Chapter 96
Chapter 96
"What am I even supposed to do with you... haah...."
After hearing my answer, Father pressed a hand to his forehead and let out only a deep sigh, as if the floor might cave in.
Inside this office, where the heavy air hung, I stood with my shoulders hunched, unable to make a peep.
Honestly, it's not like I sold out the country or plotted treason.
Under the terrifying pressure radiating from the head of the Intelligence Bureau, anyone would end up like this.
After massaging the bridge of his nose for a long while, Father spoke again.
"This is the last question."
"No, you definitely said there were two earlier."
That was when I blurted out my indignant protest.
Swoosh.
Father's large, thick hand slid ominously toward the heavy crystal ashtray on one side of the desk.
"Um...."
Maybe because I'd already seen one break once, I really didn't want to see a second one break.
I hurriedly waved both hands and took my words back.
"No, sir. I must have counted wrong. Please ask away. Ask me as much as you like."
"Normally, I would trust you."
Father took his hand off the ashtray, laced his fingers together, and glared at me.
"I was trying to respect your private life as much as possible."
"...."
"But the second question I just asked got the worst possible answer, so I simply can't not ask."
Ah.
So this is a follow-up question.
Crap.
Damn it.
A bead of cold sweat trickled down my spine.
I had a bad feeling about this.
In his usual flat tone, Father asked a question that stabbed straight through my heart.
"Knowing full well that the young lady Elysia showed you favor because she had romantic feelings for you."
"...."
"Why did you insist on meeting the young lady this late at night?"
So he knew after all.
"Well, you see..."
I averted my gaze and fumbled for an answer.
"Um... because just a few hours ago, in Star Tree Forest, I found out she might like me?"
"...."
"I'm serious. Until I left, I really thought I was just going as a close schoolmate to comfort a gloomy friend."
I meant it.
I never dreamed that that silver-haired fox spirit would look at me like that.
I didn't even know she was a fox spirit in the first place.
But Father's gaze sharpened even more after hearing my excuse.
"Then today's meeting is what made the young lady fall for you?"
"No, I don't think so. Um...."
I scratched the back of my head.
Ah, seriously.
Of all people, having to explain this disgustingly cringey, pink-hued pseudo-affair in front of Father in such painstaking detail was driving me insane.
Even in my heart, he wasn't my birth father, but I still thought of him as something like a stepfather I deeply respected.
Anyway, he was someone I considered my dad.
How was I supposed to endure this humiliation play?
"Stop overthinking. Do you still think this is some love game of yours? This is a serious matter directly tied to the great affairs of the family. Answer properly."
Yes.
I have to.
'Haa.'
"Yes. So..."
I tried my best to choose the driest, most objective words possible.
"It didn't look like she suddenly developed feelings out of nowhere because of today's meeting."
....
In other words...
Father let out a heavy sigh and then drew the conclusion from my words.
"She'd already had feelings for you from the start."
"...."
"Meaning you simply hadn't noticed until now. And you realized it clearly during this nighttime visit."
"Yes. Probably."
Correct.
My father, whom I thought was just a workaholic whose romance cells had died long ago, sure picked up on the situation fast.
"In that case."
Father clicked the cap of his fountain pen and coolly carried his reasoning forward.
"Even back when you met the young lady alone in the city last time, it's possible she already had feelings for you and you were just too stupid to notice."
Last time?
Ah.
Oh, that day we went cosmetics shopping in the middle of the capital's bustling streets for some brown-bottle essence or whatever?
'No way. Surely not.'
It definitely wasn't like that back then.
She was probably just pissed at the Crown Prince and used me, whom she happened to run into, as a little performing monkey to cheer herself up.
"No. I really don't think that's it. Back then she had literally zero interest in me."
Even after my confident answer, Father set down his pen and stared straight at me.
"...."
"....?"
That look...
It was somehow extremely complicated and subtle, a look that seemed to find me deeply, inexplicably uncomfortable.
It was the kind of expression that went beyond treating a person like an insect and made me feel like alley filth in a backstreet.
What exactly had I done so wrong?
"No, Father. Isn't it a little much to look so openly grossed out at your son's face?"
"It's PTSD."
"Huh? No, what?"
I asked back, thinking I must have misheard.
"...What?"
"Enough. Get out. Go write your report."
Father pressed hard between his brows and waved me off, as if he couldn't stand to look at my face for even one more second.
What on earth had he gone through in the past for hearing his own son's love life to flip his trauma switch like that?
It must have been beyond anything I could imagine.
Then Father delivered the finishing blow from behind.
"And the time you spent with the young lady tonight as well."
"...Pardon?"
