North x Northwest

Previous

“What’s your name?”

“…”

“Are you really not going to tell me?”

“…”

“…Thank you for taking care of me, though.”

Now that they were standing side by side, Liloa looked up at him and realised that he was surprisingly tall, like a boy who had already entered his growth phase and his limbs had been beginning to lengthen.

As Liloa’s gaze remained fixed, the boy reluctantly responded to her silent urging.

“Call me Doctor. Be polite.”

“..?”

“I guess that makes it fair, right? As both of us didn’t say our real names?”

The boy laughed at his own remark. Liloa, however, who had a deeper reason for not disclosing her name, could only nod her head in agreement. The boy then proceeded to step away from her and cleared her way to the door.

Liloa inadvertently began stepping forward, but then stopped and looked up at the boy again.

“I’m too scared to go out alone.”

“…”

The boy reached for his forehead. This time, it was with two hands, almost like he wanted to bury his face in his palms. Meanwhile, Liloa tried her best to drag the conversation.

“But why do you live in this mansion with all the lights off? It’s so strange and scary.”

“Then why did you come in the first place?”

“I had to find my friend’s bag.”

“…Bag?”

That day, Liloa triumphantly returned, holding the bag that the strange boy had found after searching the ground floor hall. She appeared as majestic as a victorious general. All the children, except for Charles and Etienne, greeted Liloa enthusiastically. In a way to tease Charles, Liloa even claimed to have lost her hairpin while looking for the bag, so she dared him to find it for her. But as expected, Charles couldn’t bear to enter the mansion alone. And that wasn’t all. He could never again bully the girls, including Louisa and Liloa, or boss them around in their games.

A few nights after meeting the boy, Liloa sat down with her blanket wrapped around her and looked out the window. The stars in the deep night shone like a whisper. It was as if they were speaking to her and among the immeasurable amount of voices was the voice of the boy who called himself doctor.

{ “I’ll find the bag for you, so don’t ever come back here again.” }

However, his cold words were the complete opposite of his generous actions as he eagerly crawled on the floor to look for the bag. At that moment, Liloa had no choice but to ask back in confusion.

{ “Why?” }

{ “Because you’re annoying me.” }

{ “…” }

{ “I’m already very busy as it is, but I got held back for an hour today just to take care of you.” }

‘At first, I believed that the actions of the boy who took care of this fainted tomboy, brought her shoes, and even found her friend’s bag were done out of kindness. So even though it was my first time seeing him, I felt strangely excited. But after, he suddenly told me not to come back… I know I should tend to feel bad to hear that even though I was an undeniably uninvited guest. But strangely, I didn’t feel bad about it. Instead, I just felt sorry for taking up his busy time with my sudden intrusion. Maybe he really is a doctor… And when this trespasser became his patient, he couldn’t simply ignore me. But still…’

{ “Because you’re annoying me.” }

‘Was I bothering him that much? Me?’

Liloa was used to kindness. Everyone, except her family, was kind and affectionate towards her. Even Charles and Etienne were kind to her at first. The bullying only became more frequent after Liloa started rebelling against their rules, but in the beginning, they treated her just like everyone else did. As a result, the strange boy’s unfamiliar attitude towards her kept lingering in her mind.

{ “Because you’re annoying me.” }

‘In my whole life, I’ve never heard anyone say that to me. No one ever dared to tell me that my presence bothered them. I have always tried to act like a decent and mature lady, and people normally saw that. Everyone at Obernyu praised me for it…’

It annoyed Liloa that the boy apparently thought of her as an annoying child.

‘It was just that… I was scared of Mortu. That’s all. And I’ve been seeing him more and more these days…’

But at the same time, Liloa knew that her ability to keep her resolve was rather poor. She made a promise she couldn’t accomplish. On her own, she couldn’t have retrieved that bag, but she strutted out as though she had recovered the bag herself.

This thought made Liloa feel so ashamed of herself that she kicked the blanket a few times. It seemed to her that if she couldn’t somehow make up for this shame, she couldn’t continue living with herself.

