Chapter 19: Liam (2)
My younger sibling was born.
My mother’s pained scream rang through the manor, and then, as though paying for that awful agony, a baby’s cry followed.
My father and I had been pacing uselessly outside the door when, at last, Mother gave her permission. We pulled the door open and hurried inside.
There she was, holding a tiny child to her chest as tenderly as if she were cradling something precious. The baby was wailing like a siren.
“Whew, I thought I was going to die from the pain.... Liam, this felt different from when I had you, so I guess I really am getting old, haha. Looks like there won’t be a third~”
Even though sweat still slicked her brow, Mother spoke with infuriating calm. Then, as if amused by how helpless Father and I looked, she let out a little snort of laughter and waved us closer.
“Don’t just stand there. Both of you come here. Isn’t this little squirming thing adorable? Like a bug.”
“..., Mother. Calling her a bug isn’t exactly a compliment.”
“Sorry, son, but to me it is.”
She had borne me and then, thirteen years later, given birth to a late-blooming second child. And yet Mother was still exactly the same.
At that, I found myself smiling for no reason at all.
At Mother’s urging, I stepped closer to the baby and looked at the two of them together.
“Liam.”
“Yes?”
“Will you name her? Your name was given by Asher, so your little sister should be named by you.”
“Ah....”
To give a name to a new life.
Was something so precious really mine to bestow? For a moment, I hesitated.
I was Liam Nirheim, a nobleman through and through, but inside, I was still Siwoo, the orphan from Korea.
So I wavered, just for a moment.
“Liam, it’s fine. I’d like it if our son named her.”
Only when Mother lifted a hand and softly stroked my arm did I finally come back to myself.
“Goodness, look at how big you’ve gotten. It’s grotesque how your head’s too high for me to reach anymore.”
And when she went so far as to toss in that teasing remark, I ended up laughing after all.
“Lia. I’d like it to be Lia.”
“Hmm~ Our son’s taste really is better than Asher’s!”
Lia.
I gave that tiny child—my sister—the name Lia Nirheim.
When you were thirteen, on a day thirteen years after we were parted, a new life came to me.
For someone who had known only death, something new had finally found its way to my side.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
In the city of Harden, a festival was held.
It was, of course, a celebration in honor of my younger sister Lia’s birth.
And I was to take part in that brilliant festival, which would go on for three days and three nights without rest.
It wouldn’t make sense for the Nirheim family to be absent from a festival celebrating a great occasion in the marquis house, after all.
However.
“Nooo! I said I’m fine now! I want to go too, I want to gooo!”
“My lady, please compose yourself. Unless you’d like me to tie you to the bed with rope.”
“Sion! You too?”
“Haa.... Yes. So just stay still already. You can’t even shove my hand away, and you think you’re going anywhere?”
You could say Mother and Lia were the main characters of the occasion, yet neither of them could go.
Mother because her postpartum recovery wasn’t over, and Lia because she had only just been born.
That left me—and Father, who still felt oddly awkward even after thirteen years—to head to the festival instead.
“I want to go too! I’m the protagonist here! I was the one who gave birth, so why can’t I be the one to have fun?”
“Eleanor.... Please, just once, can’t you try to behave like a marquis’s wife?”
“Why? I held back for ten whole months while I was pregnant! I want skewers!”
Mother was still shouting like that right up until the moment I left the manor, and in the end she had to be dragged back to her room.
When Lia began crying that she was hungry, Mother, still sounding aggrieved and teary, had no choice but to forgo the festival so she could feed her daughter.
And then, just as Father and I were dressed and ready to leave, Sion came over with a sigh.
“Young master, could you buy me ten skewers from the market....?”
“Yeah, I will. You’ve got it rough, Sion.”
Since she was my mother’s longtime friend, I felt a little sorry for Sion, who was being put through all this. If I found a pretty ornament at the festival, I decided I’d buy it for her as a gift.
“It’s become my life’s greatest wish for my lady to grow some sense....”
“Oh. That’s my life’s greatest wish too.”
“Pfft.... Anyway, please come back safely, young master. And you as well, lord father.”
At Sion’s words, Father and I quietly nodded and climbed into the carriage.
Clatter—
With that sound, the carriage set off toward Harden.
Inside the carriage bound for Harden, silence reigned.
The suffocating atmosphere that hung there came entirely from Father.
Seated with his arms crossed, his massive frame taking up the seat, eyes closed as he exhaled quietly, he looked every inch the source of that pressure.
It was my first time going out alone with Father.
He was always buried in work, with no time to spare, and whenever he did find a little free time, he would head to the training grounds and swing his sword.
He was nothing like Mother, who spent her days in a strangely leisurely way.
Ah.
Maybe Mother had simply been dumping all her work on Father this whole time.
Yes. A very reasonable suspicion, all things considered.
And as I was following that train of thought, Father’s voice reached me.
