Chapter 146. The Last Night
"Herdin."
Blair smiled faintly as she watched him approach.
There was no resentment, no anger, no sorrow in her gaze. It was a smile born of having nothing more to expect from the man who would soon become a stranger.
Unable to bear meeting that smile any longer, Herdin lowered his eyes. He noticed her noticeably swollen belly.
Asiel would be born early next year. Though there were still a little over three months left, her frail frame already seemed strained by the weight of it.
Herdin knelt on one knee before her, meeting her eyes as he spoke.
"How about returning to the Capital to prepare for the birth? There would be more experienced midwives, and it would be easier to find a physician."
"I'll be fine. Babies are born everywhere, and I know the symptoms of pregnancy well enough by now."
Asiel was Blair's first child, but this was her second pregnancy. The fear of pregnancy and childbirth had faded away. So there was nothing left for her husband to do for her. Nothing at all.
While Herdin hesitated to say his next words, Blair spoke first.
"I've been thinking while staying here. Whether we could ever love each other again."
Herdin looked at Blair as she continued speaking.
From the sight of her smiling at him, he somehow knew what she would say next. He didn't want to hear those words, but he had no way to refuse them.
"But I don't think this is it."
"……"
"Living each day doubting and worrying whether you might hurt me again—can that be called love? Can that be called happiness?"
"……"
"I think that would be cruel to both you and me."
"……Blair."
Herdin, who had been silently listening to her words, desperately grabbed her hand. His low, heavy voice calling her name, and the hand that held hers, trembled faintly.
Feeling that, Blair gently held his hand in return. But the words that followed were anything but tender.
"Let's be happy now. Each in our own place."
Unlike her smile.
Herdin stared blankly at his hand held by hers.
Though he was clearly holding on, he felt an emptiness, as if grasping an illusion.
* * *
The day of departure was set for four days later. It was a date heavily influenced by Blair's wishes.
Blair wanted to leave this mansion as soon as possible. She didn't want to leave traces of herself for long in a place she would have to leave anyway.
Even for his sake, who still loved her.
Since she hadn't much luggage to begin with, there was even less reason to delay her departure.
The afternoon before leaving, Blair signed the divorce papers. With her most cherished fountain pen, neatly and precisely.
Around the time she folded the document squarely and placed it in an envelope, a knock sounded.
"May I come in?"
It was Herdin.
Blair slipped the envelope into the drawer. It was a document that would be handed to him tomorrow anyway, and he likely knew it too, but she didn't want to show it in front of him today.
Having stowed the envelope away, Blair walked to the door and opened it.
"What is it?"
"If you don't mind, I was thinking of stepping out for a bit."
Blair stared at Herdin for a moment before nodding readily.
"Alright."
She felt she could allow him this one day. And herself as well. For the last time.
* * *
The afternoon sea sparkled with fish-scales of light.
Unlike the sea of Nerha, which had felt rough like a myth descending upon the city, the sea of Libren felt calm and gentle. It was fascinating that even though it was the same sea connected right next to it, it gave a completely different impression.
Blair, who had been gazing blankly at the scenery, looked up at Herdin only after feeling the weight of a coat draped over her shoulders.
"The wind is stronger than I expected."
Herdin fastened the coat buttons for her, mindful of her pregnant belly.
Blair quietly watched him kneel on one knee and button the coat. Then, seeing his gaze travel upward along the buttons, she turned her eyes back to the sea before their eyes could meet.
"Still, it's nice to come out like this."
Herdin, having fastened the last button, stood up. The two walked along the coastal scenery.
It was after a group of village children had passed them by that Herdin finally spoke after walking for a long while.
"I remembered you wanting to go to the sea, so I wanted to bring you here."
"……"
"Though it seems you've already been coming to the sea well enough on your own."
That conversation had taken place more than ten years ago.
Blair blinked at the fact that he remembered something she thought he had completely forgotten.
"You remembered?"
"Because I made a promise."
Even though I couldn't keep it.
Self-mockery soaked Herdin's voice as he added quietly.
"I heard you'll be staying in Icar until the baby is born."
Icar was one of the neighboring cities bordering Libren. Blair nodded.