So the very next day, Liloa found herself standing in front of the mansion again. The high sun of early summer brightened the building. It had been easy for her to come here without anyone knowing as she had fulfilled her role at the salon quite well, causing Ann and Charlotte’s surveillance to relax again.

Liloa stroked the railing of the front gate. It was a style that was popular while the Empire was still a monarchy. She tried to ask Ann and Charlotte, but their only response was that no one in Malus knew the owner of the mansion. All they said was that this place was a king’s villa a long time ago, more than a hundred years.

Despite being wary of having to go through the terribly dark halls again, Liloa comforted herself with the thought that she would eventually reach the room filled with sunlight*. After the mental pep talk, she grabbed the doorknob with a gold lion carved into it. However, unlike the last time, the door didn’t budge. She tried again, but the result was the same. contemporary romance

‘It’s locked.’

Liloa pursed her lips after backing away from the door.

‘It’s because I’m annoying, right?’

The boy’s grumbling voice seemed to linger in Liloa’s ears as an auditory hallucination. She paused and pondered for a moment, then decided to go around the main house and explore the garden instead.

‘They said he digs land every day, so who knows, maybe I’ll run into him in the garden.’

Sure enough, as Liloa walked along the huge main building, she began to hear the sound of spading soil until she spotted him. From a distance, Liloa stared at the boy who was digging into the beautiful garden as if it were a mere field. Around the trees, which had been neatly trimmed in oval shapes, was grass that had been carefully trimmed, neither too long nor too short. In the middle of that scene, where the grass was stained with soil, the boy indeed appeared like a madman.

However, Liloa soon realised that he was planting seeds… And that he had noticed her presence… Nonetheless, he carried on and completely ignored her…

Liloa carefully approached the boy. When she had gotten closer, the boy’s straight eyebrows gradually wrinkled more and more. When she was finally standing in front of him, the boy looked up at her and let go of his pouch of seeds.

“I told you not to come back again.”

“I’m sorry…”

“You say you’re sorry, but you keep doing things you’re going to be sorry for. What do you want this time?”

The boy didn’t even attempt to hide the irritation on his face.

‘Maybe I made the wrong decision to come back, but…’

Liloa’s mouth had dried, but she managed to bring up what she had been thinking about.

“You told me that you lost an hour because of me. I’m here to pay you back.”

“With what?”

The boy’s squinting eyes scanned Liloa’s outfit. Liloa realised a beat too late that her dress was of no help in planting seeds or ploughing fields. She hesitated at first, but then soon steadfastly suggested an alternative.

“Is there perhaps anything else I can help you with?”

“Nothing. So please go away. Don’t become any more annoying than you already have been. I only took care of you after you lost your senses because I thought I was the one responsible. Don’t mistake it for anything else.”

The boy, turning away from Liloa, picked up his pouch again. Meanwhile, Liloa looked around him and found a small shovel-like trowel. She held it and plopped down next to him. She remembered what the boy had done earlier and began to similarly dig a furrow of a certain width. Sure enough, the boy glanced over his shoulder and jumped up.

“What on earth are you doing!”

“I have nothing else to do, so I have to do this.”

“Oh, really! It’s annoying!”

Liloa quickly hid the trowel the boy was trying to snatch behind her back. His approaching hand hesitated and was withdrawn in the air. As expected, the boy didn’t try to take the trowel away any further so as to not touch her body. Liloa spoke quickly, wondering what he was going to say next.

“Why don’t you give me a chance to make up for how I annoyed you? I already told you, I’d pay you back for wasting an hour.”

“You say that, but in reality, you’re just making me do more work.”

TN:

‘…reach the room filled with sunlight…’

Isn’t it kinda cute that to an 8-year-old Liloa, Ed already symbolises light and sunshine? Someone who makes the darkness go away? Just like years later in his cabin on the Bell Rock, Ed already expels Mortu without even knowing it. As the translators, we both really loved this small little symbolism the author sneakily added to the story. 🥰

done.co