Being Loved for the First Time – Chapter 6

Author: B0ucha

Perhaps I should have thought a little harder before doing it.

I watched people moving back and forth in front of my cradle and pondered seriously.

‘Have I gotten too relaxed?’

Perhaps the absence of people pointing knives at me had made me complacent.

After all, I’d ended up smiling, no matter how adorable my sister was.

Don’t get attached. That was the first principle I’d learned through my many lives.

Partly because I never survived past twenty, but also because I knew that one-sided affection brought nothing but suffering.

Back when my lives were still in the single digits, I’d held on to hope and tried.

‘All I learned was that no matter how hard I tried, people who already regarded me as a monster would never look back at me.’

No, if anything, that affection had only been used as leverage to put me in even crueler situations.

That was why I had seriously resolved neither to give affection nor receive it.

But….

‘I’ve never met people so eager to shower me with love before….’

Even though I’d been on guard since birth, there was no way I could fail to see it.

Apparently, word had spread quickly that my sister had seen me smile during her game of peekaboo.

“Young lady, look here! Peekaboo!”

“I can make an even stranger face! Look at me!”

The maids made astonishingly bizarre faces, as though issuing one another challenges.

And it wasn’t just the maids.

The family physician, who came to examine me regularly, said,

“Ahem, ahem. When my daughter was little, she would stop crying and burst into laughter whenever I made this face.”

His face full of expectation, he made the funniest expression he could manage.

Naturally, my father joined in as well.

“Our widdle one, look at Daddy~!”

Utterly wasting his dignified, handsome face.

Of course, they all failed to make me laugh.

‘…It’s not as if I’m trying to torment them.’

Admittedly, I did sometimes have to suppress a smile.

Because it was better if we grew even a little less attached.

I had always been someone who showed little emotion.

Even in my first life, I’d been that way, and living so many times had only made me more numb.

If I let every little thing make me happy or sad, I feared I might give up on myself before the reincarnations ever ended.

I hadn’t chosen to live this long, but I didn’t want to abandon myself in despair, either.

Sometimes I wondered whether that was why someone kept tormenting me so persistently.

Anyway, to someone like me, everyone here was singularly unusual and fascinating.

‘Normally, people get angry when they try and don’t get the result they want.’

They raise their expectations all on their own, then grow angry all on their own.

I’d met an enormous number of people like that.

But the people here….

“I must be lacking compared to Lady Laurencia after all! I’ll practice more and come back!”

“Ahem, ahem. I suppose I’ll have to put my head together with my daughter again.”

“I’ll have to ask Laurencia to teach me one more time.”

Rather than being disappointed that I hadn’t smiled, they went off and devised even funnier expressions.

As a result, holding back my laughter was getting harder and harder.

‘Is it even possible not to grow fond of these people?’

Although I tried to suppress my smile, a faint hope unlike anything I’d usually entertain arose: perhaps I needed another plan.

I wriggled my hands and feet with all my might.

***

I heard a quiet voice.

It had a manner of speaking similar to Mother’s, but sounded younger and softer.

When I slowly opened my eyes as though enchanted, I realized who it belonged to.

“Are you awake, Anastasia?”

It was Damian, my older brother, who was five years older than me.

His neatly combed rose-gold hair and olive-green eyes, slightly darker than those of my sister or father, suited his characteristically calm demeanor.

“You don’t even cry when you wake up. How can our Anastasia be such a good girl?”

With a composed smile quite unlike that of an ordinary six-year-old, my brother reached out a small hand toward my forehead.

“I was so worried. Mother said you had a fever yesterday.”

It had been a brief, mild fever, the kind common among babies.

Of course, that slight fever had thrown the entire household into an uproar all through the night.

The family physician rushed over to administer fever medicine, and Mother didn’t leave my side all night.

“Our baby, how awful it must be for you. Mommy wishes she could be sick instead….”

Those tender words were something I’d never heard in my entire life.

‘The people here are seriously overprotective….’

Overprotection, in my life.

Even thinking about it, the word seemed completely out of place.

‘It’s not as if something like that could ever kill me….’

I felt a little awkward about that word, so unlike anything in my life, yet I also liked it.

Even more so because I thought it was an experience I’d probably never have again.

It was already the fourth month since I’d been born into this household.

