[Chapter 75] - My Adolescent Daughter (1)
Lately, whenever I look at Baengsyo’s head, my heart keeps growing heavy.
At times, sorrow would surge forth from pity to the point where tears would well in my eyes. I tried to force a smile to forget the rushing sadness, but it was no use at all.
“......”
“...Please stop staring.”
“Ah, sorry. I didn’t even realize.”
I forced my gaze down to look at the documents on my desk. But what could I do about my eyes constantly drifting over? It wasn’t as though I kept looking because I absolutely wanted to.
Aren’t people all captivated by things that shine? Because in life, shining things were often valuable—or so I’d read somewhere.
However, what was stealing my gaze was by no means something of value. It was something that couldn’t be sold anywhere, nor shown off to anyone. And yet, the thing that kept stealing my gaze was...
I smiled awkwardly and looked at Baengsyo.
“Well, cheer up. Compared to the days when the top of your head was completely bare and hair only grew messily on the sides, this looks much neater. You wouldn’t happen to have any black glasses for blocking the sunlight, would you? I think they’d suit you perfectly.”
“If you keep this up, I shall resign from my ministerial post.”
“Kheuheuheuheup.”
Baengsyo’s scalp, now completely stripped bare, seeming to gleam.
Since last year, his hair loss had progressed rapidly, and Baengsyo had finally made a grand decision yesterday. Namely, the momentous resolve to shave off even the last remaining strands of hair and become bald.
Only yesterday, there had clearly been hair remaining on both sides of Baengsyo’s head, yet when I arrived at the office today, wasn’t he completely shaved? I smiled bitterly as I gazed at Baengsyo’s face for a long while. Ah, this is driving me crazy.
“Isn’t it fascinating? All the hair on his head fell out, yet his beard remains lush. They are hairs growing from the same head, yet how is it that the beard remains while the hair...”
“I believe it is time to take out the letter of resignation I have been keeping safe in my possession.”
“I was merely jesting. Please, do not resign.”
And so, today, Baengsyo had become perfectly bald.
A bald man with only a long beard remaining, at that. I wanted to ask why he didn’t trim his beard, but it seemed to be his last shred of pride, so I couldn’t ask. Well, if there’s nothing on top, you have to grow out the bottom.
Had this place been the East, passersby would definitely have mistaken Baengsyo for a Taoist immortal and bowed their heads to him. How cruel is time? When I first saw Baengsyo, half of that gleaming scalp had been covered in hair...
*Well... I suppose that means as much time has passed.*
Speaking of time, I hadn’t been unaffected either.
When I first possessed this body, its age had been merely twenty, yet now I had passed twenty-five and become twenty-six years old. During that time, I hadn’t changed much.
If I had to name something that had changed, perhaps the look in my eyes? Lately, I occasionally heard that my once-sharp gaze had grown somewhat gentler. Was it because, unlike Vivian, I rarely furrowed my brows and smiled every day?
These days, whenever I went out into society, the first thing strangers said to me was, “Your Majesty the Queen has a much softer impression than the rumors would suggest.” Of course! Do you know how hard I’ve worked!
Lately, I had been receiving more invitations to parties and tea gatherings, and I often went out into society with Lady Serina to solidify my position. At this point, hadn’t I sufficiently changed the bad impression of the “old Vivian”?
“Mother... please stop teasing Baengsyo...”
“Yes, you’re right. I should stop now.”
While I was struggling to hold back my escaping laughter, Titania, who had been sitting beside my desk, let out a deep sigh and looked at me. Lately, Titania had been coming to the office saying she wanted to learn practical affairs.
I had wondered if Titania was too young to be learning such things already, but her tutor had said that experience was important and told her to observe Baengsyo and me working once or twice a week. Was it like a career experience program?
I rested my chin on my hand and watched Titania struggling to understand the documents Baengsyo had handed to me from beside us. Unable to comprehend them yet, she tilted her head and read them over and over again.
*Still... the one who has changed the most must be neither me nor Baengsyo, but Titania herself.*
The little girl who used to call out to me brightly with “Mommy~ Mommy~” had before I knew it grown vigorously into a thirteen-year-old ‘young lady’ who called me Mother. She had grown so much, too—the Titania who used to come up to my waist had grown to my shoulder height before I knew it. Was a child’s growth always this steep and fast?
