Chapter 151. You’re Pregnant Right Now
While walking, Deborah suddenly felt that something was strange.
She was definitely walking, yet instead of feeling her feet touch the ground, it felt as though she were floating in midair.
The excessively quiet sounds around her also felt oddly unnatural.
Then, at some point, she realized it.
Ah, this is a dream….
Once she recognized it as a dream, she actually felt at ease.
So much so that she wanted to remain in this dream forever.
How long had she walked like that, with no destination and nowhere in particular to go?
Suddenly, a cool breeze brushed against her cheek, carrying a faint sound with it.
Wondering what it was, she stopped walking for a moment and listened carefully….
—Deborah.
The faint voice gradually began to sound closer.
No matter how much she looked around, she could see no one.
Yet the voice kept repeating itself as though it were an echo.
The gently ringing voice belonged to someone Deborah knew very well.
She simply could not remember who it was.
—Deborah.
Deborah began moving her feet again and continued walking toward the source of the voice.
After walking diligently for quite some time, she finally began to make out something beyond her blurry vision.
—Deborah. Here.
The hazy fog parted, revealing a face between it.
Only then did Deborah realize who the owner of that voice was.
How could she have forgotten?
No, how could she not have known?
Slowly parting her trembling lips, Deborah called out the name she had longed for.
“Mom….”
A name she had wanted so desperately to say.
A name she had secretly whispered on certain days when she missed her so much that she cried.
—Deborah, my baby.
Seeing her mother smiling brightly with her arms spread wide, tears unconsciously welled up in Deborah’s eyes.
The sorrow surged within her because this was not the last image she remembered, but the beautiful and graceful image from long ago.
“Mom….”
With her hand stretched out before her, Deborah hurried forward.
Her heart became increasingly impatient to reach her smiling mother.
But—
While walking frantically, Deborah noticed something strange.
Though the distance seemed close enough to touch, no matter how long she walked, it never seemed to shrink.
No, if anything, it felt as though the distance was growing farther.
—My poor baby.
“Mom…. Wait, wait….”
The widening distance made her even more anxious.
Afraid she would lose her at any moment, her steps grew faster.
Then, at some point, her feet tangled and she fell.
The strange thing was that she felt absolutely nothing.
Only then did Deborah once again realize that she was inside a dream.
—My baby, my baby.
“……”
Deborah lifted her head and gazed at her mother, now standing far away.
Even if it was only a dream, it was enough.
If she could see her mother again like this….
If she could embrace that warm bosom once more….
Even if this were the River of Death, the resting place of souls beyond it, she would not have cared.
Clenching her fists tightly, Deborah gathered strength into her body once more.
She did not want to lose her mother.
After finally meeting her again, how could she?
Just as Deborah was about to rise to her feet—
“……”
A faint sound coming from behind caused her movement to stop once more.
It was a sound she had never heard before.
A very unfamiliar sound.
After listening carefully for a while, Deborah realized that it was the cry of a child.
Where was it coming from?
Whose child was crying so sorrowfully?
And why did the cry of a child she had never heard before make her heart ache so much…?
One thought led to another without end.
By then, her legs were already moving toward the source of the sound.
Completely forgetting about the mother who had been calling her, Deborah walked and walked as though bewitched by the baby’s cries.
The closer she got, the louder the crying became.
Deborah grew increasingly anxious.
“Baby…. Baby….”
As she desperately called out to a child she did not even know, the crying finally sounded right beside her.
It was close enough to touch if she simply stretched out her hand.
She felt as though she was about to see the child.
But then a sudden burst of light blocked her vision.
The light grew brighter and brighter.
Beyond her fading sight, Deborah vaguely realized something.
It was time to wake from the dream.
☆☆☆
A familiar scene entered her vision through slowly opening eyelids.
As Deborah recalled what it was, her gaze shifted to the side.
Not long after, she met a pair of blue eyes looking down at her.
“Are you… awake?”
“……”
Every time she saw eyes that looked exactly like his, a certain face always came to mind.
Forcing herself to erase that face from her thoughts, Deborah nodded toward Jade.
At that moment, a low sigh escaped Jade’s lips.
As though all strength had left him, he slumped back against the chair and rubbed his face.
