Episode 6 – The Protagonist Will Now Drop Out
I didn’t know what the fairies were expecting,
but seeing someone tucked away all alone in a corner like this—it made my heart ache a little.
I had planned to give him time to adjust, but judging by how things were going, he might just stay this way forever.
So I walked over to him.
└ [The original male lead candidate usually opens up after the female lead says a few words]
Comments like that seemed to resonate with the other fairies too, which piqued my curiosity.
“Hey, Leon.”
“……”
“I know things might be tough right now, but everyone here is just like you. If you spend some time with them, I think things will get better. That’s what happened with all the other kids too.”
I meant to comfort him, but Leon’s expression didn’t improve.
I couldn’t see his eyes clearly because of his messy bangs, but his lips were pouting—clearly, I’d touched a nerve.
“I’m getting out of here.”
…Did he think I meant ‘you’re stuck here forever’?
“No, I didn’t mean you can’t leave. I just meant that while you’re here, maybe you could at least feel comfortable…”
“I don’t care. Go away. I hate you.”
He had clearly misunderstood, and now he wouldn’t even look at me. He buried his face in his knees.
It was the first proper conversation we’d had, and this was how it ended?
As for those comment fairies who’d been bugging me to try and get him to open up:
└ [Grumpy kitten vibes? Kinda love it.]
So this is what they wanted me to see?
Bunch of liars…
I’d been fooled more than once already, so why did I trust them again?
On my way back to my room, I resolved to take their advice with a heavy grain of salt from now on.
A few nights passed after Leon’s misunderstanding of me.
“Ugh… mmm…”
I was sound asleep when a strange noise woke me.
‘What was that sound? Is someone having a nightmare?’
Maybe someone was crying.
It wasn’t unusual—sometimes at night, the kids would cry because it was dark and quiet, or because they missed their moms.
Sigh.
‘Guess I have to be the adult and comfort them.’
Well, technically I was a kid too, body-wise. But still—even a small presence can be comforting.
I sat up, but all I could see in the room was the gentle rise and fall of blankets and soft breathing.
The sound must’ve come from the hallway or another room, so I rubbed my eyes and quietly climbed out of bed.
“Ugh… hic…”
A dark hallway.
Maybe someone had fallen on their way to the bathroom?
But there were no footsteps—only muffled sobs, like someone was in pain.
‘Don’t tell me… is it a ghost?’
The creepy atmosphere instantly made my whole body tense up.
‘Should I just go back to bed…?’
I hesitated, frozen in place, but thankfully, the comment fairies popped up beside my ear, as lively as ever.
└ [Omg, is it the ghost of a kid who died from abuse at the orphanage?!]
That just made it worse!
‘Why are you trying to scare me even more?!’
I forced my feet to move, one step at a time, tracing the sound.
Even though I moved carefully, every creak of the wooden floor just added to the eerie atmosphere.
‘If something’s gonna appear, just do it already…!’
Rustle.
I stepped on something and nearly screamed, clapping a hand over my mouth just in time.
‘What the…? Why’s there a long piece of cloth in the hallway…?’
I remembered hearing that ghosts sometimes wore cloth to hide their grotesque appearance.
I stiffly turned my head toward the cloth bundle.
At the far corner of the dim hallway was…
“…Leon?”
What I thought was a pile of cloth turned out to be him—his red hair trembling slightly beneath the blanket.
‘So he had the blanket over him the whole time. That’s why I couldn’t see him from a distance.’
Still, with those groaning sounds earlier… he didn’t seem okay.
“Leon, are you sick?”
I sat down beside him and gently placed a hand on his back. Leon flinched hard.
└ [Sickly male lead?]
└ [Rare illness? Time for the heroine to heal him with her powers.]
…What kind of bizarre setting is that supposed to be?
Not the time for that, thanks.
Maybe he instinctively felt I wasn’t a threat, because Leon suddenly grabbed my sleeve and hugged me tight.