Feeling my intense gaze upon her, Titania raised her head to look at me.
“...? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because my daughter is pretty no matter when I look at her.”
“...Even if you say that, I won’t sleep with Mother anymore. You know it’s time for me to have my own room, right? I’m far behind my peers.”
“Yes, yes. I know. By the way, have you grown used to sleeping alone yet?”
“Th-that’s... not yet...”
Titania had started using a separate room from me since last month. It was because of what had happened at a tea party Titania hosted last month.
When she learned from her peers that she was the only one who still slept with her mother at this age, Titania’s face turned bright red and she declared that she would use a separate room.
Startled by the sudden declaration, I told her that sleeping with me wasn’t something to be ashamed of at her age and that she shouldn’t mind what others thought, but Titania was of a different mind.
Even after my worried advice, Titania stubbornly insisted on using a separate room. And so she left my room and returned to the one she had used when she was little, but not knowing how to sleep alone, she was suffering from lack of sleep every day.
“Didn’t I tell you? You still don’t know how to sleep alone. For a child who can’t fall asleep unless she’s hugging me to suddenly declare she’ll use a separate room, what kind of...”
“M-Mother...!”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know you ordered a large pillow from Ellie to hug in my place? So? Are you able to fall asleep hugging that large pillow? You can’t, which is why the area under your eyes is so dark. Did you think a sleeping habit is that easy to break?”
Titania’s face flushed bright red and her shoulders trembled. Regardless, I sighed as I stroked the dark circles heavily settled beneath Titania’s eyes. A princess, worn out from being unable to sleep...
“Really, is this a face befitting a princess?! Look in a mirror! If this causes health problems, who are you going to blame?!”
“Ah, aww, wet me go!”
I stroked the area beneath Titania’s eyes for a long while before irritation surged up and I pinched her cheeks, pulling them out long. Titania pleaded with me to let her go, saying her cheeks felt like they would tear, but I only pulled harder and tormented her.
“You’re going to enter the academy dormitory the year after next anyway. It’s not too late to get used to sleeping alone from then on. A sleeping habit isn’t something that breaks easily, is it?”
“......”
I released Titania’s stretched-out cheeks and stroked her reddened skin. The moment the Academy was mentioned, Titania sulkily pouted her lips. I flicked Titania’s protruding lips and looked back down at the documents.
Lately, whenever talk of the Academy came up, Titania always pouted her lips.
The reason was naturally...
“...Do you still not want to go to the Academy?”
“......”
Because Titania didn’t want to go to the Academy. Leaving the royal palace where she had lived her entire life to reside in a distant place for three years—anyone would hate it.
I could fully understand Titania’s feelings as well, but the Academy was not a place she could simply choose not to attend.
It was a place to learn the social life of nobles, build connections with various nobles, and acquire all sorts of knowledge. That was what the Kingdom’s Academy was.
Regarding knowledge, she could sufficiently be taught within the royal palace, but connections were an area that couldn’t be helped even within the palace.
Blood ties, regional ties, and school ties were important in this world as well. No, in a world like this, they were especially important.
While navigating high society with Lady Serina, there was one thing I had truly come to feel was important. No matter that I was the Queen, there were walls in high society that could not be easily overcome.
Those were precisely the school ties and regional ties of the Academy.
The thick wall of school ties built up from connections with nobles one had known since childhood was not something easily overcome, no matter that I sat in the seat of this nation’s Queen.
“...There is still time, so think it over carefully. If you truly say you hate it even then, we can think it over again at that time.”
“......Yes.”
I lightly stroked the head of the nodding Titania and resumed my work. As the afternoon’s work came to an end and I was taking a brief rest, Titania hesitantly held out an envelope to me.
“...? What is this?”
“Um... it’s a letter from Viola. Inviting me to a party her family is holding...”
“Is that so?”
I calmly opened the invitation to the party that Viola had sent to Titania.
Viola, Lady Serina’s daughter, had apparently been continuously exchanging letters with Titania since the hunting tournament held when they were ten.
Since Viola was Lady Serina’s daughter and Titania’s first friend, I hadn’t interfered much in their relationship until now, but...
This seemed like something I should interfere with a little.
As I read the party invitation, one eyebrow twitched upward without my realizing it. I had no intention of saying anything about her going to the party itself. But the theme of the party was...
“...A masquerade ball?”
“C-can I go?”