How Lilies turn Black Chapter 48 - The Blood Bath (5)  

Theodoro buried his face in his mother’s embrace and mumbled,  

 

— “Tomorrow… let’s eat together.”  

 

She silently smiled, stroking his back over and over.  

 

Theodoro’s mother, Serena Benedetti. 

 

Naturally frail, she fell ill frequently after giving birth twice. Theodoro, five years younger than Luciano, spent most of his childhood indoors with his mother. 

 

It was only natural that he grew more attached to her than anyone else.  

 

But by the time he turned eight, Serena’s condition worsened rapidly, leaving her unable to care for the household or her two sons…  

 

Eventually, she left the bustling city for a quiet countryside village to recuperate.  

 

It was 1941, in the midst of World War II. Theodoro had to stay safely under Vittorio’s protection and obediently attend school.  

 

But did Vittorio take devoted care of him?  

 

Not exactly.  

 

— “I want to call Mom.”  

 

— “Theo, later. I’m in the middle of an important discussion.”  

 

Without even a glance at the child who had peeked into the office, Vittorio continued his meeting. 

 

Beside him were stacks of documents and men in suits.  

 

— “Then, for deliveries below third-grade—”  

 

The office door closed weakly.  

 

Despite the bleak wartime circumstances, Vittorio was making a fortune in defense contracts. He was always busy, and Theodoro was always alone.  

 

Meanwhile, Luciano was living a completely different life during the same period.  

 

Unlike the passive and introverted Theodoro, Luciano had a fundamentally different temperament. 

 

While Theodoro remained at home, Luciano had already started school and expanded his social circle, growing into a little leader who commanded his peers.  

 

It was only natural that Theodoro ended up isolated, belonging nowhere.  

 

— “So you’re Theodoro?”

 

Her first encounter with him was in a back alley where Vittorio’s influence reached. 

 

It was when he was rummaging through boxes, saying he’d build a secret hideout in that corner.  

 

—“Who are you?”  

 

Beside the boy, who glared at her with thorny eyes, she crouched down deeply on her knees.  

 

—“I’m Mora.”  

 

She was a woman with hollow, sickly pale skin under her eyes. The heavy makeup caked over her rough skin was overly thick, and her flamboyant, multicolored outfit had no trace of elegance—just absurdly ridiculous. 

 

The only thing worth looking at was her scarlet hair, but even that was hopelessly dry and brittle. She stretched out an arm covered in needle marks, offering a handshake.  

 

—“Nice to meet you.”  

 

—“…G-get lost.”  

 

—“This kid’s got quite the mouth. Where’d you learn to talk like that?”  

 

—“How do you know me?”  

 

Unfazed, she withdrew her hand and chuckled.  

 

—“This world’s too small. Everyone knows everyone, one way or another. Don’t worry. I work around here.”  

 

—“Where?”  

 

—“There’s a place. Full of boring adults. Let’s not bother with that and just have some fun.”  

 

That was the first time someone other than his mother stepped into Thedoro’s daily life.  

 

Mora helped him build his secret hideout, bringing him all sorts of wonderful, fantastic materials.  

 

And so, the secret hideout was completed.  

 

An old tablecloth, a discarded sofa… and wooden boards salvaged from a thrown-away wardrobe. 

 

It was a shabby, pitiful hideout made of such things, but to Thedoro, it was an incredible and precious kingdom.  

 

Their relationship was the same. 

 

A friendship clumsily built up from the mud, yet so achingly tender.  

 

Mora would sometimes bring stale bread or a few pieces of fruit wrapped up to the hideout. 

 

There, she would hold ‘secret meetings’ with young Thedoro.  

 

Occasionally, she’d bring along gaunt-looking women who resembled her, introducing them as new ‘members.’  

 

—“Here, President Theo is an honored guest, so you should have this.”  

 

—“No. The colors are different.”  

 

—“Not at all. We lowly folks just eat something else, that’s all.”

 

Though they brought bottles of alcohol and enjoyed drinking next to Theodoro, who was only having orange juice…  

 

Even so, Theodoro remembers them as pure-hearted people.  

 

— “Cheers!”  

 

They raised their glasses to toast the little eight-year-old ‘President,’ making him feel special.  

 

Naturally, he began spending more and more time with them. 

 

Just as they had seeped into the secret hideout, it was only natural for Theodoro to become part of their world.  

