The Damn Family Is Back Again chapter 135

135. Spring Outing (5)

It had already been 30 minutes since Isabella mentioned taking a break.

By now, they should have started drawing the family portrait again.

But no matter how long they waited, one child did not appear.

Arina, Claire, Flora.

All of them had arrived early to draw the portrait.

Perhaps Flora was hurt by something and didn’t want to show up, so Isabella had given her an allowance to lift her mood, but that child didn’t appear.

With an anxious heart, Isabella asked her daughters.

“Has anyone seen Carsein?”

All three sisters shook their heads.

Even if they knew, they wouldn’t have told her readily, but this time, they truly didn’t know where Carsein had gone.

“What if…?”

Fear crept in.

It seemed like her son, whom she had finally found, might disappear again.

She was about to order people to search for her son, but…

“Milady, look!”

Heron pointed to a spot with his finger.

There, Carsein was walking towards them, his body battered and bruised.

“What in the world…!”

Isabella rushed over to Carsein and examined his body.

“What kind of people would do this! Who did this to you!”

It was an unanswerable question.

Carsein, who couldn’t even recognize the family crest, couldn’t distinguish between people’s faces.

“Milady, I apologize, but I think treatment for the young master should come first. May I take him to the carriage for treatment?”

“That’s how it is. We can use as much medicine as we want, but we need to make sure it doesn’t Leave a scar.”

Treatment comes first, according to Shayden.

He nodded in agreement, prioritizing the wound and waiting for it to heal before returning.

The medicine will take effect soon, and even though we got hit, we can still draw a portrait without any issue.

However, the problem is the clothes.

“What? You’re saying we don’t have a spare set of clothes for Karsein?”

“…Yes.”

The three sisters’ clothes were intact, but Karsein’s clothes were nowhere to be found.

It’s an absurd situation, and we need to change into new clothes right away, but…

Time is running out.

We don’t have time to buy new clothes, and the day is getting late.

If we don’t have a change of clothes, we can’t draw the portrait.

The painter also showed discomfort about this part.

“…This is all we have, a single family portrait with all five of us.”

Isabella gazed at the single family portrait with a sorrowful expression.

We had come to the main hall to replace the portrait, but we couldn’t hang this kind of picture in the main hall of the ducal mansion.

“Mother, we can’t help it. Let’s just draw the rest ourselves.”

“What?”

“We need to fill up the remaining frames. Karsein may be impossible, but we can at least draw individual portraits, can’t we?”

“Sister is right. It’s better if we draw portraits of the four of us right away.”

“I do too! I think so too!”

“…”

As the daughters said, we couldn’t hang this kind of picture.

We had to hang up other portraits, and to change the atmosphere of the ducal mansion, we had to draw the remaining pictures no matter what.

Even so, Isabella’s gaze lingered on Karsein.

“It’s okay. We’ve made one, so it’s okay… And we’ll have another chance, right?”

“…Will it really be okay?”

“Yes!”

Karsein answered indifferently, even though Isabella was trying to console herself by saying she would draw a portrait.

“You’re okay too, Mother. You said so yourself.”

“We have to draw the rest. Mom, if not, the frames will be empty, right?”

“I hate empty frames!”

“…”

As the daughters’ persuasion continued, Isabella couldn’t refuse and agreed.

The brushstrokes became more vibrant.

Unlike before, the portraits were drawn with more vivid expressions.

Before long, the sun began to set.

Drawing the portraits was as far as we got.

“Ah, right… This…”

The carriage had just arrived at the ducal mansion.

Carsein suddenly remembered something he had forgotten.

As he watched the three sisters laughing and walking away without looking back, he quickly ran after one of them, calling out a name.

The target was Claire.

“Just a minute, Claire noona!”

“What’s up?”

“I have something to say.”

“Do you want to talk to me alone?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Claire immediately frowned, but gestured for Arina and Flora to go ahead first.

Once they were alone, Carsein took out the item he had been tightly grasping.

It was a cherry blossom hairpin that matched Claire’s pink hair perfectly.

“I couldn’t get it for Arina noona last time… This one’s for Claire noona.”

He thought she would definitely like it.

It was a gift he had carefully preserved.

However, Claire suddenly let out a loud shout.

“What the hell, you stupid kid! You’re going to get hurt like this and come back?”

“…Huh?”

“Damn it. If you’re going to get hurt like this, you’d better just stay outside! You stupid kid!”

Carsein watched Claire, who was angry rather than pleased, with a disappointed expression. Was it not to her taste?

But he couldn’t help it, and the next day, he was summoned by his mother and scolded.

Since it was in front of the whole family, he couldn’t say anything, even if he knew something. He would probably get scolded even more for losing his noble dignity.

All he could do was apologize and move on.

Claire just let out a deep sigh at that time.

From that day on…

Before long, a new family portrait was hung in the main hall of the ducal mansion.

The existing family portraits in the various frames were replaced with new ones, and it seemed that the family portrait would be maintained in this state for a while.

However, Carsein’s portrait was nowhere to be found.

There was definitely a family portrait.

Even if it wasn’t well-made, he should at least have one or two, right?

As he had such doubts…

Carsein received only one frame from Emma.

“What… is this?”

There was a crack in it.

It was a frame with a broken portrait inside, not a glass frame on the outside.

He looked up, puzzled, and Emma replied with a smirk.

“It seems that this is the only one with you in it, Carsein-nim. Well, you should be grateful for that.”

