Episode 15
“Haah, to think everything failed…”
I sat in front of the servants’ quarters and let out a sigh.
To get straight to the point, my secret weapon, the ‘heart-fluttering semi-formal speech skill,’ had failed.
I had thought that if it failed, it would be because she found it cringey and disliked it, but the young lady’s reaction actually came from somewhere else.
“How dare you speak informally to me?”
‘Ah, that’s what bothered her?’
I thought maybe it would be okay if I mixed in a little more formal speech, so I tried saying, ‘Have you eaten your dinner?’ and then ran away. The young lady had overturned the table again.
In any case, I was back to square one.
No matter what I tried, the young lady hated it with a vengeance, and I kept repeating the cycle of acting cheeky beside her before running away. At this rate, wouldn’t three months pass in the blink of an eye…?
As I continued sighing deeply…
“You ran away again?”
I raised my head. A familiar figure came into view. A cute-looking young maid with her hair tied up like a dumpling.
“Aso!”
Recently, Aso and I had become considerably closer. Before, although we were friendly, there had been a strange awkwardness between us. But while I was staying at the remedy hall, she had spent all day by my side taking care of me, so naturally we became closer.
Aso was only a little curt, but we surprisingly got along quite well. Whenever the two of us sat down and chatted, we could lose track of time. Thanks to that, I’d told her all sorts of things. For example, even the fact that I’d falsely confessed to the young lady…
“Y-you, you’re seriously crazy?!”
Of course, Aso was horrified.
She had thought that the young lady had simply gotten angry on her own and caused me to faint, but she clearly hadn’t imagined that this was the reason.
“What are you going to do? You know you’ll be in big trouble if she finds out, right? No matter that it was a lie, that’s making a fool of the young lady!”
“Can’t I just do it well enough that she doesn’t find out? If I sincerely treat the young lady…”
“Do you think that’s possible? Unless you actually fall for the young lady. Ugh, even I’d be angry. If a guy who kept hitting on me turned out to have been joking about it, I’d just–”
I gave a bitter smile and quietly turned my head away. Aso looked at me disapprovingly, then let out a deep sigh.
“Well, since things have already come this far, give it your best shot. Though I don’t know if the young lady will fall for it.”
“Looks like your love campaign isn’t going very well?”
At Aso’s sarcastic remark, I drooped my eyebrows.
“It’s not easy.”
“I told you from the start, didn’t I? The young lady’s standards are so high. Do you really think you’d catch her eye?”
“Exactly. Her standards really are high. No matter what I do, she keeps saying she hates it, she hates it. I want to see her looking happy for once, too…”
“Hmm…”
For a moment, Aso looked at me with narrowed eyes, but then shook her head. She plopped down beside me and said casually,
“Then you should do something she likes, even now. What does the young lady like?”
“I don’t know…”
“What has she been interested in lately?”
“I don’t know that either…”
“What the hell do you know?”
Nothing.
I awkwardly scratched my head.
Come to think of it, she was right.
I knew nothing about the young lady.
It was surprisingly shocking. I’d thought we’d spent quite a lot of time together, but I didn’t know a single thing about her? I knew that she hated me, but other than that…
“Phew, can’t be helped.”
Aso sighed and said,
“Honestly, I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it’d be better if you gave up. But seeing what you’re doing, I don’t think you’re ever going to give up, so I’ll tell you just this one thing.”
“What is it?”
“You know there’s a flower garden next to Sonangwon, right?”
I nodded. I’d occasionally passed by it when I was working as a night-soil carrier. But I was pretty sure not just anyone could enter…
“I heard the master built that flower garden especially for the young lady, since she couldn’t go outside because she was sick. He wanted her to at least be able to experience the atmosphere of the outside world there.”
“Ah…”
“Actually, before the young lady shut herself inside her room, she used to spend a lot of time in that flower garden. She especially enjoyed sitting in the pavilion and looking at the flowers.”
“……”
“Do you understand now?”
I blinked blankly.
Aso gave a faint smile.
“What you need to do.”
It felt as though a halo was shining behind Aso.
***
The final method for winning over the young lady: Bring her flowers.
The young lady probably hadn’t seen flowers at all since she’d shut herself inside her room.
It wasn’t as though I could move the entire flower garden into Sonangwon, so I figured it would be better to bring flowers from the garden to the young lady instead.
However, I couldn’t enter the flower garden without permission. So I immediately went to ask the steward for permission.
“You want to enter the flower garden? Why?”
The steward looked puzzled. But when I told him that I wanted to show the young lady some flowers, he happily granted me permission.
“The young lady will like that.”
I received Aso’s help when selecting the flowers. Since I was actually going to bring her flowers, I knew absolutely nothing about flowers. So I asked an expert for help.
“Ugh, I have to help you with even this?”
Aso was surprisingly competent, too.
