“Haah, haah…! Kyaa!”
“Ugh!”
Thud!
Abel, who had been turning a corner for a brief stroll, went sprawling.
He'd collided with someone running from the opposite direction.
“Ngh…! Who's in such a hurry that—hm?”
Rubbing his aching backside, he looked up to check the identity of whoever he'd crashed into, and his eyes went wide.
It was none other than Lyriette.
If this had been before, he would have snapped at her for not watching where she was going.
But today, he simply couldn't bring himself to do that.
Because—
“Hic, hiiic…!”
“……!?”
No matter how hard the impact had been, Lyriette, now sitting on the floor, had burst into the most heartbroken tears.
“I—I'm sorry. Did I hit you that hard? No, but still, there's no need to cry over this….”
It wasn't something he was proud of, but he'd tormented Lyriette quite a bit up until now.
And even then, she'd almost never broken down in tears.
Yet now she was crying over something as trivial as falling on her bottom?
Abel was utterly bewildered.
It didn't help that his feelings toward Lyriette had grown especially complicated of late.
“Hhg…! N-no. Brother. I wasn't looking where I was going and bumped into you…. Hic! I'm sorry.”
With those words ending the exchange, Lyriette scrambled to her feet.
Perhaps she was ashamed of being seen crying and wanted to hide it.
She spun around at once and fled down the hallway, and watching his little sister's retreating back, Abel's heart grew heavy with conflict.
“…I still haven't apologized.”
Earlier, he'd used the excuse of a sparring match to try to apologize, only to miss the timing and fret over it—and now, when the chance had finally come to him, he'd let it slip through his own fingers. His mood sank.
He resolved that tomorrow, no matter what, even if he wasn't forgiven, he would at least say the words.
Just as he turned to walk away with that thought—
“Lyriette!”
“Uncle?”
From the same corner Lyriette had come running from, a gray-haired man was now running as well.
It was Baal Argent, uncle to both him and Lyriette.
“Abel! Did Lyriette just come this way?”
“Yes, she just passed by.”
“Where did she go?”
“It looked like she was heading to her room. But why do you—huh?”
Abel's eyes flew open.
His dark blue eyes—slightly duller than Lyriette's, like an old lake—fixed on Baal's right hand.
*Why is Uncle holding that?*
Two lush red flowers.
They were the same flowers that had been sitting in Lyriette's room earlier, when he'd gone to challenge her to a sparring match.
Abel understood well enough why she'd had flowers like that.
After all, today was the Star's Nativity Festival.
“Uncle, that's….”
“…These are the flowers Lyriette gave to your parents.”
“Then why are you the one holding them—ah.”
Abel's mind raced to catch up.
Lyriette's demeanor just now.
The two flowers she must have given her parents, now limp and broken, resting in Baal's hands.
The scattered pieces of evidence came together in an instant, and his mind produced a conclusion.
“Don't tell me the two of them refused the flowers Lyriette gave them?”
“To be precise, it was your father's doing.”
Thud.
Something dropped inside Abel's chest.
It felt as though a single gear had come loose from the small clockwork mechanism that made up his body.
Something was wrong.
He didn't know exactly what.
The cruel words, the wicked acts he himself had inflicted on Lyriette until now—
how were they any different from what Edmund had just done?
And yet, somehow, his fist clenched.
Abel knew perfectly well how foolish that was.
He knew he had no right to blame anyone else for anything.
Still, something in his mind screamed that this was wrong.
“Why….”
Something hot rose to his throat and escaped as a mere three-syllable question.
It was directed not only at Edmund, but at himself and Cassdia as well.
Why had he only just now realized it?
What could that child possibly have done wrong, in the first place?
She was only ten years old.
An age at which a child should be showered with love from her family and still find it wanting.
And that child, who had endured every manner of mistreatment until now, had offered a gesture of pure goodwill for no reason other than that they were her parents—only to have it lie crushed and broken before her eyes like this.
“You ask why, and find it laughable? How is what you've done to her all this time any different from this?”
“T-that's….”
At the sharp rebuke, Abel could say nothing.
The words were entirely true.
He had no grounds whatsoever to raise such a question.
His fist trembling, he lowered his head, and the air fell into silence.
“Don't worry about it. Go rest. I'll handle the rest, one way or another.”
