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I Hid the Duke’s Daughter (Web Novel) - Chapter 6: Could we meet again?
Chapter 6: Could we meet again?
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
Absent-mindedly, Islay reached out his hand to the child.
It was strange. That someone would treat him in such a friendly way, or smile so brightly at him. And most of all, it had been a long time since he didn’t consider someone to be bothersome.
The child leaned her head back to look up at him.
“Mister, my arm hurts,” the child shook her arm while complaining.
Islay woke up from his thoughts and hurriedly grabbed onto her hand.
“Sorry about that.” When their eyes met, the child’s eyes bent into crescents naturally, as if out of habit. As she smiled, Islay felt as if his chest was being tickled with a feather.
After a while, the child anxiously asked a question.
“But, what if the teacher has already left without me?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find her quickly.”
Islay sped up his pace, and the child looked reassured by his promise. They made a turn on the path. Islay’s eyes seemed to warm up as he held the child’s small, warm hands.
As they walked on the well made forest path, the child chattered like a baby bird.
For example.
“Mister, my name is Bianca!”
“I see.”
“Mommy calls me Bibi…. ”
The child trailed off as she snuck a look at Islay. Then, she continued, speaking as if she were granting him a great honor.
“You can call me that too. I’ll let you.”
“Pfft…alright, thank you.”
Laughter burst out from Islay, who slowed down to match the child’s walking speed. Perhaps the child had been born with a lot of curiosity, because she asked question after question.
“I live with Mommy. What about you, Mister?”
At her words, he felt puzzled.
Was there a particular reason for her to only mention her mother? But it wasn’t something he could really ask, so he replied to her question instead.
“I live alone.”
“Alone? What about your mommy? Isn’t it lonely?”
Bianca’s eyes were wide open like saucers. At that question, Islay stopped walking, lost in thought.
Isn’t it lonely?
“My mother and I live separately. What does make me lonely is…”
From the day he lost Evelyn, he struggled to avoid being choked by loneliness. But all these feelings couldn’t be disclosed to a child, so he spoke casually, beating around the bush.
“Well, my mother is nearby, so I’m not lonely at all.”
Seeing how all Bianca’s sentences kept ending with “Mommy,” Islay smiled softly. The child seemed to really like her mother. Her pride in her mother seemed to go on forever.
“Did you know? My mommy is the most beautiful person in the whole wide world.”
“Seriously! Do you know how popular my mommy is?”
Seeing the cute child speak so energetically, Islay realized he was feeling emotions as he listened to the child. The thing is, he didn’t like children very much.
No. To be precise, other than Evelyn, he didn’t really have any feelings when dealing with anyone.
But this new feeling was not so bad.
“My mommy is great, she even owns a coffeehouse, but these ajusshis1 keep trying to talk to Mommy while she works. I don’t like it!” Bianca’s face was dark like a cloudy sky, her voice getting louder as she grew frustrated.
– Poreureu.2
She let out a sigh, seething, very much unlike the childishly cute side she had shown earlier.
“I don’t think it’s always a good thing that my mom is popular with those ajusshis.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Well, it’s because I don’t like how they’re always acting nice to Mommy.”
At this point, Islay couldn’t help but think of the one piece missing in the conversation: the father.
In fact, it was strange that a married woman was popular with other men. No matter what the situation, it didn’t make sense for ordinary men to give so much attention to a married woman…
Islay narrowed his eyes.
“There’s this really weird ajusshi named Jones…”
Bianca trailed off, her face wrinkling up. Then she started to whine as if she were tattling to a teacher on a friend.
“He acts like he’s Mommy’s best friend or something.”
“Hmm, does he?”
“Yeah, and his eyes looking at Mommy are weird, and, sometimes, he even tries to hold Mommy’s hand.”
-Koong koong.
The child stomped her feet.
She yelled out her dissatisfaction like a dragon bursting out fire.
“I really don’t know why that ajusshi talks to her more than me, when, she’s, my, mommy!”
“…That is a little…”
Islay had on a weird expression.
It was a little too much, to try to grab a married woman’s hand in such a way.
It was also too much for such a young and innocent child to see.
Islay spoke carefully.
“If it’s that bad, I think your father should speak with him then…”
“Oh, I don’t have a daddy.”
The child’s amber eyes were looking at him clearly as she spoke. That short but definitive answer made Islay want to slap his mouth.
