Episode 112
Cedric had brought Damian to a hut that served as a temporary shelter for hunters.
“Wow, I didn’t know a place like this existed!”
The moment he opened the door, Damian exclaimed at the sight. It was a space that was not large but cozy and warm.
Thick furs were spread across the floor, and hunting trophies of animals decorated the walls. There was a small but proper fireplace, and in front of it sat a couch like one in a living room. A temporary kitchen where simple cooking could be done was also equipped in a corner.
“It’s where hunters and woodcutters in the area take a short break,” Cedric answered gently and helped Damian take off his coat, hanging it on a wall hook.
“It feels like a secret space, it’s really nice….”
Damian, continuing to exclaim in admiration, plopped down on the couch.
“It was my dream to have a hideout like this.”
“I thought the same when I was young.”
Cedric snickered, placed a kettle on the brazier, and lit a fire with a match. The sound of water boiling bubbled and echoed solitarily through the hut deep in the mountains.
As Damian looked around with fascinated eyes, a small ember in the hearth suddenly caught his eye.
“Someone must have been here just now! Look at this.”
“Really?”
Cedric’s pupils shook briefly, as if surprised. Forcing an awkward smile, Cedric changed the subject.
“By the way, aren’t you thirsty? Drink this.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Be careful, it’s hot.”
“Thanks, brother.”
Grinning, Damian took a sip of the tea. A refreshing aroma and warm energy circulated through his body.
Cedric, who had sat down beside Damian, abruptly asked playfully.
“By the way, why do you call me brother?”
“Huh?”
“You know I’m old enough to be your father.”
“All of a sudden?”
“I forgot I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“Hmm….”
At the sudden question, Damian held his tongue for a moment and set down the cup he was holding.
“Cedric, you don’t seem like an uncle. You don’t seem like a dad, either.”
“Then?”
“You feel like a friend, and like a brother.”
Cedric’s boyish looks played a part in that impression, but so did his curiosity-filled, boyish playfulness.
“I’ve always wished I had a brother or sister. Because I don’t have any siblings.”
Damian, on the other hand, looked considerably more mature after all he had been through.
“Ah, if you don’t like it, you can call me uncle right now….”
“You little rascal!”
Giggling, Cedric thoroughly ruffled Damian’s hair and grabbed his soft cheeks.
“Then, what if I….”
It was something he had tried to bring up many times. If he married Rowena and became her husband, he would become Damian’s stepfather. Due to the urgent situation last time, he hadn’t been able to broach the subject, but Rowena would never accept him as her husband without Damian’s consent.
“If I?”
“What I’m saying is….”
Cedric carefully paused for a moment, then slowly moved his lips.
“How would you feel if I became your father?”
At the same time, Damian’s eyes grew wide. Cedric continued calmly, as if trying to persuade him.
“We get along well, don’t we, Damian? Think about it. Nothing will change. We’ll go to the forest together like now, observe animals, collect insects, and camp. How about it?”
“……You’ll get married if I allow it?”
Damian asked back with a shadowed face. Cedric smiled faintly and answered vaguely.
“It’s not necessarily like that. Your mother’s will is the most important. But your opinion matters too. Do you hate it?”
“I don’t hate it. But….”
As far back as he could remember, his mother had been alone for a long time. Even in his young heart, he had felt the gazes that followed them when they walked in the park together. Curiosity, sympathy, and affectionate interest. But the faint affection directed at his mother would turn to regret when they saw him holding her hand.
The friendly neighbor or the doctor they often saw had asked various things about his mother, but it always stopped there. His mother never grew close to anyone. When he asked about his father, his mother’s smile would grow hazy, and Damian stopped asking the same question.
—Don’t you plan to remarry?
—Damian is still young.
—Wouldn’t it be better for the child to have a father? Don’t you think about remarrying for Damian’s sake?
—Not yet. By the way, Harriet….
—Changing the subject again.
Back then, he had let the conversation pass. It was a story that had repeated many times. But as time passed, he gradually understood what the conversation had been about, and why the men who approached his mother turned away after seeing him.
He didn’t know the details, but the father he had thought was simply far away had actually separated from his mother.
“I…. I just don’t know why you’re saying these things. Cedric, you’re…. you’re not my dad.”
When they had returned here from the capital, his mother’s expression had been frighteningly stiff.
Could it be that he would never see his father again?
