TO BE HONEST, I sometimes felt guilty whenever I saw Doggy in his human form. I thought maybe the name Doggy was a little too much, but I’m a little reluctant to name him Oscar. Was it okay to name him something else?
Wouldn’t it be better to give him a name that has nothing to do with the original plot?
As I was worried all alone in one way or another, I heard a knock.
“Master!”
I murmured quietly as I watched him rudely open the door first.
“It’s Doggy again today.”
Oh, I don’t think I can change his name for now. What if it sticks?
Back in the mansion, the Duke ran straight to see me. I bow gently towards the Duke appropriately as I learned in class.
“Long time no see, Duke.”
“…How come you won’t call me Dad?”
As I grew older, the Duke also aged the same way.
However, he looks like he aged well like a fine wine with his increased grandeur.
But I had a lot to say about what I had realized earlier.
This situation is not the most important right now.
The reason why I didn’t call him anything besides his title is because of the Duke’s attitude towards Lucian and because I knew about his pain better than anyone else.
I know all of his pain from reading the original work, but none of the other characters knew of his painful past.
This was because the previous Duke kept his romantic history a strictly guarded secret.
The only one who knew that was a retired butler, and the other was the Duchess, but she didn’t know the depths of it.
And even if he was my godfather, my late father wasn’t exactly regarded as family.
I tried to be careful because I wasn’t their real family.
But this time it went too far. I looked at him with conviction.
“Your Grace the Duke, I heard that the letters I sent to Brother didn’t arrive. Perhaps Your Grace intercepted them, or that they didn’t reach the Duchy at all? I don’t think you would do something like that. I would like to believe so.”
“……”
Oh, I thought Lucian looked only like his mom, but he actually looked like his dad.
How come people in this family keep their mouths shut whenever they’re at a disadvantage?
“I was so upset that I thought Brother had forgotten me. And you said I only needed to go to the south for a few months. Don’t tell me you still haven’t caught the kidnapper yet? It’s been seven years.”
With drenched clothes and even with cotton fists, a K.O. was still possible.
Even if my attacks weren’t all that powerful, if I kept hitting the same spot, I could even break rocks with eggs.
That’s just how much quiet facts really hurt.
It just so happened that the Duke and I were the only ones in the room. Because the Duke wanted to be alone with me.
I held the standing Duke’s hand and led him over to the sofa.
And talked in a calm voice.
“Duke.”
“Yes, my son.”
I brought up what I wanted to say to the Duke, who still looked at me with sad eyes.
I couldn’t talk about the past because I was too young when I left. Although I grew up long ago and had a different mental age, I was still a child on the outside.
“You know better than anyone that you can’t go back if you’re too late.”
That’s how you lost your Liam. So you can’t make the same mistake this time.
“And Brother is Brother. He is not anyone else.”
So, you make it up to him before it’s too late. Otherwise, there may be no turning back forever. The Duke became silent due to what I said. But his eyes shook violently.
I said it in a roundabout way, but I’m sure he understood what I was saying.
Seeing Lucian being so close to the Duchess, I felt hopeful.
So if the Duke could open up a little, wouldn’t the three of them be able to stay together as a family now? I sincerely hoped so.
The Duke was staring at me in silence for a long time.
Maybe because he was looking for my father in my features. After a while, he quietly stood up from the sofa.
I didn’t think it would be easy to write all the wrong things at once.
Little by little, it’s just a little change I’m looking for. I glanced at the Duke leaving the room with a look of anticipation.
Obviously, if he understood what I was saying, he would have been slightly different.
Then he grabbed the door knob and suddenly turned his head.
“My son.”
“Yes, Duke.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Yes…”
What should I say? I am so nervous. The Duke looked genuinely sorry.
Oh, did I say it was too late?
If I had told him sooner, would he have changed his attitude toward Lucian? Would the Duke have been able to escape the past as soon as possible?
I suddenly felt guilty even though it wasn’t my fault. ‘I should have said it a little faster,’ I said to myself, but I felt like I was stabbed in the back by the subsequent words of the Duke.
“I’m so sorry, my son. We weren’t able to catch the kidnapper.”
“…What?”
