I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 58

A sulky voice came from in front of me.

“Why on earth am I riding in this carriage?”

There was only one person who would speak to me in such a sullen voice.

Dazar Siaster.

I could see Dazar looking down at me, his eyebrows sharply furrowed.

“Why? What?”

“Look at this. Just look at how cramped it is.”

He stretched out his long index finger and pointed back and forth at the distance between us. He and I were facing each other inside a very small carriage.

The carriage hadn’t departed yet.

I glanced at the distance he was pointing at and gauged it.

It really was narrow enough that you couldn’t fit even a fist between us.

But I pretended not to notice and turned my head back toward the window.

“It’s not that cramped.”

“You call this not cramped?”

Dazar let out a hollow laugh and casually crossed his arms.

Once he crossed his arms, the carriage somehow felt even smaller.

“Just stay still. The carriage is going to shake.”

“Is that my fault? Isn’t it the fault of whoever suggested we take this tiny carriage?”

“Whoever? Who would that be?”

“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”

Dazar kept letting out incredulous little laughs.

Thanks to that, my hair fluttered with every breath that came out of his nose.

Ah. Seriously. Have some manners.

“It’s not too late even now. Just admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“What else? That your claim that we can get to the capital in this tiny carriage was wrong.”

“……We’re already riding in it just fine, aren’t we? We’ll get there just fine like this.”

Dazar narrowed his eyes with an expression that seemed to say, See?

Then he snorted and firmly shut his mouth.

“Fine. So that’s how you’re going to play it?”

As he said that, he loosened his legs, which had been awkwardly pressed tightly against the seat.

His knee bumped against mine.

Ugh.

When I openly made a disgusted face, Dazar instead looked even more relaxed.

“What? We’re riding just fine, aren’t we?”

Ughhh.

This guy. Seriously.

To understand why the two of us were having such a childish argument, we have to go back to when we left the Siaster estate.

‘What? You’re really planning to go together? To the Hall of Rest? And that little brat, too?’

‘Yes. Of course. I’m going, so shouldn’t we go together? I told Vanilla that we’re family. You kept your mouth shut as if you agreed, too.’

‘That’s because someone forced my mouth shut.’

‘Hmph.’

After having that conversation with Vanilla, there was no way I could not go.

Clearly, Dazar had also tacitly agreed to it.

But there was a problem.

In order to enter the Imperial Palace, we needed permission from the imperial family in advance.

And there were only two carriages that had received permission.

One of them was extremely small.

According to Dazar, that carriage had originally been intended for Vanilla to ride in alone.

Vanilla was supposed to ride alone?

At that news, I felt the Confucian girl mentality I had forgotten for a while awaken within me.

“Even so, how can Vanilla ride alone? You were seriously planning to put that little child in a carriage by herself?”

“……So?”

“How could you be so……”

What kind of awful man was he?

I had thought the relationship between the two of them had improved quite a bit after the whole dog incident.

Apparently, they still had a long way to go.

Perhaps because he saw my half-lidded glare, Dazar grumbled.

“Nobles are normally like that. They thoroughly separate children from adults from a young age. It’s meant to foster independence. Acting spoiled isn’t tolerated among nobles. Especially in the Siaster family.”

“…….”

Whether he continued talking or not, I turned my gaze toward the window.

Since we hadn’t departed yet, I could see Vanilla, Carl, and Axion waiting in front of the carriage.

Vanilla was holding onto her skirt and spinning around excitedly.

She seemed to be showing off the little dress she was wearing to Carl, who was holding Axion in his arms.

Her tiny lips moved adorably without a moment’s rest.

‘He was seriously planning to make that tiny, adorable child ride in a carriage all by herself?’

The Confucian girl inside me screamed that this absolutely could not happen.

So, before we got into the carriages, this was what I proposed.

Vanilla and Dazar would ride in the small carriage, while Carl, Axion, and I would ride in the larger one.

That seemed like the perfect arrangement.

But Dazar opposed it yet again.

He went on about the Siaster family’s independence and insisted that children and adults should ride separately.

Carl was apparently the exception.

Considering the culture of this world, his argument probably did represent the customs here to some extent.

But what could I do when I had absolutely no desire to respect it?

So I just blurted it out.

‘Then you and I can ride in that small carriage together. There are three people over there and two here. So the two of us can ride together.’

Yes.

I admit it.

