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Chapter 07
When I arrived at the restaurant, I looked at Grandfather’s face once, then at the empty opposite side that felt eerily desolate despite the spacious room, and then back at his face again.
What should I say?
How could I get Grandfather and my parents to sit at the same table?
Even though I had already taken my seat, no good idea came to mind.
A servant who had taken away the two empty glasses returned with fruit juice filled with ice and mulled wine garnished with a cinnamon stick. But perhaps because my head was so cluttered with thoughts, I didn’t feel like eating anything. I kept poking at my salad with the tip of my fork when I suddenly felt someone watching me.
It was Grandfather.
Did he have something to say?
“Do you have no appetite?”
His voice sounded closer to concern than reproach.
“I’m really fine. More importantly…”
“If there is anything lacking, tell me.”
Just as I was about to speak, Grandfather cut me off again, forcing me to close my mouth.
“If there’s something you cannot eat, I’ll have them bring something else.”
“No, everything is delicious. I’ve never eaten anything like this before. But Grandfather, I…”
“Oh, really? That’s good. You must eat a lot to grow strong.”
“Grandfather, couldn’t you ask Mom and Dad to come here and eat with us? Maybe… maybe we could take this as a chance to become close again…”
I finally blurted everything out in one breath, unable to hold it in any longer.
But Grandfather was not an easy opponent.
“No.”
The answer came back instantly, sharp as if cut by a well-honed blade.
“Why not?”
“Your parents must learn their place.”
“Place…?”
“Yes. Place. The place they were born into, their place in the family, their place in society. Your father and mother are sinners who threw all of that away with their own hands. It is only natural that they be punished. You need not concern yourself with it.”
I could understand what Grandfather meant logically.
But… there are things in the world you cannot choose when you are born. Calling someone a sinner for abandoning that… that’s too harsh!
“But Dad being born a noble and Mom being born a commoner wasn’t their choice, was it?”
“…You’re right about that.”
“Then…”
“If Theodor truly cared for Isabel, he should have thoroughly used what he was born holding in his hands to secure a place for her. Not run away as he did! And Isabel as well. With that clever mind of hers, she could have found some way to carve out a place for herself. But they didn’t. They ran away like cowards. They are merely paying the price for that sin now.”
There was not a single wrong word in what Grandfather said.
He spoke so decisively that there wasn’t even room for rebuttal. I had no choice but to close the mouth I had opened.
Certainly, if it were my father…
If he were the son of the great noble house of Einhardt, surely he could have done something.
But when I thought of my father—the one who teared up even over a falling leaf—it was hard to imagine him standing up to Grandfather.
Even I wouldn’t be confident in stubbornly defying parents who would immediately point a gun at me.
Love or not, survival comes first.
Thinking that way, I could understand Father’s position a little.
When faced with two choices—being shot to death immediately after announcing he would marry Mom, or running far away and living with the person he loved for even three days before being caught and shot—Father had simply chosen the latter.
‘Although thanks to that choice, I almost ended up being executed as the granddaughter of a traitor…’
But I wouldn’t let that happen again.
“But if Dad hadn’t done that, I might not have been born.”
“You might have been born in the place where you truly belonged, Irina.”
With words like that, I had nothing to counter.
Still, I couldn’t just accept this quietly.
“Even so, I can’t agree with your claim that Dad is a coward. If he were truly a coward, he would have abandoned Mom and me long ago.”
Gripping the fork and knife tightly in my hands, I stared straight at Grandfather.
“Before I was born, Dad was the best husband to Mom… and to me, he is the coolest and most wonderful father in the world. So please withdraw what you said about him being a coward.”
Grandfather’s eyes widened slightly, as if he had not expected me to go this far.
For some reason, my shoulders lifted proudly—but at the same time I worried I might have been too insolent.
After a long pause, Grandfather chuckled softly and muttered,
“…Isabel raised her daughter well.”
