Chapter 16
I was staring blankly at the flowers that had fallen to the floor.
The young lady also looked down at the floor along with me, without moving an inch.
A silence passed for a while.
“……”
“……”
The young lady was the first to speak.
“Th-that’s why I told you to put them away. Why didn’t you listen and keep shoving those flowers in my face on your own…”
“……”
“I-I told you before… didn’t I? I told you not to bring them. That I didn’t need them. If I said I didn’t need them, why do you keep bringing them? Why do you keep pushing them on me and making yourself such a nuisance?!”
“……”
“…It’s your fault. You brought all of this upon yourself. So, therefore…!”
“Young lady.”
At my low tone, the young lady flinched. I raised my head and gave her a bitter smile.
“Please calm down. I’m really fine.”
“……”
“That’s right, it was my fault. You clearly told me to put them away, but I stubbornly shoved them at you anyway. I’m sorry. You were startled too, weren’t you?”
“……”
“Still, it’s a shame. I went through all that trouble preparing them, and now they’re dirty. I can’t even put them in the vase like this…”
After hesitating for a moment, I smiled brightly.
“Ah, it’s fine! I can just make another one and bring it next time. Ah, right, you said you didn’t like them. I’m sorry. I won’t bring them anymore.”
“……”
“Uh, um… Then should I take away the flowers that are already in the vase too? Oh, right, I should clean up the flowers I knocked over first. Your room has gotten dirty because of me… I’ll clean it up quickly and leave.”
I hurriedly knelt on the floor and gathered up the scattered trumpet flowers.
“Please wait just a moment. You’ll hate it if I stay here too long, after all…”
The young lady said nothing. She merely stood there, rooted to the spot.
After gathering all the trumpet flowers, I picked up the vase I had placed on the bedside table as well. The purple hosta flowers inside the vase were drooping their heads dejectedly.
I carried the vase straight toward the door. Then, just before stepping outside and closing it, I hesitated for a moment.
I murmured,
“Then, get some rest, young lady.”
Click.
I closed the door.
And I didn’t go to Sonangwon again that day.
***
Jeok Sun-chung, the steward of the Xiao Estate, stared ahead in bewilderment.
The young lady was sitting in front of him.
Jeok Sun-chung had come to see the young lady regarding the estate master’s affairs. The estate master was on his way back here, so he had come to deliver a brief message to the young lady.
“…They say the matters outside have more or less been settled, and he is on his way back. Since he sent a letter ahead of time, he should be almost here by now…”
“……”
“Young lady? Young lady?”
“Ah.”
Only then did the young lady come back to her senses. She hesitated for a moment before nodding as though nothing was wrong.
“Th…at’s right.”
Seeing her like that, Jeok Sun-chung frowned.
‘Something’s strange.’
It wasn’t anything new for the young lady to let his words go in one ear and out the other. Even when he coaxed her, telling her that she would get better if she took her medicine, she would always answer half-heartedly and promptly forget about what he said.
But now was slightly different from those times. She seemed strangely dejected, as if her soul had left her body…
‘Could it be?’
Without realizing it, Jeok Sun-chung asked,
“Did something happen between you and Seo Dan?”
“……!”
The young lady’s body jerked violently.
Jeok Sun-chung was certain.
‘As I thought.’
He had already heard what had happened at Sonangwon. They had heard the sounds of an argument coming from inside the room, and Seo Dan had apparently come out looking unusually dejected.
Of course, Jeok Sun-chung hadn’t paid much attention to the matter. He had merely assumed that Seo Dan had been acting up as usual and gotten scolded by the young lady.
But wasn’t it the young lady who was actually looking dejected? She was someone who rarely ever let herself become dispirited…
‘He couldn’t have caused some serious trouble, could he?’
Just as he felt a chill run down his spine,
“What do you mean? What happened?!”
The young lady suddenly burst out.
“Could anything special have happened? It was the same as always. That arrogant bastard acted however he pleased without knowing his place, and that’s how it happened…”
“That’s how it happened?”
“It-it was nothing. He just dropped some flowers… He was the one who was at fault first! I clearly told him to put them away, but he kept shoving them at me. He even admitted that he was at fault.”
“Hmm…”
“If he admitted it, then what’s the problem? Why are you acting like that? Why are you making that face? That insolent bastard didn’t even show up in the afternoon just because his feelings were hurt…!”
“He didn’t come to work in the afternoon?”
At the steward’s surprised tone, the young lady became even more agitated.
