Winter Bud - Chapter 86

The place the carriage arrived at was a small manor on the outskirts of the capital. It didn’t have the splendor of a noble’s grand mansion, but it was plain and pastoral.

As soon as Nanna got down from the carriage, she smiled faintly. Just as the Empress Dowager had said, a handful of servants were there to greet them. With a slightly excited face, Nanna received their greetings and went inside the manor.

Jerix checked the inside of the manor with a face that was still tense. Nanna looked around the bedroom the couple would use and clasped both hands tightly to her chest. It was so pretty. Cream-colored wallpaper with a vine pattern, and a wide four-poster bed. Elegant windows and pale lavender curtains. On the table, as if someone had put them there, fresh asters were cutely arranged. Her heart thumped. A pleasant flutter tickled her.

Nanna looked at the man who followed her in and smiled brightly. It felt like everything would go well. She was so happy even now, and she thought she’d be happy straight on from here too.

“The room is so pretty,” Nanna whispered shyly.

Jerix looked at her silently, then nodded. Nanna slipped into his arms and lifted her head.

“Jerix, don’t you like it?”

“No, I like it too. It’s a good house,” he answered as he held Nanna gently.

Nanna watched the man who still seemed unable to relax, then slowly wrapped her arms around his neck. Jerix softly took in the lips of the woman pulling him in. The fresh, soft feel of her lips slowly warmed him.

Right. Everything would be fine. Because the Empress Dowager had promised. So there was nothing to worry about. There was nothing to be concerned about either. But why did he feel like this? Was it because he’d been in prison just a moment ago? Like he was covered in gloomy storm clouds, he couldn’t overcome the anxiety floating inside him, and he pulled his lips away. He didn’t want to show it in front of Nanna, but it kept turning out that way.

“Jerix.”

“It’s fine. It’s because I was in prison until just now. The environment changed so suddenly, didn’t it?” he muttered as if forcing an excuse.

Nanna, who had been looking at him darkly, slowly nodded. She slowly held him. Jerix also closed his eyes and stroked her back. Holding her like this, it felt like the anxiety that had been surging up was settling little by little.

A month passed. Life at the manor was fine. The servants were kind, and even if she didn’t ask for anything in particular, they immediately noticed what she needed. The maids, in particular, were young but seasoned and quick-witted.

Once a week, Nanna was examined by the court physician, and she received short letters from the Empress Dowager saying the children were doing well. She’d thought she wouldn’t even be able to hear how they were, so she was deeply grateful. Then she filled her days with little pastimes.

She did sewing, and read books. This time, to properly tend a vegetable patch with Jerix, she cleared part of the garden. The gardener who cared for the flowers shook his head, but Nanna and Jerix only burst into laughter. They planned to plant turnips and carrots in the vegetable patch. When they grew thick and their roots fattened, they would brush off the soil well, wash them, and then make stew.

Every morning, Nanna laughed again and again toward Jerix, who went out to the vegetable patch, looked it over, and came back. Strangely, just seeing him made her feel like laughing. They hadn’t held a wedding, but he was now Nanna’s husband.

Nanna liked the word “husband.” Not because he was a particular kind of man. She liked the fact itself that he was her husband. She was happy she could become his wife, and she was so happy it felt like she might fly, that she would be with him forever from now on.

At some point, she liked Jerix Rotusi so much that she thought maybe none of this was real. That she was dreaming. That this perfect life, like a dream haze, might be a mirage that would vanish when she opened her eyes.

If she really was dreaming, she didn’t want to wake up. The way his hands touched her, the red lips that met her round forehead. Since she was carrying a child now, she couldn’t be one with him, but Jerix expressed his feelings toward her enough. He swallowed her lips, and kissed her deeply as many times as he wanted.

“I wish the baby would be born soon.”

“Yes. I’d like that too. His Majesty will be pleased as well.”

“No. So I can hurry up and fall into your arms, Jerix.”

With her gaze lowered, Nanna whispered. Jerix, lying beside her, turned to look at her with a slightly startled face, then his cheeks flushed red. Nanna glanced at him because those shy cheeks were lovely. Jerix smiled faintly, and before she knew it, he pulled the now-heavier Nanna into his arms.

“I’m satisfied even like this.”

“…I’m not.”

“Nanna.”

“I’m not satisfied at all. I want to hurry up and give birth to this child and have your child.”

Nanna carefully revealed her greed. Jerix stared at her for a moment, then parted his lips.

“Someday you’ll have one. Our child….”

“Yes.”

“I hope it’s a daughter who resembles you, Nanna.”

“Me too. Actually, I already chose a name.”

“Yes?”

“If it’s a daughter, it’s Jocelyn.”

“And if it’s a son?”

“For a son, you choose, Jerix.”

Nanna grinned mischievously. Jerix, holding her, looked at her playful face and let out a soft laugh. Everything was perfect.

But happiness was always brief. Sweet and lovely, affectionate and earnest, all of it could never become hers. Her share…. The only things she could hold without a time limit in her short life were all terrible things. Contempt, humiliation, loneliness, loss, those things filled the life she’d lived. So why couldn’t she think it would be the same from now on too?

From some point on, Jerix became strange. Jerix, waking up, looked at her and flinched. As if a stranger were lying beside him. Nanna thought he was joking, but that startled face wasn’t a lie. It was only an instant, but it wasn’t an expression you could act out.

“Jerix?”

“Ah.”

His lips opened slightly. An exclamation scattered. The man who had been wary of her softened his thorns all at once and returned to his usual face.

“What’s wrong?”

“No. It’s nothing.”

Jerix sat up and shook his head. Nanna looked at him with a dazed face. Jerix smiled faintly and said he’d felt dizzy for a moment. After that, things like that happened briefly, but he returned to normal right away. Nanna asked him what was going on, if he was sick, but Jerix only brushed it off, saying he hadn’t slept well, or he was a little tired.

Nanna wanted to pry into the whole story, but she couldn’t. She wanted to say that her body felt unwell and they should see a physician, but she didn’t want to break the cheerfulness on his face. Because Jerix looking at her like he didn’t know her was truly frightening.

Even if it was brief, the expression he made was genuinely scary. Nanna was afraid of the stillness she felt in that bewilderment, so she couldn’t cling to the man who said it was nothing.

Time passed like that. Sometimes, not only when he woke in the morning, but even in the middle of daily life, he would occasionally stare at Nanna with an expressionless face.

It was a face that said, ‘Who is that woman? Why am I here?’ Nanna was afraid of that gaze, so she turned her head away. With the thought that it would stop like that, she tried to let that expression pass. But today, she couldn’t.

“Jerix?”

“…Do you know me?”

“What….”

The man who said he was going to check on the vegetable patch asked Nanna. Meeting her in the long gallery, he had soil smeared on his cuffs. Nanna was a little startled and bit her lip. What should she say? How should she put it? That pale… that blank face with nothing in it wasn’t like the Jerix Rotusi she knew.

It felt like she was facing a man with a different personality. More precisely, the shell was Jerix Rotusi, but what was inside wasn’t Jerix Rotusi. The corners of her eyes trembled in tiny shakes.

“…What’s wrong? Why are you saying that?”

Nanna felt a pulling sensation in her abdomen and tried not to panic. The man’s brown eyes slowly swept over Nanna. From head to toe. Goosebumps rose. She reached out and grabbed the man’s thick arm.