Just that one sentence made me feel as though I had been praised.
The better impression Grandfather had of Mom, the greater the chance Mom might be acknowledged.
“…Irina.”
“Y-Yes!”
Startled by my name being called suddenly, I nearly jumped out of my seat as I answered.
“Do you love your parents?”
Such an obvious question.
There was no need even to nod.
“How much?”
“Every day feels like a dream.”
“A dream?”
Unlike the stark white hospital room, this place had seasons I had never lived through.
Unlike the parents there whom I could barely see a few times a year, the parents here loved me every moment.
It didn’t matter that I was just a supporting character who didn’t exist in the original story.
They were already my parents—
the people I loved the most.
Truly.
When I lost consciousness earlier, the thing I feared most was waking up not to my parents, but to the cold stone floor of a prison cell.
Thinking about it again made tears threaten to spill, so I bit my lip and lowered my head.
Above me, I heard Grandfather let out a deep sigh.
“An opportunity… you say…”
At last, Grandfather beckoned to the servant waiting nearby.
“…Bring Theodor and Isabel here.”
“Irina!”
My parents rushed over in an instant and wrapped me in a tight embrace.
Somehow, they looked as though they had aged ten years.
Seeing their faces made me realize how terribly I had wronged them.
Unable to lift my head from guilt, I silently opened my arms instead.
Mom hugged me back.
Dad wrapped his arms around both of us.
Their warm, familiar scent calmed my racing heart.
Between the pounding heartbeat and our breaths slowly syncing together, I could hear faint sniffling.
It seemed my sensitive father was crying.
My own nose tingled as well.
Sure enough, hot tears rolled down my cheeks again.
I wanted to call out “Mom, Dad,” but my voice was so soaked with emotion that the words wouldn’t come out properly.
“Irina… Irina…”
“Mom… Dad…”
What should I say?
Sorry for worrying you?
Sorry for frightening you?
“…I missed you.”
Yes. That must be it.
My parents would probably never know how much I had longed for them.
“You were really worried, right? I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere.”
Dad’s hand stroking my back trembled like a quaking aspen.
Mom, who rarely cried, kept sniffing as she kissed my forehead again and again.
“That’s enough.”
Even in this situation, Grandfather’s gaze remained cold and merciless.
It felt less like sternness and more like faint contempt.
“Sit down.”
My parents sat with stiff, awkward movements like living statues.
At that moment, someone knocked on the dining room door and entered.
It was Müller.
“Excuse me. The documents you requested are ready.”
Müller was carrying a thick stack of papers.
Grandfather accepted them and quickly flipped through several pages before nodding.
“You may leave.”
After scanning the documents rapidly, Grandfather suddenly tossed them toward Father.
Then he took out a cigar and skillfully clipped the end.
Was he seriously planning to smoke here in the dining room?
As Grandfather began smoking, a servant promptly brought a glass ashtray as if waiting for that very moment.
In no time, the room filled with the unpleasant smell of smoke.
I tried desperately to keep my expression neutral while stretching my breaths as long as possible.
“What are you doing in front of the child? Put that out immediately.”
“Is there a problem with me doing as I please in my own house?”
“She collapsed today!”
Only then did Grandfather put the cigar down with an irritated expression.
Finally, I could breathe again.
I could feel Grandfather glaring at me, but I stubbornly avoided his gaze.
“…Read it.”
Father pulled the document closer with obvious reluctance, as if it were a death sentence.
He glanced back and forth between Grandfather and the papers suspiciously before beginning to read.
The more he read, the more his tightly closed lips slowly parted in disbelief.
Soon even his hands began to tremble.
What on earth was written there?
Grandfather sipped his coffee leisurely, waiting for Father to finish reading.
At last, Father finished the final page, looking as though he had aged another ten years.
“It’s your fault.”
Wiping the coffee from his beard, Grandfather casually tossed out the remark.
A crack appeared in Father’s expression once more.
