ERTHMB Chapter 123

Light and Shadow

Ian made full use of his tall height to skillfully evade Helena’s interference.

He held the paper up to a height she couldn’t reach no matter how much she stretched her arms, and finally unfolded it. His eyes quickly moved left and right, reading the text at the top.

<Things I Want to Do>

“First. Looking at the night sea with Kamel. Oh, this was accomplished today. It was indeed the most beautiful sea I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you really going to do this?”

“Let’s see, my name is also below…”

“Give it back!”

Just as Ian was about to voice the second item, Helena stood on her tiptoes. She was finally able to snatch the paper.

However, in her excessive enthusiasm, she lost her balance. At the same time, Ian, who had been stepping backward, also tilted as his heel caught on a protruding wooden board on the floor. The combined force caused both of them to fall.

“Ow…”

Helena groaned softly and busily raised her upper body. Instead of the hard floor, a soft surface pressed against her palm. When she opened her frowning eyes, she felt Ian wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Where do you think you’re going? If you’ve pounced on someone, you should take responsibility.”

Pounced? Who on whom?

Only then did Helena realize her position. How shameless she was.

What she was lying on top of wasn’t the floor, but Ian. As he said, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say she had pounced on him.

Ian rambled on with an innocent face, as if he had never teased her.

“If I had known you had such bold tastes, I would have mentioned it earlier. It’s been hard holding back all this time. You don’t know how much I can accommodate you, do you?”

“I’m not curious!”

“I’ll tell you anyway.”

“I said I don’t want to know!”

When misfortune strikes, even if you fall backward, your nose breaks. This was exactly that situation.

Helena squirmed and cursed her unlucky fortune. The misfortune didn’t end with Ian pulling her closer into his embrace and burying his face in her nape.

“Oh, I dropped a clean towel…”

The door burst open and Helena’s head immediately turned toward it. Their gazes collided like a rabbit jumping into a running carriage.

Grandpa, holding a neatly folded towel in one hand, had just been about to enter but stopped. He remained motionless for a moment as if time had stopped, then quietly placed the towel on the table.

Then he disappeared smoothly as if nothing had happened. The delicately closing door made Helena’s cheeks burn even hotter.

Helena quickly lifted her head and got angry.

“W-what are you going to do!”

“What do you mean what? Have we done anything wrong right now?”

“Don’t say ‘we’! This is entirely your fault, something you did unilaterally and completely alone! If only you had let me go in time, no, if only you hadn’t stolen my paper in the first place…!”

At that moment, the door opened again, cutting off Helena’s words. Grandpa, who peeked his head through a gap the size of a palm, said matter-of-factly:

“I forgot to mention this. Don’t worry about the blanket and use it to your heart’s content.”

Then the door closed again. Helena’s face ripened like a plump, ripe cherry. In contrast, Ian was more composed than an eighty-year-old.

He raised one eyebrow and stared at Helena as if to show off.

“Now what shall we do? He said to use it to our heart’s content.”

“…”

Helena no longer pushed Ian away or resisted. Instead, she folded the paper tightly. By folding it repeatedly, it gained considerable thickness and became solid.

Helena slammed this makeshift weapon against Ian’s face. Since he had made her face red, it was only fair that his face should be colored physically as well.

Ian removed the paper from his forehead, which had turned red as Helena wished. Even so, he didn’t release Helena, tightening his grip around her. Ian pulled Helena close again and flipped their positions.

****

The next day, Helena woke up feeling refreshed. Fortunately, Ian was a man with great patience. The disaster of soiling grandpa’s blanket did not occur.

However, her lips were a bit sore. It was the result of an agreement between his great reason and instinct.

Of course, even this wasn’t enough to appease his desires. Perhaps intending to release it through other means, he had gone out early in the morning and wasn’t there. Helena looked once at the empty space beside her and the wall where the sword hilt had been placed, then got out of bed.

After simply getting dressed and going out, she heard clattering sounds from the kitchen direction. There was also a light jasmine scent.

Following the scent, she saw grandpa removing a steaming kettle from the stove. On the table, two cups were prepared as if he had known she would come.

Sensing Helena’s presence, the old man turned around and acknowledged her. Remembering his misunderstood consideration from last night, Helena awkwardly bowed her head.

He maintained a calm demeanor throughout and placed the kettle on the dining table.

“You said you don’t remember much of your childhood.”

It seemed he had heard from Paul last time. He already knew about her condition.

Helena habitually brought her hand to the scar on her forehead.

“…I did recall important memories, but most of them…”

Grandpa gestured to the opposite seat while pouring tea into the cups.

“Then sit down quickly. I have many stories to tell you. As I get older, only old memories become vivid.”

Helena hesitantly placed herself on the chair. He also filled all the cups and slowly sat down.