 

After saying that much, Theodoro fell silent for a moment before speaking again.  

 

— “Back then, I learned about the world too quickly.”  

 

Listening to him, Liliana felt a chilling tightness in her chest. 

 

An inexplicable unease crept over her, but she couldn’t find the words to respond.  

 

Perhaps because he wasn’t expecting an answer, Theodoro sank back into his monologue.  

 

— “That was the day Mora was really sick.”  

 

Her body was covered in dark bruises. When he asked where she got hurt and said he’d tell their father to scold whoever did it, Mora just kept saying she was fine—even as she writhed in pain, her body burning like a furnace, moaning in agony.  

 

With the allowance Vittorio had given him and a few crumpled bills from his treasure box, he went to buy medicine.  

 

On his way back, he happened to find a stray kitten. 

 

Unable to ignore its pitiful mewling, he took it to the hideout. Then, he went back to see Mora.  

 

— “Mora, take your medicine.”  

 

— “Did our President buy this for me?”  

 

— “Hurry up and take it, then get up. I have a present for you.”  

 

— “What is it?”  

 

— “I’ll show you when we get there. Come on.”  

 

But even after taking the medicine, Mora couldn’t easily get out of bed. She stayed curled under the blanket, her breath labored.  

 

— “You took the medicine. What’s wrong?”  

 

He was starting to get annoyed. Back then, he was too young to think beyond the simple logic that medicine would make her better right away. He thought she was just being difficult and found it irritating.  

 

— “I brought a kitten to our hideout. Hurry up.”  

 

— “Can’t I… see it tomorrow?”  

 

— “No, you can’t…”

 

What if the mother cat came looking for her kittens? Or what if the kitten ran away?  

 

Just as I was pacing restlessly, the news came that Mora’s guest had arrived. 

 

Mora, who had been glued to her bed the whole time, got up with a grim expression. And then—was she really staggering off to work?  

 

By then, Theodoro couldn’t hold back his anger. Betrayal made his whole body tremble uncontrollably, his vision blurring with tears.  

 

‘Liar. You could go to work just fine.’

 

All that talk about being too sick and weak to see the kitten—it was nothing but excuses.  

 

Theodoro pushed away the women who had been taking care of him and stormed out of the room. He went looking for Mora.  

 

And then, through the crack in the door, he saw it—Mora, lying beneath a man like a corpse as he sated his animalistic desires.  

 

— “Ugh… Hah… Ack…!”  

 

— “Theo…!”  

 

The women who had chased after him pulled him up from where he had collapsed on the floor. 

 

They must have been just as shocked. Desperately, they tried to distract him, to pull his dazed attention away from the door.  

 

— “Let’s go see our cat!”  

 

— “What should we name it? What color is it?”  

 

— “No, let’s go buy some milk for the kitten first!”  

 

Theodoro, in a daze, let himself be led out of the building. But the image from before wouldn’t leave his mind…  

 

“It’s still vivid. No matter how hard I try to forget, it just won’t fade.”  

 

In the heavy silence, he spoke calmly. His gloomy story continued to spill into Liliana’s ears as she bit her lip.  

 

“Before that, I never paid much attention to screams or moans. I was curious, but I also felt like I shouldn’t be. Maybe I had already guessed, vaguely, what those sounds meant.”  

 

But seeing the truth with his own eyes was different. 

 

The Mora he knew and ‘that woman’ might as well have been two different people.  

 

For a while, he couldn’t even eat properly. 

 

A strange nausea rose in him, making him want to erase every moment he had spent with her.  

 

The sight of naked men and women entangled. The man’s movements, violently one-sided, rocking his hips. The sounds—whether they were of pain or pleasure, he couldn’t tell—were just as shocking.  

 

“I never went back there again.”  

 

He abandoned his favorite hideout. He stopped visiting Mora and her friends.  

 

And just like that, Theodoro’s little kingdom crumbled, his memories turning to dust.  

 

It wasn’t until much later that he finally understood her.  

 

Mora had done nothing wrong. After he left like that, she must have been consumed by unbearable guilt.  

 

It was something he only realized long after that little child had grown into an adult.  

 

When he finally tried to track her down again…  

 

“I heard she died of a drug overdose.”  

 

All that came back was the bitter news that she had died young, at just thirty-four.