“Exactly! That guy’s completely rotten in the head. He was begging me to give him anything to do, but now that I’ve been letting him off easy, he’s trying to take advantage of it? Even a beast would know more about gratitude than he does!”
“Hmm, that is somewhat problematic. To skip work on his own accord…”
“Is that merely ‘somewhat problematic’? He should be grateful he hasn’t been beaten and kicked out on the spot. Seriously, when should I take a day and teach him a lesson…”
“I’ll teach him.”
“W-what?”
Jeok Sun-chung spoke coldly.
“From what I’ve heard, that Seo Dan fellow is quite insolent. He seemed diligent enough, so I trusted him with the work, but it hasn’t even been that long, and he’s already skipping work as he pleases. I knew there was something wrong with him from the moment he dared to talk back to you.”
“…That much is…”
“Young lady, there is no need for you to concern yourself with such a lowly fellow. Leave him to me, and I’ll whip him until he passes out and give him a thorough lesson in proper conduct…”
“N-no!”
The young lady hurriedly spoke.
“Don’t. There’s no need for that.”
“Pardon? But he has offended your sensibilities. We cannot simply leave him alone…”
“I said don’t!”
The young lady finally shouted.
“He didn’t do anything wrong, so don’t lay a hand on him!”
“……”
“……”
A brief silence followed.
Jeok Sun-chung stared at the young lady with his eyes wide open. The young lady, who had been huffing and puffing for quite some time, belatedly realized what she had just said and froze in place.
Jeok Sun-chung smiled gently as he watched the young lady fidget restlessly. He spoke as though he felt sorry for her.
“It would be nice if you could simply say those words exactly as they are…”
“……”
“Young lady.”
Jeok Sun-chung spoke quietly.
“Being honest doesn’t mean you lose.”
“……”
“Your pride may be hurt. At the moment, it may feel as though you’re the one giving in. But there are also many cases where people become irreversibly estranged because of their pride.”
“……”
“If you don’t want that to happen, it would be better to speak honestly. There are things that cannot be conveyed unless you put them into words.”
The young lady quietly listened to him. Jeok Sun-chung ended with a gentle smile.
“If you speak sincerely, they will surely understand. He is a good child, isn’t he?”
“……”
After a moment of silence, the young lady muttered,
“What do you mean, good…”
Her tone was curt, but Jeok Sun-chung knew.
The young lady was also agreeing with those words.
Not long afterward, Jeok Sun-chung left Sonangwon.
A round moon hung brilliantly in the sky. The young lady’s cycle of seizures was approaching. Normally, that would have filled him with worry, but for some reason, tonight his heart felt strangely light.
The young lady was changing. The young lady, who had seemed destined to fall into despair and reject people for the rest of her life, had now begun worrying about matters between people.
Who could have imagined she would change this much? Jeok Sun-chung murmured, deeply moved.
“You’ve grown so much…”
If only her illness would get better now.
Jeok Sun-chung gazed up at the sky for a long while.
***
I was snickering behind a tree as I looked toward Sonangwon.
The reason I was playing hooky here.
‘Heh heh, she’s definitely thinking about it, right?’
Was because I had lied to the young lady.
I’m sulking!
Actually, when the young lady knocked the flowers away, there was only one thought that came to mind as I looked at the flowers lying on the floor.
‘Tsk, I have to clean those up.’
Of course, if you asked whether I wasn’t even the slightest bit hurt by it, that wouldn’t be true. Going to the flower garden every morning to prepare the flowers was quite a hassle, after all.
But was this sort of thing anything new from the young lady?
There had been times when she had gone even more berserk than this, and I was someone who had survived all those countless uproars. Besides, this time, it was also my fault for stubbornly pushing flowers onto someone who had said she didn’t want them…
‘Let’s just apologize obediently.’
I was about to open my mouth with the thought that her anger would probably subside if I did that.
That was when…
“…It’s your fault. You brought all of this upon yourself!”
The young lady’s reaction was strange.
Normally, at this point, she would have sneered and ignored me, saying something like, ‘Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d taken them out while I was still asking nicely?’
But instead of ignoring me, she was fidgeting restlessly as though she were someone who had committed a grave offense. On top of that, even though she was huffing and puffing, she seemed strangely dejected, to the point that I could almost see an illusion of cat ears drooping sadly…
“Please calm down. I’m really fine.”
In the end, I blurted those words out.
In a voice that, to anyone listening, was absolutely anything but ‘fine.’
Comments (0)