis.

-……Is that why you’re not letting go of that?

“……”

-No, why do you need that…… just give me your hand for now. We need to treat it. It’s still bleeding because it keeps getting cut.

“……”

If you’re going to be like that, at least switch it to your other hand. Aeli was bewildered by Lutis who insisted on not letting go even with his hand already mashed.

The child spoke to Lutis.

“Whyyy do you need that?”

“You too…… probably can see because of that. The details are too complicated to explain everything right now……”

“……?”

“……According to what I’ve found out, you can only see if you possess something you treasured in life.”

As soon as Lutis finished speaking, the child turned to look at Aeli. It was a look that said, what nonsense is all this?

Aeli stared at Lutis, whose expression had already turned gloomy, and blinked her eyes quickly.

‘But that doesn’t make sense…… Adi could see me just fine without the locket?’

It was like that during the roof incident caused by Aeli’s escape before, and usually too.

It was true that the child treasured the locket, but they didn’t always wear it.

Because of the nature of locket pendants, they’re prone to damage if they get wet.

Moreover, it was too different to put Lutis and the child’s cases on the same level.

First of all, the child could see Aeli from the beginning and now could even touch her.

But Lutis couldn’t even hear her voice until now and only started seeing her today, right? Of course, touching was impossible too.

“……”

-……

The child, who had been alternately looking at Aeli’s face and Lutis’s mashed hand for a while, quickly took off the locket they were wearing and put it around Lutis’s neck.

As they had been wearing it wrapped around several times because the chain was long, it wasn’t too short for an adult man to wear.

“Wear this! I’m okay without it.”

“That’s not-”

“Really! It’s okay! I can touch Mom even without it!”

The child demonstrated by snuggling up to Aeli.

“……”

Lutis’s eyes filled with shock.