Watching the head maid go to fetch my bowl, I fell into contemplation.
I thought it was only natural.
After all, I was merely a ward. An outsider with no shared blood. I told myself it was presumptuous to intrude on a family meal.
But.
“What are you standing there for? Sit.”
Godfather gestured to one side of the table.
Mother smiled.
“Yes, come here and sit, Yulian.”
“Hurry, Brother!”
Freya waved her hand.
“…”
I slowly stepped back from the cradle and stood before the table.
It was still awkward.
Even in the twenty-first century, experiences like this had been rare.
During my surgical residency, eating alone had been a daily routine, and it had been no different after becoming a fellow.
Especially not a dinner table shared with family.
‘…Just when was the last time?’
The memory was hazy.
“Please sit, young master.”
The head maid returned before I knew it, setting down a fourth bowl.
I slowly took my seat.
I picked up my spoon and took my first bite.
It was a dish I had made myself, yet the taste was somehow different.
“How is it?”
“…It is delicious.”
“Didn’t you make it yourself?”
Godfather let out a brief laugh.
“Yulian.”
“Yes, Godfather.”
“Move your belongings out of the annex starting today.”
“…Pardon?”
Don’t tell me, am I being expelled?
Why, in this atmosphere?
Was this a final supper?
But that was not Godfather’s intention.
“We must eat together like this every day. I cannot have you summoned from the annex every time. And…”
Godfather exchanged a glance with Mother.
Having reached a tacit agreement with her, he spoke again.
“Let us do something about that stiff form of address. How long are you going to keep calling me Godfather? From now on, call me Father. Hearing it is so stiff it makes me feel as though I might choke.”
I stared blankly at Godfather.
“….”
Because those words were, in effect, a declaration that he would adopt me.
Of course, Godfather was already my guardian.
But that declaration differed little from saying he would regard me as his own trueborn child, one who could inherit the family like Freya.
While I stood there blankly, Godfather spoke calmly, as if pressing for an answer.
“If you do not wish to, you need not.”
“No…”
I shook my head.
“I would be honored…to do so.”
“Good.”
“Then, if I call you Lord of the House…”
“Aren’t you too young to address me as head of the household?”
Godfather let out a brief laugh.
“Perhaps when you are grown and in a public setting, but for now, call me Father.”
“…Understood.”
“Good.”
Godfather picked up his spoon again.
Freya and Mother did the same.
I followed suit.
‘…’
Once more, spoons began to clink against bowls.
I took a bite of the risotto.
The savory richness of the cream and the tenderness of the seaweed spread through my mouth.
It tasted exactly as I had expected, yet felt strangely unfamiliar.
‘Could this, too…be part of the grammar of a misunderstanding trope?’
Such a thought flitted through my mind.
The narrative of a protagonist accepted by his family.
The kind of development where, without needing to turn the country upside down just to call his father “Father,” the people around him simply accept him through their own delusions as he silently does his part.
If I organized it like that, it was simple and comfortable.
But for some reason, today that interpretation did not sit right.
‘…Is it really okay to read it that way?’
Is it truly acceptable to form a bond called family through mere misunderstandings?
An unpleasant doubt had begun to dominate my mind.
*
My past life experiences had always warned me.
That there is no such thing as a perfectly selfless good deed, and that every act of kindness can be interpreted as a calculated move.
— [Anon: Trauma surgery pays well these days, right? If you’re getting paid that much, you should obviously do at least that much.]
In that arid world, I learned cynicism.
How not to expect, how not to reveal weaknesses, and how to spot the invoice that follows every favor.
And this world into which I had been reborn was not so different.
Nobles kept each other in check, and commoners were preoccupied with survival.
A world where even within four walls people devoured one another, where kindness was repaid with malice.
It was a world that gave me no reason to abandon the cynicism I had learned in my previous life.
So I learned to interpret kindness through the framework of a misunderstanding trope.
When I was Godfather’s designated heir, that had been enough.
‘But adoption…’
It is family.
Family must not be that kind of relationship.
It must not be formed through misunderstandings.
At least, that is what I believe.
Because the moment family becomes another lie, I will have destroyed the only place where I can remove my mask and rest.
‘What do I do…’
The risotto was growing cold.
A thin film began to form on the surface of the cream.
‘…I should say it before the adoption, after all.’
Those people are laboring under a delusion about me.
I am not such a noble person.
Not every deed I have done was for this family.
My kindness stemmed from a sense of obligation as the protagonist, not from any deep love for them.
Above all, I have been making good use of their kindness for my own sake.
Therefore, I must not become their family.
It entailed a danger beyond merely deceiving them—the risk that my false mask would become permanently affixed.
“Godfather.”
“I told you to call me Father. Very well. Let us first hear what you have to say.”
“I am not the person Godfather believes me to be.”
“And what manner of person did you think I believed you to be?”
“I….”
My throat tightened.
If I revealed this truth, they would surely reject me.
But it would be better than things blowing up in the worst possible way after the adoption.
I steeled myself and opened my mouth.
“Everything I have done in House Nihilite was done solely to establish my standing within the household.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
The table fell into a terrifying silence.
I waited for Godfather’s reaction.
Before long, he let out a short laugh.
“Come to think of it, ever since you came to this house, there has not been a single moment when you were not gauging my mood.”
Godfather set down his spoon.
“Then how much of it was conduct?”
“….”
“Bringing me medicine for the malaria and nursing me through the night at my bedside—was that conduct as well?”
“….”
“And creating this dish for Linie—was that also conduct?”
“….”
“And in Freya’s bowl, who holds no influence in this household whatsoever….”
