Chapter 098. By the way, what’s that?
By the time I finished all my tasks and returned to the attic, it was much later than usual.
Perhaps because I had been rushing around to make up for the time wasted in the study, my body felt as heavy as a thousand jun and ten thousand geun, but my heart was lighter than it had been in recent days.
Deborah, standing in front of the door, unconsciously placed her hand gently on her stomach.
“…….”
It felt as though the lingering heat from that brief moment still remained in her body.
As she recalled those moments when she had been swept away without thinking, her thoughts suddenly leaped back several hours.
Deborah soon shook her head vigorously.
‘……Get a grip.’
How many times had this happened today alone?
As if shaking off the persistent thoughts, Deborah pressed her flushed cheeks firmly with the back of her hand.
Click.
When she opened the door and stepped inside, Hanna, who was lying on the bed, poked her head out and looked over.
“You’re late.”
“Ah, yeah.”
After finishing the brief greeting, Deborah walked to her own bed and began unbuttoning her maid uniform one by one.
She was hurrying, eager to quickly change into her chemise—
“By the way, what’s that on you?”
At the voice coming from right behind her, Deborah’s body jolted in surprise.
Hanna, who had approached without thinking, instead clutched her chest with startled eyes.
“……You scared me, why are you so—”
She was about to say, “Why are you so startled?” when Hanna’s gaze suddenly stopped at a certain spot.
More precisely, at the reddish marks visible below Deborah’s neck.
“Huh? You…… here—”
Her hand, moving slowly as if entranced, stopped in mid-air without even reaching the area.
“…….”
“…….”
The act of hurriedly pulling her collar together as if burned.
To anyone watching, it was an excessively suspicious action, and in an instant, a strange silence descended over the narrow attic.
That silence was broken when Deborah opened her mouth, as if belatedly trying to salvage the situation.
“Ah, that…… I think I ate something wrong earlier…… I broke out in hives.”
Unable to even meet her eyes, with an awkward smile.
Deborah barely managed to string together that clumsy excuse.
Because of that man who had been unusually persistent today, she had been worried that Hanna would see the marks spreading like a rash.
That’s why she had tried to change quickly before Hanna noticed…… What if she did notice? Deborah waited anxiously for Hanna’s response.
“Is it bad? Did you take any medicine?”
Fortunately, it seemed she hadn’t suspected anything, and Deborah let out a sigh of relief at the flood of questions.
“……Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Phew, what on earth did you eat—.”
Seeing Deborah slightly raise the corners of her mouth, Hanna shook her head as if to say she was foolish.
Oh! Then, as if suddenly remembering something she had forgotten, she looked up at Deborah again.
“But, what’s that?”
“That?”
“Ah, it’s not that I absolutely had to look…… it’s just something I hadn’t seen before…….”
So don’t misunderstand, Hanna said hesitantly, then began glancing downward a moment later.
Watching this right in front of her, Deborah’s gaze naturally followed the direction Hanna was indicating.
At the end of that gaze, something caught her eye, and a short groan escaped Deborah’s lips.
What was sticking out from under the bed was none other than the leather box.
The going-out clothes she had momentarily forgotten about.
It hadn’t been there before she left the attic, yet now it was blatantly in sight, so Hanna must have opened it slightly out of curiosity.
Of course she would be curious.
Hanna, who knew better than anyone their impoverished circumstances—unable even to afford a proper maid uniform—must have been wide-eyed wondering where such expensive-looking going-out clothes came from.
After hesitating for a moment, Deborah hardened her expression as if she had made up her mind.
Although it bothered her that she had to lie to Hanna, she couldn’t exactly tell the truth either.
Deborah calmly spoke the words she had pondered all afternoon.
“Teacher Helena…… sent them to me.”
“Teacher…… Helena?”
In one corner of her surprised expression as she repeated the question, there was a thick layer of suspicion.
That, too, was expected.
