Chapter 32
Elric began to groan as he looked over the documents.
Tiria watched him quietly.
From a quick glance, they were papers related to this year’s year-end settlement.
Since it was a settlement, the documents were likely summarized, but their importance was still beyond words.
A sudden wave of anxiety washed over Tiria.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Elric, but if he, being unskilled in such matters, made a mistake with even a single digit, the effort required to fix it would be several times greater.
Work that should be done once might have to be repeated over and over.
Driven by rising unease, Tiria’s body gradually leaned toward Elric.
It was at that moment.
“Uh, uh-huh! I’ll take care of it myself!”
Elric covered the documents with his arms.
He looked exactly like a child trying to hide a side dish at the dinner table.
Why did he look that way, despite his large frame and the rugged, masculine lines of his features?
“……I haven’t taught you the settlement process yet.”
“I’ve learned a thing or two lately, so I’ll manage!”
“Are you confident?”
Tiria used the same sharp tone she often employed during his lessons.
Though she wasn’t aware of it herself, this tendency carried a strange aura that tended to intimidate others.
Cold sweat trickled down Elric’s forehead.
Tiria narrowed her eyes.
“It is fine to postpone the work. It is also fine if your pace is slow. However, a mistake is unacceptable. These are important documents.”
“Th-that is……”
“I asked if you were confident.”
Unable to bring himself to say yes, Elric shook his head.
However, he didn’t give up entirely.
“Still, I can’t let you do it. I’ll try it first and only ask about the parts I don’t know. You need rest, Buin.”
Tiria froze.
‘Again…….’
He called me Buin.
Being moved by such small things made her heart soften, and she no longer felt like pressing him further.
Tiria eventually sighed and nodded.
“……You must ask if there is anything you do not understand.”
“Understood!”
Elric nodded vigorously with a face full of confidence.
Immediately afterward, he turned his gaze back to the papers, and—
“……Then, may I ask just one thing for starters?”
He began questioning her right away.
Tiria had many things she wanted to say, but she held them back, thinking she should bolster Elric’s morale.
However, as the pattern of another question following five minutes after an answer continued for an hour, her patience finally reached its limit.
Tiria eventually asked.
“If it is going to be like this, I should just……”
“Uh-huh!”
“…….”
What was she supposed to do with that stubborn streak of his?
Tiria’s mind filled with complicated thoughts.
Despite the minor hiccups, Elric gradually grew accustomed to working alone.
Over the next few days, all Tiria did was answer the increasingly infrequent questions or steal glances at Elric while pretending to look out the window.
She had no choice.
It was because Elric had forbidden her from doing anything else.
To recall a few representative instances:
“I would like to read a book at least……”
“No. Looking at letters will only make your head ache.”
She had requested it since reading was her hobby, but she was rejected.
“Then, embroidery……”
“Consuming your concentration will make your head ache.”
The embroidery she did to pass the time was also forbidden.
“Even just for a moment, some fresh air……”
“Do you wish for your cold to worsen?”
He even forbade that, leaving her wondering what kind of logic suggested a few minutes of air would worsen a cold.
Tiria finally realized something.
It was the fact that Elric viewed her as something like a fragile glass ornament that might shatter at a mere touch.
While it was nice to be cared for, she wasn’t particularly pleased to be treated as someone who constantly needed looking after.
Moreover, she found herself wondering who was looking at whom like a child, considering he had his own childish streaks.
Many words regarding Elric’s behavior crossed her mind, but in the end, Tiria didn’t utter a single one.
This was because it wasn’t all bad.
For example, a situation like the one now.
“Your fever is finally going down.”
His hand was resting on her forehead.
From a close distance, he was smiling for her sake.
Something she had once considered a dream, and at another time deemed impossible, was actually happening, and a quiet happiness enveloped her.
Whenever she saw those dark brown eyes reflecting her image, a tingling sensation pierced through her chest.
At those times, Tiria had to struggle to keep her expression from softening completely.
She had to endure that ordeal for as long as his hand remained, yet she also displayed the duality of praying for the moment never to end, occasionally letting out a hollow laugh at her own foolishness.
The increasing time spent together was just that satisfying.
“How is your body feeling?”
“I believe I can return to work now.”
“That won’t do.”
“I am……”
“Rest.”
Elric’s smile deepened.
The words he spoke next were truly sweet.
