A Depressed Kendo Player Possesses a Reckless Aristocrat

Spring Flowers (6)

And so, the night filled with pure white winter flowers passed, and morning came again.

Rachel, Lucy, Ariel, and me.

The four of us left the mansion, dressed in neat, formal attire.

It felt strange to wear a suit after so long.

Lost in a peculiar sentiment, I fiddled with my tie when a cheerful voice reached my ear.

“So… Oppa, where are we going? Dressed up so neatly like this.”

A questioning whine, demanding to know now.

I chuckled softly.

Come to think of it, yesterday I’d just dodged the question and moved on.

I glanced down at her red hair for a moment, then slowly parted my lips.

“It’s not that far… I’m going to the Forest of Rest.”

“Ah…”

Ariel let out a vacant breath when the words ‘Forest of Rest’ left my lips.

She stared at me blankly, then quickly snapped back to reality, starting to watch me carefully.

“Oppa…”

Her eyes darted around, hesitant.

Her mumbling lips betrayed the lingering unease in her heart.

I watched her adorable reaction, a quiet smile playing on my lips as I ruffled her hair.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

“But…”

“It was a place we had to visit sometime anyway.”

I answered, deliberately feigning composure,

to hide the rippling turmoil within.

A place we had to pass through, to realize the hope I promised you.

We were taking steps, one after another, toward our future transit point.

*Shush shush*…

With each step, my toes kicked up the snow.

The snowflakes that had painted the night before had become a thin veil, covering the world in pure white.

Following the gusting winter wind.

The snow blossoms blooming atop the skeletal branches fell with a soft thud.

Fragments of the season scattered in a handful.

I held Ariel’s hand tightly as we crossed the newly-white road.

After a little while.

Our white footprints finally reached their destination.

Staring at the forest before us, we paused briefly.

“We’re here…”

“Yeah…”

The Forest of Repose.

A small forest located near the Lisicht family’s mansion.

Blooming with various trees and flowers throughout the four seasons, exuding the beauty of nature,

it was also the place that displayed the most beautiful snowy scenery on the continent.

And…

It was also where my deceased mother was sleeping.

“Let’s go, don’t just stand there.”

I needlessly urged on the girls, who were frozen in place.

The courage I had so carefully crafted was riddled with shallow cracks.

Perhaps understanding my feelings, Rachel and Lucy quietly began to move.

*Shush shush*…

As the snow crunched beneath our feet, crossing through the bare trees,

a single gravestone, forlorn amidst the pristine landscape, came into view.

Silently, we approached it.

The tombstone’s surface, a pale grey, held only a few lines, neatly carved.

[The Flower that Shone Brightest in the Empire]

-Philippa Richte, Here Lies-

“……”

I held my breath, meeting my mother’s gaze for the first time in a long while.

She was much changed from how I remembered her, yet she was unmistakably my mother.

-Come here, Leiden.

-Haven’t you been a little clingy lately? You’re almost an adult now…

-Don’t worry. This mother will always be by your side.

Aged yesterdays brushed past my ears.

I bit my lip, forcing back the overflowing emotion.

“Young master, are you alright…?”

“……I’m fine.”

I nodded calmly.

My hand had already started brushing away the snow piled on the tombstone.

The coldness flowing through my fingertips made me shiver slightly.

“Haa…”

The long exhale shattered into a hazy breath.

My gaze remained fixed on my mother.

Staring at her, so composed, even in the bitter cold.

I quietly turned up the corners of my mouth.

An awkward smile stretched across my lips.

“It’s been a while… Mother.”

The hazy greeting diffused into the winter air.

My eyes stung, and I bit my lip lightly before continuing.

“This is the first time I’ve come since the funeral… I’m sorry, things have been complicated.”

Well, things are a little better now, I think.

“I’ve decided to stop suffering alone.”

Just like I’m looking at you now.

Are you looking at me too?

From above that sky. From beyond the edge of the world.

Are you looking down on me, heaving breaths, as I run on this path called life?

If so…

“It’s all thanks to you, Mother. That I’m alive like this, that I can hold hope and dream for the future…”

I hoped you would accept this pathetic token of gratitude.