“Liam Nirheim.”
At that deep voice, like a rumble echoing from inside a cave, I tensed up for no real reason and answered.
“...Yes, Father.”
“Be at ease. There is no need for you to feel so uncomfortable.”
“Ah, um.... Yes, Father.”
“Good.”
Did he know that talking to me like this only made me more uncomfortable?
No.
He probably wouldn’t know until someone told him outright.
Even now, the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth made it look as though he was pleased just to have spoken to me.
Of course, I already knew.
Father loved me.
He cherished me as much as Mother did, and he cared about me just as deeply.
But unlike Mother, he was clumsy when it came to showing affection.
He was a man who had spent his whole life trying to protect others.
There was a kind of timidness in him that did not suit his size at all.
Beneath that imposing exterior lay traces of the years he had endured.
He was such a wonderful father that it would have been almost rude to say he made me uneasy.
So I decided to try being a little more relaxed.
Just as Father had told me to be....
“I said be at ease. That doesn’t mean slouching around, Liam Nirheim.”
“....”
“If you’re a noble, then act like one.”
No, you literally just told me to be at ease a second ago.
A relaxed posture is what leads to a relaxed mind, so what kind of nonsense was it to say I should be at ease while still looking like a noble?
And besides—
“Father, then what about Mother?”
If anyone needed to act like a noble, wouldn’t it be her?
“..., your mother. Mm, she is.... an exception.”
“....”
“..., if she had ever been willing to listen, I would have fixed her thirteen years ago.”
“Ah....”
Well, that made sense.
From the things I saw every day, it was obvious that Father could never win against Mother.
Lia and this festival were proof enough of that.
Still, Father and I.
Thanks to Mother not actually being there, it felt like we had grown a little closer.
We shared that small understanding.
The festival was dazzling.
Harden’s rough, plain streets had shed their usual look and filled themselves with extravagant decorations, as if determined to prove beyond doubt that this was a celebration.
The citizens smiled as though they were truly happy.
They shared fruit and sweets that they would normally have sold for money, laughing together as they did so.
Fireworks burst overhead.
When I looked up at the sharp crack of sound, brilliant lights spread across the sky despite it still being daytime.
Father walked among the crowd and quietly accepted their greetings.
Sometimes he would bow his head slightly, and other times he would offer a brief thank-you.
He met the eyes of Harden’s people as he passed.
“Liam Nirheim.”
“Yes, Father.”
“These are the things you will one day have to do yourself. Watch carefully, and learn carefully. Every one of these people is precious.”
“Yes.”
I nodded at Father’s words.
By the time evening came and the sky grew dark, the festival’s heat only rose higher.
Then Father stepped onto the prepared platform and thanked the citizens for their celebration.
As always, he was imposing.
As always, he was unshakable.
And yet Father bowed to the citizens, saying he was grateful for their congratulations.
A cheer exploded.
The citizens threw the flowers they had prepared in every direction, adding even more fire to the festival’s fervor.
I watched that scene from behind Father’s back.
After we finished greeting everyone, Father and I climbed into the carriage once more.
Watching the fireworks rise into the sky, I felt the carriage jolt beneath me.
Then Father’s voice came again.
“Liam Nirheim.”
“Yes, Father.”
I answered as normally as ever, but the words that followed were anything but ordinary.
“Be the fence that protects your little sister.”
....
At those words, I stared blankly at Father’s face.
It wasn’t that I was surprised by what he said.
I simply couldn’t bring myself to answer right away.
I had always wanted to be that kind of fence for the one I longed for.
I wanted you not to suffer.
I wanted you to be able to smile happily.
I wanted you not to shed a single tear.
That was the role I had wanted to play.
That alone.
Wanting it was not enough to overcome the walls of reality, and yet I had dared to want it all the same.
That was why I was afraid.
Even the vow I had once made to the one I loved so dearly had collapsed; could I really make the same vow again?
Then, as though he had sensed my hesitation, Father reached out and took my hand, just as Mother so often had.
“Liam, you can do it. You are my son.”
He said it to me like that.
I could see the affection in his eyes, and I could feel the boundless trust behind them.
With that look in his eyes—one no one but you had ever given me before—he held my hand, the hand no one but you had ever taken before, and said those words.
Mother, Father.
Sion and Eshir.
Jackson the knight and Mia the maid.
They looked at me with such warmth and, for reasons I still couldn’t fully understand, gave me faith.
I had once known only one kind of affection before I died, but now I was receiving all of this love with my whole body.
It still felt a little overwhelming, but even so, I decided to accept it.
I let go of the old resolve that had wanted nothing more than to protect you and nodded.
“Yes, Father. I’ll do that.”
“Good, Liam. I trust you.”
“..., yes.”
I answered like that.
So, I’m sorry.
I’ll set down, just a little, the feelings I had toward you.
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