Laila, who had been silently listening to nonsense, turned her upper body slightly and looked back for the first time.
Her face was expressionless. When her eyes met Thomis’s, he involuntarily stepped back, and Laila spoke again.
“Your face is amusing.”
“……what?”
“Your face is so pretty that it’s fun just to look at. Time passes smoothly. But you…”
Laila’s gaze scrutinized Thomis’s face as if dissecting it. As her persistent stare lingered, Thomis reflexively tensed and held his breath.
As soon as she sensed his tension, Laila lifted one corner of her mouth in a smirk and spat out the words.
“It’s terribly boring.”
Thomis, lacking in reading comprehension, would take some time to understand her words.
Laila started walking again, facing forward, and sure enough,
“…Wait! …Stop!”
Thomis’s frantic shouts faintly reached Laila, who was already far away.
His incomprehensible words sounded like noise.
As Laila turned to the corner and climbed the stairs away from the noise, she suddenly realized something.
Why did Sion’s words seem to stick in her ears?
It was because Sion had a nice voice.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Sion is mute.
The rumor was completely untrue, but when she thought about it, it wasn’t a bad one.
‘Good. I was wondering what would happen if someone other than me talked to him and he talked back like he talked to me…….’
The clash between one of Laila’s peculiar brothers and Sion.
Just the thought made her dizzy, so it was a problem she had simply avoided until now.
But suddenly, a solution appeared out of nowhere! Truly, she was thankful.
‘If the rumor becomes accepted as truth, no one will talk to Sion, right?’
The truth is, no one still talks to him. Except for Laila.
But just to be sure, Laila asked him later that night to only speak when it’s just the two of them.
If someone else starts talking to him or if he needs to respond in front of others… just use gestures or nods.
It was an outlandish request, so Laila had prepared all sorts of excuses to convince the rebellious Sion.
But none of those excuses saw the light of day.
Sion simply replied, “Okay,” without even asking why.
His attitude was no different from when he agreed to go for a walk.
Because of that, Laila felt a bit confused despite getting the answer she wanted.
How far will he go, saying “okay”?
‘If I beg him not to kill me, will he still say ‘okay’?’
Laila stared intently at Sion, who was sitting on the bed, staring back at her.
…He didn’t say a word.
She wanted to ask him a joking question, but her lips were stuck together and wouldn’t budge.
Laila realized, deep down, that she was sure. She would never get an ‘okay’ answer to that question.
‘It’s okay. It’s still okay. The road ahead is long.’
Positive thoughts always help.
Suppressing vague anxiety and fear, Laila forced a smile towards Sion.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Another week passed.
On the last day of that week, something changed for both Sion and Laila.
“Well, that looks good! He can use his shoulder now.”
Elvin, who had been examining Sion since morning, spoke to Laila, who was sitting beside Sion like a guardian rather than the patient.
Laila nodded her head and glanced at Sion out of the corner of her eye.
Sion had finally fully recovered from his shoulder injury.
The bandages had been removed long before, simply because the wound had healed, but up until the last appointment, he had been told to use his shoulder with caution.
But now, even that caution is no longer necessary.
As Sion nonchalantly listened to the examination results, he picked up his shirt and put it back on after the exam was over.
While Sion was putting on his shirt, Elvin remarked as Laila casually inspected the scarred remains of his shoulder injury.
“I’ve mentioned it before, but his recovery is truly remarkable.”
“……Yes, that’s good to know.”
“With this level of recovery, he’ll heal much faster than others from any injury.”
“Even emotional…….”
Even emotional wounds?
“Yes?”
Laila almost blurted out the words she almost said by mistake and swallowed them along with her saliva.
“No, it’s nothing.”
“It doesn’t seem like nothing. You were about to say ‘even emotional…’”
“You must have misheard.”
“No, I heard it clearly. If you were about to say ‘even emotional,’ then, perhaps, emotional-”
This is insane! How persistent can a person with sharp ears be?
Is it because he’s a doctor that he’s like this? Is that how one can uncover the illnesses hidden by defensive patients?
Until now, Laila, who had never hid anything from a doctor, had been startled by persistent Elvin.
Inevitably, to defuse the situation, Laila’s mouth moved on its own.
“He’s skinny!”
“Skinny, you say?”
“This kid, Sion, has lost a lot of weight. So, uh, I’m worried if, um, it’s bad for his health.”
She blurted out whatever was on her mind, and once spoken, it sounded plausible.
Elvin smiled slightly, as if he understood, then glanced at Sion, then at Laila.
“You don’t have to worry about it. He’s slim, but it’s not to the point where it would affect his health. His complexion is good too.”
That’s right…
As Laila spoke, she recalled the sight of Sion’s bare body earlier.
He was still on the skinny side, but compared to before, Sion had definitely gained weight.
Especially his back.
When she thought about it, his back had changed quite a bit. When he was locked in the underground prison, Sion’s back had been pitifully bony.
But now, even though his bones were still visible, they didn’t look bad. On the contrary,
‘On the contrary, what?’
What was she trying to think? Laila frowned slightly as her thoughts were interrupted by an instinctive repulsion.
At that moment, she heard Elvin’s voice.
“Still, if you’re concerned, shall I prepare a separate diet plan?”
Laila shook her head, understanding that the ‘diet plan’ meant fattening up Sion.
“That’s fine. As long as there’s no health issue.”
“Hmm, okay. Actually, the miss needs the diet plan more than him.”
“…Me?”
“You’ve lost weight.”
Laila absentmindedly touched her face. Can people tell that she’s lost weight?
She has been eating very little lately, so it was unavoidable.
“……I’m going to gain it back.”
“Mmm…….”
“If you hear rumors, you’ll know, right? You’d know I go to the dining hall every day. I’m eating better than I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
“I understand. But if you lose more weight than now, then I’ll prescribe a diet.”
“But I’ve heard that in social circles, young ladies deliberately skip meals to maintain a thin body…”
“Miss Laila, you’re ten years old; it’s not yet time for that.”
She had nothing to say. It was a bit burdensome to receive dietary advice as if she were a patient, so she just blurted out those words, but in reality, Laila also agreed with Elvin.
Or, more accurately, she partially agreed.
Elvin said it wasn’t time for Laila to do that “yet,” but Laila didn’t want to face that time in her life.
Starving herself to look pretty.
Honestly, it was a behavior she couldn’t understand.
‘Well, the thing I don’t understand the most is how one can be as skinny as a twig but still get praise.’
She recalled a comment from a certain young lord she briefly met before regression, saying that a woman with a good complexion doesn’t exude charm.
Thinking about it again, isn’t he completely crazy?
If a pale face from not eating much looks so good, he should make his own face like that and live with it in front of the mirror for the rest of his life.
Somehow, Laila, now recalling the murky memories of the past, secretly criticized the prevalent deformities in social beauty standards while grinding her teeth.
Then, suddenly, Elvin’s shadow fell over Laila.
“And miss.”
“……?”
“It’s about this kid…”