The long story began like that. It was a warm and gentle story, like a cup of tea that could be held in both hands.

How diligently she had helped with farm work, how on the day Basil’s health improved, she had played with Theo and gotten so excited that her front tooth fell out, how delicious the cooking smoke rising from each house’s chimney smelled in the evenings.

He continuously unraveled the past while moistening his dry throat. It seemed like he had something he wanted from her.

As if he wanted her to cherish the times that could be called happy, even now, his stories didn’t stop. The time in the stories was full of eventful moments.

“Do you know? It was you, Helen, who first found Paul on the street and brought him home.”

“…Me?”

“That day, you saved two lives. If it weren’t for Paul, my gravestone might have already been erected from the grief of losing Theo.”

Grandpa’s gaze turned toward the window for a moment. From the middle of the story, the commotion had been getting closer, and Ian and Paul were in the yard, sword fighting.

Ian was skillfully turning what could have ended as mere play with a child into a proper sword match. Occasionally, when struck by Paul’s attacks, he made clumsy groaning sounds.

Helena saw a gentle smile spread across grandpa’s lips. Bringing his gaze back to her, he brought up another past memory. This time, it wasn’t from childhood but from a past not too distant from now.

“It was about two years ago, I saw a woman while passing by the public cemetery. Snow was falling heavily from the sky, but she was standing motionless in front of the cemetery. She had been there for so long that snow had piled up on her clothes, yet she didn’t move at all.”

Helena felt that the sip of tea she had just taken got stuck halfway down her esophagus before going down. The old man looked at her with tender eyes.

“Her shoulders were trembling slightly, so I thought she was crying. It must have been you. That’s why I like how you look now.”

“…Grandpa.”

He filled the empty cup with newly brewed tea and calmly confessed.

“I’m just an old man whose remaining days are fewer than the days I’ve lived, Helena. I don’t have the strength to protect someone like that fine gentleman, nor the money to buy everything you want, nor the knowledge to enlighten the world.”

“You already mean a great deal to me.”

“Then I’m grateful. But it’s okay if it’s not a great deal. I’m just happy if you can smile at my stories, if you can have memories of being happy. That’s better than being strong or having lots of money.”

Helena couldn’t take her eyes off the years etched in the old man’s wrinkled eyes. He held her with effortless authority and continued his request.

“So Helena, please know just this one thing. There are people who care for you unchangingly.”

“…”

“You must have been deeply hurt and aren’t sure if it’s okay to let others into your heart. But there are such people after all. If there’s a beginning, there’s an end, and if there are shadows, there’s always light too. You can believe that now.”

At that moment, there was a sound of the front door bursting open. Paul and Ian were coming in, laughing loudly.

The old man and Helena came out of the kitchen to greet them. The two were shaking the dust off their shoes on the mat while continuing to laugh about something so amusing.

Helena stared at the scene, momentarily entranced. A warm scent wafted strongly. They were bringing sunlight in with them. People had a warm scent.

Meanwhile, the old man took Paul’s wooden sword and coat and said:

“Now let’s prepare lunch. Paul, go wash your hands quickly and help peel potatoes. If sir knight could bring a sack of flour from the storage, I’d be grateful. My back isn’t what it used to be.”

Paul and Ian gladly accepted their assigned tasks and moved. The sound of chattering conversation gradually faded, and Helena followed the old man back into the kitchen.

He hung a black pot on the hook and poured water into it. Helena tactfully found containers with various spices and handed them to him. The old man added a spoonful of each spice and stirred while casually asking:

“You don’t distrust me because my mind wanders, do you?”

Helena smelled the sharp scent of the spices.

It was really warm in front of the stove. The sound of crackling firewood, the small but neatly organized kitchen.

So Helena couldn’t help but smile brightly.

“I believe you. Grandpa also has a warm scent.”

Just then, Ian and Paul returned carrying a sack of potatoes and a basket of vegetables.

Paul set the basket on the dining table, but Ian stood still with the sack on his shoulder. Paul was taking carrots out of the basket when he stopped and looked at him with wide eyes.

“Huh? Mister, your ears are red! Are you cold? Should I get you a blanket?”

Helena really had no choice but to believe it.

Ian wore such a lovestruck expression from just one of her smiles. That man was ‘such a person who exists after all.’

A person of beginnings and endings, of light and shadow.

****

Natasha strode across the desolate garden into her room in the villa. Disheveled hair, split lips, wet cheeks. She was in her usual mess.

“Even if reinforcing troops is urgent… how long do I have to stay here being treated like this?”

Raptor, who had been waiting for her for an hour, grumbled while offering a handkerchief. Natasha roughly wiped her face with the handkerchief and collapsed into a chair.

“Get a grip. Do you want to give up a tower you’ve spent years building just because you got hit with a few cups of water?”