Godfather’s gaze came to rest on Freya’s bowl.
“…Was leaving the carrots out of only this child’s bowl also conduct?”
“….”
Godfather let out a deep sigh.
“I had no idea you were festering like this. It is all my fault. I only realized it when you brought out three bowls, leaving your own out.”
“It is not. I was merely doing what is expected of an outsider….”
“Do not hide behind the word conduct.”
The moment I heard that, my fingertips gripping the spoon turned white.
His gaze swept over my risotto, which bore no topping.
“Yulian. To my eyes, you look like a child who pulls away first for fear of being hurt, who gives up before being rejected, and yet cannot stop his hands.”
And Godfather scooped the abalone topping from his own bowl and placed it atop my risotto.
“That is why I am correcting it now.”
“Correcting it…?”
“I know it sounds like an excuse, but I was aware things were awkward between you and Mother. Yet I feared interfering rashly would only tangle matters further. I thought you would adapt on your own.”
Godfather pointed to the abalone now sitting on my risotto.
“But even after four years, nothing ever made its way onto your bowl.”
“….”
“If it is conduct, moderation is enough. Look decent enough, keep your distance enough, take advantage enough. A smart boy like you could not possibly be ignorant of such moderation.”
Godfather locked eyes with me.
In those eyes, pity and guilt…
…and affection could be seen.
It was the kind of look my real father might have given.
“But you could never do things by halves. Nursing, cooking, even a single slice of carrot. Each was either done with excessive care or held back excessively. There was no middle ground.”
“….”
“You may be young and not know better, but that is not what we call conduct. Conduct means staying in the middle.”
Godfather placed his hand on my shoulder.
Pat, pat.
“The things you have been doing were acts befitting only family.”
“This adoption is not about creating a new place for you. It is simply moving what you have been placing on my bowl for the past ten years into your own bowl.”
“….”
“So stop with this ‘Godfather’ nonsense and call me Father.”
“But….”
“If it is conduct, you should simply call me what you are told. Cannot you manage even that much moderation?”
Then Mother interjected, having listened quietly.
“Dear.”
Mother spoke as if chiding him.
“This is a supper table. Why must you lecture him so heavily? And…Yulian is acting this way because of us, is he not?”
“Ahem.”
Godfather cleared his throat and took a long drink of water.
Mother’s gaze found me.
Her eyes, which had been wandering over the bowl of risotto with the abalone innards, slowly met mine.
Her hesitation was palpable.
A noble lady’s pride and a mother’s regret.
Perhaps it was a silence spent searching for the right words between those two.
Finally, having overcome her inner turmoil, Mother spoke.
“Yulian.”
“…Yes, Mother.”
“I, too….”
Her words trailed off.
Mother fiddled with the stem of her wine glass, filled with water.
“I should have welcomed you when you reached out, but old emotions got the better of me and I built walls. I was not acting as an adult ought.”
“….”
“From now on…I shall try. So you, too….”
Mother paused for a moment and offered a faint smile.
“If you need anything, do not hesitate to act spoiled. Though it is late, I should like to see that.”
It was a clumsy confession.
Though she tried to restrain her emotions befitting a noble lady, her voice trembled faintly.
As I savored the raw emotions they sent my way,
I finally gave voice to my own.
“…Thank you, Mother. Father.”
Mother nodded slightly.
If I spoke any longer, I felt my throat would close up, so I answered briefly and bowed my head.
Clink.
The sound of utensils striking porcelain rang out again over the silent table.
Then I met eyes with Freya, who had been rolling her eyes about in the suddenly serious atmosphere.
“Um, Brother?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, too.”
Freya had no reason to apologize to me.
So at her sudden apology, the attention of my parents and me all focused on her.
“…What for?”
At my question, Freya fidgeted, avoiding eye contact.
“S…sorry. I just felt like I had to….”
Perhaps sensing that something serious was afoot, she clutched her spoon tightly in her tiny fern-like hands, watching for reactions.
She had probably felt she had to join in since our parents had apologized.
This was not some game of apology tag.
At the social savvy of a ten-year-old girl leaping onto the bandwagon without even knowing why, the taut thread of tension snapped cleanly.
“…Thank you.”
Mother burst into a soft laugh, stroking Freya’s head.
“Yes, our daughter is the sweetest.”
“Hehe.”
Freya puffed up proudly. She had no idea why she was being praised, but she was clearly pleased anyway.
Father scratched the bridge of his nose and picked up his spoon.
“Ahem. Let us wrap up the talking now. The food is getting cold. Eat up.”
The clinking of spoons filled the dining room once more.
I took a large spoonful of the cooling risotto.
The rich cream flavor flooding my mouth and the tender texture of the abalone.
Only then did I understand why the first spoonful had felt so strange.
Because it was a temperature clearly different from the kimbap or sandwiches I had swallowed alone in the cold on-call room of my previous life.
I chewed and swallowed that warmth slowly, for a very long time.
*
During the meal.
Father, who had passed all his abalone to me, frowned.
The thing that had masked the bitter taste of the innards was gone now that he had given me all his butter-grilled abalone.
After taking a few bites of the risotto, Father asked me.
“Yulian. Why is my plate the only one with such a distinct green tint?”
“Godfather—no, Father—I added some extra ingredients for your health.”
“…I daresay a little conduct in this regard would not have gone amiss.”
“How could I do such a thing to a father I love?”
In the East, abalone innards are considered precious, so it is love regardless.
It was certainly not foisting leftovers upon the head of the household.
“…Very well.”
Father nodded grudgingly at my words.