-Clunk!

After Emma left, Carsein stared blankly at the frame, his lips pressed tightly together.

This couldn’t be considered a family portrait no matter how you looked at it.

A line was drawn.

Exactly like it was meant to divide people.

That boundary was entirely between Carsein and the four family members.

It felt like I was the only one left out.

With a sense of resentment, Carsein rushed out into the corridor.

How could I be the only one left out like this?

Although I knew I had to get used to it, I couldn’t help but shout, “Isn’t this too much?”

However.

Nothing changed.

The family portrait remained the same, and there was no addition of a new person.

Carsein ultimately shoved the frame into a gap in the corridor and never retrieved it again.

***

▶The Broken Frame Memorial has ended.◀

▶The 10-second timer will expire, and time will flow again.◀

In the frozen time, my hand was reaching out to the frame.

The state of the frame stuck in the gap was no different.

The portrait, which had cut out one person among the five, remained intact, as if Carsein had severed it.

In the spring outing, in the family photo, in the broken frame.

“Ah, damn it. There’s nothing to erase.”

How did this filthy memory keep resurfacing every time I tried to forget?

It was a day when the cherry blossoms were blooming beautifully, and the weather was extremely fine.

The sky was a perfect blue, with not a single cloud in sight, and the breeze was gentle, making it an ideal day for an outing.

At that time, that woman had also suggested taking a family photo, saying it would be nice to have a picnic together.

From noble mtl dot com

And, in my foolish youth, I had harbored a small, unrealistic hope, thinking that if I took a new family photo, I could become part of their family.

But.

It turned out that all three of them didn’t even treat me as family.

It was the same as when the housekeeper delivered a frame with a photo of only me, torn and crumpled.

In short, the actions I saw in the Memorial were no different.

“Heh, heh, I guess it’s fortunate that I didn’t even give a hairpin as a gift to the second one?”

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not.

Why did I have to go through this crappy experience twice?

But what this Memorial told me wasn’t complicated at all.

Carsein was ultimately not recognized as a family member in this house.

And the past events were about to unfold again today.

It was a matter of remembering only two things.

As I felt the cold blood coursing through my body, I muttered to myself.

▶The given time has expired.◀

As the timer in front of me disappeared, and time started flowing again, I pulled out the frame from the gap, holding it in my hand.

“Isn’t it quite well-preserved?

“Master…! That, that’s the wrong frame. I’ll take care of it. Will you hand it over?”

Heron jumped up and tried to handle the frame.

“No. What’s wrong with it? This is normal.”

“…!”

“Ah, I see. Is this really wrong?”

I separated the frame and pulled out one of the two portraits inside.

Of course, it was the smaller one.

It was the part with Carsein’s smiling face drawn on it.

“This is it. This is the correct family portrait, isn’t it?”

-Kukuk.

As I crumpled the paper in my hand and dropped it to the floor, Heron’s expression crumpled as well. He looked like he didn’t know what to do, stuck in place.

I naturally handed the frame to Heron.

“You take care of it. I’ll just leave.”

“Master…”

I left Heron behind, his eyes closed in disappointment.

-Tingling!

Did my recent actions lower our intimacy level?

Whatever, I don’t care.

Anyway, Heron’s intimacy level isn’t applicable within this episode, so it doesn’t matter.

I’ll just give those damn family members what they want.

***

It’s been 30 minutes since Carsein disappeared in the corridor.

Heron closed his eyes and sighed.

He picked up the crumpled portrait piece, which had been trampled on, and blamed his own powerlessness, letting out a deep sigh.

Just then, Shayden passed by right in front of him.

“What’s wrong, friend? Why are you sighing like that?”

“…”

He had no choice but to sigh.

Heron carefully unfolded the portrait piece and showed it to Shayden.

“This, this is…!”

He didn’t say a word, but Shayden quickly realized what it was.

“What the…! Who did this…!”

“It’s what Master found. There was a frame stuck in this gap.”

“In this gap? Oh no.”

It was unfortunate that he hadn’t discovered this.

Shayden rubbed his face with his palm, muttering to himself.

The events of that day were etched vividly in the memories of the two people.

No, they couldn’t forget.

It was because Heron and Shayden were the ones who had tried to turn the ladies’ hearts around.

The mistress’s intention to redraw the family portrait was good, but the sisters’ reaction to not recognizing Carsein as family was too harsh.

In between, I tried to ease the atmosphere and not hurt each other, but it was all in vain.

The result was this broken portrait.

“Do you have anything to stick it back together?”

“I have some adhesive here.”

“That should be enough.”

Herond said nothing, carefully picking up the broken portrait pieces and attaching them to the frame so that the cracks wouldn’t show.

The frame was already broken, but I hoped it wouldn’t get worse.

“Is it a family portrait again for this spring outing… Do we have to follow this?”

“…I’m thinking the same.”

There was no order for me, the butler, to follow.

Moreover, the carriage had left the duke’s estate for over 25 minutes.

“Give me that.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“As the family doctor, I can make an excuse that I’m worried and followed them.”

“Then let’s go together.”

“…! Herond, don’t you know that might provoke them even more?”

“I know. But I can’t just stand by and let them hurt the young master.”

In the past, I just watched helplessly, but this time, I’ll take the risk and definitely convey my message.

▶Herond’s intimacy with Shayden has changed!◀

[??? : 70% ]