With that cold parting remark, the sound of footsteps grew distant.
If this had been the usual Abel Argent, he would have turned back there.
But for some reason, he found himself unable to take a step away.
He watched Baal's retreating figure grow smaller down the hall,
“…….”
and then, with a resolute expression, followed silently after him.
Even if he had lived his life like a half-wit until now,
he did not want to remain one for whatever life he had left.
And Abel believed, without a shred of doubt, that this walk would be the first stone laid toward that end.
***
Knock, knock.
“Lyriette, it's me. May I come in for a moment?”
— …No. I'm sorry, but please leave me be today, Uncle.
As expected, even though he'd knocked, Lyriette did not permit him entry.
To be honest, I'm not the type to force myself upon someone who doesn't want to see me.
I believe that time alone is sometimes necessary.
Unwelcome meddling can sometimes only worsen a wound.
After all, the human body possesses a natural capacity to heal itself.
There are times when nursing one's own feelings alone is better than any well-meaning advice or comfort someone else might offer.
*I'm sorry.*
But today of all days, silently offering my apology, I did something that made a mockery of everything I'd just told myself—I turned the doorknob that had been denied permission.
“U-Uncle…!?”
Lyriette, who had been sitting alone and pitifully in the darkness, startled awake.
I deliberately hadn't turned on the light.
It was obvious Lyriette wouldn't want to show a face swollen from crying.
“I'm sorry. I know it's improper to barge into a young lady's room uninvited, but please allow it, just for today.”
“…You're too much, Uncle. There's no way I could ever blame you.”
“Hah, is that so? That's a happy thing to hear.”
It wasn't really a situation for laughter, but I forced a smile anyway.
I felt that if I at least smiled, Lyriette's tears might ease up a little.
Still, it was true that I felt glad.
It meant that the trust between us had grown strong enough that something as small as barging through her door uninvited couldn't shake it.
I moved to sit beside Lyriette, who sat forlornly at the edge of the bed in the dark.
Perhaps it was because the mattress dipped where I sat, shifting the center of gravity toward me.
Or perhaps she'd simply used that as an excuse, needing somewhere to lean, just for a moment.
*Thump.*
Lyriette's shoulder came to rest against mine.
It felt so slight, so fragile—hard to believe it belonged to a body that swung a sword every single day.
At the same time, it was trembling.
As though the tears hadn't fully subsided.
Or as though the sorrow hadn't fully faded.
I wrapped an arm around the faintly trembling shoulder, drawing her closer, and conjured a small light with magic.
It wasn't actual flame, so there shouldn't have been any warmth to it.
But whether it was from me or from the light, Lyriette's expression eased, just slightly, as if she'd felt some warmth all the same.
“…Uncle, does Father hate me?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I heard that Mother died giving birth to me. I thought that might be why Father hates me. I heard he loved Mother more than anyone else in the world.”
“That he did.”
Edmund's love for his first wife, Viola Argent, could only be described as utterly devoted.
The two of them had met by chance at some social gathering and fallen for each other at first sight.
They married at the age of eighteen, and by the time they came of age, they already had a son.
That son was the Abel of today.
Two years after that, another blessing came into their lives.
That was Lyriette.
But the problem was that Viola's body had always been frail by nature.
When she'd given birth to Abel, things had been more or less all right.
But the second time, when she gave birth to Lyriette, her condition had been so severe that even the doctors had urged her to terminate the pregnancy.
I was the same age then as Lyriette is now, and yet I remember it clearly—
the sound of my sister-in-law's grief-stricken weeping, carrying through the door.
“What do you think, Uncle?”
“About what, exactly?”
“Do you think Father still hates me?”
“…….”
How should I answer this?
I found myself deep in thought.
Regrettably, I don't have all the answers either.
There are things not revealed in the original story that even I cannot know.
Edmund's backstory had remained veiled even in the original work.
It had been a long-running mystery among the readers, in fact.
Of course, the prevailing theory was that he loved his late first wife so much, and resented the daughter who had cost him that wife, that he simply turned a blind eye to whatever happened to Lyriette.
But I didn't think that was the case.
Because if there was ever a work that fit the saying "no villain exists without a reason," it was this one—*The Beloved Young Lady*.
Well, put uncharitably, you could call it whitewashing.
But in that story, most of the villains had their own reasons.
