The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 99
Fezin pulled her waist closer and said,
“I understand what you mean, but you shouldn’t soothe my anger like this. It’ll spoil me.”
“I like spoiled boys.”
“Since when?”
“It means they grew up in an environment where they could afford to be spoiled.”
“So you’re saying you like men from good backgrounds?”
“It means I like a man who has enough reason to be arrogant.”
“Your tastes are certainly firm. They always have been… but still, don’t think about soothing my anger this way again.”
“I know. It’s only for today.”
“It hasn’t even been soothed in the first place.”
“I didn’t expect that.”
“I tend to value the heart more than the body.”
“You don’t look the type.”
When April teased him about his physical state, which felt hot to the touch, Fezin replied nonchalantly.
“I’m just playing along.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It’s not exactly something I can control.”
April nodded, accepting his answer, then wrapped her arms around his neck and asked,
“How was your day today?”
“Ah, we’re playing house, right?”
“Yes. Focus.”
When April gave his neck a playful slap as she spoke, Fezin frowned in annoyance before putting on a mock smile and answering.
“It was fine. Good enough that it’s hard to complain. And you?”
As Fezin asked, April stared at him for a moment before opening her lips.
“I missed you.”
Fezin finally understood why April wanted to play house. She continued in a voice that was calm and composed as always, yet felt strangely cold.
“All day long…”
He lost his words, his lips parted slightly as he froze.
Meeting April’s gaze, he saw the answer she wanted.
She wanted to hear that he missed her too. She wanted love, she wanted longing, and she wanted their mutual need for one another.
The storm inside his infinitely complex mind finally ceased when he heard April’s voice again.
“It’s just playing house. Answer however you like.”
At April’s words, Fezin broke out of his frozen state with a soft “Ah.”
His heart was racing frantically, like a child caught stealing. He couldn’t tell if it was guilt, fear, or love.
He hadn’t exactly missed her, but it was true that he had thought of her all day. It was painful when they were together, and painful when they were apart.
Fezin gave her a light kiss on the lips before speaking.
“I love you.”
“…What?”
“I said I love you.”
Every night, he had nightmares of April Runos stabbing him in the heart with a knife.
“Liar.”
In his dreams, April Runos would plunge a blade into the heart of the fallen Fezin, straddling him and looking down as she repeated the same words.
“Liar. Liar.”
After that, he would feel a bit better. Her retaliation was a sweet comfort.
Fezin murmured as he pulled April into an embrace.
“Playing house is fun. Though it was only fun because I got to play your husband.”
“…”
“Let’s do this often from now on.”
He hugged her because he didn’t want to see what kind of expression April was making, but the way her two hands gripped his collar conveyed her emotions well enough. It was heartbreaking.
“…Okay. I’ll invite you.”
The voice he heard in his ear was the same. Heartbreaking, truly heartbreaking.
Fezin held April in his arms for a long time without saying a word.
Fezin returned home before midnight.
His reason was that he couldn’t have a strange man seen leaving her house on the day of the funeral.
Waking up early and getting dressed, April paused as Fezin’s voice came back to her.
The voice that said “I love you” had kept sleep away all night, and now it was interfering with her morning preparations.
She didn’t have the luxury to worry about that right now, so April shook her head to clear the complicated thoughts. This was no time for such things.
Hannah and Fred were busy following Bauman’s instructions to prepare for the mourners. In the midst of it, Fred kept glancing at her face so much that April, feeling concerned, finally asked.
“Fred, do you have something to say?”
“That…”
“Go ahead.”
“Well… it’s just that it feels like you haven’t had any time to be sad, My Lady. We’re taking care of things here, so please go inside and spend some time with your parents.”
Having finally said what he’d been thinking, Fred watched April cautiously.
April gave a relieved smile and said,
“Isn’t it a bit too long since my parents passed away to be sad now?”
“Still. Even so… no, it’s not ‘even so,’ but rather, isn’t it because of that that you can finally be sad now?”
April recalled how Hannah used to be gloomy because her reading was slower than Fred’s.
She hadn’t realized it then, but lately, she’d come to understand that it wasn’t that Hannah was slow, but that Fred possessed an overwhelming linguistic talent. As soon as he learned to read, Fred’s ability to express himself had blossomed rapidly.
Fred continued.
“My grandmother told me… that when my mom—I mean, my grandmother’s daughter—first passed away, it didn’t feel real at all. It was only when the funeral came and she held the urn in her arms that it finally felt real to her.”
He then gave a small, sheepish grin as he went on.
“She wasn’t saying it to me, I just overheard her telling my grandfather. I didn’t understand it when I heard it then, but now that I’m a bit older, I think I do.”
After listening quietly, April teased him.
“You’re growing up too fast. Could you slow down a little?”
“Yes!”
“You’re certainly good at answering.”
April nodded with a smile.
“Alright, you’re right. Then I’ll go… talk to them for a moment.”
“Have a safe trip.”
With those words, Fred ran back into the Grand Banquet Hall to get back to work.
April took a deep breath and headed toward the room where the urns were kept.
It was a room Bauman had prepared with great care. Once the funeral was over, the urns would be moved to the Monastery Basement on the estate.
Knowing it was their last day together, she knelt down before the urns and fell into thought.
She tried to be sad, but she wasn’t as sad as she expected.
I thought I loved them, but did I not love them as much as I thought?
Sitting there, April simply asked what she wanted to know.
“I have something I’m curious about.”
April stared at the urns for a while before speaking.
“How did you know? That this dye would allow one to survive in the mist? Why did you cover every wallpaper in this house with that dye right before you were arrested? Why did you change all my clothes to be like that? As if telling me I had to be the only one to live. Only me, in this hell…”
The urns were plain, with nothing but the words ‘In the Sea of Eternal Rest’ engraved by a nun from the monastery.
However, April liked the sentiment of the religious memorial phrase, so she hadn’t bothered moving the remains to more ornate urns.
“Is it enough that only I live? I felt like the two of you died because of me, and I was so sorry I couldn’t even cry. I’m so lonely. The house is too big. The world is cold and hates me. I want to hate it back, but I have nothing in my hands, so I can’t even manage to hate. I can’t cry, and I can’t hate… what am I living for?”
She brushed back the hair hiding the scar left on her.
“Look at this. The wound still hasn’t healed. It still hurts. They dared to touch me. They hit me, the one you cherished so dearly. And yet, you won’t even visit me once? How can parents be like this? How… how can you be this way…”
Tears began to pour.
Not out of sadness, but out of resentment.
Tears fell not because she missed them, but because it was unfair.
Because living day by day, unable to die, was just so profoundly unfair.