“What’s wrong? Should I go get a teacher?”
Leon’s head shook faintly against my shoulder.
“I… I don’t…”
He didn’t look physically sick, but his reaction was like someone who’d just seen a monster.
└ [Of course the male lead has trauma… ㅠㅠ]
From personality tests to good looks, occasional illness, and now trauma—being a male lead sounded like a curse more than anything.
But that wasn’t the point right now.
I gently patted his back, feeling my shoulder dampen with tears.
“I…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. But if you do, I’ll listen.”
“…I don’t want to die. Please… don’t let me die…”
“…What?”
To hear a child say something like that…
I immediately knew this wasn’t something I could fix with a few comforting words.
‘What in the world happened to him?’
I didn’t leave his side, quietly rubbing his back.
Gradually, his trembling subsided.
He went quiet, and I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep sitting up, but then his grip on my sleeve would tighten from time to time—so probably not.
I gently pried his hand away and whispered softly,
“Stay right here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
I headed for the orphanage kitchen.
Sometimes the noblewomen who supported the orphanage would bring snacks instead of money, and I remembered spotting something useful then.
I stood on a chair and carefully pulled out a paper bag from the cupboard.
Inside was cocoa powder mixed with sugar.
‘One kid… no, two kids drinking this much won’t make a dent, right?’
└ [Casually grabbing some for herself too]
Hey, might as well while I’m at it.
I boiled water in the kettle and made two warm cups of cocoa.
When I returned to the hallway, Leon was still sitting there.
“Here, drink this. Don’t tell the director, okay?”
Maybe it was the sweet smell, but Leon slowly lifted his head.
His bangs were wet—he must’ve kept crying the whole time I was gone.
“Did you have a scary dream?”
Leon gave a small nod. It looked like he was finally ready to talk.
“It’s okay. It was just a dream.”
But he shook his head.
“What if… someone really comes to kill me?”
So it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to die—he was afraid someone would kill him.
Not knowing what happened, I focused on calming him.
“There are teachers here, and adults come by often. No one can just walk in.”
“But… my mom too…”
His eyes began to well up again.
“Some scary men came. Mom told me to hide so they wouldn’t see me.”
“……”
“They kept asking for her. Then…”
He said his mother’s pleading voice was suddenly cut off, followed by the men’s loud footsteps as they left.
Leon had heard it all from inside the closet.
When things went quiet, he came out—but his mother was gone.
Just like that, he was alone.
‘That’s… murder, isn’t it?’
└ [This setting is way darker than I expected]
└ [He heard everything through the door ㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
No wonder Leon had completely closed himself off.
If I’d gone through that, I wouldn’t trust anyone either.
└ [What if the adults here sell him off too…?]
Exactly.
Back when the fairies mentioned human trafficking in orphanages, I didn’t believe them.
But what if those men came back, offering money for Leon?
“Did you tell the director or the teachers?”
“No…”
“Good. If you don’t trust them, then it’s better to keep it to yourself.”
He ended up telling me, probably because he couldn’t carry it alone anymore.
But this secret had to stay secret, or it’d be dangerous.
“Still, you don’t have to be so on edge all the time. From what I’ve seen, the adults here are stingy and timid—they wouldn’t go near scary people like that.”
Even the greedy director wouldn’t dare cross the line, since the orphanage was supported by nobles.
This area was fairly well governed too, so there were patrol guards who could help if something happened.
I explained all this, even mentioning proof like letters from the emperor and official support, to help reassure him.
I wasn’t sure if Leon understood everything, but he looked a bit more at ease.
“…But I still have to leave.”
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
He’d said the same thing before.
Maybe he had relatives or someone he knew?
“There’s someone I need to find.”
“Who?”
“Someone Mom told me to look for. Someone who can punish those men.”
Leon pulled at the collar of his shirt and revealed something hanging around his neck.
It was a silver pendant, engraved with delicate markings.
