Chapter 49
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From that day on, the two men began to make their individual presences known in earnest.
Especially Noctis.
“Ella, don’t you think today’s milk bread turned out the best so far?”
“Yes. It’s nutty and soft, I feel like I could keep eating it forever.”
At her response, he smiled brightly and spread a generous amount of strawberry jam over the bread.
“I knew you’d appreciate it, Ella. Unlike someone who doesn’t even understand the charm of bread.”
She didn’t need to ask who he meant. By now, she knew well that Noctis had never once left this estate, so there was no one else he really knew. Even his playmates had been nothing more than people he dealt with as a substitute, so the only people he could truly be said to know were her and Lucian.
And Lucian definitely preferred meat.
“Want to hear something interesting?”
After placing the jam-covered bread onto Elaria’s plate, he began spreading jam onto another piece as he spoke. With the color-changing lenses in his eyes, Noctis looked exactly like Lucian.
“What is it?”
“Until I turned eighteen, I had to follow a fixed diet.”
“…Why?”
“Because if we ate differently during our growth period, we couldn’t afford any differences.”
Even without mentioning the one being compared, their conversation flowed smoothly. Whenever she caught glimpses of their past like this, Elaria felt a shock.
“That expression again.”
Noctis spoke with a strange smile from across the table. After rinsing her mouth with water, she replied casually.
“It’s because you spread too much jam.”
“…Is that so?”
He tilted his head as he lifted the slice he had just prepared. Much more jam than the piece he had given her was already running down the surface.
“You don’t really like desserts, but you’re fine with jam?”
“Ah, you could say there’s a story behind that.”
For a moment, he recalled his childhood before coming here. Back then, when he was treated as a bastard and looked down on, he had only been able to watch his house’s legitimate heir eat like this every time.
Thickly spreading jam over white milk bread. He had envied it so much.
Even while despising that household, he had often imagined eating like that just once. When he finally gained the freedom to eat as he pleased after turning eighteen, he had spent entire days eating nothing but bread with jam. It was a food tied to a quiet resentment of his own.
But he had no intention of telling her any of this. She already looked at him with that pitying expression often enough. There was no need to make himself seem even more miserable.
…Of course, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have the selfish desire to use everything he could to claim all of her affection for himself.
“What kind of story is it?”
Whenever Elaria showed curiosity about him, he felt a thrill. It was almost embarrassing how worried he had been that she might come to dislike him. She was trying to accept him and Lucian just as they were.
But he remembered what Lucian had said. That fleeting expression of hers, as if she might run away…
“Hm, you’re curious?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve always been like that since we were little.”
“…Me? Like what?”
He remembered the first time he met her. She treated him cautiously, yet she never stopped asking questions. Why do you keep playing with me, what do you do after playtime ends, and so on. She asked so many pointless things.
If he showed even the slightest sign of annoyance, she would shut her mouth like a clam. Yet the next time they met, the questions would start again. Her constant chatter tickled his ears, and he hadn’t disliked it.
Perhaps it was because the level of her questions had been so trivial.
They were just innocent, childlike questions about what he usually did and what he liked. That purity had felt refreshing.
“Hm, who knows?”
Seeing him dodge the answer with a raised brow, Elaria noticed yet another difference from Lucian. Noctis probably didn’t have as good a personality as Lucian.
That gentle side had probably been a kind of mask. Now that he was showing himself fully, he had become more mischievous than before.
“…You’re a little mean.”
At her quiet mutter, Noctis burst into loud laughter. His bright laughter made Amanda and Lawrence, who were standing nearby, widen their eyes.
Wiping the tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes, he touched a fresh piece of bread with the same hand, then spread a thin layer of jam over it. He placed it on her plate and whispered.
“You have to eat all of this.”
“…I’m already kind of full.”
“No. As punishment for making me laugh, you have to finish it.”
“I didn’t know your personalities would be this different…”
Watching her mutter in a small voice, Noctis laughed again. The faint grievance in her tone tickled his ears.
He wondered if there had ever been a time in his life when he had been as happy as he was now. No matter how much he missed his mother, he felt happier now than he had during the days he spent with her.
With a deep smile that formed dimples in his cheeks, he watched her eat the bread.
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