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Chapter 38
While Rosaline was making a complicated face, Kyle took Leo’s hand and headed into the garden. His castle had an exceptionally well-maintained garden, so she also liked to stroll around the garden.
Leo grabbed his hand as if excited and jumped, fluttering around, chasing him around as though he was a dog leading his owner. The child was originally curious, but when he saw the large and spacious garden, he seemed excited like a fish in the water.
“What is this? I can not see it well!”
“Do you want me to show you more in detail?”
When Leo asked, pointing to the plant hanging over the wall, he grabbed Leo and gave him a ride on his shoulders.
Leo, whose eyes widened as if startled, burst into laughter as if he was excited. His little hand reached out and touched the leaves. He then moved closer, curiously, and even took in the smell.
The flowers and trees decorated in green throughout the garden smelled of fresh grass.
“There are many trees…”
He also looked around the garden. As Leo said last time, there were a lot of trees in the garden. It was not a tree taller than her, though trees that looked similar to Rosaline’s height at first glance.
Kyle was walking among the trees, showing Leo the garden. She had felt it before, although the fact that he took good care of Leo and the child was following him even though she did not intervene, made her feel strange.
Was it really because he was his son? Or, maybe it was because he had a friendly side…?
“Mom!”
At that moment, Leo suddenly called her.
“Yes?”
She asked back in an innocent voice as she turned her head.
“What kind of tree is this? It’s so big and stretchy.”
As Rosalind was pondering for a moment, Kyle’s voice came faster.
“Marronnier. This is a Maronnier tree.”
“Marronnier? Is that the name?”
“Yes. Marronnier.”
Leo repeated the name into his mouth over and over again, as if it was funny.
“Then, what about that?”
Leo stretched out his hand.
“That’s a rose.”
“Oh, right. Rose!”
Leo smiled bashfully and made a glance asking him to let him off. Kyle carefully lowered him to the floor so as not to get hurt.
“I want to touch it.”
Leo walked towards the rose vine. He felt good and his steps got faster, one step at a time, before speeding up and started running towards the flower.
“Uh…”
Suddenly, the child’s tiny body leaned. It was already a step late when Rosalind noticed that there was a small stone in front of him.
“Leo!”
Even though she cried out, Leo’s body was already passing through it.
When his feet fell off the ground, she was about to run towards the child though Kyle swiftly lunged his body and caught Leo. It happened in the blink of an eye. The child’s small body was tightly wrapped in the man’s arms, and fortunately, Leo was unharmed.
“Leo, why are you so—!”
Rosalind screamed in frustration, but the child only blinked in his arms.
Leo gazed intently into the face of the man wrapped around him, and he smiled innocently and opened his mouth.
“…I wish you were my dad.”
Rosaline, who was approaching Leo, suddenly stopped on the spot. At the same time, something indefinable passed by Kyle’s face.
At the innocent child’s words, the adults’ eyes filled with complex emotions.
“…Leo.”
Staring affectionately at her son, she hesitated, not knowing what to say, and she cautiously opened her mouth.
“Actually, this man… Is Leo’s dad.”
Leo’s eyes widened.
Seeing confusion creeping across the still-young child’s face, Rosaline clasped her hands tightly. She wanted to say that she was just joking, so he could understand.
“Lies.”
Kyle took a step closer to the child’s answer after a while. There was a rare strain of tension in his voice.
“Leo, you don’t like me being your dad?”
At Kyle’s words, Leo’s eyes slowly widened.
“Are you really Dad? Really…?”
“Yes.”
“Really, really?”
“Yes. Really, really.”
At Kyle’s answer, Leo’s gaze turned to Rosalind. She nodded her head again as to assure him.
“That’s right. He is Leo’s father.”
The child stared at him even more sternly than before. A subtle silence passed between the three of them.
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It was Leo who broke the silence first.
“…Then, why are you here now?”
The child’s eyes were getting wet little by little.
“How long have I waited! How envious I was…!”
Uwah. Leo finally burst into tears. As soon as tears began to fall from his eyes, Rosaline hugged him. She held the child tightly in her arms and patted his little back. Seeing him crying sadly made her heart tremble.
