Come and Cry at My Funeral - Side Story 4

And now, that spring had finally come…

“Haa…”

But the Freesia of now, sitting in her room at the capital residence, could only let out a powerless sigh, more exasperated with herself than anything.

‘Why does my face keep turning red? We’ve had a child together. What on earth is there to be embarrassed about?’

The most absurd day of all had been the very day Izar and Nova arrived in the capital.

〈Izar, Nova…!〉

She’d rushed forward to greet them joyfully, only to nearly trip and stumble mid-step.

As he held their child in his arms and looked at her…

〈Freesia.〉

Izar smiled.

She saw him cry in relief upon hearing her lifespan had been extended.

But had she ever, in her entire life, seen him smile like that?

Though his tone had grown much softer than before, his demeanor had always remained somewhat stiff. It couldn’t be helped. He’d lived like that since childhood.

But that usually cold face… those eyes that always gleamed with the distant pursuit of far-off goals… were now smiling just for her.

〈We’ve come back.〉

〈Ah…〉

〈You waited a long time, didn’t you?〉

Ever since then, every time Freesia saw Izar, her footing felt unstable, and the heat from her chest up to her cheeks made it unbearable.

Freesia buried her face in her hands as she crept closer to a shameful truth she could no longer deny.

‘This doesn’t make any sense…’

Hadn’t she already loved him enough since she was fifteen?

Hadn’t theirs been a relationship that didn’t even allow room for a phase of boredom?

Then why was she like this now?

“Freesia.”

“Ah…!”

She’d been so flustered in her embarrassment that she hadn’t even noticed Izar entering the bedroom.

“Why… what’s wrong?”

“It’s just that… it’s time to turn in for the night…?”

“R-Right, I-I suppose so…”

Freesia’s eyes darted between Izar and the bed.

In an instant, a cold, humiliating sweat formed on her palms.

Why? When she’d had less than a week left to live, she’d shown him her bare body without hesitation and had even begged him to take her.

But now that her lifespan had been extended, the desperate courage she’d mustered at the edge of death had vanished, leaving only mortifying shyness behind.

Just the sight of the faint lines visible through the parted collar of his loosely worn shirt made the inside of her mouth feel seared, as though touched by hot iron.

Though there were scars from grim times, his body, shaped by relentless training, still stole the breath in her throat.

And imagining that body with not a single thread on it… made it worse.

Like a girl hearing about sleeping with a man for the first time, her knees tingled, and she couldn’t keep calm.

Ashamed by her body’s shameless reaction, she couldn’t lift her head. But this reaction was pointless anyway.

Because, right on cue, a bright and familiar voice rang out.

“Mama! Papaaa!”

Startled, she opened the door, and there stood their daughter with a bundle of stuffed toys in her arms, beaming brightly.

“Nova brought dolls! Let’s aaallll sleep together tonight!”

“Ah, come in, Nova.”

Freesia warmly welcomed her daughter, who had once again come to sleep with them. But Izar, while naturally scooping Nova up in his arms, frowned.

“You shouldn’t bring this many dolls.”

“But Papaaa…! It was fine at the palace!”

“There, it was just you. Here, Mama sleeps in the bed too.”

“Ugh… then Nova just gonna leave one…”

Freesia smiled tenderly as she watched Nova whining at Izar.

‘She’s really following him so naturally now.’

Even before leaving for the duchy, Nova had often clung to Izar.

But back then, it had been because of nightmares about Canopus. Now, she followed him purely out of love and trust.

‘Izar… turned out to be a more affectionate father than I expected.’

Didn’t he even sleep with her every night at the palace?

Watching him treat Nova so gently made Freesia’s heart swell. She wanted to keep watching them forever.

And yet, every time she saw them together, an unspeakable pang of sadness would rise within her.

‘…I’m a little jealous.’

She wished she’d had someone she could whine to so freely when she was a child.

But her mother had been too mentally unstable for comfort, and her dry, rough hands only ever stung.

As for her father, he had been murdered before he could even find them, so there was no point in remembering him.

‘Mmm, and I met Riegel too late in life, so he’s still a bit hard to approach…’

Come to think of it, Freesia had never really had a family she could act spoiled around.

And Izar…

‘There’s been too much between us for that to be easy, hasn’t there?’

They had shared so many hardships, and opened up about the past. Surely that meant their relationship had grown stronger.

But the price of that closeness seemed to be the innocent, toe-tingling kind of love that came with new romance.

‘Still… this is enough, isn’t it? We understand each other now. Isn’t that what matters?’

Freesia carefully hid her lingering regrets and patted the middle of the bed.

“Well then. Shall the three of us sleep together now? Do you want to sleep here again tonight, Nova?”

“Yes! Nova in the middle!”

As the child dove into the blankets like leaping into water, happy laughter filled the room.

It was a full, spotless sound.

And so Freesia did her best to console herself.

No matter how much her relationship with Izar had improved, it was probably still too difficult to cling to each other like a pair of brand-new lovers.

Especially since Izar also seemed perfectly content with the way things were now.