105 – Heist – 3
The next day, the Grand Duchess suggested that we all have a cup of tea together. It was embarrassing for me to see her face, but she, unfortunately, left me with no choice. Before I could express my refusal, I was unilaterally notified that I had to attend. Everyone else except me readily accepted. In the case of Hestia and Cordelia, there was no reason to reject them, and Seol-ah, who was struggling with boredom, welcomed them with open arms.
So, on a sunny afternoon, luxurious tea and refreshments were prepared in a garden full of summer flowers of all kinds. According to the date, it was midsummer, but since the location of the Grand Duke’s family was the location, it wasn’t that hot. However, the dizzyingly thick smell of flowers tickled my nose.
“Did I really have to come?”
“Are you going to come and take it out now? I don’t know what the hell you don’t like, but just give up and sit down and have a cup of tea. It’s funny to do something without you as your guest.”
From nob le mt l dot com
My final defiance was easily suppressed. I sat down with the Grand Duchess holding her shoulders tightly. Hestia’s bitter laugh hurts.
I can’t avoid it anyway, so I decided to put my protruding mouth in and quietly drink tea as the Grand Duchess said.
Originally, I was completely unfamiliar with tea, and even when I went to cafes, I only ordered the cheapest iced americano. However, after coming to this world and drinking tea often, I came to understand a little why people like it. It’s still not the level of a local tea that I’ve smelled, but I can tell you how it tastes and how it smells.
Fortunately, there was no problem with the four conversations even if I didn’t have to participate. I don’t know if the three of them talking comfortably with other people’s mothers are great, or the grand duchess leaving her son in her seat and chatting excitedly with her son’s friends.
Just as I was about to close my ears and concentrate on the tea ceremony, I heard a story that I could never ignore.
“Should I tell you a story about Michael’s childhood?”
“Kuhup!”
I almost spilled all the tea I was drinking. After a few more giggles, I glared at the Grand Duchess with eyes full of protest. But she didn’t care at all about my backlash. Just a few days ago, I must have talked about the old days, and it seems that I wanted to tell them about my old days. It’s because her face is too young, but this person is also just a lady after all.
“Why are you talking about that all of a sudden?”
“There’s no particular reason. You don’t like it?”
“Yes, I hate it.”
The Grand Duchess had an expression that she couldn’t understand my rejection.
“Why do you hate it so much? It’s not like you did anything embarrassing when you were younger.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
As she said, she doesn’t have a dark history or a past she wants to hide. But honestly, isn’t it a bit embarrassing? What’s more, the bigger problem is that it’s painful for me to hear about Mikhail as a child. It is nothing more or less than a bad taste to gather the people around me and listen to the stories of other lives that I have stolen.
The other kids were quietly watching me. When I showed a strong dislike, he looked like he was wondering what to do with this. There’s even a setting called memory loss. Even so, he glanced at my face as if he was curious.
I can see the grand duchess’ face as if she doesn’t understand why I’m angry, the faces of Cordelia and Hestia who seem curious but curious, and Seol-ah’s face as if she isn’t too interested in the skit, drinking tea. I looked at it alternately. Suddenly, it felt very stupid to be upset about this.
“Ha, yes. It’s nothing to be angry about. Mother, do as you please.”
It felt futile to be angry about something like this, or to make Hestia and Cordelia notice me. Fortunately, there was no one next to me who couldn’t grasp the atmosphere and wondered if I was upset.
Yes, as Seol-ah said, it’s not something I can put my hands on, and it’s only right that I live my life diligently. You can’t be stuck there forever, can you?
As soon as permission was granted, the Grand Duchess excitedly started talking about my past.
“Even though he is like this now, when he was young he took good care of the people around him.”
“It’s still like that.”
Hestia seems to have said it relatively sincerely, but the Grand Duchess laughed lightly as if she thought it was just politeness.
And the old episodes of Mikhail, which began in earnest, continued without knowing the end. There were some stories I heard yesterday and some stories I had never heard of, but what is certain is that it was a time when the Grand Duchess’ love for Mikhail was felt desperately. There’s no way anyone can make the story of someone they don’t love so enjoyable.
And if I had to pick one unusual thing, it was that Seol-ah’s face got darker and darker. Where did she go from savoring her tea in a relaxed manner at first, then to the point of shaking her hands altogether.
“When I was young, I often hung out with Miss Hestia and played with it.”
“hahahaha….”
Hestia laughed awkwardly at the sudden mention of the Grand Duchess. I still pretended not to care, but I couldn’t ignore this story. Wasn’t Hestia and I cold from the first time we met? It’s the first time I’ve ever heard that we used to be good friends.