It was a completely ridiculous battle of wills.

Damn it.

I thought if I pushed him that far, he would finally back down and say, ‘Oh, I see. I was wrong. I’ll ride nicely with Vanilla.’

But instead, his eyes had lit up as he said, “Fine! Let’s do it!”

He refused to back down.

And that was how I ended up riding in this tiny carriage alone with him.

‘Sigh.’

Clop, clop.

The two well-groomed horses moved forward in formation.

Apparently, the carriage had started moving in the meantime.

I poked my face through the small carriage window and looked around.

Trees that had turned brown rushed past us.

When a gust of wind blew, the leaves came fluttering down.

Winter was approaching.

I was sniffing the tip of my nose at the scent of winter, which I hadn’t smelled in a long time, when—

“Ah, my shoulders feel so stiff.”

Dazar stretched both hands upward as if he were stretching.

Thanks to that, I nearly got an uppercut by his large fist.

I instinctively ground my teeth.

“Hah. Hah. I see. Why do my shoulders hurt so much, too? Maybe it’s because someone stupidly brought along this tiny carriage.”

Now you try dealing with it.

I quickly raised both hands just like Dazar had.

My fist narrowly brushed beneath his chin before shooting high into the air.

“……You.”

“Ugh, my shoulder hurts. It really hurts.”

Just as Dazar glared at me while grinding his teeth—

Rattle!

The carriage shook violently, as though it had run over a rock.

“……!”

“Waaah—!”

If it had simply shaken and stopped there, my iron arms and iron legs would have been more than enough to keep my balance.

But—

Neighhh!

The horses, which had been running smoothly, suddenly stopped in surprise, causing the carriage to come to an abrupt halt.

Right.

So…….

“Uff!”

“Urgh.”

With my center of gravity suddenly thrown forward, my body helplessly flew toward Dazar.

And my body, which had shot forward like a rocket, landed directly on top of Dazar.

“…….”

“…….”

His golden eyes, which had suddenly become so close, trembled slightly.

Perhaps he had moved his hands instinctively, because the two hands that had been raised toward the sky just moments ago were now wrapped tightly around me as though they had never been there.

He was hugging me so tightly that I could barely breathe.

But I was so shocked that I almost forgot I was slowly running out of breath.

‘Oh my goodness.’

The position itself was one thing.

The problem was my hands, which I had raised high into the air.

As my weight lurched forward, my hands instinctively came down, searching for something to brace myself against.

‘Oh, dear God.’

And somehow, that support turned out to be Dazar’s head.

Because I had grabbed his head tightly, my…… my upper body was practically touching his face.

Almost.

You know, that particular place that is very precious to a woman.

‘It touched just now, didn’t it? Right?’

Heavenly Father.

Please punish these hands of mine.

No, punish my entire body for flying forward like that.

No, more than that, punish me for forcing the situation and getting into this carriage alone with him……

Sob.

“A-are you okay?”

Dazar hurriedly released the hands that had been holding me and asked.

He raised both hands lightly, as if surrendering, and began rambling.

“I didn’t do anything. I swear. The only thing I did wrong was stay still. No, can you even call that a crime? No, that’s not it……”

“…….”

Damn it.

He was right.

Dazar was not at fault for what had just happened.

Blaming him for this would have been completely unreasonable.

I slowly released the hand that had been holding him and sat demurely back in my seat as though nothing had happened.

Then I gazed wistfully out the window and muttered,

“Who said anything?”

An awkward silence followed.

After that, we firmly shut our mouths and tried our best not to look at each other as we headed toward the capital.

Seeing that Dazar’s cheek was slightly red when I happened to glance at him, I thought—

‘What was that? Wasn’t that the kind of incident that only happens to the heroine of a romance-fantasy novel……?’

I was supposed to have entered a miserable, chaotic novel disguised as a farming story and be playing a survival game.

And yet……

As I rested one hand against my forehead and gazed out the window, the carriage continued onward and finally arrived at the Imperial Palace.

“Welcome. Please get down this way.”

The Imperial Palace attendants, dressed in splendid formal uniforms, quickly guided us.

Until they led each of us to different places, we awkwardly stared off into the distance.

And how much time had passed?

It seemed quite some time had gone by while I was recovering from the shock of earlier.

Before I knew it, I was standing just moments away from entering.

“The young lady Cilia of the Evanroar Viscount family has arrived!”