Oh man.
Islay was mad at himself. Earlier, the child had emphasized that she lived with her mother, and had not said anything about a father thus far.
Dangit, I should have taken a hint.
Fortunately, the child didn’t seem to be so sensitive to the matter.
“Oh, and mister. My mommy is also very good at cooking.”
“Ah, oh, really?”
Islay nodded, trying to hide his embarrassment over his blunder. The child was puffed out her chest as she proudly spoke.
“Mommy’s cookies are really, really tasty.”
Cookies.
As the word popped out, Islay felt a small sense of longing as another memory resurfaced.
Evelyn, who, at the time, had been a coffeehouse employee, was able to make all sorts of treats that went well with coffee and tea.
The owner of the coffeehouse would sometimes even pay Evelyn separately to bake cookies.
“Seriously. I baked ten trays of cookies today,” the usually calm Evelyn would sometimes grumble.
And whenever she grumbled in that way, Islay was simply content to massage her shoulders. As he remembered those times, he replied in a low voice.
“Really? I want to try them once.”
“You’ll love them if you try. Oh, that’s right!”
The child let go of Islay’s hand.
As Islay watched her, Bianca took off her bag and began to search inside for something. And after a bit, the child took out a sandwich wrapped in paper.
“Tadaa!” The child cheerfully exclaimed.
Islay squinted his eyes at it.
It seems like lunch for a child…
“We’ll eat this together, even if it is um, a, hu, hum, humble meal, I’m grateful to you so I want to share it with you.” Bianca stuttered a bit, perhaps because the word “humble” was too difficult of a word for her to say.
She had probably picked up from the adults.
Islay smiled and replied, stroking her head.
“I’m okay, so you should eat it all.”
“No, we can’t do that.”
But Bianca faced Islay with a stern face, and spoken to him in a confident and righteous manner, as if she was speaking a holy truth of the world.
“My mommy said I have to be thankful and give back to people who help me.”
“No, you really don’t have to worry about me. I’m actually not very hungry…”
“You’re lying, you are hungry, aren’t you?”
“…”
At this point Islay was speechless.
It was because he felt like he knew what the child was actually thinking. Forget all that talk about thanking another person, he was sure it was just an excuse she made so that she could eat her lunch earlier than she should. Sighing, he reached out his hand.
“Yes, thank you.”
With a bright face, Bianca held out a sandwich to Islay. Holding the sandwich, he felt embarrassed eating lunch made for a child.
…………..The child was already hungrily biting into her sandwich.
Islay also began to unwrap the sandwich, and then stopped.
This…
He looked at the contents of the sandwich, and then his fine, black eyes shook.
…Eve?
It was a sandwich of bacon, tomato, and fried eggs thickly coated with butter, ketchup, and mayonnaise on well-baked toast. It was similar to the sandwiches she used to make. Thinking up to this point, Islay began to feel tired of his thoughts.
How long will you think about everything in relation to her?
The sandwich was merely something that was only special and unique to him. But it had held and stuck onto his ankle, not letting go.
To the point that after Evelyn left, he couldn’t touch any kind of sandwich.
At that moment, Bianca looked up.
“Mister, are you not going to eat?”
“Ah, I’m eating.”
Islay bit into his sandwich. The taste was so similar to the sandwich she had made before, and he felt strange and sad. Unaware of his inner thoughts, Bianca smiled and asked.
“Does it taste good?”
“Yes, it’s very good.”
Islay responded with a slightly choked-up voice. Instead of talking to him more, Bianca focused on eating the rest of her sandwich. He looked at the child. He couldn’t see why he was thinking of Evelyn so much today, as everything related to this child kept making him think of her.
He gave a long sigh. No matter how much he missed her, he missed her a little too much. He swallowed another bite of the sandwich and pushed down his feelings of self-pity.
The two shared the sandwich and juice, eating in peace. In fact, Islay tried to reject the juice, but the stubborn child pushed the bottle of juice into his hand.
Finally, the child scoured her bag and then pulled out a chocolate bar. She broke off a piece the size of a thumb and handed it to him.
“I’m eating the bigger piece.”
“Alright, thanks.”
Knowing that he would end up having to eat it even if he tried to decline, he took the chocolate piece and placed it into his mouth.
The child looked like a little rabbit as she happily munched onto her chocolate.
And Evelyn loved chocolate, too.
