It was only several days after Lionel recovered that Jaelin finally rose from her sickbed.
Having fallen so ill in such a short time, her already thin body had grown even more pitiful.
“Jaelin, are you feeling better now?”
“Y-yes. I-I’m all right. What about you, Young Master?”
“I’ve been fine for a while now.”
Lionel pushed his own plate of snacks over to Jaelin.
“You eat this too.”
“B-but that’s y-your share, Young Master.”
“Just watching you eat fills me up.”
Lionel, chin propped on his hand, tilted his head to one side and smiled softly at Jaelin.
It was a very sweet smile, crafted solely for the hope that Jaelin would look only at him.
At the sight of Lionel’s smile, Jaelin’s eyes wavered this way and that. She quickly bowed her head and pulled the snack plate toward herself.
“Th-then thank you, I’ll eat it. A-after this, I think I should g-go.”
“Go where?”
“Th-the place I’m supposed to be.”
“The orphanage?”
“Y-yes.”
“Hmm, Jaelin. Why don’t you stay here instead?”
“Th-that won’t do.”
“Why? I could invite a rune teacher you’d like and you could take lessons here, and play with me. Father would gladly sponsor you too.”
“N-no.”
It was a firm refusal.
The moment his suggestion to spend more time together was rejected outright, one corner of Lionel’s chest turned cold.
“Why?”
“There’s no such thing as f-favor without a reason in this world.”
“But you’re my friend. Because we’re friends, I can do at least this much.”
“Th-that’s too m-much for a friend to do……”
“You saved my life, so you can think of it as repayment. Is that still not enough?”
Jaelin bit her lip and shook her head. Despite her soft appearance, she was surprisingly stubborn.
“Hah, fine. Then you’ll accept this, won’t you?”
Lionel picked one book from the stack he had set aside out of Jaelin’s sight and placed it on the table.
“Th-this is……!”
At the sight of the book Lionel held out, Jaelin’s eyes sparkled like stars.
What lay on the table was a newly purchased intermediate rune textbook.
“Sorry for losing your book. You were upset, weren’t you?”
“I-it’s all right. You d-didn’t do it on purpose, Young Master.”
“It’s the revised edition of the intermediate rune textbook.”
“Th-thank you.”
“And I’ll return this to you as well.”
Lionel placed the intermediate rune textbook he had borrowed from Jaelin on top of the new book.
“H-huh? This is……?”
“It’s your book. I’d forgotten I’d put it on the bookshelf next to mine.”
Lionel added an excuse Jaelin had not even asked for.
The book had never been lost. But Lionel did not have the courage to tell her the truth.
He was too afraid of what kind of eyes Jaelin would look at him with once she learned he had lied.
Lionel hurriedly placed the entire stack of books beside him onto the table. They were books Lionel had carefully prepared for Jaelin.
Advanced rune textbooks, an introduction to magical formula studies, efficient rune formula writing, a comprehensive guide to magical tool crafting for magical design scholars, and so on. Various specialized books related to magical formulas were stacked neatly.
“And this too.”
Finally, Lionel held out a small box to Jaelin.
“Wh-what is this?”
“A gift I prepared. Go on, open it.”
Lionel’s heart stirred. He wanted to see Jaelin’s face light up as she looked at the gift he had prepared himself.
Jaelin opened the box and found a yellow ribbon made of cotton cloth.
Jaelin, frozen stiff, rolled her large eyes about. She seemed to be agonizing over whether it was all right to accept it.
Lionel took the initiative first.
“Jaelin, thank you for saving me that day. This is my repayment. Hand it here. I’ll do it for you.”
Lionel picked up the ribbon from the box and went behind the chair where Jaelin sat.
This yellow ribbon, prepared as a gift for Jaelin, looked trivial at a glance, but in truth it was the result of Lionel’s intense deliberation.
Lionel wanted to give Jaelin something that suited her moderately yet was genuinely necessary.
Unlike the fountain pen he had once foisted on Jaelin, this was a gift prepared with only Jaelin in mind.
A few days ago, not long after Lionel regained consciousness, the Duke of Eduard held out a fountain pen to Lionel.
The fountain pen, set with a green gemstone, was a very familiar object to Lionel. It was the very fountain pen Lionel had given to Jaelin.