“I only met her once. She didn’t even remember the next time we met….”
“Is that so? For the first time we met, the two of them seemed so close….”
“Yes. She was like that when we first met.”
“My child’s personality suddenly changed at some point….”
The Grand Duchess hurriedly picked up her words. I guess I never thought I would have forgotten her. She glared at me for no reason at her sudden quarrel. Why do you mean you forgot it? Mother. Sorry, but I don’t know.
I think it would have been a big shock if she had completely forgotten about her first meeting, which was certainly enjoyable enough to say that, the next time we met. I don’t know Hestia now, but I still seemed to have mixed feelings about the past me, who completely forgot about our first meeting and turned away coldly.
“I thought we could become good friends when we first met. I never thought it would take more than 10 years.”
In Hestia’s way of speaking, there was something bitter about her. However, it was me who was most bitter and confused at this place.
The answer to the question of why she gave me one more chance, which is still unclear. What if the answer was the first meeting between Hestia and Mikhail, whom I don’t know? It feels like someone threw a boulder the size of a house into the lake of my mind that I was barely getting through. It won’t change much, but it feels terribly uncomfortable.
I shook my head. Have you really gone crazy, what kind of delusion are you doing by yourself? I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days, so I must have become unnecessarily sensitive.
However, to be honest, I couldn’t help but feel a ray of discomfort in my heart.
–
The tea party was not very long. In the first place, it was only natural that he had decided to drink tea for a while. I didn’t want to get caught up in the various thoughts that cluttered my head any longer, so I got out of the spot as quickly as possible. In the first place, since I showed off a lot of things I didn’t like, no one bothered to hold me or think I was strange.
I returned to my room and collapsed on the bed. I buried my face in the pillow. When I came home, I was thinking about taking a good rest without thinking about anything, but it feels like the troublesome things just keep increasing.
At that moment when I was trembling alone for a long time, I heard a knock.
-Smart
“May I come in?”
“Huh? Uh. Come in.”
It was Selene who entered the room. It was her routine to come clean my room at this time of day. She started wiping my desk with her usual expressionless face. She is a tough person at all times. It was literally stiff. In fact, on the first day back, I ran into them by chance and expressed my delight.
“It’s been a while.”
“Yes. It’s been a while, Bocchan.”
“Uh… Did I do something wrong?”
“No, why is that?”
“Your expression doesn’t look happy at all.”
“Because I’m at work.”
“?”
Selene kept her expressionless until the end of the conversation, and the corners of her mouth didn’t even move. Even though she was on duty, she was actually the only one who maintained that level of knife-like demeanor.
I watched her behind as she quietly cleaned up, then spat out.
“Celene.”
“Yes, boy.”
“If only, very if. Whether it’s family or a lover, it’s good. How would you feel if you found out that the person you liked turns out to be a completely different person from the person you originally knew?”
“A completely different person….”
“It doesn’t mean that the outside and the inside are different, it’s literally just a different person. So it’s a completely different personality.”
I don’t know why you asked this. Because it reminded me of the first day I fell in this world, calmly answering all my absurd questions and not spreading rumors to anyone? Or maybe it’s because I thought that doing my job silently and without any emotion would give me an objective answer.
But I immediately regretted asking this question. What the hell did he want to hear by asking this question to someone who had nothing to do with Dae-gwan Lee’s work?
“No, no. Just ignore it.”
“It’s amazing.”
She laid down her dishcloth and stared at my face. She revealed her own feelings, which was rare for her.
“What?”
“Once upon a time, when I was very young, the boy asked me the same question.”
I cringe at the word very young. If I’ve been a maid since I was very young, how old is she now….
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but of course I was young too.”
Her hard face hardened more than usual. I had to hastily hide what I thought she might be like my mother. Didn’t she say that she graduated from the academy just a few years ago? What a nonsensical idea…!
“When you were young, of course, I was also young, but you asked me once at the New Year’s party.”
Speaking of the New Year’s party, it must have been a gigantic ball held at the imperial palace at the end of the year. She was also the daughter of a viscount, so it was no surprise that she attended the New Year’s party.
“Sorry…. I don’t remember.”
“No, since you were very young and casually asked me, it’s no wonder that you don’t remember. Come to think of it, even then, right after you asked me a question, you just asked me to forget it.”
Even when I said I couldn’t remember, Selene didn’t pay much attention. She quietly started cleaning again.
At this point, too many things surrounding my past are questionable. After Selene walked out of her room after she had finished cleaning after a while, I turned the room inside out.
If what I’m thinking right now is true, maybe I can find it.