Episode 11
Monica glared at him again, her eyes wide open.
Are you hearing my curses? Garcia must have understood the meaning in her eyes, so he let out a hollow laugh and held out his hand.
“Hey, are you okay?”
But Monica couldn’t do that. Her heart wanted to jump up right away and grab the collar of the man who was looking down at her with a suspicious look.
“Get up first.”
She really didn’t want to receive help from this man, but unfortunately, all the strength in her body was gone. Monica held out both hands with her mouth hanging open.
But the moment she raised her head and opened her mouth…
“Uh.”
Garcia shook his head once as he tried to grab Monica’s hand, then grabbed her wrist. He couldn’t hold her bloody palm tightly.
Big tears came out before the scream.
“Uh…”
Garcia opened his mouth in surprise without realizing it.
“Ah.”
Whatever. Monica had never experienced anything like this in her life. The expensive ribbon she had bought with great determination was dirty, and the man she bumped into on the street was a thug with thugs following him around.
Monica groaned as she tried to stand up in a panic. The two people’s gazes turned to Monica’s legs, and Monica opened her eyes wide once again.
She was just pretending to know the man, but she suddenly got caught up in him, lost her ribbon, and got beaten up. So she couldn’t be happy.
Are you okay? There’s no way I am fine!
That’s because she noticed that her one-piece dress, which she had worn for five years without losing a single inch, was torn to pieces. It was something that could bring tears to her eyes.
She had a strong desire to fight back, but tears kept pouring down her face. Monica covered her mouth.
Monica stopped crying and screamed.
“My one-piece!”
“Ugh…”
“…What?”
Her scalp was still cold because of the hair that had been grabbed by the gangsters. And that wasn’t all. Her back, where she had hit the wall, was still painful.
Garcia, who had been glaring at Monica beside him, looked back at her as if he were dumbfounded. Monica quickly shook off Garcia’s hand and tried to grab her dress, but stumbled under his stronger-than-expected strength.
“Hey! Stay still…”
Garcia, who had been holding Monica tightly, almost lost his balance because she suddenly tried to escape. So, he grabbed Monica’s waist in a panic as she tried to fall.
The surprising thing was that the man in front of her was stuttering, embarrassed by Monica’s tears. When he was throwing rocks at the thugs, he seemed fearless.
The next moment, by coincidence, Monica’s disheveled hair was completely loosened. It was because she had been grabbed without mercy by the thugs and shaken around.
Shiny black hair flowed in the sunlight, filling Garcia’s vision.
“Uh…”
Garcia groaned without realizing it.
Monica was stunned when she saw her knees. And that was understandable, since she only had four decent outfits.
The taffeta dress she wore to the interview at the Mallett Mansion, this gray one-piece, and her nightgown. Other than that, she only had one dull, stuffy green dress.
The green dress was made of a much thicker fabric than the taffeta dress, so she couldn’t wear it in the summer!
“This…”
Monica shivered as she looked at her torn skirt. It was a bit shabby, but at least it was acceptable as everyday wear.
Anyway, she wasn’t a formal tutor, and the child Monica was going to take care of was a young boy. There was no need to be formal, so she thought she could just wear this one-piece dress and take care of the child.
Monica’s tears stopped. No matter how painful or embarrassing something was, tears would just disappear when faced with something that threatened her immediate livelihood.
Monica’s trembling eyes filled with cold anger.
“…Give it.”
“…Huh?”
“Give it back!”
Until then, Garcia had been saying things like “Hey, what kind of woman are you…?” with a blank expression, but he closed his mouth. This was because he belatedly sensed a dangerous aura from Monica.
But it was too late. Monica grabbed Garcia by the collar. Where did she get such strength? The man who had been holding her neck with her thin wrist let out a suffocating sound.
“My one-piece! My silk ribbon! My straw hat! My 60 dollars, whatever! Give me everything back…”
Monica’s green eyes quickly scanned Garcia up and down, and then immediately after that, Monica screamed.
“You damn swallow!!!”
It was still morning, in a dirty alley where the sunlight was pouring down before it got really hot. Monica’s loud voice rang out. You swallow… You swallow… You swallow… You swallow…
—
The blond man, whose forehead was completely furrowed, searched through his belongings and swore.
