FBS - EPILOGUE 2

The neatly styled golden-sand-colored hair sparkled as it caught the sunlight.

Hair with light pigmentation should typically give a soft impression, yet the aura emanating from the man standing stiffly before the frame was anything but ordinary. This was due to his tall stature, close to 180 centimeters, and the sharply defined features that sculpted his face with a somewhat static quality.

Luichen Estellan.

Dressed impeccably, Luichen gazed straight ahead. A large frame, as tall as he was, held a luxurious painting—a portrait of Siliam Estellan, his mother.

Luichen's gaze settled on the golden hair in the portrait, a shade similar to his own.

'Mother.’

The being he mentally repeated felt quite foreign. His biological mother, who had passed away from puerperal fever shortly after giving birth to him, felt distant, like a stranger. Perhaps it was because he had never held her presence in his clear memories even once.

But more than that...

Luichen tilted his head slightly and looked at the window beside the frame. The brightly streaming sunlight was obscured by the slanted corner, casting a deep shadow. Perhaps that was why the window reflected his face like a mirror.

Luichen repeatedly alternated his gaze between the face reflected in the window and the portrait.

'We still don't look alike.’

The thought that always arose whenever he looked at this portrait, a thought that might even be considered impious, surfaced again today without fail. Everyone said in unison that he was Siliam Estellan's son.

But in his eyes, he didn't resemble his biological mother at all.

'Rather...’

Luichen subtly lowered his eyes and fell into thought.

Before he knew it, the afterimage of the portrait had vanished without a trace, and instead, Rosen Estellan came to mind. His sister, who meticulously took care of him to fill the void left by his mother, who had passed into the twilight early and become a star.

<What kind of family has a father and a sister sharing a bedroom?>

The reply of his close friend, who had worn an absurd expression at his question back when he was attending the academy, echoed in his ears like a reverberation.

He was a naturally playful fellow, but at that moment, his retort was close to genuine. What kind of situation was that, anyway? Luichen, with his characteristic quick wit, had easily sensed his friend's true feelings.

And not only him, but all his roommates who shared a room had agreed. In what household on earth would such a preposterous thing occur?

“......”

Luichen raised his hand and slightly loosened the cravat that tightly constricted his neck.

His pupils, which hovered in the air with a half-inclined gaze, were reflecting a day in the past that was still vividly clear, even though it should have become hazy by now.

Although he was very young, he still remembered it clearly. Every time he woke up in the middle of the night and went to look for his sister, he saw his father coming out of her bedroom. Whenever he would knock on the door, looking for his sister who would comfort him like a mother, it was always his father, not his sister, who would open the door and appear.

The scent of some unknown night-blooming flower wafted strongly from his father, whose dressing gown was loosely draped, revealing his sturdy chest. Whenever his father came out of his sister's bedroom, Rosen would be nowhere to be seen that night.

A vague unease that he couldn't quite put his finger on when he was young. It had lurked within him, then suddenly sprouted and grew, occasionally overwhelming his reason. And finally, he realized that his father and sister sharing a bedroom was such a fantastical thing that it would make his friends laugh incredulously.

Something unimaginable in any other household.

Luichen liked his sister. He didn't dislike his taciturn father, but he couldn't compare him to his affectionate sister. Rosen always thought of him and acted with him as her top priority, no matter when or where. She was always anxious to take care of him in every little thing, as if she were his biological mother who had given birth to him.

Even ordinary siblings maintained a proper distance while living, yet he and Rosen, who only shared blood from their mother's side, were extremely close. Too close.

Their not-so-ordinary sibling relationship, and the answer that his father and sister did not share a bedroom. When these two facts were perfectly understood and lodged in his mind, Luichen vaguely grasped what they implied.

That had been a year ago.

“Luichen?”

A soft, spring-breeze-like call came from beside him. When he turned his head, the person who had been occupying his thoughts appeared before him.

Rosen Estellan, who bore fleeting resemblances to the portrait.

His sister resembled his mother in the portrait. But he did not. He clearly had the face of his father, Barque Estellan, but the features of his mother, Siliam Estellan, were so faint that it was difficult to find any resemblance.

Instead of his mother's traces, something else had firmly taken root in his face.

His sister, Rosen Estellan.

'If I resemble anyone, it's her.’

It was now almost a certainty in his mind. However, not wanting to shatter the thin pane of glass-like peace that enveloped the Estellan County, he kept his mouth shut again today.

“Yes, Sister.”

He spoke the title they offered, hoping they would believe it, with a calm expression.

<Flowers Blooming in the Swamp - The End>