I’d already suspected as much when Madam Ma said she doted on her. Starting with the different types of flowers, she knew how to choose fresh flowers, how to thin them out, and even how to arrange bouquets. I was able to learn various kinds of knowledge and techniques about flowers from Aso.
And when I completed my first bouquet…
“Young laaady~!”
I practically burst into the young lady’s room.
“I’m here! Have you been well while I was gone? Didn’t you miss me?”
“Get out.”
“Come on, you’re happy to see me, so why are you acting like that again? Anyway, I brought a present for you, since you’re all alone here every day. Guess what it is? What do you think it could be?”
“Get out.”
“Ta-da! It’s a white gardenia!”
The young lady, who had been about to answer mechanically, suddenly stopped.
Oh, did it work?
“I heard you used to visit the flower garden often, young lady? But you can’t go there now because of your illness. I thought you might want to see some flowers.”
“……”
“The flowers are white and dainty, just like you, don’t you think? The moment I saw them, I thought of you, and before I knew it, my hands were reaching for them! What do you think? Aren’t they nice? If you went on a walk with me, you’d be able to see lots of flowers like this…”
“……”
“Ah, of course, if you really don’t want to go, you don’t have to! I can just bring flowers here to show you like this. Right?”
“I…”
The young lady hesitated for a moment. But eventually, she turned her head away and said coldly,
“I don’t need them.”
For a moment, I almost asked again.
‘Really?’
I’d already noticed that the young lady was paying attention to the flowers. Even now. As I turned around, saying that I’d put them in a vase for now, I noticed the myeokri shifting as though the young lady was looking at me again.
I was impressed all over again.
‘Does she like flowers that much?’
I could understand, since she hadn’t seen them in so long. Still, I hadn’t expected her to like them this much. Getting my first positive reaction from her gave me a strange feeling…
‘Then I should bring them every day!’
From then on, I arranged flowers every day and frequently went in and out of the young lady’s room.
“Young lady, today I brought gardenias. The white flowers are really pretty, but apparently they’re also used a lot as medicine. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Young lady, this time it’s crape myrtles! I wondered what a jami flower was, but apparently it’s the crape myrtle! There are tons of colorful crape myrtles planted in the flower garden. They’re so pretty…”
“Young lady, this flower is called mangwocho! Apparently its name means ‘a plant that makes you forget your worries.’ I hope that when you look at these flowers, you’ll be free of your worries too…”
“Young lady, I brought you purple hostas! The flowers are pretty, but their flower meaning is really wonderful, too. Do you know what it is? ‘A destiny bestowed by heaven.’ It almost sounds like it’s describing the relationship between you and me…”
Of course, the young lady’s reaction was enthusiastic.
“I don’t need them.”
“I said I don’t need them.”
“I told you not to bring them, didn’t I?”
“Stop–!”
Though she was prickly about it.
I still knew.
The young lady secretly didn’t dislike them.
She said she didn’t need them every time, but when it came down to it, she never stopped me from putting the flowers in a vase. Once, I even noticed that the position of the flowers had been changed slightly.
‘She must have touched the flowers.’
If that wasn’t a sign that she liked them, then what was?
That’s probably why I became even more enthusiastic about arranging and carrying flowers over. But it seemed my behavior had started to become a burden for the young lady.
“Young lady! What do you think today’s flower is~? It’s trumpet vine! Isn’t the scarlet-red color beautiful? I brought a whole bunch because I was thinking of you…”
This time, too, the young lady got angry.
“Why have you been doing this lately?”
“Huh?”
“Why do you keep doing things I never asked you to do? When did I tell you to bring them? Why do you keep acting on your own?!”
“Huh? But…”
I tilted my head while holding the trumpet vines.
“You like them, don’t you?”
The young lady shouted as though she’d been struck in a sore spot.
“I don’t!”
I grinned and nodded.
By now, my ears were already filtering her words as ‘I like them.’
Come to think of it, the steward had given me a hint that the young lady especially enjoyed looking at trumpet vines. Then wouldn’t she be even happier to see them?
Driven by my meddlesome nature, I suddenly held the bouquet of trumpet vines out toward the young lady.
“Come on, I understand. Then why don’t you take a closer look this time? Maybe because they’re in season, but the trumpet vines smell really nice. If you bury your nose in the flowers and smell them, they’re really fragrant…”
“Take them away.”
“Don’t be like that, just once. If you smell them just once, you’ll really feel good. Here…”
“I said take them away!”
Smack!
The young lady suddenly swung her hand. Her hand struck the bouquet of trumpet vines.
Startled, I lost the strength in my grip, and the trumpet vines slipped from my hand and flew into the air.
Then the clusters of trumpet flowers fell to the floor with a soft thud.
I lowered my gaze to the floor.
“……”
The trumpet vines were a complete mess.
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