Chapter 74: A Mother’s Support

When I reached the top of the stairs, I found Eris there. Although she had texted that she was downstairs, she must have come back to wait for me. As she slipped her phone into her pocket, her eyes briefly rested on my face before shifting toward the stairs.

Once I reached her side, she started down without a word. I followed a step behind her.

She had left her red hair down after her shower. The ends were still slightly damp, and her hair swayed against the back of her light-colored T-shirt with every step. When she turned her head slightly toward me, I realized I had been watching her and lowered my eyes to the steps ahead.

I didn’t know why I had looked away, either.

When we entered the dining room, Aunt Miranda was already sitting at the table. She smiled when she saw us and set down her glass.

"You’re right on time. Sit down before the food gets cold."

Eris and I sat next to each other. After training, the smell of food made me even hungrier. As I reached for my plate, the only thing bothering me was a slight ache in my shoulder. I was a little more tired than I had been that morning, but not too tired to do justice to the meal in front of me.

Normally, I would have expected Eris to talk throughout the meal.

But she wasn’t saying a word.

As she moved the food around on her plate with her fork, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She must have felt me looking at her because she raised her head. When our eyes met, we both looked down almost at the same time.

I tightened my grip on my fork and continued eating.

She had acted perfectly normal in the training area. She had teased me, said I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed tomorrow, and suggested I start my life as her slave early. Now, though, she hadn’t teased me once since we sat down at the table.

A little later, when I reached for my glass, I noticed her looking at me this time. Eris immediately turned back to her plate, and I held back the question I had been about to ask, taking a sip of water instead.

A quiet sound from across the table made me look at Aunt Miranda.

She had put down her fork and was watching us with a smile I couldn’t quite understand. Her gaze moved from her daughter to me. There was no way Eris hadn’t noticed, but she seemed even more interested in her food than I was.

Aunt Miranda rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand.

"Did you enjoy watching Eris, Noctis?"

Beside me, Eris’s fork stopped moving for a moment.

There was nothing strange about the question itself. I had gone to watch Eris train that morning, and Aunt Miranda knew that. Still, the look on her face was enough to tell me that she wasn’t planning to take my answer as a simple comment on the training.

I calmly set my glass on the table.

"Talia and I didn’t really get along, so I couldn’t pay much attention to watching Eris."

I wasn’t exactly lying. While talking to Talia, I had been forced to focus more on what she was saying than on the training.

Aunt Miranda’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"Oh, really?"

I nodded and took another bite. She couldn’t expect a more detailed explanation while my mouth was full.

I made a point of not looking toward Eris. That didn’t last long, though, because I heard a faint creak from the chair beside me. Eris had straightened up slightly. When our eyes met, she parted her lips as though she wanted to say something, then changed her mind and reached for her glass.

For a few seconds, the only sound at the table was the clink of cutlery.

Aunt Miranda had gone back to eating too. I had just relaxed my shoulders, thinking the subject was closed, when she spoke again as if she had remembered some small detail.

"By the way, I bought a ticket to watch the cosplay contest you’re entering."

My fork clattered against my plate.

"You did what?"

Aunt Miranda smiled, unfazed by the change in my voice.

"I bought a ticket. I wasn’t going to miss seeing you onstage."

I had barely come to terms with the idea of standing in front of a crowd of strangers in the costume we had chosen. I didn’t want to imagine Aunt Miranda sitting in the audience too, carefully watching every move I made onstage.

It wasn’t hard to imagine how long she would keep bringing it up after the contest.

Feeling my cheeks grow warm, I put down my fork.

"You don’t need to come."

"Why not?"

"Because..."

I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t tell her that seeing me in that outfit would give her something to tease me about for the rest of my life. Saying it out loud might only make her even more eager to attend.

"Please don’t come, Aunt Miranda."

Aunt Miranda leaned back and shook her head with complete confidence.

"No. A mother should be there to support her child."

"You’re not my mother!"

"True, but you’ll be my son when you marry my daughter."

The objection I had been about to make died on my lips.

When Aunt Miranda saw my expression, she suddenly brought a hand to her mouth. Her eyes widened slightly, and she looked at her daughter as though she had just realized something terrible. Then she turned back to me.

"My, my... Don’t tell me you were planning to play with my daughter’s feelings and leave her after stealing her heart?"

"I wasn’t—"

"What a terrible boy you are, Noctis. And here we are, welcoming you into our home and sharing our meals with you."

The fake hurt in her voice made me crumple the napkin in my hand. There was a smile at the corners of her lips that she wasn’t even trying to hide.

This woman... She just loves doing this every time.

I opened my mouth to answer, then thought better of it. Whatever I said, she would twist it to suit herself and find another way to embarrass me even more.

My best option was to wait for Eris to step in.

She usually reacted to these jokes from her mother much faster than I did. Any moment now, she would blush and snap, "Mom!" Then Aunt Miranda would decide she had enjoyed herself enough and change the subject.

So I waited silently for a few seconds.

The protest I had been waiting for never came.

Wait... Why isn’t Eris saying anything?

I slowly turned my head toward her.

Eris had placed her fork on the edge of her plate. She wasn’t looking down like before. Instead, she was staring directly at my face. Although her cheeks were slightly flushed, she didn’t look as though she was about to turn and scold her mother.

She was waiting for an answer from me.

At least, I couldn’t think of any other explanation for her expression. There was none of the impatience I would have expected from someone ready to rescue me from this situation. She was watching me carefully, as though she didn’t want to miss a word of what I would say.

Was she waiting for me to contradict her mother? Or to answer that question?

Seriously?! What is going on?!

For the first time since we sat down, she wasn’t looking away, which only made things harder. The more I tried to figure out what she was thinking, the more I felt that opening my mouth might be a bad idea.

When I remembered that Aunt Miranda was watching us, I turned back to her.

Her smile had grown a little wider.

I cleared my throat as the heat in my cheeks spread to my ears. There had to be an easier way out of this conversation than trying to guess what Eris was expecting.

"Please don’t make jokes like that, Aunt Miranda. If Uncle Alaric gets the wrong idea, there’ll be nothing left of me but ashes."

At least she could tell I was serious about that. Just imagining Uncle Alaric walking through the door in the middle of this conversation was enough to make me straighten up without thinking.

Aunt Miranda parted her lips to answer, but I continued before she had the chance.

"By the way, I’m going home after lunch."

My words immediately changed the atmosphere at the table. Eris looked away from my face, and Aunt Miranda lowered the hand beneath her chin.

"Today?"

"Yes."

I had decided to return tomorrow when I left my room. But right now, I couldn’t think of a good reason to wait another day. Besides, the things I needed to do at home were starting to pile up.

Aunt Miranda didn’t look pleased with my answer.

"Why are you in such a hurry? Stay a few more days."

"I have a few important things to do at home. Besides, if I keep going back and forth, I might fall behind on my work."

"You won’t have to go back and forth if you stay here. Your room is ready, and we’re happy to have you."

She glanced briefly at Eris before turning back to me.

"If you don’t have anywhere you need to be, stay for today too. You can decide what to do about tomorrow later."

There was no trace of teasing left in her voice, which made refusing harder than I had expected. Not wanting it to look as though I was just trying to escape the conversation, I placed my napkin beside my plate and looked at her.

"I have things to do, Aunt Miranda. The world won’t be safe without the Great Noctis."