As he thought this, he heard a scream from the distance, the yelling getting louder.
“Bi, Bibi!”
It was the child’s teacher that he had seen earlier in the day. Her face was flushed as she ran towards them, as if she had been looking for Bianca for a long period of time. Bianca ran to her teacher, waving her hands with an innocent face.
“Teacher!”
“My god, Bibi!”
The teacher stopped in front of them and looked down at the child. Seeing that Bianca looked unhurt and safe, she let out a deep breath.
Then she began to scold Bianca, her eyes forming triangle shapes.
“You promised me you would follow me well, Bibi.”
“That’s because there was a baby bird on the ground…I’m, I’m sorry.”
She turned her head and looked at Islay as if asking for help, but Islay quickly turned his eyes away. Though he had enjoyed being with the child, he had absolutely no tears nor sympathy in her plight and thought that she definitely deserved a scolding for her actions.
The teacher, after pouring words of concern to the child for a while, noticed Islay behind Bianca.
“And now, who might this person be…?”
“Ah, this mister helped me find my way!”
Bianca smiled cheerfully, greatly relieved that the topic had been changed.
“Oh geez, I can’t even…”
The teacher, after glaring at Bianca once more, bowed to Islay in thanks.
“Thank you very much for bringing our Bibi back.”
“No, it was really no problem.”
“But, you must have been so annoyed…”
“It’s alright. I enjoyed being with Bibi.”
Since she had been heavily scolded earlier, Islay decided to take her side.
“Oh, thank you, thank you so much.”
“Please don’t, it’s really not something that’s worth a bow.”
“No. If you weren’t such a gentleman, how would you have bothered bringing back our Bibi?…”
The teacher looked bowed again and again, and Islay started to feel awkward.
Because it really wasn’t something that he needed to be thanked for. After awhile, he stepped back, getting ready to leave.
“Could we meet again?”
Bianca ran up to him with sparkling eyes. He narrowed his brow.
“Well, that’s…”
Islay trailed off. Usually, he would have answered coldly, ‘No, it won’t happen.’ Because this was only the first time they had met, he had been bothered and annoyed, and his help was enough to help the child. But Islay felt a little disappointed to say such words to her. It was unlike his usual self.
“Dantel Hotel.”
“Huh?”
“That’s where I’m staying.”
“Aha.”
Islay hesitated for a moment as he spoke.
“Probably…”
He’d only been with the child for a day.
So why did he feel so disappointed to leave? He didn’t know the reason for his feelings. His lips moved freely and he continued to speak.
“Lay. You’ll probably find me if you say that name.”
“Lay?”
“Yes.”
Nodding, Islay felt strange.
Lay.
That was his nickname. The nickname that no one was allowed to call him except his family and Evelyn. But after Evelyn disappeared, his nickname lost all meaning. It was natural, since she was the one who had breathed life into his name.
“Mr. Lay at Dantel Hotel!”
“Yes, you can find me in that way.”
Islay gave a small nod to the smiling child. The child asked him.
“Can I go over to play?”
He skepticized whether he would actually meet the child again. Trying to think optimistically, he gave a positive answer.
“Yes, at your convenience.”
When Bianca heard his answer, she showed a relieved facial expression, and after saying she would go over to play many times, ran back to her teacher’s side. As the teacher and child walked away, Islay looked on at the child for a long time.
***
Notes:
1: ajusshi. 아저씨 (ah-juh-shee) is the hangul term for a middle-aged man. It’s similar to calling someone “mister,” but it’s a more common and casual term in Korea, and can be used in a lot of casual situations. For example, “The ajusshi living next door gave us this food,” (in that case you know this man, so it’s a tone of familiarity, like a nickname) or “Excuse me, ajusshi, would you happen to know the way out of this neighborhood? I got lost.” (in this case it is with someone you don’t know. That’s fine because you don’t know there name, it’s a way of picking out someone in the crowd. So it becomes something more polite like “Sir.”) However, if you’re calling a middle-aged man Mr. _[name]__ in hangul, don’t ever call them ajusshi. It’s very impolite. Call them _[name]_-nim, which is more similar to “Sir.” Also, 아저씨들 (ah-juh-shee-duhl) is the plural form, but I just decided to attach an s to the singular form.
2: 포르르 (poreureu) it’s the sound of her sighing. no. im not going to explain how it works, I just thought it was cute to include instead of just “sigh.”