Watching him, the first thing that came to Deborah’s mind was confusion.
How had she ended up lying here?
If her memory was correct, after leaving Elpengreen last night…
She had walked quite a distance away….
But no matter how hard she thought, she could not remember anything that happened after that.
Unable to understand what had happened, Deborah finally spoke.
“Jade…. How did I get he—”
But her words stopped midway when she was startled by the dreadful voice coming from her own mouth.
It was completely hoarse.
Like the voice of an old woman.
It was only natural to be shocked when her voice had become so different overnight.
Staring at her, Jade quietly spoke.
“That day… did you perhaps go there that day? …To the Duke of Cheister’s estate.”
“……”
Unable to speak, Deborah simply nodded.
She noticed something strange immediately afterward.
‘…That day?’
Jade was clearly referring to yesterday.
The previous night, when she had run out into the rain without saying a word.
Yet hearing him refer to yesterday as “that day” sounded oddly strange.
Perhaps her confusion was plainly visible on her face.
From Jade’s tightly closed lips, words that were difficult to believe finally emerged.
“That day was two days ago.”
“…What?”
Deborah frowned deeply as she asked back.
The event that had happened just last night was now being called something that occurred two days ago.
Her thoughts instantly became tangled.
“That day… I came to apologize.”
“……”
“When I saw the empty bedroom, I realized Deborah had disappeared.”
“……”
“You had nowhere to go that night, so I kept wondering where you might have gone, and I went there just in case….”
“And I found Deborah collapsed by the roadside.”
Ah, only then did she vaguely remember.
—Deborah! Deborah, wake up! Deborah!
That voice desperately calling her name while her consciousness faded into darkness.
Was that Jade…?
As she searched through her hazy memories of that day, Deborah’s eyes wandered restlessly.
“Today marks exactly two days since we came back home.”
“……”
“In that time, your fever rose and fell severely several times….”
Perhaps recalling those moments, Jade’s expression gradually hardened.
Only then did Deborah understand everything.
That day, she had lost consciousness and collapsed while walking in the rain.
Jade had found her and brought her back.
And afterward, she had been bedridden with a high fever for two full days.
“……”
She could not bring herself to say anything.
Thinking about the reckless thing she had done and how she had dragged an innocent person into it, she could not say she was sorry.
Nor could she say thank you.
She could not say anything at all.
It would have been better if Jade had never found her in that rain….
No, it would have been better if he had never gone looking for her in the first place….
She hated herself for having such miserable and terrible thoughts.
But at the very least, if she had any conscience left, she needed to apologize to Jade and thank him.
After moving her lips several times, finally preparing to speak—
“Really, I don’t know how to—”
“Did you know?”
The sudden question cut her off.
Before she could even ask what he meant, Jade continued speaking.
“I honestly… thought at first that it wasn’t true.”
“That it couldn’t be true.”
“How could something so impossible….”
“…Jade?”
Seeing him shaking his head with a deeply furrowed brow, Deborah unconsciously called his name.
She truly did not understand.
What exactly was it that she was supposed to have known?
And what could it possibly be that made Jade act like this?
“It’s too cruel for Deborah.”
“How could it be… now, of all times.”
“Jade.”
She could no longer bear listening to his rambling words.
At her low voice, Jade’s gaze finally settled on Deborah’s face.
“I’m sorry, but… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“……”
“I don’t know what it is that I supposedly knew.”
“And I don’t know why you’re acting like this.”
In other words, she wanted him to explain it in a way she could understand.
After Deborah finished speaking, a heavy silence settled between them.
What could it be that made him struggle so much to say it?
That thought caused her heart to begin beating faintly faster.
There was nothing left that could ruin her any further.
What terrible thing could possibly be hanging over her fate now?
Yet even then, she never imagined it.
Despite all the anxious thoughts churning through her mind, she never dreamed those words would be spoken.
“Deborah, right now—”
After barely getting those words out, Jade stopped again.
But this time, as though he had made up his mind, he immediately continued.
“You’re pregnant right now.”
“Did you really not know?”
Riiiiing—
A sharp ringing suddenly pierced her ears.
At the horrific truth that finally left his lips, it felt as though her entire world had turned upside down.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
