The Terminally-Ill Lord Desires Hospice Care

I decided to go around the village asking the fathers a question:
‘What should I write in a letter that fathers would want to receive?’
Just as I had consulted the married men and women of the village for the letter to my fiancée, I wanted to seek advice from relevant people this time as well.
They readily lent me a hand. Unlike when I first came to the village, the public sentiment seemed quite favorable, which gladdened me.

“Still, a father would probably want to hear how much you love him, so some exaggerated expressions would be good.”
“I’m not sure, but if it were me, I’d want to hear how my child is living these days. There’s no greater joy than bragging about one’s child.”
“I’ve never really thought about it, but perhaps they’d like to hear you say ‘you’ve worked hard all this time’ or something along those lines?”

After noting down such advice, I ended up with a short 5-page novella-like letter.
I thought a father might like something like this. Though I couldn’t understand him, if I included everyone’s opinions, he would surely be pleased.
That is, if my late father could read this letter.

“…I don’t know.”
I didn’t know if my father, buried in the ground, could read this letter.
Or the reasons for the kindness he had shown me.
Or my father’s heart.
I couldn’t understand any of it. No, perhaps I had become unable to understand. It was so absurd that I couldn’t even laugh. Though I rarely laughed to begin with.

If it were Leila.
If it were my father himself.
They could have told me the answer. As I am now, I’m like a shepherd who has lost his flock, a derailed train without a driver – a useless thing that has lost the one to show the way forward, the one to guide.

“You seem quite troubled.”
It was that old man again. The one who had shared bread with me before.
“Everyone carries some troubles as they live, it’s nothing special, sir.”
“But to wear those troubles around your neck is rather special, is it not?”
Carrying troubles was not special, but outwardly showing it was another matter entirely.
Just who was this old man? I knew he was an acquaintance of Cecilia’s and a local here, but he was quite peculiar.

“I cannot understand my father’s heart. His actions, heart, laughter – I cannot comprehend any of it.”
“It’s only natural since you are not yet married.”
“To understand him…I feel I could then write a letter he would want to read.”
Like how my father would fall, tumble, and trip before me despite never laughing much.
Even if my father cannot read it, I will send that letter.

“I’ve heard everything. About you going around the village for consultation.”
“…Have you come to tell me it’s meaningless?”
“Of course not.”
The old man smiled and sat on a bench, patting the spot next to him – a signal to sit, no doubt.
When I was in the capital, there were no elderly who favored me to be found. With many still loyal to the former emperor, their hatred toward me was only natural. Though I likely could not understand them either.
Of course, I also could not understand this old man who did not dislike me. Amidst that incomprehension, I sat down, and the old man spoke:

“About that letter, my lord. Even if your father reads it, he will not be pleased.”
“…Can you tell me the reason?”
“That is what they want to hear from their own children. Not what your father wished to hear from you.”
“I cannot understand. Truly.”
As often with the elderly, his words contained incomprehensible elements. Though I understood all the individual words, I could not comprehend the full sentence.

“People are all different, so would parents be any different?”
“My father was…”
When I tried to dig further, something dark and hard obstructed me.
As if I had deliberately sealed it away myself.
Even if not a painful memory, it was sealed away.

“My father, Arthur Berger, was…”
“Only you would know best what he wanted, my lord.”
Most of my memories regarding my father were merely acts of kindness whose meaning and intent I could not understand.
Kindnesses I could understand with my head but not feel in my heart.
I knew he was good to me, but could not feel it in my chest.
I had sealed away those memories to remember him as such a person.

“Raul.”
My father, who always strived to make me laugh, one day tripped over papers on the floor, also trying to make me laugh that day.

“Did you find that one a bit funnier? I put some research into it.”
“I am not so cruel as to laugh at seeing my own family get hurt, father.”
“Dammit, I’ll have to fall dramatically enough to take flight next time…!”
“I cannot understand, father. Leaving aside that I will not laugh, what meaning is there in such things?”

“You talk like a world-weary old man at just 10 years old. You should be pestering for toys, getting into scuffles outside, slacking off on studies and such.”
My father always urged me to stray from the path my mother set, telling me to find ‘fun’.

“And people should laugh like this, see!”
“Why should I laugh?”
“Laughter equates to happiness.”
“What relation is there between moving facial muscles and happiness?”
“When you laugh, the people who love you become happy. Laughter isn’t for your own happiness, but for those who love you. That’s why I try to make you laugh. For my own happiness.”

So my father always tried to make others laugh. My mother, me, Rizehl, even his own friends.
That’s why he always seemed frivolous, but he didn’t care. It was better than earning fear, he said.

“…But why am I always the target?”
Then my father stroked my head and said:
“Life is like a sentence, Raul. How splendid the words will be, how skillfully the sentence is composed, whether it conveys a beautiful meaning – pondering that is no different from pondering life itself.”
“Yes…?”
“You are the subject of my sentence.”

It was even more incomprehensible. Yet something indescribable trembled at those words, something existing beneath the skin that I could not name.

Years later.
After the Demon Lord directly invaded and my deployment to the battlefield was decided, my father raged and blocked my path.

“A whelp who hasn’t even married wants to know about war?! And to sacrifice yourself for this rotten country, I won’t allow it!”
“Father. The decision has already been made.”
“I, your parent, did not permit it, so how can the empire just send my son off as fodder?! Those bastards only seek you out when needed and will discard you like trash when inconvenient! It’s a worthless nation that takes sacrifice for granted!”
“….It’s the nation Rizehl lives in.”
Still, my father grabbed me as if to stop me.

“No.”
“One who will become a lord must always be prepared for sacrifice.”
“Then don’t become one! What does being a lord matter?!”
It was too out of place for a nobleman, making it even more incomprehensible.
“I want the subject of my life’s sentence to be ‘the happy Raul’. Not ‘Lord Raul’.”
“….Father. I have already resolved myself.”
“Yes, if you don’t go, countless others will die instead. They too are surely someone’s sons. I know that, but…”
Still, my father shook his head, refusing to let me go.

“My son is more precious to me. I don’t care if they call me selfish. Raul, please…”
“Father. If I do not go…if my absence leads to my friend’s death…I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.”
“….Damn brat. I knew you’d say that. I grabbed you even though I knew, just in case, but you didn’t defy my expectations. Then promise me this one thing.”

My father handed me a cloak made from one of his favorite coats and said:
“Promise me you’ll return and become happy. That you’ll become a person who can truly laugh.”
“…Yes. I will try.”
“Good.”
My father patted my shoulder.
“I pray your heart does not break, that you do not let go of everything.”

“I…made that promise with father, and yet…”
So I buried it away.
“I could not even be there for father’s final moments…”
The guilt of breaking that promise was frightening. Comprehending my father’s kindness made me seem so pitiful for not even being able to attend his deathbed.
Being the ‘subject’ made the distance to that period so unbearable.
It was for such petty reasons that I buried away those reasons and that promise.
I truly was the worst son.

“It seems I was the worst son.”
“That is something all children who have sent off their parents say.”
Rather, it was by recalling that promise that I could look back on myself and realize:
I am not happy.
That fact was so clear that the realization I had broken that promise was painfully apparent.

“Do you now know what to write in the letter?”
“…Yes. It is clear to me now.”
I tore up the 5-page bundle I had written so far, took a new piece of paper, and wrote three sentences:

You were the inspiration for my life.
That I could write sentences at all, that I now wish to imbue sentences with meaning – it is all thanks to you, father.
Thank you.