Taking Care of My Husband in a Tragic Novel - Chapter 27

Having said that, I raised my lips slightly and reac
hed out to stroke his soft hair. Bleon’s face lit up with relief, probably because I had been avoiding him until now. Then Bleon suddenly took the hand I used to stroke his head, and he brought it to his lips. However, at the touch of Bleon’s lips, I vividly recalled the same feeling I had in my dream, and my body flinched slightly.

‘These lips…’

Again. And the dream was replaying in my head without even stopping.

“Yes. I want to know everything about my wife, but you don’t want me to pry, so I won’t ask anymore. But the next time you have such a dream, tell me right away. Okay?”

“Okay. I will.”

I nodded and smiled awkwardly.

“Ah, Wife. Are you hungry? You only ate some bread in the carriage earlier and didn’t eat anything else.”

I hadn’t felt hungry until recently, but Bleon’s words made me hungry all of a sudden.

“Now that you mention it, I’m feeling a little famished.”

Before I could finish saying this, Bleon got up from the bed and headed somewhere. I just stared blankly at his back as he did so. Bleon strode forward and paused for a moment in front of the table, and after a moment, he turned back while holding a tray of food in his hands.

“I didn’t know when Wife would wake up, so I had it ready… But it’s all cold…”

Bleon frowned slightly as if he was quite dissatisfied with that.

“Wait a little bit longer, as I will ask the employees to reheat the food again.”

Then he smiled for me not to worry and tried to ring the bell near the bed.

“No. I’ll just eat it.”

“How could I feed my wife cold food…”

“It’s okay. And since it’s nighttime, I’ll eat just a little and go back to sleep.”

Looking out the window, the moon was the highest in the dark evening sky. That meant that the people who worked here were also sleeping. It wasn’t like I didn’t have anything to eat. In fact, there was a lot of food, and I didn’t want to wake them just because the food was a little cold.

“Give it here.”

I sat up on the bed and reached out to Bleon. He came closer to the bed with a slightly stiff expression on his face as if he was still reluctant to feed me cold food.

“Wife…”

Bleon stood still in front of the bed holding the tray, perhaps to ask me to reconsider.

“It’s really okay. I can eat something tastier for breakfast.”

“Ha… Okay.”

Bleon soon resigned, so he sat down on the edge of the bed and set the tray down. On the tray was a stew topped with meat, some bread, and fruit and wine.

“Wow! It looks delicious.”

To moisten my throat, I first reached for a glass of wine and took a sip, savoring the taste.

“Mm, this wine is delicious. Have you eaten, Bleon?”

“…No.”

Of course, I thought that Bleon would have already eaten so I asked him, but the answer was no.

“What? Why haven’t you eaten?”

“Wife hasn’t yet, so how can I eat alone…”

“I couldn’t eat because I was asleep. You could have eaten first.”

He wanted to eat together with me, so he waited even though he was hungry. And it was only now that it caught my eye that there were two glasses and two dishes on the tray.

“You could have eaten while it was still warm. Why did you skip a meal?”

“I like any food with my wife.”

“Still…”

“Let’s eat together now.”

With that said, Bleon tore some bread, dipped it in the stew, and put it to my lips.

“Here now, Wife, ah—”

The first time I ate with Bleon, I told him that we shouldn’t feed each other like this anymore because it made me uncomfortable. But even though he said that he understood, whenever he had a chance, he was eager to feed me while saying it was fine.

I was reluctant to play like this, as though it was children’s play, but now I was getting more and more enamored with this eating style. Today, he continued to offer me bread, and I reflexively opened my mouth to eat it, then I leaned my head back for a moment. I took the bread he had offered in my hand and, contrary to usual, put the bread to his mouth.

“I will feed you.”

Actually, what I did was a bit of a joke. I did it knowing that Bleon would feel even the slightest bit of surprise, but his next move was unexpected. Rather, he was moved by my actions, his eyes lit up with emotion, and he shamelessly took the bread in my hand and took a bite of it without looking embarrassed at all.

“It’s so delicious, Wife.”

Then, as if it was really delicious, he chewed on the bread with a happy smile on his face.

“Is it that tasty?”

“Yes. Especially since Wife fed it to me, it tastes so much better.”

I was curious about the taste as he was eating so deliciously, so I thought I should try it. I paused for a moment, then meekly opened my mouth and took the bread that Bleon had offered to me and ate it.

“It’s delicious.”

The bread was plain, but the flavor of the stew was full of meat flavor and was good and soft, so even though it wasn’t warm anymore, it was tastier than I expected.

“Wife, I’m done eating.”

While I was chewing and savoring the taste, Bleon opened his mouth as he called me, waiting for him to be fed again. I didn’t hate it, so I gave him another piece of the stew-dipped bread. So, after a meal that must have been quite unfamiliar to anyone who saw it, we sat side by side on the sofa to digest for a while.

“Where shall we go tomorrow?”

The reason I came to Hares, as I told Bleon before, was a kind of excursion and exploration. After figuring out what the capital of the empire was like, and whether it was a place to explore and live, I decided to move here. There was still nothing to be done here, so we just had to move freely and go wherever we wanted to go. I had thought about several places in advance, but before that, if there was a place that Bleon wanted to go, it would be good to go, so I asked him.

“…I will only follow where my wife goes.”

I was wondering just in case, so I asked, but this was the expected answer.

“Is there no place you want to go?”

“…Yes.”

“Really?”

I kept repeating the same thing to him over and over, saying that if he thought about it, there must be a place.

“No…”

“But you’re back here after a long time, so think about it.”

“…Alright, I will.”

However, for some reason, Bleon’s voice seemed to have no vigor.

“Are you anxious?”

“…Yes.”

Judging from the last conversation, I knew what he was worried about. Bleon continued to show his dislike of coming to Hares, so it was evident that he was still not very interested in the place. I still don’t fully understand Bleon, but I’ve decided to stop pushing him my way. In the end, I didn’t get what I was hoping for.

I realized that I had an arrogant belief in the future that I knew, and so I expected that this person sitting in front of me would act according to my predictions. But in the end, it was futile. So now I have decided to accept the way he acted as I see, hear, and feel at the moment. Of course, Astell’s memories—the contents of the novel I read—still occupied my head.

Even so, it was not useless information at all, so I’ll be able to retrieve them from time to time in the future and use them when needed. However, right now, this information was only secondary to me, not the most important anymore.

After thinking this, I turned to the side and moved closer to Bleon, staring intently into his blue eyes. He told me that those long, long ten years, when only each other was everything, was not a terrible time but a happy and precious time for him. That’s why I had to respect him and take a closer look at his heart when it came to his feelings of insecurity.

“Even if I’ll always be by your side?”

And this was the best way to convince him. Although there were times when I thought that I had to leave Bleon and file for a divorce, leaving him didn’t mean much to me now, and there was no need for a divorce either. That’s why I had to make it clear to him that I wouldn’t leave him anymore, unless my heart was reluctant to be with him. So if he needed me, I would always be by his side.

“How about if wherever we are, wherever we go, whoever we are with, we’ll always be together?”