To My First Love, With Regret - 53

Ethan looked up at the white lighthouse standing firm against the gale, recalling the moment he first encountered Leclerc’s Lighthouse. That painting had been a shock—and a strange comfort. It felt as if someone had transposed his very soul onto the canvas; it was a moment of agonizing empathy.

After all, no one else in the world would paint a lighthouse as a headstone.

Perhaps that artist had seen the same hell Ethan had. She seemed to be someone who understood the sorrow of a person who lived a life of saving others, yet was never saved themselves.

Did the Captain feel that way in his final moments?

The man who spent his entire life rescuing the shipwrecked had departed after saving even Ethan at the very end. Until the day he died, he was a lighthouse.

Now, the White Cliff Lighthouse had become a massive monument harboring his childhood and his grandfather’s time, but to others, it was merely a navigational marker. A lighthouse keeper—not the Captain—stepped out of the quarters and headed toward the beacon. A stranger’s daily routine was being overlaid upon Ethan’s memories.

He had braced himself for the fact that it would one day become someone else’s house after his grandfather passed, but closing the door yourself and walking away was entirely different from finding the locks abruptly changed on the home you meant to return to. It was a loss on a completely different level.

Ethan turned his back on the lighthouse and walked down the sloping field. It wasn’t until he reached the edge of the cliff that his boots, coated in a fine layer of chalk dust, came to a halt.

He opened his hand. Inside lay the wreckage of his foolish, nineteen-year-old self. The clumsy vows shared during that summer in Montfleur had long since turned cold in the sea breeze atop the cliffs.

He slowly clenched his fist. Now, all that remained in his hand was not a vow of burning love, but a cold, hard desire for revenge.

It was the moment he swore never to waver again. With the sound of slicing wind, a fighter plane appeared before his eyes. Ethan reached out and snatched the object flying toward his face.

In his hand sat a rubber-powered wooden model airplane. A toy that belonged in a child’s world.

—My Silverbolt!

Just as the owner’s shout rang out, Ethan looked up and met the eyes of a boy wearing a shirt and suspenders. The young sovereign of Kentrell, standing on the slope, froze upon seeing the man who held his Air Force in his grip. The expression with which he looked at Ethan was unpleasantly identical to his sister’s.

—Give it back right now.

—Since your plane almost took my eye out, shouldn’t an apology come first as a matter of manners?

—I didn’t fly it at you on purpose! Why are you even standing there?

—Thinking this is still Kentrell land is just like a Sherwood.

Ethan swung the hand holding the model fighter plane downward in a large arc. The boy screamed and ran toward him, seemingly thinking Ethan was about to smash it into the ground or hurl it off the cliff.

But Ethan simply turned and began to walk away with the plane in hand. The model was a remarkably sophisticated scale replica of a Silverbolt fighter—too fine a piece of work for a child’s toy—, making Ethan reluctant to destroy it.

—I’m sorry! I said I’m sorry!

The young Duke sprinted after the leisurely walking man, shouting desperately. It didn’t sound like a sincere apology, but Ethan hadn’t expected one in the first place.

—You said you’d give it back if I apologized!

Ethan had no memory of making such a promise, but he returned the toy anyway. He tossed it into the air behind him. He expected a scream or a cry, but the boy lunged and caught it.

—Huff, huff….

However, instead of standing up, the boy clutched his chest with his small hand and breathed raggedly. Ethan knew that Anthony Sherwood had a heart condition.

—Heugh….

Ethan’s hand instinctively twitched to reach out for the child, but it returned to his side as a tightly clenched fist.

I came here to kill that boy.

Suppressing his human pity with the goal he had briefly forgotten, he coldly turned and began to walk. Perhaps the boy wasn’t destined to die in the same place as his brother, for he regained his fading pulse on his own and chased after him.

—Why fly something so precious on top of a cliff?

—Because it looks cool flying over the sea.

—And if you lose it?

—I’ll just have to make another one.

For someone speaking so lightly, the paint job on the object was incredibly painstaking. The brat started babbling about how the Silverbolt was his favorite model, even though Ethan hadn’t asked.