The words rose to his throat, but Damian held them back. His mother had only said they would stay here for the time being. Her hands trembled as she hugged him apologetically, and he couldn’t bear to ask twice. It was the same expression she had made when he had asked why he didn’t have a father, back when it was just the two of them.
“Sorry, Damian. That was too sudden.”
Cedric smiled awkwardly at Damian’s darkened face, stood up, and briskly rummaged through the backpack he had brought.
“What are you looking for?”
“Sausage and soup. It tastes really good if we eat it here?”
“I’m not hungry? It hasn’t been long since I had a sandwich.”
Looking at Damian with unreadable eyes, Cedric abruptly made a suggestion.
“Shall we sleep here tonight?”
“Sleep over?”
“Yeah. What do you say?”
“Great!”
It was his first time sleeping in the forest. Damian quickly forgot his thoughts from just moments ago, his eyes sparkling. * * *
It was a fun and heartwarming night. When and how Cedric had packed it all, he had brought sleeping bags, food for dinner, and even fishing gear, and read a fairy tale before bed.
It was a story about a lonely snake that lived in the forest. The snake, which crawled on the ground, had received venomous fangs from a god so other animals wouldn’t step on it, but because of those fangs, it became an outcast. Overcome with loneliness, it tried to pull out its own fangs by striking them against a rock and lost its life. The god pitied that snake and let it be reborn as a human, so in its next life it found happiness.
“The snake is pitiful.”
“Why? It gained friends.”
“But it couldn’t even live in the forest where it originally lived, and in the end, it couldn’t become close with the animals it wanted to live with.”
“…….”
“It wasn’t born that way because it wanted to be.”
At Damian’s words, Cedric blinked his eyes for a few seconds as if bewildered, then smiled brightly.
“You take after your mother, thinking so deeply.”
Damian was about to say that he definitely took after his father, that anyone could see he was his father’s son, but he closed his mouth.
“It’s time to sleep now. Let’s get some rest.”
While Damian was lost in thought, Cedric had already prepared the bedding and laid Damian down inside the sleeping bag.
With the hand patting his back and a low lullaby, he fell asleep in an instant.
When Damian opened his eyes again, it was a pitch-dark night only a few hours later. He blinked his pleasantly hazy eyes at the sensation of a hand stroking his head.
“Brother, why aren’t you sleeping yet?”
“…….”
“Brother?”
He called twice but received no answer. Wondering, he raised his head, but a large hand gently closed Damian’s eyelids.
“Dad….?”
Cedric’s hands were always warm. As far as Damian knew, there was only one person with such a cool body temperature. Damian gasped in surprise and confirmed again.
“Is it Dad?”
“…….”
“Dad.”
Whining, he tried to remove the hand covering his eyes and raise his body, but it was futile. A low voice came from above his head.
“Sleep more.”
It was unmistakably his father’s voice. Damian gripped Killian’s hand tightly with his small hands and choked up.
“Dad. I missed you. Why did we get separated again?”
“Damian.”
“Dad, are we never going to see each other again? Did you abandon us?”
After learning his father’s identity, his wish to live with just his mother again melted like snow, and a single small wish took root in Damian’s heart.
“I want to live with Mom and Dad. In a house like this….”
He didn’t need a big house, a nanny to take care of him, or maids. He didn’t need a fluffy bed or a grand room. Eating delicious food and wearing fine clothes was nice, but having Mom and Dad beside him was better than all of that.
“Dad….”
“I’m sorry.”
After a long silence, a suppressed-sounding answer came back.
“Did Dad pull out his fangs too?”
The contents of the fairy tale he heard before sleeping suddenly came to mind. The lonely and dangerous snake.
At the sudden question, Killian closed his mouth.
“Dad….”
In the continued silence, it felt like his father would disappear at any moment. Damian anxiously clung to him.
“You don’t have to pull out your fangs. I’ll stay by your side.”
“Even if you become endangered?”
It was a simple question but contained a complex meaning. Damian nodded vigorously and answered without hesitation.
“It’s okay. Dad will protect me, right? Right?”
“……Yes.”
Something hot and soft touched his forehead and then pulled away. The moment he realized it was lips, Damian noticed the hand covering his eyes was gone.
“Dad!”
He opened his eyes and urgently raised his body, but aside from Cedric sleeping soundly beside him, there was no one there.