22

[Elsia’s Past.]

At some point, many children started coming to see Elsia. She didn’t know why.

The unfamiliar children made her feel awkward, so she hid behind her father and just peeked out her head and nodded slightly.

The friend she opened up to first was Adrian. He gave her her favorite roses.

“Rian!”

Elsia greeted her friend who came to Portman with roses.

He always brought her favorite roses.

Elsia, usually shy, felt her awkwardness disappear in front of roses.

After that, word spread, and every child who came to see Elsia started bringing her roses.

They always brought the same red color, so at first she liked it, but soon grew tired of it.

But Adrian was different.

One day yellow, another day red, another day pink—he brought different colored roses each time, and Elsia liked his thoughtfulness.

Adrian often cried, but he was sensitive and attentive, so he always gave her a different color rose.

So every time Adrian came, Elsia looked forward to seeing what color he’d bring.

Among the children she met afterward, Elsia became closest to Adrian, and they stuck together often.

Her second closest friend Richel also visited often. Watching Richel and Adrian fight over who would play with Elsia was fun.

But among the children who came to see her, there was one she disliked. She didn’t even want to remember his name. Just thinking of him brought up a sneering smile.

When they were alone, he tormented Elsia, but in front of others, he acted as if he’d never done so.

“Elsia, do you like Rian best?”

One day, Earl Portman asked Elsia, who was enjoying her days with Richel and Adrian.

“Yes!”

Elsia answered with a bright smile. Adrian, who always brought pretty flowers, was her favorite among her friends.

“…How about …?”

“I don’t like him.”

“…You should get along. You need to make friends evenly.”

“He bothers me, so I don’t like him.”

“He’s just shy because he likes you, so he teases you.”

Judging by his actions, he definitely didn’t like her, but Elsia tried to get closer, trusting her father’s words.

But he always tormented her out of sight. The more she saw him, the more she disliked him.

One day, her puppy Cookie started coughing badly and couldn’t get up.

Elsia cried every day.

Earl Portman called for an animal doctor, but he was so busy they had to wait three days.

To Elsia, Cookie seemed like he might die any moment. She couldn’t wait for the doctor.

Unexpectedly, it was that boy who helped her.

“If you eat the root of aconite in the forest, it’ll get better. But you couldn’t do it. You’re a coward and timid.”

He still teased Elsia.

But maybe he was a good kid, as her father said; at least he told her about the herb.

After checking the flower’s picture, Elsia told her closest friend Adrian.

Adrian opposed it, saying it was dangerous—adults forbid it for a reason.

“Do you think I’m cowardly too?”

“No, but I think it’s dangerous. There’s a rumor about bears in the forest.”

“Pfft. If you won’t come, I’ll go alone.”

When Adrian refused to go to the herb gathering, Elsia stubbornly insisted.

She wanted to cure Cookie no matter what.

“Elsia! I’ll go with you.”

She tried to go alone, but fortunately, Adrian followed her.

That alone made Elsia feel reassured.

But even after walking deep into the forest, they couldn’t find the flower.

“Let’s go back, Elsia. Any farther is dangerous.”

Adrian kept urging her to go back, but Elsia ignored Adrian’s words and went deeper.

Suddenly, a bear with red glowing eyes stared at them.

“Elsia! We have to run!”

Only after hearing Adrian’s urgent voice did Elsia realize the danger.

In that brief moment, terror froze her, and she couldn’t move.

“I’ll protect you, even if it costs my life.”

Adrian’s words gave Elsia courage. He grabbed her hand and tried to escape from the bear.

But Elsia fell, and the bear stopped in front of her. Adrian tried to attack the bear, but it was faster than the boy.

The bear swung its paw with fierce claws, and blood poured from Elsia’s stomach.

Elsia couldn’t remember exactly, but she recalled being rescued by Portman’s people.

After barely escaping death, many children came to check on her.

Among them, that boy also visited. He held roses, but Elsia wasn’t happy to see him.

It was because he had instigated all this.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was dangerous?”

“When did I tell you to go? You went yourself. Why blame me?”

“I almost died because of you. Can’t you see my injury?”

Elsia wanted him to apologize.

But he approached and lifted her dress.

“What… what are you doing?”

Elsia felt humiliated. She was only wearing a dress because of the bandages and quickly pulled her clothes down.

“Who would like a kid with such disgusting scars? Disgusting. How could you have something like that on your body?

With bandages, the scar wasn’t visible. Elsia was angry.

“Apologize right now. For insulting me, for lying to me, for everything!”

Elsia shouted at the boy. Her wound ached, but his actions and words hurt her even more.

“You brought this on yourself. Who forced you to go there? How does it feel to see everyone unhappy because of you? Adrian got kicked out because of you, right? Everything happened because of you, and you don’t even have the courage to admit it, yet you pretend to smile. Ugh, creepy.”

“You…finish what you wanted to say?”

Elsia shouted angrily, but he kept saying whatever he wanted.

“Because you two were close, I’m the one who gets scolded by my father for not winning your heart. Who do you think you are? You’re nothing. It would’ve been better if you died in the forest.”

The boy’s words sounded as if he had shown her the way to the forest hoping she would die there. It made Elsia feel uneasy.

“What’s your problem? Who are you to say such cruel things to me?”

Even as she got angry at his insults, Elsia found herself unable to breathe, overwhelmed by the boy’s harsh words.

He was right about some things. She was at fault, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell her father the truth.

But why did she have to hear such words from him…?

The boy stuck out his tongue and called Elsia a coward, mocking her.

“Get out! Get out of here!”

Elsia threw a pillow at the boy.

“I’m leaving anyway. If my father hadn’t told me to come, I wouldn’t have come to this place. And what I told you about was not a medicinal herb but a poisonous plant. You idiot! You didn’t even realize that, you fool. Even if you’d managed to find it, you would’ve killed your puppy with your own hands.”

He truly was a devil—always stabbing her with cruel words when no one else was around.

Elsia shakily reached for the rope beside her bed.

She thought someone needed to come quickly to shut him up.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Suddenly, her head started to ache. The pain was so intense, she screamed.

“Ah!”

Elsia suddenly opened her eyes. All the memories she’d hidden away came rushing back at once.

Why? She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and sat up in bed.

She hadn’t expected her memories to flood back so suddenly.

The key to the door locked deep in her memory was, as Richel predicted, Adrian.

She had tried to suppress the memories leaking out, but in the end, they burst forth all at once.

The cause was probably the new shock to Elsia’s mind.

It meant that the emotional shock and pain of Adrian and Richel deceiving her were that great.

As all the memories resurfaced, Elsia clutched her head.

Her nightmares had been the result of guilt.

She was at fault, but seeing her father blame Adrian made her afraid, and she was scared to tell the truth for fear of being scolded.

Believing the boy’s words, she went to find poisonous plants and nearly died. Even if she’d found them, she almost killed Cookie with her own hands. Fortunately, Cookie survived after the doctor’s treatment. Adrian tried to help her, but she blamed everything on him.

Elsia had done all of it. And, as the boy said, she had made things worse because of her foolishness. That made her afraid.

Her father would only scold her, but others wouldn’t. If they knew what she’d done, she feared they would mock and point fingers at her—and hate her. That’s what she feared.

Because, after that incident, she never saw Adrian’s face again, which made her think so even more.

Now she knew her father had driven him away, but as a young girl, she didn’t understand.

She simply thought Adrian hated her because she had done wrong.