The Revealed Script
The diary Helene handed him contained nearly all the trivial happenings of the Robeheim family. The day Ariel took her first steps. The visit from one of Helene’s friends. Even the moment Yulken returned to the main house after subjugating the nomadic tribes. There was so much to read that, despite Edgar’s considerable reading speed, the task still devoured a great deal of time. He finished the meal Shephy brought midway through and kept reading, yet the end remained nowhere in sight.
Throughout those long hours Helene simply waited in silence, answering his occasional questions or offering quiet agreement. When something embarrassing or deeply personal appeared, she would plead for him to skip it, but that was all.
“Ariel has been a hard worker since she was very young.”
That was Edgar’s brief impression as he closed the final notebook.
Because Helene’s love for her daughter ran so deep, the diaries were filled with records of Ariel’s first accomplishments. Reading them made those years rise before his eyes as vividly as if he had watched them unfold. To Helene, however, his words felt strangely new.
“You may be the only person who would call her a hard worker. Everyone else says the same thing.”
“That she’s a genius, you mean?”
“Hehe, yes.”
When Edgar lifted one corner of his mouth as though he had expected exactly that, Helene smiled with him. As a mother she knew better than anyone how tirelessly her daughter worked where no one could see. Yet the fact that this boy—who was only a childhood friend and had not even lived under the same roof—had noticed it gave her an odd, fluttering feeling.
This child doesn’t only see Ariel’s surface.
People blinded by talent rarely bother to look at effort. Or rather, they become incapable of seeing it. That was why, whenever conversation turned to Ariel, those around Helene would always say the same thing:
“To have such a genius for a daughter—you must be so proud, my lady.”
Each time, an inexplicable discomfort would settle over her. Why did no one acknowledge the child’s hard work? She felt only bitterness toward those who reduced an entire life to a single word: genius.
But this boy was different.
“The word genius feels terribly cruel. No matter how high the wall or how many nights a hard worker sacrifices sleep to climb it, that single word flattens everything.”
“Ah…”
The small sigh that left Helene’s lips came from hearing her own thoughts spoken aloud.
“That’s why I don’t much like the word. That girl has read countless books and cast who knows how many spells in practice, yet no one seems to notice any of it.”
Edgar spoke calmly, eyes never leaving the diary, never quite meeting Helene’s gaze. She watched him in silence until the corners of her mouth slowly curved into a deep, gentle smile—the same one she wore when teasing Ariel. Edgar, unaware, simply continued reading.
“The more I read, the more certain I become that the only one fit to stand beside our daughter is you.”
“Cough!”
The unexpected remark caught Edgar mid-sip. He choked, diary still open in one hand. Thankfully no tea sprayed across the pages, but swallowing only made the pain worse.
“Are you all right, Ed?”
“I-I’m fine. I just… didn’t expect that kind of joke.”
“Hehe, I’m sorry. Had I known you would react so strongly, I would have held my tongue.”
She was curious what face he would make if she told him it wasn’t a joke at all, but that was not the important matter now. Helene chose to retreat. After all, she could not picture this boy ever being separated from Ariel; there was no need to rush.
It seems he still doesn’t understand his own feelings.
To think a child who always seemed so mature had such a side. Perhaps being too grown-up simply gave him too much to think about. In any case, the amusing scene left her in high spirits, and a soft hum rose unbidden from her throat.
Tap.
At that moment Edgar closed the final diary and gave a small nod, eyes bright with realization. Helene reached out for the book, watching him with a quiet, tender gaze. What thoughts were moving behind those eyes? Pure curiosity stirred inside her.
“It’s difficult to put my impressions into words.”
“In what sense?”
“Exactly as it sounds. If I had to name the strongest feeling, it would be anger… yet regret feels larger. All sorts of emotions are tangled together.”
He had known from the start that peering into another family’s private history was no light matter. Much of the content had been expected. Still, that knowledge did nothing to lessen the weight of what he had read.
“You must have suffered greatly as well, my lady.”
“…Even so, my suffering was nothing compared to theirs. In truth I merely watched comfortably from the sidelines.”
Seeing Helene speak so self-deprecatingly, Edgar shook his head in quiet pity.
The contents of these diaries were not a simple misunderstanding between father and daughter. No—precisely because it was not a misunderstanding, the pain had been all the deeper. This situation had been nothing more than a carefully written script. A ridiculous theatrical production in which a father neglected his daughter under the noble-sounding pretext of protecting family and heir.
“Even if it means Ariel comes to resent the father she once respected beyond all others, he chose to play the villain so she could become stronger… That was His Excellency’s intention.”
“Yes. It began when Ariel was about four years old.”
Though Helene had become mistress of the Robeheim family, rumors about her had never truly ceased. Some voices constantly expressed unease that the sole heir was a girl rather than a robust son. Naturally, Helene stood at the center of that anxiety.
A body capable of producing only one heir. Yulken had known this when they married, yet when the reality finally arrived it must have felt like an unbearable burden on his shoulders. Even so, he loved her far too much to cast her aside for the family’s sake.
Therefore his conclusion had been simple: raise their daughter into an heir no one could belittle. That way no one could criticize his wife, the family would flourish, and all would be well.
“To put it uncharitably, his love for his wife outweighed his love for his daughter.”
“It must have been so. As a wife I am grateful, yet it is also heartbreaking. Because my husband loves me, he must treat the daughter I love with such cruelty.”
