The three boarded the carriage.
Aside from giving their destination, Rodi kept her mouth firmly shut. She merely gazed blankly out the window.
Yubar watched her with suspicious eyes.
‘Just when does she plan on showing her true colors?’
She was the type of person who wouldn’t hesitate to extort money ten times over using that teal jewelry box as leverage.
‘If she does anything to harm my father, I won't let it slide.’
She wasn't even a noblewoman anymore. Dealing with her wouldn't be all that difficult.
He glanced at his father sitting beside him.
‘Normally, he would never tolerate a situation like this…’
His father possessed a cool, razor-sharp temperament. Yet here he was, meekly going along with the demands of a young woman barely twenty years old.
‘Even if it involves Mother’s jewelry box… this isn’t like him at all.’
Yubar himself could readily think of twenty different ways to quietly dispose of this woman.
“We’re here.”
Looking out the window, Rodi spoke.
At that exact moment, the carriage ground slowly to a halt.
They were at the entrance of a densely wooded mountain. The sunlit leaves shimmered in vibrant green.
Seeing where they had arrived, Noien’s eyes widened slightly.
“This place is…”
Yubar asked,
“Do you know it?”
Noien replied, his voice slightly thick with emotion.
“A little, yes.”
Yubar turned to Rodi and asked,
“Why on earth did we come here?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
Rodi made her way up the mountain and came to a stop in front of an enormous tree.
Then, pointing her finger toward the ground, she said,
“Dig.”
“Excuse me…?”
While Yubar stood flabbergasted by the natural command, Noien, lost in thought, picked up a shovel and approached.
“W-wait, Father! Are you actually going to do what that woman says?”
“It is not as if we have any other choice right now.”
Thud!
He drove the shovel into the dirt.
With his father already at work, Yubar couldn't just stand by and watch. Bewildered, he joined in digging up the earth.
Clink.
After digging down a fair bit, the tip of the shovel caught on something solid.
“…A box?”
It was a small iron box.
“Found it, did you?”
Rodi stepped over, brushed off the dirt, and picked up the box.
“What is inside it?”
She shrugged.
“I have no idea.”
While Yubar weighed whether to get angry at such a brazenly insincere answer, Rodi opened the box.
Inside lay a yellow envelope. Yubar found the envelope strangely familiar.
“Mr. Noien.”
Rodi asked,
“Do you remember this envelope?”
Noien nodded slowly, looking somewhat sorrowful.
“It is the kind my wife used to use often.”
Rodi wore a faintly surprised expression.
“I thought you would have completely forgotten.”
“…Sometimes, there are things you cannot forget, no matter how hard you try.”
“I see.”
Rodi handed the yellow envelope to Noien.
He carefully opened it and began to read the letter.
“…”
Yubar still hadn’t made sense of the situation.
First, she’d abruptly told them to bring shovels, made them dig into the dirt, and now a letter presumably written by his mother had turned up.
‘Just what is her scheme?’
As he eyed Rodi with deep suspicion, his gaze locked directly with hers.
She smirked with an exasperatingly smug face.
“You look like you still haven’t caught on.”
“…As vexing as it is to admit, yes.”
Still, asking this woman for details wounded his pride terribly.
“I’ll explain.”
Surprisingly cooperative, Rodi walked over to his side and pulled a small note from her pocket.
“This note was hidden inside the teal jewelry box.”
Yubar unfolded the slip of paper she handed him.
The first sentence read:
—I do not know who you are, finding this letter.
It was unmistakably his mother’s handwriting.
—One thing I can swear is that if you do as written here, you will be promised a handsome reward.
“…”
Beneath it was a request asking the finder to bring him and his father to this spot.
Yubar muttered,
“This is… the beginning of a riddle Mother left in her will.”
In the past, his mother had asked in her will for someone to find the teal jewelry box.
“Why go through such convoluted trouble…?”
If she had something to say, she could have simply left a letter while she was still alive.
Rodi murmured,
“Perhaps she hated the thought of you two forgetting?”
“What?”
“Isn't this the place where your mother and father first met?”
“Ah…”
Yubar took in the surrounding scene. Come to think of it, he had heard about it from his mother.
Their very first meeting was when his father found her lost on the mountain and escorted her back home.
“Yubar.”
Just then, having finished reading the letter, his father approached.
“Father… what did the letter say?”
Noien silently handed the letter over.
Yubar assumed it would contain something touching.
However:
—Noien, even as I write this letter, you aren't by my side.
Yes, you truly are terrible. You've probably forgotten every single promise you made to me and are still buried in your work, aren't you? Be good and move on to the next place!
A string of words seething with indignation…
At the very bottom were the coordinates for the next location.
His sentimentality shattered into pieces, Yubar stood bewildered.
“What does she mean, you forgot?”
Noien scratched his cheek, looking troubled.
“I don't know.”
He smiled bitterly.
“I tried so hard to forget everything about your mother. In doing so, much of it has grown blurry now… Perhaps she held a grudge against me all along. Against me, who was buried only in my work.”
A rueful shadow fell across Noien’s face.
“Which is probably why she set up such a mischievous prank at the very end.”
Gazing quietly at the speechlessly stunned father and son, Rodi spoke up.
“Shall we head to the next location written in the letter, then?”
✦ ✦ ✦
The next location was a cafe in a shopping district not far from the mountain.
“This is where I had my first date with your mother.”
Yubar stole a glance at Noien. His father wore a pensive expression.
“Renda must surely resent me, even from heaven…”
Noien held up the letter.
“This letter is full of anger toward me as well.”
“…”
Yubar couldn’t bring himself to deny it.
Though his parents had married for love, it was difficult to claim they had gotten along well.
His mother had always harbored resentment toward his endlessly busy father, while his father turned a blind eye to her complaints and threw himself solely into his work.
On the rare occasions they saw each other, arguments invariably broke out.
‘Noien, you are always so buried in your work that you forget what’s truly important!’
‘Renda, I have everything under control. Look around you—our lives are prosperous and flawless. Why must you always insist I am in the wrong?’
Dwelling on the past, Yubar asked,
“Is it right for us to keep chasing Mother’s will?”
He worried this ordeal would only end up hurting his father.
Noien smiled faintly.
“While Renda was alive, I never once truly listened to her grievances. If I can do so now, even like this, it is enough.”
“…”
If that was his father’s wish, there was nothing more to say.
Meanwhile, Rodi, having stepped inside the cafe and returned, spoke up.
“I received permission to dig behind the cafe.”
Father and son nodded.
Digging into the vacant lot behind the building, they unearthed an iron box identical to the one before.
“The second letter, it seems.”
Opening the box, Rodi handed the bright yellow envelope to Noien.
“…”
Hesitating for a moment, Noien unfolded the letter.
The first sentence read:
—Did it really take my death for you to finally feel like listening to me?
‘Indeed, Renda.’
Noien smiled bitterly.
‘When you were actually alive, I never lent an ear to your words.’
And after she died, he had struggled desperately to forget her, erasing every trace of her existence.
‘And now, of all times, to receive a letter so full of resentment…’
Was this retribution, or a blessing?
—Noien, you probably still haven’t recalled the promise we made.
Renda. What on earth did I forget?
—By the time you find this letter, you’re bound to be feeling an inexplicable loneliness, sorrow, and emptiness. Perhaps you’re even bickering with our sweet son because of it.
Noien was taken aback.
—I know you well.
To think that Renda, dead all these years, could predict their exact circumstances today.
—Now, I will tell you about the final place. The location is…
He read through the end of the letter.