By now, I’d decided to simply accept the good things I had here.

I wasn’t persistent enough to go on doubting and guarding against everything forever, either.

‘I’ll just treat it as a celebration of my hundredth life.’

Perhaps I’d been given one chance to rest before being hurled madly into another ninety-nine lives of filth.

No, I still had no idea what would happen later in this very life.

Everything happening now might be a prelude to some enormous misfortune.

‘So I should enjoy the good while it’s here.’

Rather than regretting it later.

That, too, was a rule I’d carved into my bones over many lives.

Since misfortune always followed me, I mustn’t grow too complacent—but while things were good, I might as well enjoy them.

There had always been so few moments that could be called good fortune.

Although being given a hero’s name, or being born into a ducal house….

Those were fairly ominous signs already.

‘And Father being too nice… seems to apply only to his family.’

Seeing how he treated the physician, I figured there was no need to worry too much about that.

Family….

It still didn’t quite feel real that I was included within that circle.

“Our Anastasia, what are you thinking about?”

As I wriggled about, deep in thought over my life plan, my brother asked with a small laugh.

“You look so serious.”

He lightly tapped my soft cheek with a knuckle.

“I brought you a present. Would that make you feel better?”

A present?

I blinked and stared at him.

Apparently taking that as a sign of anticipation, he smiled and held out the gift.

“It’s my stuffed tiger.”

Uh—what?!

I was utterly flustered as I watched my brother shyly shake the toy.

‘That’s his favorite comfort toy….’

Of course, unlike my sister, he didn’t carry it around all the time.

My brother was remarkably mature for his age and was already receiving various lessons as the ducal family’s heir.

He was so grown-up that when my sister scribbled in one of his books, rather than getting angry, he asked her why.

“Why did you want to draw in the book I was reading?”

“I thought reading books looked hawd for you…. Then you could west too, couldn’t you?”

“So our Laurencia wanted me to have a rest? But it’s all right. I like books. So if you want to play with me, could you ask me to play instead of bothering my books?”

Since it happened right beside my cradle, I’d heard everything perfectly, and could only doubt my ears.

What six-year-old in the world could admonish someone with that much generosity?

No, it would be difficult even for a sixteen-year-old.

And that stuffed tiger was the one thing to which such an unusually mature brother was attached in a truly childish way.

‘My sister had to take back her deer because she couldn’t sleep without it….’

For reference, my parents had prepared a comfort toy for me as well.

I simply wasn’t interested in it.

‘Why on earth does he want to give it to me?’

Should I cry? If I cried, my brother would surely ask whether the tiger frightened me and take it back.

‘But… unlike with my sister, I think he’d genuinely be hurt….’

Back then, my sister’s innocence had worked out well.

But my brother was so considerate that he would surely prioritize comforting me if I whimpered.

And far from growing distant, he’d undoubtedly just accept it.

Because I was little. Because I was his sister.

‘If it won’t even accomplish my goal, hurting a little kid’s feelings would make me a truly awful person.’

But I couldn’t just accept it without a thought, either.

While I wavered, my brother noticed my serious expression and spoke with a clear laugh.

“Laurencia told me something. She said when you smiled, she was making a funny face, but she’d also been talking about my stuffed tiger.”

What, don’t tell me….

“I tried to make a funny face too, but I couldn’t do it very well….”

The reason he was offering his precious toy was—

“So if I give you this, couldn’t you show your big brother a smile?”

He carefully placed the stuffed tiger beside my pillow.

‘What on earth is wrong with these siblings….’

They had to have made up their minds to shake my soul.

How was I supposed to refuse something like this…?

When someone wanted to see me smile so badly that he was willing to give me his most precious comfort toy, was my refusal to smile really more important?

‘Of course not….’

I smiled bitterly to myself.

Perhaps someday I would regret these choices.

But….

‘I’m protecting a little child’s world.’

Knowing perfectly well that this was a flimsy excuse, I waved the white flag.

“Kyaa.”

I even let out a strange babyish squeal before I realized it.

Yet I was left with neither embarrassment nor regret.

“Wow, you really smiled. Our Anastasia…!”

Because my older brother, who always smiled with such restraint, looked as innocent as a little child for once.

And I made up my mind about one thing.