Dad is Back From a Deserted Island - Chapter 40

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Father has returned from the Deserted Island
Chapter 40

When I opened my eyes in the Garden in the Mist, I no longer felt bewildered.
I knew this was my dream, and I understood that there was someone I could meet here.
“Diti!”
“Yeah, Vibi.”
Diti answered immediately to my call. Even when the boy appeared without a sound, I wasn’t startled.
“Wow! You came right away?”
“Yeah. Here, I can come whenever you call me.”
“Really? Is it because this is my dream?”
Diti didn’t answer but extended his hand to me. I tilted my head in confusion before grasping it.
“Hey, Diti. Can you play the piano?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“No one ever taught me, and I never wanted to learn.”
“Gasp. Do you dislike the piano?”
Diti shook his head. The boy had almost no preferences.
“I neither like nor dislike it. Did you start to like the piano?”
“Yes! You see, I went to the Capital with Father. There, I learned piano from Elise, and I also learned from Luca. I still can’t read sheet music, but… even so, I can now play one piece!”
“I see. So that’s why a piano appeared here.”
Where Diti was looking, there stood a white grand piano identical to the one in Eduard’s Residence.
The piano, placed among the rose gardens within the mist, looked far more ethereal than it had in reality.
“Oh! A piano!”
There was nothing here before, was there?
Diti answered my unspoken question.
“Did you want to play the piano with me?”
“Gasp. How did you know?”
“Because a piano appeared.”
It really is a dream! I chose to think positively and led Diti to the piano.
“Ahem. Sit here. Diti. I’ll teach you how to play!”
Diti’s lips curved into the faintest smile as he watched me bounce onto the bench and pat the seat beside me, urging him to sit.
I was too preoccupied with tinkling the keys to notice.
My piano lesson had begun. Fortunately, Diti, my only student, was a very well-behaved and gentle learner.
“Now, Diti. Just copy what I do.”
“Okay.”
From middle C to the C an octave above—it was impossible for Vivian’s small hands to span in a single reach. Two delicate fingers pressed down upon the keys.
“You said this part to here is one group. You called it an… octa…? Something? I forgot what you called it.”
As Vivian spoke of forgetting, she glanced nervously at Diti. She worried he might scold her for not remembering something so basic, despite having taught it so proudly—but Diti simply gazed at her with quiet composure.
‘Phew. Right. Diti isn’t like Peter, so he wouldn’t do something like that.’
The piece Elise had taught Vivian was a simple nursery rhyme that even a beginner could follow along with easily.
Since it was a one-handed performance with no difficult techniques whatsoever, Diti was able to follow Vivian’s instructions quite naturally.
The sight of the boy playing piano was, in short, breathtakingly beautiful—enough to set Vivian’s heart racing wildly.
The moment Diti finished playing, Vivian erupted into enthusiastic applause.
“Wow, you’re amazing! Yes. It suits you so well!”
“Suits me?”
“Hehe. Actually, while I was learning piano, I thought it would be incredibly cool if you could play too. Luca was so cool when he played.”
At the mention of that name again, Diti’s expression hardened—though Vivian didn’t notice, since his face was naturally expressionless—and his voice dropped subtly.
“Who is that person?”
“Huh?”
“This person named Luca.”
“Luca? He’s Eduard’s grandson. Oh, Eduard is—”
Diti seemed hardly to be listening to her lengthy explanation. The moment she finished, he asked a question—his tone unusually urgent for a boy.
“…Is he handsome?”
“Yeah. He’s really handsome!”
“….”
Now Diti’s expression had turned quite serious.
“…Is he more handsome than me?”
“More than you? No! Luca is handsome, but not as much as you. You’re incredibly handsome and beautiful, like a fairy.”
It was praise that would have made anyone else’s face flush, but Diti’s complexion remained unchanged. Still, the gravity that had clouded his features melted away, returning to his usual composure.
“I see. That’s a relief.”
“A relief from what?”
“….”
Diti gazed at Vivian and sighed—the first time the boy had ever sighed in her presence.
“I was afraid you might meet someone whose face you’d like more than mine.”
“What? You were worried about that? Why?”
Diti’s pale hand pressed idly against the piano keys.
“If I thought you felt that tingling sensation in your chest when looking at someone other than me, I’d feel absolutely terrible.”
As if responding to the boy’s emotion, the sky darkened slightly.
But Vivian paid no attention to the darkening sky. Her heart was pounding far too loudly for her to notice anything else.
“You were worried I might like someone else?”
“Like…me. Do you like me, Vivian?”
When Diti asked with surprised eyes, Vivian blushed as if to say ‘why would you even ask that?’ and covered her cheeks. Her lovely cheeks flushed as pink as peaches.
“Yes! Father told me. When your heart tingles and races like that when you see someone, it means you like them.”
“….”
“Since you said your heart tingles when you see me, hehe. That means you like me too!”
Diti said nothing. Yet the dark, roiling clouds that had been sweeping across the sky moments before seemed to vanish, leaving behind brilliant sunshine once more.
“Since we both care for each other, we can simply live together happily for a long time from now on!”
I felt a feverish warmth spreading across my face.
For Vivian, it had been an act of tremendous courage to confess such feelings.
“….”
“….”
“…?”
Yet an answer was slow in coming. Diti simply gazed at Vivian in silence.
‘What?’
His reaction was not what I had anticipated. I had naturally assumed Diti would blush and return my affection.
As the silence stretched on, Vivian felt such mortification that she sprang to her feet, desperate to disappear into the earth itself.
“D-Diti, you d-don’t actually care for me, do you? I-if that’s the case, then—”
Shame threatened to spill over into tears. It was then that Diti caught hold of Vivian’s wrist.
“That’s not it, Vivi. I—”
Diti’s voice faded from hearing.
The world tilted and blurred.
Vivian awoke upon the unfamiliar bed in the Valmont Family Residence.
Thump.
At the sudden sight of Vivian kicking away her blankets, only Kiki, who had been sleeping soundly, jolted awake in surprise.
[W-what’s wrong, Vivian!]
“I don’t know, ugh….”
Vivian pulled the blankets she had kicked away back up to her face.
“I thought Diti cared for me too… but I guess he doesn’t. Ugh, I’m so embarrassed—how will I ever face him again?”
[Diti? Yawn. Who on earth are you talking about? I’ve never even met a child by that name. Did you just have some strange dream or something….]
Kiki’s drowsy murmurs trailed off as she drifted back into sleep.
Only Vivian remained beneath the blankets, brooding in solitude.
“I don’t care! I’m not going to like Diti anymore!”
Young Vivian did not yet understand.
That the human heart does not bend to one’s will.

* * *

“Princess, shall we go out and have some fun today?”
“Hm?”
Jean de Lamber, concerned about Vivian’s listlessness as she languished in the throes of heartbreak, had suggested an outing.
Had he known why Vivian had lost her spirits, he would have fainted dead on his feet—but fortunately or unfortunately, Jean de Lamber possessed no ability to read hearts.
Even the piano she once adored had been abandoned; she could only lie prostrate upon her bed, and it pained him to see her so.
“Let’s go out, buy something delicious to eat, and see something entertaining. The Department Store! Shall we visit the Department Store? My dear princess has never been there before, has she?”
“What is a Department Store?”
Hehehehe.
Jean de Lamber’s face bloomed with a smile brimming with pride.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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