A small praise for your love, that I, young and foolish back then, could not utter.

“Haha… This is the first time I’m saying something like this. Every time I looked for you, it was only to resent you, asking why you sacrificed yourself for me.”

I definitely resented you.

That it should have been me who died back then, not you, thinking that and shedding tears.

If you hadn’t saved me.

More people could have been happy.

Fewer people would have been hurt.

Even in this hellish present, you would be shining brilliantly as a star, illuminating those around you.

“Actually, I still think that way sometimes.”

Regret is like pencil marks left on a notebook.

Even after realizing the lines are out of place and rubbing with an eraser.

A faint scar ultimately remains.

The same was true for me.

The lament rooted deep within my heart will torment me for the rest of my life.

“…But, even so, I’m going to try and live on.”

My life was not just my own.

The people who loved me, the people who worried for me, and the people who were happy for me.

My life was also theirs.

That’s why I wasn’t qualified to treat my life carelessly.

“Please watch over me, Mother.”

I’m still very clumsy and it’s hard, but I’ll try my best.

I’ll probably still be very clumsy and struggle in the future, but I won’t give up anymore.

I’ll live, and live on.

I’ll live tenaciously, so that I no longer harbor foolish regrets.

So that when the time comes when I can be embraced in your arms.

Able to run towards you with a bright smile, without a single tear.

“Thank you… I always wanted to tell you this.”

I quietly promised before my mother, who offered no reply.

That I would remember your sacrifice, the one that threw your whole body into protecting my life.

That I would fight this world fiercely, by the degree of longing your love left imprinted in my heart.

-Whoosh…

The passing winter wind paints my cheek with coolness.

It was a chilling cold that seemed to cut into the flesh, yet I took it in with composure.

This season’s cold was entirely mine.

I was engraving every scene I could feel at this moment into my mind.

Falling snowflakes blossomed as notes.

The scent of the season, where small flowers gathered one by one, was a clear winter chorus.

.

.

.

“Whew… We’re back.”

“Home is the best after all.”

“Oppa… my legs hurt…”

“Let’s rest a bit… Raiden.”

After seeing mother, we returned home.

Each of us let out small groans, rubbing our stiff legs.

Was it because it was our first outing in a while?

A heavy recoil tormented our bodies.

As I sat on the sofa, trying to soothe my throbbing legs,

Gilbert, who had somehow come to my side, handed me a letter.

“Young master… a letter has arrived from the Piler family.”

“……From the Piler family?”

I tilted my head, taken aback by the sudden appearance of that name.

With some reluctance, I accepted it.

The envelope was sealed with a luxurious emblem and stamp.

Above it, the name ‘Raymond Philer’ was written small.

‘Raymond Philer, if it is…’

The current Duke Philer, and the father of Mahret.

This person sent a message to me directly…?

I stared at the Philer family crest engraved on the letter for a moment, before cautiously breaking the seal.

-Tuk…

A short, sharp sound, and a single sheet of paper emerged from the letter.

The contents contained on the paper were as follows:

[To the eldest son of the Ricit Ducal family, Raiden Ricit]

-Are you well?

-I don’t know how long it has been since I last sent you a letter.

-It must have been about two years ago when we exchanged our daughter’s annulment papers.

-Forgive me for suddenly contacting you out of the blue after so much time with no word.

-And for the impertinent request I’m about to make in this very letter.

-To get straight to the point.

-I would like you to pay a visit to the Philer family manor.

-My daughter’s condition has not been well.

-For weeks she has been suffering from unexplained high fevers and nightmares, auditory and visual hallucinations.

-I’ve heard that it’s something that is related to you.

-Could you possibly come see my daughter?

-I beg you.

[From Raymond Philer, head of the Philer family]

“Young master, this is…”

“…It seems like we should prepare the carriage.”

I folded the letter back up and slipped it back into the envelope. Then, I said that to Gilbert, who was standing there blankly.

Recalling the texture of the paper that remained on my fingertips, I silently stood up.

It was time to unravel the knot that had not yet been untied.