“Uh… is this not right?”

“Ugh!”

Who knew he would lack the skill to do even these basic styles.

When she explained using terms Roderick could understand, things improved somewhat, but telling him to handle a princess-like child’s hair as if tying a rope or using knots like those for securing packages on a donkey’s back gave her an existential crisis.

“Never mind. I’ll just do it myself.”

Instead, Roderick took charge of breakfast preparation. Thankfully, he at least possessed cooking skills.

“Finished!”

By the time mouth-watering aromas filled the cramped living room-slash-kitchen, Erica had succeeded in transferring her imagined hairstyle to Elodie’s head.

Today’s style featured pigtail braids rolled up and placed in circles on top of her head, then tied with large ribbons.

Erica held a hand mirror in front of Elodie and asked.

“How is it? Do you like it?”

The child in the mirror beamed and nodded vigorously. Round hair buns, round face, round eyes. Looking at the adorable child, Erica suddenly wanted to see something.

“Put your hands like this.”

Elodie, not understanding why, followed instructions and cupped her hands around her cheeks like flower petals. When she rolled her sparkling eyes upward, Erica clutched her heart.

“My signature is death by cuteness.”

So this is the joy of raising a daughter. Girls really are fun to dress up.

Erica shifted her gaze to her son, who was hovering around Roderick as he divided breakfast onto four plates.

When Eric was a toddling baby, she used to tie his hair and add ribbons like a little girl. How adorable he had been. He could even rival Elodie’s cuteness.

‘Though I shouldn’t actually pit them against each other.’

Anyway, as Eric grew and developed his own tastes, she lost the pleasure of dressing him up like a little girl.

‘Eric still has pretty features that would suit it well…’

…The moment she had that thought, she suddenly realized, who was responsible for those pretty features?

That parasitic man who looks like some pampered courtesan and acts exactly how he looks.

‘Eric! You must not grow up like that!’

It was the moment her desire to dress up Eric completely vanished.

* * *

It looked like it would rain all day today.

Roderick opened the back door of the shop, looked up at the sky where a light drizzle was falling, then grabbed a few logs piled under the eaves and brought them inside.

The shop was unusually quiet. The rain had kept customers away.

In place of the missing customers, the stove filled the shop with cozy warmth. Roderick filled the empty space beneath it with firewood, dusted off his hands, and looked around the shop.

He had cleaned, restocked merchandise, and finished repairing the shelves.

There was nothing left to do in the shop. He wanted to help make medicine, but Erica wasn’t in the compounding room but sitting at the ledger desk in the corner, doing something else.

What was she doing?

In Erica’s hands were a pair of leather pieces cut in the shape of a child’s foot and a threaded needle. As usual when concentrating, she narrowed her brow and pursed her lips into a circle, suggesting it wasn’t a good idea to loiter nearby.

Roderick sat down in a chair in the corner of the shop, unfastening the sword tied at his waist. He tended to his sword while listening to the children playing at the small table near the stove.

Clatter clatter.

“Today the bread turned out wonderfully fluffy, like a blanket.”

“The spaghetti is delicious too.”

The children were playing house.

“All men should blow up and eat cold spaghetti.”

When Elodie’s tone suddenly changed to prim without warning, one of Roderick’s eyebrows shot up.

…Was she imitating what Erica had said?

But she couldn’t match the volume. Her voice was too soft. And her tone reverted to her own gentle manner by the end, making her sound like a cheerfully cruel mother rather than one angry to the tips of her hair.

He wished she would learn Erica’s princess-like tone instead of her scary mother’s tone. Could anything be more perplexing?

He wasn’t sure.

It was troubling, but he thought this made her seem more childlike. He had such thoughts despite knowing she wasn’t an ordinary child.

Roderick raised his head and took in the scene before him.

If only this peace could last forever.

It was a futile wish. He knew well it couldn’t be, and above all, it shouldn’t be.

Roderick looked at Erica’s back and muttered words that had been pushing from deep in his chest to the tip of his tongue for some time, but which he still couldn’t speak aloud.

‘Will you wait for me here until I return?’

How shameless of him to consider making the same promise he had already broken once.

Erica wouldn’t wait for him. She had no affection for him. Rather, Elodie had grown attached to Erica and Eric.

He had to leave, but reasons for hesitating only multiplied as he found himself unable to go.

“Elodie, we’re only staying here temporarily.”

We’ll leave after winter at the latest. If our pursuers find us early, we might leave after autumn.

He wondered if the child still remembered what he had told her the day they first moved in.

“Elodie.”

“Yes!”

When Erica called the child, Roderick almost dropped his sword. Who knew Elodie could answer in such a loud voice.

As soon as her name was called, Elodie put down her toy dishes, stood up, and scurried over to Erica.

“Take off your shoes for a moment, please.”

The pair of leather in Erica’s hands were insoles.

This morning, as they were leaving home and changing from indoor shoes to outdoor shoes. Eric had stopped Elodie as she was putting on her shoes.

“Elodie, you put your shoes on backards.”

“Backward?”

“…Yes, backward.”

Eric, who was bold in front of his mother, seemed embarrassed by his verbal slip in front of a peer and corrected himself in a voice uncharacteristically small for such a loud child.

Meanwhile, Elodie held her shoes and looked puzzled. The left and right seemed identical to her.

“My shoes have bread in them. So I don’t put them on backward.”

Eric took off his own shoes and held them so Elodie could see the inside…

“Look carefully.”

He pressed the two parts together and exclaimed.

“Bread complete!”

Elodie’s puzzled face had instantly changed to one of enchantment. But since her shoes didn’t have bread, she could only return to looking confused. Only after Roderick corrected her could she put them on properly.

Since she had free time, Erica had used leftover leather to make insoles in Elodie’s size and embroidered them with golden-brown baguettes identical to Eric’s. Then she inserted them into Elodie’s shoes and returned them.

“How is it?”

The child’s eyes widened.

“……”

With those round eyes, she just stared intently at the inside of her shoes, saying neither that she liked nor disliked them. When there was no response, Erica became awkward.

Should she have asked before making them? She thought Elodie wanted them after seeing her reaction this morning.