"As a member of House Farne, from the official standpoint of reporting the family's affairs, write it up in full detail and place it on my desk by tomorrow morning."
"...."
Ah.
Ah.
Ah. Ah. Ah!
Fuck!
What the hell kind of insane humiliation play is this!
To my dad, of all people—to my father, the merciless head of the Intelligence Bureau!
He wants me to submit a written report on a date where I walked a forest path prettier than the Milky Way, sniffed perfume, and flirted with a woman alone at night?
"No, Father! How am I supposed to write that as a report? You have to separate public from private matters!"
"The moment you got entangled with His Highness the Crown Prince's fiancée, it was classified as a public matter."
Father drew the line coldly.
"Record it minute by minute, including the context of every conversation and even the emotional subtext in detail."
"...."
I had no choice but to answer.
Father's expression looked so serious that if I didn't answer right now, he'd really send Intelligence Bureau agents after me and lock me in an interrogation room.
"Yes. Understood."
I answered in a meek, crawling voice.
Dragging out the end of the sentence.
In a small, timid act of rebellion.
"Get out."
Father turned his gaze back to the papers and sent me packing.
This was really too much.
* * *
Scratch, scratch, snap!
"Ah, fuck, seriously!"
I irritably threw the quill onto the desk.
In my bedroom, where night had deepened all the way into dawn.
Even with the soft bed right in front of me, I sat at my desk, tearing at my hair and waging a battle with the parchment.
[Report: Visit to the Rosenberg Estate]
Even the title made my breathing tighten.
I propped my chin on my hand and glared at the sentences I'd just written on the crumpled parchment.
[10:15 p.m. Began a walk in the Star Tree Forest with the subject (Elysia von Rosenberg).]
[10:20 p.m. The subject did not complain of being cold, but I voluntarily removed my cloak and wrapped it around the subject. Reason: to ensure the subject's safety and...]
"Is this a report, a romance novel, or a pervert stalker's diary?"
I wrote it myself, but it's so embarrassing I could puke.
The moment I try to write the date in a report format, every sentence turns into something like a psychopath's observation log.
[10:30 p.m. The subject approached, asking me to smell her perfume. Distance approximately 0.5 meters. The perfume notes are estimated to be woody and floral; the subject's action is judged to be an attempt to win me over.]
"Aaaagh, fuck!!!"
Feeling my face heat up like it was about to burst, I viciously tore the parchment to pieces.
Just imagine my father reading this with a blank expression.
It made me want to bite my tongue and die on the spot.
"Damn it. I'll just write it roughly. Roughly."
I took out a new sheet of parchment and began writing as dryly as possible, stripping out emotion.
[Walked. Smelled perfume. Agreed to be friends. End.]
Hmm.
If I submitted it like this, an ashtray would really fly at me tomorrow morning.
Thud.
"Ah, this is really driving me crazy."
I tossed the quill onto the desk irritably.
As I calmly reorganized the timeline again, my mood kept getting strangely fluttery and unsettled.
It was like a strange tickle, as if a feather were gently scratching at one corner of my chest.
Every time I wrote the dry text [10:30 p.m., arrived at the center of Star Tree Forest].
Her face overlapped so vividly over that line—Elysia wearing my cheap cloak, cheeks prettily flushed, smiling with her eyes.
"Damn it. Why did Father have to make me do something like this!"
Without realizing it, I pointed accusingly at the air and vented my resentment.
Of course it would!
If I'm carefully reconstructing and writing down the conversation context and emotional flow minute by minute, of course that face from then is going to come back to me!
'She's insanely pretty, which makes it even more upsetting. Ugh.'
Suppressing this baffling feeling that made me want to go crazy.
I only barely escaped the hell of writing a relationship report well past late night.
Of course, the rule is that I should submit the report in person.
But it was so damn humiliating that I simply couldn't hand it over myself.
'He'll understand this much, right?'
In the end, I called over a servant waiting in the hallway and asked them to take it to Father.
"Yes, Young Master."
"Yes. Please."
After I closed the door.
Flop!
I threw myself onto the soft bed in my room.
I pulled the blanket up to my neck and stared blankly at the ceiling.
'I'm tired.'
Truly, sincerely.
It had been an absurdly long, complicated, and thrilling day.
But...
As I lay there breathing quietly, for some reason that dizzying scent seemed to drift back to the tip of my nose.
That sweet, alluring floral scent from Elysia, mingling with the woody scent of the oak barrel.
"...."
I waved a hand once through the air.
"Ah, what are you doing, idiot? Fuck, let's just go to sleep."
After lightly slapping my own cheek, I forced my eyes shut, but...
'...Father's probably reading my report right now, huh?'
"Aaaagh!!!!"
Argh! So humiliating!!
Fuck!