It was a paradoxical statement. Moreover, Edgar suspected Yulken’s thoughts had not stopped there. If the man had been simple enough to believe harshness alone would forge the perfect heir, he would never have been the sort of man Helene could fall in love with. He must have considered what would come afterward. At least, that was Edgar’s inference.
“Perhaps His Excellency was thinking of something like… position.”
“Position?”
Helene’s eyes widened at the unexpected word.
“Judging from the diary and what you have told me… at the time, the retainers must have been eager to undermine you, my lady.”
“They were.”
“But suppose His Excellency treated his daughter with unusual harshness while you, Lady Helene, embraced and comforted her. Where would Ariel’s heart turn?”
The answer was obvious. Helene had already heard her daughter say many times that Mother was better than Father.
Realizing the implication, she let out a small sigh.
Position. So that was what he meant by position.
“I know nothing of the subtle wars between retainers or the power struggles inside a family… but from the heir’s and the retainers’ perspective, they will always watch the head of the house. Therefore, by drawing Ariel’s heart toward her mother, His Excellency may have deliberately increased your presence, my lady.”
Changing people’s perceptions is difficult, yet often it is not. If Ariel grew into the perfect heir exactly as Yulken wished, while the public narrative became ‘a child who blossomed under a warm mother’s care despite a harsh father,’ then Helene’s presence would spread throughout the family. And when Ariel eventually took her rightful seat as head, her attention and affection would naturally turn toward her mother—raising Helene’s standing even higher. She would become the person who received the greatest interest from the current head of the house, not merely the heir.
“That does not mean the choice His Excellency made was right. On the contrary, it makes me angry.”
“If it is about his harshness toward Ariel, I will apologize in his stead, so please refrain from—”
“No, Lady Helene. That is not what I mean.”
Edgar shook his head firmly at Helene, who had misunderstood his point and tried to intervene. The root problem lay elsewhere. He focused on the reason Yulken had made such a choice. Was it truly only for the greater good?
For the family. For his beloved wife. For the daughter who would one day become heir. In a sense he had lowered the world’s opinion of himself and even sacrificed the bond with his own child. Could one truly call that noble? Edgar was certain it could not.
“What angers me is his complacency. The irresponsible belief that Ariel could still be happy regardless.”
Undoubtedly he had thought: even if she grows up receiving little fatherly love, abundant motherly love would be enough for her to be happy. All he had to do was play the villain.
Yet how many people who live with the scar of paternal rejection can truly say they are happy? Can a child who received from only one parent the love that should have come from both ever claim genuine happiness?
To call it a spirit of sacrifice is generous. In truth it was nothing but complacency—arbitrarily measuring his daughter’s happiness and assuming she would endure it. That was what had ignited Edgar’s anger.
“Moreover, he must have known. He must have known that once he presented this opinion to you, Lady Helene, you would be unable to refuse.”
Helene could not deny it. The husband she had known all these years was more than capable of thinking that far.
The reason she could not refuse had been simple. The hostage he held at the time was none other than herself.
If I cannot shape her into a proper heir, my own position will crumble.
He had presented it that way, knowing that just as he loved her, she loved him.
For the sake of the husband you love, respect my decision.
What counterargument could she have offered? The Helene of that time had been too busy despising her own powerlessness, feeling as though she might collapse at any moment.
By the time the misunderstanding had become truth, there was no longer any choice left.
Edgar looked at her with pity and found himself unable to speak. She must have agonized countless times. Whether revealing the truth to her daughter and helping father and child truly understand each other would be the right path. In fact, that might have been the closest thing to a correct answer. There must have been better solutions. Yet she could not choose.
To gain something, one must be prepared to lose something. Helene had lacked that resolve. The fear that she might destroy the sandcastle her husband had built by sacrificing his bond with their daughter must have made her hesitate even as she reached out.
It was difficult.
When she finally sank into her chair and began to sob openly, Edgar could only watch with a bitter heart. He had no words of comfort to offer. The most tragic part of this story was that no one could simply declare who was at fault.
Though his anger was directed at Yulken, if asked whose sin it was, the question could not be answered in black and white. The world is difficult and complicated precisely because clear justice disappears the moment one tries to divide it into black and white.
Though this world is a collection of countless colors, justice cannot be defined by those colors. Someone will call black white, and someone else will call white black. In another’s eyes black and white may be indistinguishable equals. This family’s story was exactly like that.
“Hic…! Haaa!”
Helene wept as though the very castle might be washed away, pouring out words laced with self-loathing. She knew it was all her fault. That her beloved husband had been driven to such an extreme choice. That her daughter had to suffer from the lack of a father’s love. All because she could say nothing at the time. Because she had been born with this curse. Because she had not been strong enough to protect anyone.
In the midst of it all, this foolish woman who could neither advance nor retreat was called wife by some and mother by others. Their sincere affection and respect only cut her more deeply.
What a story that cannot even be laughed at.
Because they loved and trusted each other, this was the ending they reached.
Edgar entrusted himself to that pitiful, sorrowful melody and gently patted Helene’s back. When his gaze drifted unconsciously toward the window, he noticed the sky had already grown dark.
It was a sorry thing for Ariel, who had bravely stepped forward, but it seemed impossible to bring this tale to a close today. How much easier it would have been if they could simply weigh someone’s rights and wrongs. Yet at the same time he thought: precisely because it was not anyone’s fault, this would not end as a story in which only one person grieves. It was fortunate, he decided, that there could still be one happy ending in which everyone smiled.
That was what he thought.