Monica glanced over and immediately realized why the man was annoyed. What he was pulling out of his pocket was a rolled cigar, and it was completely broken in half.
“Shit!”
And that cigar had popped out of the shirt pocket of the man Monica had been clutching at while losing her mind exactly ten minutes ago.
What this meant was that Monica had broken it.
Monica glared at him with a puffy face, as if to say, “If you’re going to curse, go ahead and do it.”
But the man, Garcia, put the half-broken cigar in his mouth without saying anything and lit it with a flint.
His expression was grim. Next to him, Monica was barely able to straighten her hair by running her fingers through it while he inhaled the smoke.
Garcia opened his mouth, blowing out smoke.
“So. Other than that, what other candidates were there?”
“Candidates?”
Monica furrowed her brows as if she didn’t understand. Garcia took another drag on his cigar, exhaled the smoke in the opposite direction of her, and continued.
“What else was there besides swallows?”
“Ah.”
Only then did Monica open her mouth slightly. That was what he was asking.
She choked and tore his clothes for a long time in that dirty alley. Then, when one of the unconscious thugs showed signs of waking up with a “Ugh…”, both of them immediately reached a tacit agreement without exception.
So, they kicked those motherfuckers in the head one more time and got out of there as fast as they could.
Now, Monica and Garcia were sitting on one side of the plaza, barely able to find a spot.
In front of them were boys selling newspapers under the bright blue sunlight, an old man pulling a cart, pedestrians walking along the street, and the shiny stone floor. Occasionally, a man stopped on the street to smoke a cheap cigarette and glanced at the two of them.
A very handsome man with a dirty appearance, smoking an expensive cigar, but it was broken, and a girl with a puffy face, eyes that clearly showed signs of crying, a mess of hair, and torn clothes. It was a combination that was sure to attract attention in many ways.
But that didn’t mean she would tolerate all their curious stares. Monica, who was tangled up in her messy hair with her fingers, looked at them with a “what?”
When the men met eyes with her, who was in a state of disarray, they avoided eye contact and slowly started to distance themselves.
It was funny. Whenever she made eye contact with a guy she didn’t know, it was usually Monica who looked away first.
Of course, that was a natural thing for a lady of noble birth, and Monica was no exception.
But strangely, Monica felt like she wanted to act like that. It was like the boy she often saw in the orphanage… who used the excuse of being an orphan to hang out with the gangs and eventually got kicked out of the orphanage.
Monica had never really liked that boy, but sometimes she envied the way everyone would avoid eye contact with him or quietly walk away.
What was that boy’s name…
Monica opened her mouth, trying to recall a vague memory.
“Blackguard.”
“Oh my.”
“A thug. A hoodlum.”
“Ugh.”
“Other than that, there are gangsters, and in a different category, there are also idiots.”
Monica glared at Garcia, counting off the five fingers one by one. Garcia, in turn, blew out a third puff of smoke and glared at Monica contemptuously.
“Among them, there is the one called swallow.”
“You should know how grateful you are. I call someone like you as ponytail. That’s too respectful.”
Monica snorted at the barbed tone.
“I just called you a ponytail because you have a ponytail. Why are you so upset?”
“Yeah, I called you a swallow because you look like a swallow, so let’s just say we don’t have any complaints.”
“So now that you don’t have a ponytail, can I call you a seaweed head? You’re not going to complain, are you?”
“What?”
Monica got angry again at the sarcastic remark. Whatever. Garcia made a gesture of stopping Monica by spreading out his palm. Then he dropped the ashes of the cigarette on the ground and stomped on them with his foot.
How far from a gentlemanly was that easygoing attitude! Monica clenched her fists.
However, the man stretched out his open palm and wrapped it around Monica’s fist. His hand was so big that Monica’s fist was instantly enveloped in his palm.
“Let’s stop being so angry, okay?”
Monica, who was about to get angry and say, “Why the hell are you holding my hand?” was speechless.
Because the man’s blue eyes were faintly smiling.
“Anyway, I saved you.”
“…Swallow…”
Monica finally managed to utter just that one word after a long time.
—