“There hasn’t been a moment lately where I haven’t realized how much you’ve suffered, Buin. I feel a sense of guilt as well. That’s why I’m doing this. Please see it as my own way of apologizing.”
There were things she wanted to ask.
Is it truly only guilt?
Are there no other feelings toward me besides that?
Why do you smile so warmly at me?
She composed each question in her mind and then promptly erased them.
What she spat out instead of those embarrassing words was something a bit stiff.
“Then at least allow me to read a book.”
“Hmm…… as long as it isn’t anything difficult. What do you wish to read?”
“On the second shelf from the top, there is a book with a brown cover. Please take it out for me.”
Elric brought the book over.
“It’s an encyclopedia of plants.”
“Yes.”
Tiria took the book and stroked the cover.
Since she had been looking at it for over eighteen years, it was covered in handprints in various places.
“Hmm, don’t look at it for too long. It’s almost time for bed.”
As he said, it was dark outside the window.
Tiria nodded and replied.
“Please go and sleep. I will read a little more before I do.”
“I shall. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Only after Elric left the room did Tiria open the book.
Since she knew the contents regardless of where she opened it, there was no hesitation in the movement of her hands flipping the pages.
If someone were to ask why she was looking at things she already knew, Tiria would have only one answer.
That she wasn’t memorizing the content, but rather reminiscing about the memories of the first time she read this book.
‘If you don’t know, study!’
She gradually sank into her memories.
It was a life where nothing good ever happened.
Even until now, it was a life mostly filled with things she disliked, but the eight-year-old Tiria had lived in such misery that she didn’t even know the reason she was alive.
There was only one reason.
It was because Wibin, her small world, was such a sharp and hostile place.
If she were to recall Wibin from those days, Tiria remembered only one thing.
Slap!
“How can you fail at even this!”
Corporal punishment.
“I clearly told you to have this mastered by today. Young Lady of Wibin, did you truly try your best?!”
Tiria remembered the Wibin of that era through physical punishment.
“Present your calves!”
“……Yes.”
From the moment she was able to walk alone, Tiria received etiquette training.
The teacher was a Countess famous in this field, and as her parents had paid a great deal of money to hire her, they expected Tiria to be worth the cost.
There were words from her father that Tiria still remembered.
“Maintain your dignity as a noble. To marry into a good family, you must never allow anyone to find a flaw in you.”
Tiria didn’t know why she had to marry into a good family.
She didn’t know why she shouldn’t open her mouth wide when eating, why she had to mind her stride, or why she shouldn’t speak loudly.
She simply thought it was natural because she had heard those things since she was very young.
Since she only realized those days were abusive after becoming an adult, it was obvious how the Tiria of that time would have acted.
“I’m sorry……”
Tiria always had to apologize.
She had to apologize for getting food on her lips, for running around, for nodding off in the morning, and for not falling asleep immediately at night.
That day was the same.
Tiria failed to properly follow the Countess’s etiquette training and received the punishment of being struck on the calves.
If there was anything different from usual, it was that it didn’t end there.
“The Young Lady’s progress is slow.”
The Countess complained to her parents that her progress was slower than her peers, and that pricked her parents’ pride.
To make matters worse, they were drunk. And even in that state, they possessed a shallow humanity that prevented them from saying a single word to the Countess.
The incident occurred after the Countess had departed.
“You can’t even do that! After all the investment we put in!!!”
Slap!
At eight years old, Tiria was struck in the face for the first time.
It wasn’t just one or two blows.
From what she remembered, it was at least ten.
“Why! Why do you not understand our hearts!”
The hands striking her cheeks were violent, the voices were fierce, and their large frames were overbearing.
Tiria apologized as she always did.
“I’m sorry!”
But even as she clung to them crying, the savage hands did not stop.
That day, Tiria’s face swelled up like a steamed bun until its original shape was unrecognizable, and she spent that night in pain and fear.
That must have been why.
Why she broke the strict order that leaving the manor was absolutely forbidden and secretly slipped out.
Perhaps it was because she wanted to seek help from someone.
“Heuuu……”
Tiria limped out of the manor on calves swollen from the switch.
With a face bruised blue and swollen like a bun, she went out into the street crying.
Elric was the boy she met on that very day.
“What’s this? Who is this ugly kid?”
Though she now lived every day aching with love for him,
“Wow…… I didn’t know a person could actually look like this.”
Looking back, Elric’s first impression had been the worst.