"With this body, it seemed too much to travel far right away. I plan to leave for somewhere else once the baby is born."
Herdin's steps, which had been matching her pace as he walked beside her, stopped. Blair sensed this and turned back to look at him. She met his blue eyes that resembled the sea.
Herdin gazed quietly at Blair, who stood with her back to the sea.
Her platinum hair sparkling in the afternoon sunlight, her violet eyes gleaming with the red of the setting sun, everything that made up her being……
Was beautiful.
The biting wind made his eyes sting, yet he kept them open, unwilling to miss even the fleeting moment of a blink.
Looking at her as if etching her image into his eyes, he finally opened his mouth as if having made a resolution.
"……I'll be returning to the Capital next week, and I don't plan to come here until the port is completed. So."
Herdin brushed Blair's wispy hair, tossed by the wind, behind her ear and added.
"I'll give you this sea."
"……"
"The sea suits you."
Saying that, he smiled faintly.
His eyes, always like a frozen winter lake, seemed to melt just for that moment, but Blair turned away from it.
She didn't want to shatter his precariously frozen lake. For his sake, and for hers.
* * *
His lake shattered that night.
Having watched Blair's luggage being loaded onto the carriage, Herdin returned not to the bedroom but to drink.
He knew it was his last night with Blair.
But he couldn't face her with a clear mind when she would look at him so transparently, as if relieved.
It would be better if she shouted or resented him.
Her face, devoid of both resentment and hatred, felt like proof that we were truly becoming strangers, suffocating him.
Herdin only returned to the bedroom late at night, after Blair had fallen asleep. As expected, Blair was asleep. With her back turned to him.
By this time tomorrow, I won't even be able to see this sight.
Herdin let out a sigh mixed with the influence of alcohol and slowly walked over to sit on the edge of the bed. Reaching out his hand, Blair's fine platinum hair wound around his fingers.
The last time. It's the last time.
The more he chewed on those words, the more anger surged, then gave way to disbelief, and suddenly he wanted to wake her from sleep and cling to her.
His emotions changing as swiftly as flipping a palm in a fleeting moment—even to himself, he looked like a madman.
It wasn't a day or two that she had slept with her back to him because of her swollen belly, yet suddenly her small back turned away from him felt sorrowful.
Herdin, who had been staring blankly at that back, climbed onto the bed and wrapped his arms around it. Just as he had done every night.
Belatedly, it occurred to him that Blair would dislike the strong smell of alcohol coming from him, but since she was asleep and wouldn't smell it and push him away, he thought it didn't matter.
His hand naturally came to rest over her belly. It felt even more swollen than it looked.
At that moment, a distinct movement was felt from within the belly. Just as he thought he might be hallucinating from the alcohol, her belly moved again.
More precisely, the child inside the belly did.
As if ignoring the heartless father who had treated the child merely as a means to bind Blair, the child who had never once responded to him finally tapped his hand. Only on the night before parting from its father.
Herdin let out a hollow laugh at that tiny movement.
He had once believed this child would become her shackles. Without even dreaming that she had originally wanted this child and was staying by his side only temporarily.
Foolish and stupid.
Laughing to himself without substance, he soon wiped the smile from his face and buried it in his wife's slender shoulder.
Her characteristic sweet scent overwhelmed him, making it hard to breathe.
"……Blair."
A low, heavy baritone resonated through the quiet room.
"Blair."
Herdin desperately grasped Blair's hand.
Though he knew a sleeping person couldn't answer, he kept calling her. No—he called her precisely because he knew she couldn't hear his words.
Because he had no justification to hold her back, nor could he.
He wanted to send her off with a good impression at the end.
"If you don't go…… can't you stay?"
"……"
"I was, I was wrong about everything."
"……"
"I'll do better, so please……."
"……"
"Don't go. Please."
Continuing his ceaseless soliloquy, at some point he realized Blair was awake. Even so, Herdin held her and clung to her.
She could think it was the alcohol talking, she could think he was a madman. Whatever it was, if only he could hold onto even a fragment of her heart.
But in the end, Blair never turned to look at him.
That dawn was but a fleeting moment to him, and an eternity to her.
We, so utterly different, spent even the same time in such different ways.