“Why do you have this, Father?”
“I heard this fountain pen appeared on the market for trading stolen goods. An appraiser discovered the Eduard family seal stamped on the nib and brought it in. I traced it back to catch the thief, assuming a servant in the mansion had stolen and sold it, and it led to the director of the orphanage your playmate belongs to.”
“That’s……!”
“The orphanage director claimed your playmate stole it. Is that true?”
“No! Jaelin didn’t steal it. I gave it to her.”
“I see. Then the director must have lied.”
“Please give it to me. I need to return it to Jaelin.”
“Lionel, I would prefer that you not give this fountain pen to that child.”
“Why? I’m only returning something I already gave her.”
“I understand your wish to give this to the child. But this fountain pen is too much for her.”
Lionel could not understand. It was merely an object—how could it be too much or not?
This fountain pen suited Jaelin perfectly. Was that not enough?
“This time, I happened to learn of this and was able to recover the fountain pen. And I will punish the orphanage director with a penalty befitting the crime. But what of after that?”
“Ah……”
“Can you guarantee that the new orphanage director, and the orphanage children who live alongside that child, will not steal or take her belongings again?”
“B-but……!”
“To you, it may be nothing more than a fountain pen rolling around the house, but to the group that child belongs to, it will be a very tempting object. That child is still too young and too weak to protect it. If someone wants this fountain pen, she will have to give it up again.”
“……”
“Someday, when that child grows up and the day comes when she can keep it without having it taken from her, give it to her then. For now, choose a suitable thing that the child truly needs rather than a flashy object like this. Then she will be all the more delighted.”
The result of that intense deliberation was this yellow ribbon.
Lionel had once seen Jaelin’s hair getting in the way of her vision as she read.
The ribbon was a useful thing for Jaelin, and it would surely be a modest gift that was not burdensome.
Lionel lightly swept up Jaelin’s wheat-colored hair. Despite looking stiff, her hair wrapped around his hand very softly.
Lionel gathered her hair together and tied the yellow ribbon around it.
In truth, yellow was not a color that suited Jaelin’s wheat-colored hair well. Blue of a vivid shade or a fresh green would have suited Jaelin beyond compare.
And yet, Lionel had deliberately chosen yellow. Because among the colors that could be realized with cotton cloth, yellow was the one that most resembled his own eyes.
It was a little regrettable. He had wanted to give her a gold satin ribbon that exactly matched the color of his eyes, but he had not been able to.
Still, the fact that the ribbon adorning Jaelin’s hair was close to the color of his eyes was quite satisfying.
“Jaelin.”
“Y-yes. Young Master.”
“It’s done. Look at me.”
Jaelin turned around and looked up at Lionel.
“It suits you well. You have to wear it every single day.”
Her face, full of blush, nodded.
“And there’s something I’m curious about……”
Lionel spoke while fingering the end of the ribbon hanging from Jaelin’s hair.
“I heard from the physician. That the orphanage director was tormenting you. Why didn’t you use your power? With your skill, you could have stopped her easily.”
“Well, the director is a bad person, but that much was bearable. A-and you shouldn’t use magic to harm people. Magic was m-made to help people. I-I don’t want to use this power to harm anyone.”
Jaelin smiled brightly. It was a clear, harmless smile.
“The reason I study runes so hard is because I want to s-save people.”
‘Ah…….’
Jaelin’s eyes, resembling blades of grass. Until now, Lionel had thought of Jaelin’s eyes as fragile as a newly sprouted shoot.
A young, tender sprout that would collapse helplessly even in the gentle breeze of a spring day and never rise again. A fragile blade of grass that could neither grow nor bear fruit without someone’s help.
But it was not so. Lionel had to admit that the thoughts he had held until now were wrong.
Her small frame that did not even reach the average of her peers, her timid behavior, even her stammering.
Just because your outward appearance is weak, just because you look that way, does not mean your soul is weak as well.
Eyes of unsurpassed firmness were looking up at Lionel.
Lionel stood there blankly, looking down at Jaelin.
He wanted those firm eyes. He wanted them to become entirely his.
It seemed that, for a moment, the thought that she was lovely had crossed his mind.
