Side Story 17
Freesia quietly watched Izar as he put away the damp cloth.
The moment the thought of wanting to leave something of him behind rose up, her heart itched as if a tiny sprout were trying to break through inside.
‘If I could leave something…’
Her hand slowly slid downward and gently stroked her lower belly.
It was so flat now she could hardly believe that man had just been inside her.
But the wistful thought ended when Izar climbed back under the covers and drew her into his arms.
The breathless, unrestrained joining had been addictive, but being held quietly like this was just as good.
‘I like it. It feels like being spoiled.’
Izar was the first person with whom she could fall asleep soaked in another’s warmth.
Loving him, resenting him so desperately it was madness, kissing him, and everything beyond.
He would forever be her first man.
“Freesia.”
“Yes… oh.”
Izar, who had been silently patting her back, nibbled at the edge of her ear.
It didn’t hurt, but the ticklish sensation made a pink flush bloom across her pale cheeks like spilled dye.
She tried to turn her head away, but when he kept following her insistently, she finally gave a small giggle.
“Izar, that tickles too much.”
“Bear with it a little.”
“Mm.”
The soft rustle of sheets, warm breaths, and the sound of lips brushing against skin blurred her senses into a gentle haze.
Was this what it felt like to be loved completely from head to toe?
‘If so, I hope I never grow used to it.’
Blankly, Freesia traced with her fingertips the unfamiliar scar below Izar’s right collarbone and thought,
May his love always feel wondrous and unfamiliar, never once like something given freely without weight.
And may he too never take her love for granted. Ever.
‘But still…’
She tilted her head up at him, curious.
Even though she was the one who had drowned again and again in waves of pleasure…
‘Shouldn’t he be at least a little worn out?’
It worried her, almost, how no trace of fatigue showed.
“Izar. You didn’t sleep at all?”
“I’m not really sleepy.”
Izar replied while lazily twirling strands of her hair around his fingers.
Everything about her was too pleasant to look away from; even closing his eyes for a moment felt like a waste.
Watching her sleep, spent and soft, was too precious for him to trade away for rest.
He had even kept tracing her skin absently, wondering what she might be dreaming.
‘Dreams…’
A faint memory surfaced, the one dream he’d had long ago, when he was unconscious after the battle with Canopus. The glimpse of a face…
“What are you thinking, Izar?”
But when Freesia’s hand touched his cheek, the scene almost slipped out on his tongue.
A life where perhaps they might have lived happily.
“Actually… once, in a dream.”
“Yes?”
“I saw our child. From back then.”
Even now, as with his madness, the deepest pain of those years wasn’t something he could bare outright.
But at last, after everything, he could speak the words he’d buried until the very end.
Freesia froze against him.
Of course she did. When they had spoken of the past before, Izar had never told her this part.
“I didn’t see the child’s eyes open, but I knew right away he took after yours.”
“Ah…”
“His hair was black, but I could tell the eyes were pale green…”
“……”
Freesia shut her eyes tight at the melting description, her heart sinking and softening all at once.
There was a time she had despaired, believing Izar hadn’t cared at all for her briar baby, buried under white flowers.
‘But if life had just been a little kinder to us…’
Maybe their beginning would have been painful, but they might have grown into a decent couple in the end.
Then perhaps their first child would have lived, and Nova might have come after.
But instead of dwelling on the sad ache, Freesia smiled faintly and asked,
“Was our baby beautiful?”
“Very. I wish I could have seen him awake.”
“I’m jealous… I wish he’d appear in my dreams too.”
She rubbed her cheek against his chest again, murmuring softly. The baby felt a little unfair now.
‘Baby, if you showed yourself to Papa in a dream, couldn’t you greet Mama too?’
Yet hearing Izar tell her this somehow made her feel closer to him than even their most intimate joining.
She clung to him and whispered,
“Izar. You said back then that if you came back, you’d think of a name…”
“Yes. I did say that.”
“What name were you going to choose? Do you remember?”
Izar pressed a kiss to the center of her brow.
Their first child.
Even though poisonous tongues had spat that Freesia must have betrayed him and the life inside her couldn’t be his…
The whole time he’d been away from the ducal estate, all he’d thought about was what to name that first baby.
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