Some carried old wounds, others buried griefs.
Of course, there were plenty of third-rate extras who didn't fit that mold either, but the villains who appeared as supporting characters almost always did.
So I, too, was curious.
Why was Edmund Argent so indifferent to his own daughter, to this extent?
“Regrettably, I can't answer that, not as I am now.”
“I thought as much.”
“Yes. But if our lovely niece wants that answer, then there's only one way to get it.”
I stroked Lyriette's hair, then wiped away the still-damp trace of tears at the corner of her eye with my sleeve, and rose to my feet.
“I'll go find that answer for you.”
“You will, Uncle?”
“Why? Don't you trust me to?”
“N-no, that's not it at all. It's just….”
“Just?”
Was something troubling her?
Lyriette kept opening and closing her hand where it rested on her thigh, biting her lip.
“It's just that I feel like I only ever receive help from you, Uncle.”
“That's how it's supposed to be. Children grow up being helped along by adults.”
“Even so. Is there really nothing I can do?”
Something she could do.
The question was so bold, and yet more mature than most adults', that I couldn't help but smile.
Thinking it over, I lowered myself to meet Lyriette's eyes at her level.
Then I brought both hands to her face….
*Squeeze.*
“Eheee…?”
“Kuhup…!”
I pulled hard on both her cheeks.
Seeing her already tear-stained face turn even more comical, I burst out laughing.
“U-Unc-hee…!?”
Dodging her hands as she tried to swat them away in protest, I kept tugging and releasing her cheeks at will.
Then, as if genuinely annoyed, Lyriette's eyebrows arched sharply.
Only then did I let go, gently smoothing her slightly reddened cheeks with my hand.
“Hah, sorry about that. There was something I wanted to see, but it didn't quite work out.”
Guess I really don't have a knack for this.
Feeling a twinge of regret, I stood, and Lyriette voiced her confusion.
“W-what exactly did you want to see?”
Drawn to her round, bright eyes—like something out of a storybook cat, yet oddly damp and glistening—I found my hand reaching absently for her hair.
“A smile.”
“A… smile?”
“Yes. I wanted to see our niece smile.”
“I think I've been smiling fairly often lately, haven't I…?”
That was true, actually.
“You asked me just now, didn't you? Whether there's nothing you can do for me.”
“I did.”
“Well, that's my answer.”
“What do you mean by—”
Our foolish little niece still didn't seem to understand what I meant.
That, too, was rather endearing, so I turned my body and gave her the answer.
“Smile for me.”
“…….”
“There will always be sad things in this world. There'll be many times you'll want to cry, just like today. I don't intend to blame you for that.”
I'm not a fool either.
No matter how much I want Lyriette to be happy, I know I can't make her smile every single hour of every single day.
That wouldn't be a cheerful disposition—that would be mania.
There was just one thing I wanted to ask of her.
“But if there's ever a time when I do something for you—at least in that moment, I'd like it if you didn't feel sorry, didn't feel sad, and just smiled.”
“But my smile isn't worth all that much….”
“Not a chance.”
I recoiled in mock horror, as exaggerated as the lead of some grand opera.
“At the very least, it's worth that much to me. Worth it even if I had to pay a fortune to see it.”
“…Uncle, you're always so unfair. If you say things like that, I'll end up looking like the bad one.”
“As if. Where in this world is there a child as good as our niece?”
I answered with a teasing tone, and Lyriette had nothing more to say to that.
She simply gave me a smile bright enough to swallow whole the little light I'd conjured in the air—exactly as I'd just asked of her.
“…Then I'll wait. Just as you said, Uncle—I'll stay a good girl. Lyriette will wait for you, smiling.”
At last, she gave me back the words I'd wanted to hear.
Feeling a foolish grin tug at my lips, I closed the door behind me and stepped out—only to find an uninvited guest waiting beside it.
It was Abel.
“…Uncle.”
“What is it?”
“Is there… anything I could help with, too?”
So he'd been eavesdropping after all.
No wonder the door had seemed slightly ajar.
*He's learned to make a fairly decent expression now.*
He must have felt a great deal, listening in.
Feeling a smile threatening to slip out, I strode past him lightly and answered.
“Follow me.”
“…Yes, sir!”
As it happened, there was just the thing I could put this boy to use for.