No matter how much she favored her student, it wasn’t common for her—a single woman, no less—to casually buy and send such expensive clothes to someone else.
“Well, it’s because…… my birthday is soon…… so she prepared it for me in advance…….”
Once again, her heart pounded as she brought out the prepared words.
She knew she had no choice, but repeatedly lying still didn’t sit well with her.
Although the incident in the entrance hall a while ago had been hushed up by Madam Charlotte, the thought that something like it could happen again only made her feel more complicated.
“Was it your birthday? When?”
Fortunately, Hanna’s attention seemed to shift to the other thing she had mentioned.
“No…… it’s still a bit away.”
At the words that it was still a while away, Hanna let out a breath of relief.
“You really should have told me at least, even if not others. We share a room—how does it make sense that I’d let your birthday pass without knowing?”
At the sulky scolding, Deborah chuckled.
“……You didn’t tell me either.”
“Hey, mine is still far— ah, whatever! Anyway, tell me quickly when it is.”
Her tone demanded she stop dodging with weird excuses and just say it straight, so Deborah reluctantly answered.
“This Sunday.”
In truth, that wasn’t Deborah’s real birthday.
She only vaguely remembered her mother celebrating her birthday around the time spring turned to summer when she was very young—she didn’t know the exact date.
Teacher Helena, pitying her for that, had picked a day around that season and celebrated it every year on the same date, and that had now become her established birthday.
But only she and Teacher Helena knew the full story.
There was no need, nor desire, to share such a sad backstory with others.
“Then shall we have a party with the kids that day?”
“A party?”
“Yeah. A birthday party.”
Watching Hanna excitedly nodding repeatedly, Deborah made a bewildered face.
A birthday party.
Celebrating birthdays with parties was something mainly done by royalty, nobility, or wealthy merchants she had never heard or seen commoners holding birthday parties.
Of course, commoners and working-class people sometimes gathered modestly with family on their birthday to share food and mark the day they were born, but that was all.
It wasn’t grand enough to be called a proper “birthday party.”
Yet a birthday party—and her own birthday party, no less.
That was exactly why Deborah was so stunned.
Perhaps knowing that, Hanna burst into loud laughter at Deborah’s dumbfounded expression.
“No need to be that shocked.”
“…….”
“Just among us— ah, right. Remember the picnic we had? Think of it like that.”
“……A picnic?”
At the question of what that meant, Hanna nodded.
“If you think about it, most of us here left home to reduce the number of mouths to feed because our families had nothing, right? So on birthdays, we gather to celebrate each other, make noise together, that kind of thing.”
So we feel less lonely and less sad. At the bitter smile accompanying those words, Deborah finally vaguely understood what Hanna meant.
In truth, Deborah didn’t place much meaning on birthdays.
The biggest reason was that the years she had lived through had been too harsh to want to celebrate the day she was born.
Of course, Teacher Helena never forgot and always prepared something small for her, but she was only grateful for the kindness—she herself had never once attached meaning to the idea of a birthday.
Still, the thought that lonely people who had left their families could fill each other’s emptiness didn’t seem so bad.
Sunday.
That was the one day of the week she could meet Teacher Helena, but because of recent events, she had actually been wondering what to do about this coming Sunday.
To meet her, she first had to go to Jade’s bookstore, and in this situation, meeting him made her hesitate.
Of course, she didn’t plan to keep avoiding him forever.
She was only hesitating because she still didn’t know the deep connection between those two people once things were sorted out, she would decide then.
She simply wanted—and was waiting—to hear it directly from the man’s own mouth, not from someone else.
So until then, moving rashly felt risky.
Moreover, especially now, when the cold war between them had only just thawed today.
Meeting Teacher Helena was something that could be done anytime in the future, so postponing it once or twice wouldn’t hurt, she thought.
With that realization, the dilemma resolved more easily than expected.
This week, it would be good to spend it with the maids as Hanna suggested.
Deborah nodded toward Hanna, who was waiting for her answer.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
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