Chapter 7: Before the Wedding ⑥ ~A Father and Son’s Talk~

“Ah, Ede—no, Father?”

“Hmm, if you call me that, Chronos, I can’t really react right away.”

I’d just happened to be heading out into the garden and ran into my son, so I said exactly what I was thinking.

He still seemed confused about Aria, about the very concept of a mother, and couldn’t quite manage to call her “Mother,” but in my case, it was different.

Up until now, he’d always called me “Edel,” so suddenly being expected to call me “Father” felt awkward to him.

Even so, he was trying his best to use “Father.”

But this was something where the one being called should get a say too.

Being suddenly addressed politely as “Father” made it hard to tell who was being called.

After being called “Edel” for so long, being called “Father” didn’t register as me right away.

Honestly, it just felt like, “Someone’s calling someone,” and only after thinking, “Oh right, Chronos’s father is me,” could I manage to respond.

“Sorry, Chronos, but at least call me Dad.
Going straight from calling me by name to that is way too much, and I just can’t get used to it.”

I pleaded with Chronos in complete seriousness.

At least “Dad” was something he’d occasionally called me during our travels, so it felt familiar enough.

“…Honestly, I can’t get used to it either.”

Chronos admitted it frankly.

Aria was someone who only suited being called “Mother,” so there was no alternative there, but with me, it just didn’t work.

I wasn’t someone who gave off a “Father” vibe, and given how things had been before, Chronos had only been forcing himself to use it.

The truth was, we were both the most confused.

“Then Dad it is.”

“Yeah.”

Father and son reached a compromise that both of us could manage.

“Chronos, want to talk just the two of us for a bit?”

Despite how large the estate was, there were almost always people nearby.

Maids, guards, someone was always around.

It couldn’t be helped, given that I was now the consort of the head of the house and he was her son, but sometimes I wanted to sit down and talk quietly as parent and child.

“Yeah, okay.”

We went out into the garden and sat down on a bench tucked away a little farther in.

“So, how is it?
Are you getting used to living here?”

Names aside, this place was somewhere both Chronos and I would be connected to for the rest of our lives.

We’d have no choice but to get used to it.

“I know everyone’s kind, but there’s just so much that confuses me…”

“Yeah.
We’re not used to this kind of life.
Compared to how we lived before, the gap is huge.”

For about a year, the three of us—or really, mostly just the two of us as father and son—had lived as ordinary commoners in a small room.

As for me, before I started living with Chronos, I’d been traveling constantly and had never even settled in one place.

And yet somehow, I was now living in a grand estate as the consort of the Border Marquis.

“If I’d said I hated it here, what would you have done?”

“Hmm, if you’d hated it, I was planning to run away right away.
I’d already made arrangements to escape, so I think we’d have managed somehow.”

I wasn’t on Aria’s level, but I did have connections to some fairly powerful nobles.

If it came to it, escaping with just the two of us would probably have been possible, though I might have had to answer a few summons afterward.

“I’ve always wanted to ask, but why did you take care of me?
We’re not even related by blood.”

After his biological mother disappeared leaving behind debt, it wouldn’t have been strange for him to be abandoned.

Yet I’d brought him all the way to the borderlands and continued to look after him.

Even though his real mother had left him.

“I don’t have any blood relatives left.
I never planned to make a family either.
When Mireine asked me for a sham marriage, I figured that if it was fake, we could dissolve it as soon as it became unnecessary.
But as I spent time with you, I remembered something the leader of the traveling troupe who raised me once said.”

“Blood relations?
People are said to be made by the gods, right?
If you really think about it, we’re all connected through the gods anyway.
Blood doesn’t matter.
Kids are raised by everyone, so you’re all our family!”

The leader had laughed loudly as he said that, and the other adults around him had nodded along.

Among the children in the troupe were orphans and abandoned kids.

The leader would bring them back out of nowhere, say, “They’re family starting today,” and everyone would raise them together.

Older kids took good care of the younger ones, and I often practiced my instrument while carrying a baby on my back.

Some of the younger kids used to say they liked the sound of my music.

When I lost all of that, I decided I’d never make a family again.

Even when I started living with Mireine and you, I tried not to get too involved so I could leave at any time.

But seeing your sad eyes whenever your mother left reminded me of my younger siblings back then.

They’d cried, saying they hated being alone and felt abandoned.

The older kids, who’d gone through the same thing, hugged them and told them they weren’t alone.

And even though it couldn’t be helped because I was sick, I remembered how it felt to be left behind all by myself.

I’d waited for them to come back, only for my family to never return.

Before I knew it, I was hugging you, and I’d decided that I would protect at least this one child.

“Whether we’re related by blood or not doesn’t really matter to me.
You’re my family, Chronos, so I decided I’d protect my precious son.
Was that wrong?”

“…!”

Chronos silently clung to me.

His biological mother had always told him, “Your bloodline is the only thing you’ve got.
One day, take over that house and give me an easy life.”

At the time, he hadn’t understood what she meant, but after coming here and learning about his lineage, those words came back to him.

But the true heir of this house would be the child Aria would someday bear.

For now, he held the position of provisional successor, but he knew that if Aria had a child, that position would pass to them.

He’d believed that his so-called “good blood” was his only value.

But from the start, blood had never mattered to me.

“…Dad, I’ll protect you too.
You’re my only family.”

“Wait, wait!
Hold on!
Aria absolutely has to be included in that!
She’ll definitely sulk if she’s not!”

I hurriedly corrected him.

If my adorable son said she wasn’t family, Aria would absolutely sulk.

Just imagining the empress sulking in silence was terrifying.

“I understand.
I’ll include Mother as well.”

After thinking for a moment, Chronos said so.

“Please do.
She talked about bloodlines at first, but Aria’s trying her hardest, in her own way, to be your mother.
Even if—though it would never happen—you turned out not to have the Border Marquis family’s blood, Aria wouldn’t be the kind of person to abandon you.”

I felt a little relieved that Chronos had included Aria as family.

She cared about him too, so we couldn’t let things get twisted here.

As an adult and as a father, I planned to act as a buffer so that the relationship between mother and son wouldn’t sour.

And if Chronos ever truly said he wanted to leave the Border Marquis family, I was prepared to brace myself and travel with him, just the two of us.

Later on, when we casually mentioned that conversation, Aria ended up sulking after hearing about it.

Chronos and I apologized profusely together.

As punishment, the three of us were made to go eat parfaits at a cute café in the capital, openly showing our closeness to the townspeople in a strangely humiliating way.