—I like that I can see fighter planes often since the Littlewick base opened. I’ve even memorized the training schedule.

It seemed he had been out in the fields today just to watch the planes.

—It’s Monday. Why aren’t you in school instead of wandering the fields alone?

—School is too easy. It’s boring.

—Listen to the little brat show off.

It was clear that his mother or sister had kept the frail young Duke out of school to overprotect him. Supporting his guess, the sound of the breathing following him remained heavy and labored.

—Why are you following me, anyway?

—You’re a gang leader, aren’t you?

It seemed the little Duke, who had lived only in a world of light, was curious about the life of a gang leader crawling through the bottom of the darkness.

—Have you ever been in a gunfight?

He pried into various aspects of gang life that he had surely read about in newspapers or books. Annoyed, Ethan gave half-hearted replies, mostly Yes or No.

—Then have you ever killed someone? Oh, wait!

Before Ethan could even answer that question, the boy cut him off.

—You killed my brother and father, didn’t you?

Ethan’s pace came to a dead stop. He looked back at the small Duke, unsure if the boy was excessively innocent or excessively arrogant. What he saw in those eyes wasn’t anger. It was closer to the wonder one feels when encountering a creature for the first time.

A nine-year-old kid calling him a murderer to his face? People said all the Sherwoods were mad, but while Harry had been a hyena who at least picked his battles, Ethan couldn’t tell who this brat took after.

—Kid, I’m the enemy who killed your family.

—So?

—Ha….

Was he too young to understand the concept of a mortal enemy or murder? Ethan took it upon himself to play the role of a teacher, however ill-suited.

—An enemy, kid, is someone you’re supposed to hate, like your sister does—or fear—, like Dr. Kallas does.

But the boy only blinked his large eyes. His clear pupils seemed to ask why he should bother with all that.

—Ah, come to think of it, I’m a benefactor to you. You became the Duke thanks to me.

Ethan threw out the provocation and waited for the young Duke’s reaction. Would he try to refute it? Or would he get angry that his honor had been insulted? Instead of a counterattack, the boy fell into a daze of thought, then spoke with a bored expression.

—Is that so? Taking credit for handing down a crumbling family name isn’t very manly.

—Ha! What kind of kid are you?

He was already fed up with the dead Duke, Harry, and Eve, and now a new Sherwood had appeared to follow him around.

Is tormenting Ethan Fairchild a Sherwood hereditary disease?

He turned his back coldly and walked, but the barrage of questions never ceased.

—But why did Eve marry you?

—Go ask your sister, the one who slammed a cake into my face.

—Why did you marry Eve?

Ethan didn’t answer and instead pulled out a cigarette. While he stood still, struggling to light it against the sea breeze, the questions—which felt more like torture—stabbed at him.

—Why did you break up? Do you still love Eve? Is that why you came to take her back from the four-eyes?

No, I told you, I came to kill you.

—Just so you know: if you want to marry Eve again, you have to get my permission now.

As if you’ll even be in this world for her next wedding.

He let out a smirk and finally got his cigarette lit. At that moment, the brat found something else to fixate on. His eyes shone as he inspected the medals hanging from the officer’s uniform.

—Are you a gang leader and a military officer at the same time? How?

—There’s a way to do both.

The child couldn’t possibly imagine what that meant.

—You’re in the Air Force. Have you ever piloted a Silverbolt?

—No.

—Why?

—Because I’m a transport pilot.

—Tsk, how boring.

—Boring? How so?

—You’re just a delivery man.

—Ha… a delivery man? Well, sure… I suppose the paratroopers are ‘cargo’ in a way.

—Huh? Paratroopers?

—I fly the plane behind enemy lines and drop army units out.

—Whoa…. You’re allowed to do that?

—They’re trained units. If I drop them at the exact right spot, those elite soldiers strike the enemy from behind.

—That’s cool….

—It’s also my job to fly large aircraft over when the military imports them from across the ocean. Have you ever flown across the Great Ocean?

—No.

The arrogant little Duke was gone, replaced by a nine-year-old child whose eyes glowed with pure envy. For the first time, he looked his age, and Ethan thought he looked almost… cute.