Perhaps she didn’t like the bread. Should I have embroidered flowers or ribbons instead, more suited to a princess’s taste?

While Erica was feeling awkwardly regretful, Elodie separated her shoes by a hand’s width, then put them back together and murmured.

“Bread… complete.”

Then, with a bright smile, she beamed at Erica. With that single smile, all needless worry melted away.

Elodie ran over to her dad in just her socks to show off her shoes.

“Dad, Elodie’s shoes have bread in them too!”

“How lucky for Elodie.”

Roderick stroked the child’s head and smiled contentedly. Inside, however, he couldn’t smile.

“Now delicious bread will accompany Elodie wherever she goes.”

We need to leave. But will we really be able to go at this rate?

* * *

“Since there aren’t any customers, shall we eat lunch at home today?”

Erica set down the ledger she had been organizing and stood up. At the mention of lunch, the children put down their toys and stood up too, but Roderick remained seated and shook his head.

“I’ll watch the shop.”

“Even with no customers?”

“Someone might come, and I’m not particularly hungry anyway.”

“What’s this? Are you watching your figure?”

At Erica’s teasing, Roderick chuckled and replied with a mischievous look in his eyes.

“Yes, to look good for you.”

At that moment, Erica reflexively almost raised her middle finger. But Roderick, being from this world, wouldn’t understand what it meant.

So Erica raised her fourth finger instead. The finger with the fake wedding ring.

Know that you’ll never get this position.

Starve to death for all I care.

“Well, let’s leave this person who wants to starve and go by ourselves.”

So the three of them went up to the house.

“Shall we make simple ham and cheese toast for lunch today?”

She melted plenty of butter in a properly heated cast iron pan, toasted sliced brioche bread until golden brown on both sides, spread strawberry jam on one side, then added thick slices of cheese and blanched ham with the salt and grease removed. After putting it back in the pan briefly to melt the cheese, it was done.

Eric, usually talkative, was so focused on eating that his mouth seemed glued shut with cheese, while Elodie, normally quiet, was quite chatty at today’s lunch table.

“Complete!”

Elodie put together the two diagonally cut pieces of toast and chattered.

“Elodie’s shoes have this kind of bread too. It sounds like it’s going crunch-crunch when I walk.”

Throughout the meal, she talked only about the bread in her shoes.

How cute.

Now Erica felt she understood this child a bit better. Her reactions weren’t quick or big, but instead subtle and lasting. Like something that takes a long time to heat up but stays warm for a very long time…

‘Like an earthenware pot?’

That wasn’t really a cute comparison.

‘Earthenware pot… I want to eat bulgogi in an earthenware pot. And soft tofu stew with a freshly cracked egg, and pot rice too.’

Her mind wandered, fixated on the word “earthenware pot.” She only snapped back to reality when Eric stood up, having finished his toast, ready to go back downstairs to play.

“Where do you think you’re going looking like that?”

Eric had strawberry jam smeared all over his mouth.

“Hmm…”

When Erica brought a damp towel to his face, Eric shook his head as usual, dodging.

“Tsk, hold still!”

“I hate it. I’m saving it for later when I get hungry.”

“That line…”

Your sister,

No, that’s not right.

“Want to try saying that to Elodie too?”

“……”

Only then did Eric obediently surrender his face to his mother.

“Ugh, what’s this on your handsome face?”

“Mmm, Mom. My face is on fire.”

There’s even butter dripping down his chin. Erica scrubbed Eric’s face with the wet towel and took the opportunity to wipe his greasy hands too. Across the table, Elodie watched with round eyes.

See? She’s so well-behaved. Even eats neatly.

Only after spending time with Elodie did Erica realize that elegance and parenting could coexist. It was just elegance and raising a son that couldn’t coexist.

“There, now the handsome Eric may go play.”

“Handsome Eric, reporting for duty!”

After letting Eric go, Erica turned back to the table and stopped mid-laugh, blinking.

‘That wasn’t there before?’

Strawberry jam that definitely hadn’t been there when she was wiping Eric’s face was now smeared on Elodie’s cheek.

Realizing what had happened, Erica made an expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace as she beckoned to Elodie.

“You come here too, quickly.”

“Hehe…”

“Ugh, what’s this on your pretty face?”

Even as her face was being scrubbed, the child continued to grin. Erica couldn’t just smile back.

It was both adorable and pitiful that she had smeared jam on her own face as a trick. She did it because she wanted attention.

Erica wondered what thoughts were in that small head. Why Elodie would want attention from someone with a bad personality like herself when she had an always gentle and caring father.

* * *

Elodie pressed her eye close to the keyhole.

“Yah! Hiyah!”

A sword fight was in full swing at the building entrance outside the shop. Eric was the only one making noise and darting around busily, while Dad barely moved. She wondered if he was too lazy to play properly, but Dad was smiling more brightly than Eric.

It was different from the smile Elodie knew.

Dad always smiled, but his eyes always seemed to be crying. Looking at Dad’s smile reminded her of a sprout budding in winter.

Like a sprout that barely pushes through the frozen white ground, huddling against the bitter cold wind, yet looking up at the sky full of dark clouds and whispering that spring will come tomorrow.

But it seemed spring had finally arrived.

Dad’s smile now was as fresh as a new sprout spreading its leaves in the spring sunshine.

Dad must like Eric.

I like Eric too.

But Elodie’s liking Eric and Dad’s liking Eric seemed different. Elodie’s thumb moved toward her mouth.

Elodie loved her dad. More than anything in the world.

If asked why, her mind went blank. Anyway, Elodie loved her dad.

She loved his gentle voice and how he never got angry. She also loved that Dad always knew the answers when Elodie didn’t know what to do.

Dad knew many things. He was the one who told Elodie that her world was different from others’. He also told her they needed to run away.

Dad was the strongest too. Scary men kept chasing them and demanding he hand over Elodie, but he never gave Elodie to the scary men and always won.

Dad was always with Elodie, always Elodie’s dad.

…Would he always be Elodie’s dad?

Elodie loved her dad. More than anything in the world.

Did Dad love Elodie more than anything in the world too?

Just as she pressed her eye even closer to the keyhole,

“Elodie.”

A stern voice came from behind her. When she turned around, Aunt Erica was looking at her with narrowed eyes, having paused from reading a thick book.

“Sucking your finger will make your tummy hurt.”

Elodie hid her thumb, which had turned red from sucking, behind her back and smiled brightly. Not because she was embarrassed at being caught, but because she was happy.

Now Elodie began to spy on Aunt Erica from behind boxes stacked higher than herself. She touched her cheek with her swollen thumb.

“Ugh, what’s this on your pretty face?”

Aunt Erica was Eric’s mom.

Other children had moms as well as dads, but Elodie didn’t. She used to have one, but she went to heaven early, so now she didn’t. That’s why Elodie didn’t know what a mom was.

But then she met Aunt Erica. Now Elodie knew what kind of being a mom was.