Ch#85
“You’re still too young to handle it, I told him, but the emperor was adamant. He ended up being more irritating than I expected, so I had no choice but to go through with it. Try to understand. I’m sorry.”
“……?”
Bunny tilted her head in confusion. She simply couldn’t figure out why he was apologizing.
“It’s all gooood. Bunny’s a big king genius.”
Kiriel silently ruffled the girl’s hair at the sight of her proudly sticking out her thumb, then pulled her straight into a tight embrace.
With a straight face, he patted Bunny’s back and spoke up.
“Why is our little girl so sweet and cute?”
“Bunny’s not sweeeet?! Evil! Totally eeevil!!!”
Bunny shouted, planting her hands on her hips.
Even Allen and Calvad, who had been standing a bit farther off, quietly approached and started stroking her hair.
“Eeeek?!”
“Hey, kiddo. Don’t go wandering off alone anywhere. You look like you’d get snatched up in a heartbeat.”
When Calvad said it with a serious face, Allen nodded from the side and chimed in.
“Yeah. No matter where you’re going, Bunny, don’t go alone—call me.”
“I-I mean, if the guy’s busy, you can call me too. Not that I’m, uh, sp-specially going for your sake or anything. I just happen to have time, so… yeah……”
Bunny, who now had one hand gripped by each of them, nodded as they tugged her this way and that from both sides.
“Bunny, just let it go in one ear and out the other. Whenever you’re heading out, take Daddy or Levon—or at the very least, an adult guard knight.”
And in the meantime, Kiriel cut in with a perfectly calm face.
Allen and Calvad stared at him in disbelief, but he met their gazes with a brazen look as if nothing had happened, letting out a soft chuckle.
“……!”
“……!”
Seeing the boys’ eyes widen like saucers, Kiriel settled Bunny onto his lap and spoke.
“Bunny.”
“Yesss!”
When Bunny answered energetically, Kiriel gently smoothed her slightly mussed hair and continued.
“Do you happen to know how you can understand that elf’s words?”
“Hwigyeom……!”
Bunny nearly blurted out the reflexive answer of “hwigyeomryong” but caught herself.
‘No secrets from Daddy!’
Remembering their promise, Bunny fidgeted with her fingers before quickly speaking up.
“Ruri taught meee!”
“Ruri……”
That name again.
“Do you know where this Ruri person is?”
At Kiriel’s question, Bunny shook her head back and forth.
Luriel had gone off on a very dangerous mission. A super-duper dangerous one that even little Bunny couldn’t come along for.
So she’d said that once Bunny grew up into a splendid adult and became the great big Demon King, she’d know where she was—and to come find her then.
“Nope, Ruri was really sick, so she went on that super dangerous mission to get better. Once Bunny becomes a splendid adult, she’ll know where Ruri is. So Bunny’s in the middle of becoming a totally splendid adult.”
Bunny stuck out her thumb and grinned hee-hee.
“…She was sick?”
At Kiriel’s question, Bunny nodded her head up and down, small but firm.
He silently gazed at Bunny for a long moment before finally speaking.
“Did Ruri raise you? Did she teach you the ancient elven tongue too?”
“Yesss!!”
“I see.”
He knew that demon folk lived for a very long time. It wouldn’t be all that strange if someone knew the ancient elven language that had died out thousands of years ago.
Lost in thought, Kiriel soon spoke again.
“Then, Bunny, how did you talk with Luriel?”
Bunny’s little body shivered at Kiriel’s sudden pointed question.
“…B-Bunny doesn’t talk to Ruri……”
“Didn’t you say yesterday that you heard from Ruri not to get close to Daddy? I’m not mad, so don’t worry—just tell me.”
At Kiriel’s gentle prompting, Bunny’s lips quivered before she slowly bowed her head.
Baby, the matter of me and my notebook is an absolute secret! Someone could steal this notebook away, and we might never see each other again.
But Daddy had said he didn’t hate Bunny. He’d also said he wanted no more lies from now on.
Still, the thought of never seeing Luriel again was just too, too awful.
“……”
Bunny’s face started to crumple bit by bit.
Her head was spinning so much it felt like the world around her was blurring.
Fidgeting with her fingers, Bunny let out a childish “Hiiing……” before bumping her forehead against Kiriel’s chest with a thunk.
“Hard to talk about?”
Holding the child close, Kiriel stood from his seat. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing to share where Allen and Calvad could hear.
With a glance at the boys, they mercifully caught on quick and bowed their heads.
“See you at teatime this evening.”
“Yes, sir. Please go ahead.”
Kiriel chuckled softly at Allen’s composed reply, then stroked the boy’s hair once with the hand not holding Bunny.
“Good boy.”
Allen’s face flushed bright red.
Flustered, he flapped his lips soundlessly, waving his hand vaguely in the air, before finally managing a very slow nod after a long pause.
“……Y-Yes……”
It was right then that Calvad shot Allen a sidelong glance, crossed his arms, and whipped his head away.
Kiriel’s hand landed atop Calvad’s head with a light pat too.
“Thanks for understanding, nephew.”
At Kiriel’s words, Calvad’s eyes went wide before his lips pressed into a tight line.
His lip corners trembled faintly as, cheeks reddening, he muttered sidelong.
“…W-Whatever. It’s not a big deal.”
“Allen and Calvad’s faces are red.”
Still cradled in Kiriel’s arms and peering down, Bunny pointed right at the two with her finger and declared it.
Allen quietly buried his face in his palms, while Calvad let out an indignant sputter.
“W-Who’s red?! I’m not?!”
“Whoa. Now they’re like big tomatoes.”
After patting the bickering Bunny’s back a couple times, Kiriel—with a faint smile still playing openly on his lips—slowly exited the separate annex’s dining room.
Back in his room, he set Bunny down on the bed and sat beside her.
“So, the stuff about Ruri is hard to tell Daddy?”
At Kiriel’s voice, soft with drowsiness, Bunny hesitated a long while before burrowing wormlike into his chest.
Kiriel comfortably resettled the girl, who’d climbed back onto his lap, patted her back, and waited patiently.
At last, Bunny spoke with her face fully smushed in, only the back of her head visible.
“…If Bunny tells, will Daddy take it away?”
Kiriel paused briefly at her small, dejected mumble before slowly shaking his head.
“No, why would I ever take it? I promise I won’t do anything you hate.”
“Two pinkies?”
Bunny held up her tiny pinky finger high.
“…Two pinkies? What’s that?”
Bunny raised her index finger just like always, as if to say he didn’t even know that, tsk-tsk-ing her tongue and shrugging her shoulders before explaining.
“If you hook pinkies like this, you gotta keep the promise! If not, horns grow on your butt and, uh, you… like, total mega-fail, so the debt collector grandpa hauls you off and it hurts.”
He had no clue what her rambling meant exactly, but it seemed to boil down to no lying.
Or at least, keep your promises.
Kiriel nodded and extended his hand. Bunny hooked her short pinky around his long one and shook it up and down.
She did the same with her other hand too, then grinned hee-hee.
“This is Ruri and Bunny’s secret notebook! Ruri’s the super-duper genius Bunny approved. She tells Bunny everything!”
“Everything? How?”
“Bunny goes like, sighhh, what if I don’t get this? Then flips open the notebook just like this, and it goes whoosh, like that, and boom—done! And she tells me.”
Kiriel furrowed his brow at Bunny, who was flailing her arms every which way while mimicking a sigh.
He couldn’t understand most of what she said, but if he grasped the context right, he could generally figure out her point.
“…So the notebook tells you?”
