I Faked a Pregnancy, but My Husband Returned - Chapter 150
At those words, the boy tilted his head. “You say adults can do something… But by that logic, you seem pretty grown up yourself.”
Only then did Judith consider that the boy might be older than she had thought. Now that she looked closely, he was as tall as her father, and the hand she had briefly held earlier had been much thicker than hers.
Perhaps he was on the boundary between boyhood and adulthood. Though she was only fifteen, if he were seventeen or eighteen, he would still legally be a minor but physically almost an adult.
“Well… hmm.”
The boy crossed his arms and said, “To be honest, I don’t really get it. Time passes and everyone becomes an adult eventually. Saying it’s not the worst just because of that—does that even mean anything?”
“Oh, that means you’re very happy right now,” Judith answered calmly.
It was obvious the boy lacked nothing. People instinctively gathered around someone like him, and the other boys following him were proof enough.
“Well…”
The boy slowly agreed.
“I suppose that’s true. I do think I’m quite lucky.”
“At least your family gets along well, right?”
“Very much so.”
Sincerity tinged the boy’s calm voice.
Judith smiled behind her mask and replied, “In that case, it’s perfectly fine if you never understand. Just continue being kind to your loving family. Still, thank you very much for the comfort.”
It was obvious he lived in a different world from hers. If not for the mask, they wouldn’t have even shared this small point of contact.
She knew this was the best kind of comfort someone like him could offer. That’s why she had wrapped it up that way—but the boy didn’t give up until the end.
“But you know, if you’re going to think that everything will be fine as long as you become an adult—even after getting divorced and raising a child alone—why not just become an adult a bit earlier?”
“What?”
“Is your home environment the problem? Then you could leave early once you’re able to earn your own living. If it were me… hmm… If I left home with nothing… well, I’m good with a sword, so I’d probably join some knight order or something?”
“That wouldn’t work for me. I’m not good with a sword. But you won’t have any problems. If you’re physically capable, you can easily join any organization. As for me, I really can’t think of any way to support myself.”
“Then spend a few more years doing something you enjoy.”
The boy spoke seriously.
“You still look young, so I’m sure you’ve got more time than I do.”
“You don’t look like someone who’d need to leave home, so why are you comparing yourself to me?”
“Well, you’ve got a point.”
The boy chuckled inside his lion mask. And soon after, the first dance song ended.
They both noticed the background music had stopped at the same time.
The boy asked awkwardly, “Uh, um. So… Are you leaving now? Are you going to dance?”
Judith cheerfully replied as she stood up, “I am. I’m going to dance. But I left my dance card… so I’m going to grab that first.”
“Got it. Is your dance card full?”
“No. It’s not. Uh, but… my friends might be looking for me, so… would it be okay if I left first? I don’t want to get teased for coming out together…”
The boy casually waved his hand. “Oh, sure. Let’s talk again later. The banquet’s still got a long way to go.”
“Okay, I’ll be off then.”
Judith gave a polite bow and quickly left the fountain garden. She felt the boy’s gaze on her back but didn’t look back.
In truth, everything she had told the boy was a lie. There was no way Anais or Garnet, who were likely enjoying the banquet to the fullest, would be looking for her. Nor did she have any intention of dancing. She simply planned to take off her mask, wander the streets for a while as she had resolved earlier, and return home eventually.
Still, she wasn’t oblivious. She could tell the boy had enjoyed their conversation and was thinking of asking her to dance later. But a warning rang in her head.
That fine young man was simply intrigued by a ‘young lady who seemed to have a different kind of deficiency,’ and that was why he had shown interest. And whether or not she had taken a liking to him, it was a universal feeling anyone would have toward someone like him. In such a relationship, the one to get hurt would inevitably be someone like her, the weaker party.
So she chose to disappear. It had been a rather pleasant time, and she wanted to keep that memory intact. After all, the conversation between two people from such different worlds, who could never truly understand each other, held little meaning anyway.
That was what she had thought at the time.
But two years later, the Ailan barony collapsed completely. She found herself alone sooner than expected.
At that time, like a lie, the words of the boy in the lion mask came back to her—‘Then just become an adult a little earlier.’ And the advice, ‘You must be good at something, so use that to make a living.’
It was at that moment that she gained an uncanny knowledge of the future and was able to plan her life. Even so, it was thanks to that boy’s advice that she endured the three years until adulthood.
She became an adult who earned a living faster than others by working as a visiting tutor—something she was good at: studying.
After that, the boy whose face and age she still didn’t know was entirely forgotten as her life moved dynamically forward.
***
“You ran away back then, didn’t you? I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
Ekian said playfully.
“I really wanted to keep talking, so I looked for quite a while. Was the part about going to get your dance card also a lie?”
“Yes. I said that so you’d let me go easily. Even if it was a masquerade, an owl mask would be easy to find.”
“Well, not just the owl mask… I was confident I could recognize you by your presence. I even thought of looking for you at the next banquet. I figured I’d know you even without the mask. But then, a few days later, I found out I wasn’t my parents’ biological child…”
In the end, there was no ‘next banquet’ for Ekian either. And so, the chance for him to recognize Judith again disappeared forever.
“But I still remember the conversation I had with that owl mask. About becoming an adult a little earlier.”
The superficial conversation that seemed meaningless to anyone else had, for both of them, become a ray of light in their darkest moments.
“Since I had to hide my identity, I couldn’t join a knight order… But that owl mask person said it, right? That physically capable people are welcome anywhere. So I joined an information guild run by commoners, and before long, I just started my own.”
“Wow.”
“Of course, I got so busy with launching the guild that I completely forgot about the owl mask.”
Surprisingly, Ekian had gone through the exact same process as Judith.
In truth, during that short conversation, they had both felt a mutual attraction. But Judith had avoided him out of fear of that feeling, and Ekian, full of confidence, had let her go.
“Well, shall we conclude this long story?” Ekian suggested with a gentle smile.
Judith smiled back and nodded. “Yes, let’s.”
Then the two of them spoke at the same time.
“We were destined.”
“The second child will be a girl.”
A moment of silence followed. The one who broke it with an annoyed look was Ekian.
“Judith, is that really the conclusion to our beautiful story? That our second child will be a girl?”
“Well, the fortune-teller was right about everything! Isn’t that the conclusion?”
“Ha…”
Ekian sighed once and pulled Judith into a tight hug.
“Well, I guess there’s no helping it, since we bickered like this and still fell for each other. I’ve liked you since I was seventeen—what more is there to say?”
Their laughter mingled again. An unknown bond from the past—that was the first gift given to them by the newborn child.
Side Story <End>
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Dianatouille
Thanks a lot for the translation and the hard work. It was a really good story. I admired how levelheaded Judith was, I truly liked her. Ekian was also a good ML, and surprisingly funny due to his reactions before Judith’s teasing or comments lol. In overall, I really enjoyed the story and it was interesting that we didn’t know anything else about the original female lead beside that small information in earlier chapters. The side story was also unique and, despite obviously wanting more with, for example, the first child’s name and grow, Hud’s future or the second child; it was in general a good end.