“Leo, mom is sorry… I wish I had told you sooner.”
Hearing Leo’s cries, she pressed down on her upset heart and swallowed it before continuing her words, “I was going to tell you when he got to know you a little bit more.”
Kyle’s voice echoed softly as if it were a caress.
“She didn’t say it easily because Leo might not like me.”
What he said was true. Neither Rosalind nor Kyle thought about when to tell Leo the whole time. She was concerned that it might feel abrupt or that it would be a burden. It was not easy for her to choose the right time.
“…Really?”
Leo blinked the tears in his eyes. The tears that had been welling up dripped down his plump cheeks.
“Of course. From now on, you can call me dad, not uncle.”
“Then… Do I have a dad now?”
Dad…
The child mumbled those words a little. Perhaps, he was unfamiliar with the name and there was little awkwardness in the voice he spat out. Soon, he asked Kyle.
“…If I have a dad, what can I do with him?”
“You can do anything.”
Anything.
At that moment, bright energy slowly began to spread across his face. As Rosaline released Leo from her arms, the child moved slowly towards his father. She stood a step away as she watched the father-and-son reunite.
As a child, she had wished she had not had a father because of her father. Both her mother and herself considered it difficult and unhappy.
The decision that Leo didn’t need a father was a reflection of her own life, so she thought Leo would be the same. However, even if it was even as parent and child, she and Leo were not the same, and it was only now that she realized that it was.
Maybe, the things that she believed were for her child were misjudgments swept away by her emotions.
‘Did I think the Duke would be such a bad father?’
At least, Kyle wasn’t a bad father to Leo. He was quite different from her father, who always scolded her and forced me to live for her family. Her father had never been so kind to her or saved her from danger.
She thought he might be a bad husband to her, although perhaps, he could be a good father to him.
Rosalind felt sorry for Leo. In her hasty fear of what would happen, she almost took the father away from the child. She always tried to do her best in anything about him.
She had several reasons for not telling Kyle frankly about Leo’s existence. She wasn’t sure if he would love Leo, as he didn’t like her. In addition, she was also anxious about what would happen if he took Leo away.
When she looked back, it was really the mother who lacked.
“Mom!”
At Leo’s call, Rosalind raised her head.
“I want to walk hand in hand with mom and dad.”
At that, she took Leo’s hand warmly and Kyle took Leo’s opposite hand. Leo spoke with an innocent smile.
“I’m going to brag to Joseph later. I also walked hand in hand with my mom and dad!”
Joseph was the boy he had been friends with Leo in his former home. It would have meant nothing to Leo, but her heart ached.
“…Leo, mom is sorry.”
“What?”
Why was it that the eyes of an innocent child who didn’t know anything seemed to prick even more painfully?
Rosalind walked through the garden as Leo led them. She then realized that after some time had passed, she was walking alongside Kyle.
Of course, she has Leo between them, but as she was walking in the garden with her ex-husband, she wondered how it happened. Nevertheless, unlike her, who was uncomfortable in this position, Kyle was very skillful in dealing with this situation and Leo.
“Can you eat the fruit hanging over there?”
“You must not eat fruits carelessly. You have to wash it before you eat it.”
“I want to try it.”
“Then, should we pick some and eat?”
’Yes!’ Even though Leo nodded and stretched out his hand, he couldn’t reach the fruit hanging from the tree.
When Kyle saw that, he reached out his hand and easily grabbed the fruit. As he picked the fruit and gave it to the child, she saw him and thought that he was a person who was surprisingly sensitive to the child.
He picked up a few more of the berries and handed them to Rosaline this time.
“Rosalind. I’ve called the doctor, so see him before you go back.”
She felt burdened because he even called a doctor. It was not even that bad of a wound…
“Thank you for caring for me… You didn’t have to.”
“It’s not because of you.”
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His voice was a little low and serious.
“I do it because I care.”
‘…So, make sure you see the doctor before you go.’
His gaze remained deep on the wound on her arm, like a person who didn’t know what to do with their worries.
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