Of course I thought he’d talk to me about Lucian. But what do you mean by mentioning the kidnapper?
“And I’m sorry for intercepting the letters. My son, would you be willing to call me Dad again if there were some circumstances for my decision?”
No matter what the circumstances were, you didn’t tell me the truth in the span of 7 years? The suffocating emotions of pity and sympathy were gone. I couldn’t seem to follow the direction of the story he is talking about anymore.
At my puzzled expression, the Duke showed only a little smile and then went out of the room.
“…What does he mean by that?”
I muttered to myself in bewilderment, but there was no one who answered me.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.───
PEDRO WALKED DOWN THE HALL with a stiff face after he left Raphael’s room. He understood exactly what he was saying.
“How did he know?”
It’s safe to say that few people knew how he felt. The only one who knew that was the dedicated butler of the previous Duke, who had already died.
“But there is nothing I could do about the letters.”
‘I’m sorry Raphael, but I couldn’t help it. As the days went by, my son’s eyes became strange.’ Sometimes, he would stare blankly into the air with a gaze full of madness, and this sight overlapped with the Duke’s old self.
When he was crazy about Liam.
So he needed to perform a test. It was to separate them for seven years.
A long time was long, and a short time was short.
Would Lucian wait for Raphael if he didn’t hear from him?
Did he really love Raphael? And what if that wasn’t the case?
Then, just as the Duke hurt Liam, his son would also just hurt Raphael, too.
There would be two generations of people who would leave scars on people from the same family… and they were father and son.
It was unbearable. That’s when he’d take his own life. But now, there were only two reasons for having been alive so far.
For his family and for Raphael.
Pedro owed Liam a lot. One way he wanted to make it up to him is that he wanted to raise Raphael beautifully so that he could have a happy wedding with the woman/man he truly loved.
He wanted to let him live without worrying about money for the rest of his life.
But Lucian.
His son.
Now rather than Lucian resembling the previous Duke, he was afraid Lucian was going to hurt Raphael in the same way that he hurt Liam.
His father destroyed not only Pedro, but also Liam.
The previous Duke shared this matter with the previous Count Elrand, and the Count, who heard it all, similarly abused Liam.
So Pedro let go of Liam’s hand first. He betrayed Liam first. But he couldn’t even live properly.
While causing pain to the people around him, Pedro took care of himself first. He was the shameless one who prioritized his forced engagement before his true love.
But when his son, who he thought looked like his father, looked at Raphael with the same eyes as him, he was after all…
“For the first time, I thought he really is my son. At that time, I had no choice but to admit that we have the same blood in our veins.”
Pedro stopped while reciting the answers he couldn’t tell Raphael.
He could see outside through the window of the hallway. Servants gathered in the garden with yellow roses looking troubled.
Pedro shifted his gaze to see what they were looking at. Standing in front of the small tea party that seemed to have ended a long time ago, Lucian was touching something precious.
Brushing the rim of an empty teacup with his fingers, he quickly took the teacup and disappeared.
Until he left his seat, the servants couldn’t begin to clear the table. Pedro took a step again.
He had no choice but to admit it again. That Lucian was his son.
A madman’s love was still love. But Pedro knew it himself.
How dangerous and empty it was.
And the other person would get hurt. He thought that he needed to try and stop it by all means. Entering the office, Pedro went to his desk and opened a secret drawer hidden deep inside.
He carefully opened the precious silver locket that he had hidden in there.
He looked longingly at the face that appeared between the locket’s doors that opened from side to side. It was a locket that Liam and he had ordered so they could think about each other even when they didn’t see each other often.
And this was the only trace of Liam that hadn’t been taken away by the previous Duke.
Pedro caressed the image with an expression full of longing. Liam was smiling, his face completely unchanged.
“I can’t let your son go through the same path as you.”
How sick and tired he was of it all—of the name ‘Leon’.
“You don’t have to worry too much. I’ll take care of him.”
Unable to take his eyes off the painting, Pedro murmured.
Look at this, son.
This could never be love. This was not love. It’s a disease filled with obsession and possessiveness towards the other person.
It’s an incurable disease that could never be cured.
Not even until death.
Comment