♡ TL: Khadija SK
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“Wait just three minutes!”
Nick flung the words hastily, darted into the room, and shut the door.
His shadow moved chaotically across the frosted glass.
‘Like Andre.’
Hazel recalled how Andre would bar her from his room during surprise visits, stuffing his toys everywhere.
“C-Come in.”
Nick wiped sweat from his brow, evidence of his frantic activity in those brief moments.
“Then, I’ll step in.”
Hazel gave a slight bow as a greeting and entered. Nick narrowed his eyes.
‘A gesture only nobles use?’
Was Hazel mimicking the aristocracy?
Her writings brimmed with critiques of noble society.
Nick felt something odd, but her direct question halted his musings.
“Can I sit here?”
She placed her hand on the back of a wooden chair beside the bed.
Nick smiled kindly and nodded.
“I wasn’t expecting a visitor, so I didn’t prepare anything. Would you like something to drink?”
“It’s fine.”
On one wall stood a small table for simple food prep, holding a few apples, a water jug, and a glass. Nick stopped rubbing the chipped glass and turned, reassured.
“Nick, this is this week’s manuscript.”
With only one chair, Nick sat on the bed.
Hazel rummaged through her bag, pulled out the manuscript, and handed it to him.
Nick unfurled the two rolled sheets and read them quickly.
“This manuscript is brilliant as always! Full of wit. Shall we print 100 copies this time too?”
“Thank you.”
“I’m the one who should thank you. Thanks to you, my little sister enrolled in boarding school. I feel like I used up all my life’s luck meeting you. Isn’t that amazing?”
Hazel wanted to echo his words. Then she remembered how she met Nick.
***
Three years ago, the publishing house that gave Hazel translation work abruptly collapsed.
More precisely, its owner abandoned it and fled.
Upon hearing the news, Hazel stole a maid’s outfit, as she’d done today, and stormed the publishing house.
She intended to pilfer something valuable from the office in lieu of her stolen wages.
If luck favored her and she spotted the manager, she hoped to slap his face.
Looking back, the amount she lost was trivial, but it was significant to her then. More importantly, she couldn’t stomach working without pay. So Hazel was furious.
Fueled by that blazing anger, she went there and discovered a new world.
People sat on the wrecked office floor in a daze.
A printer who’d produced vast quantities of books solely for the publisher, a friend who’d vouched for him, a writer whose life-staked work was now tarnished—they’d lost their reputations, been cast into the streets, and the company passed to another’s hands.
Hazel couldn’t take a single step inside the office.
The accumulated grief and despair within were more than she could bear.
Compared to that, her anger was a mere drop of blood.
There was nothing to steal from an already ruined office, so no reason to linger.
Hazel turned and headed to the pub in the building’s basement.
She needed a drink to calm her anxious, pounding heart.
But in her shabby attire, she couldn’t visit the cafes or salons she knew. So she chose the “Oak,” a haunt for the penniless.
As usual, Hazel picked a corner table and waited for a waiter.
But after a long while, no one came. Then she realized.
In this place, you had to go to the bar yourself to order and fetch food and drink.
No one else here sat expecting someone to take their order and bring their meal.
‘That’s why everyone was staring at me.’
Hazel’s ears flushed.
At that moment, a man sat in the empty chair across from her. It was Nick, looking younger than he did now.
He set a mug of beer before Hazel.
“I ordered one, but the barkeep gave me two. I’ve got to get back to work after just one. Can you drink this? No need for money.”
Nick assumed Hazel had no cash and was just spectating, so he offered a hand.
Hazel was startled.
She’d seen him at the publishing house office.
His words as he pounded the floor still rang vividly in her mind:
“If the printer goes bankrupt, what about my pay? They said they’d settle accounts after printing! I put up with three months’ delayed wages for this! Oh, my little sister needs to go to school!”
He’d shouted into the air, unheard by anyone.
As Hazel listened to his rage-filled cries, she’d thought something futile: ‘How much could three months’ pay be?’
Anyway, this man—who hadn’t received his overdue wages and couldn’t fund his sister’s schooling—offered her a beer.
‘How could he do that?’
He struck her as a remarkable man, caring for others despite his own plight.
Hazel wanted to help him too.
It was a kindness that begat another.
She proposed something she’d long imagined:
“I want to write texts to earn money. Can you help me?”
“You seem to have misunderstood.”
“What?”
“You must’ve mistaken me for a publisher’s employee because of the ink smell, but I’m sorry—I’m not. I’m a printing house worker. I handle type and run machines.”
Nick gestured as if operating something.
“I don’t need a publisher. Or an editor. I just need someone to print my writings and sell them for me.”
“You mean you want to stay hidden?”
Hazel nodded. Nick pondered for a moment, then nodded back.
“It was rude of me to tell you to go to a publisher. You’re not a noble or a scholar, so no publisher would review your work.”
Hazel is a noble, and even as graduation neared, a professor had offered to introduce her to a publisher to write for them, but she listened to Nick quietly.
“You’re right. And my writings… they’re kind of strange.”
“What? You don’t know how to spell? If your writing’s shoddy, I can’t help. I may just deal with iron and machines, but I know paper’s worth. I hate wasting ink or paper.”
“Better judge my level after reading. I’ve got nothing on me now, but if you give me your address, I’ll send you something.”
Nick eyed Hazel skeptically. Her clear eyes gazed at him with expectation.
‘Truly beautiful.’
Nick’s cheeks flushed briefly.
Hazel didn’t know it, but Nick hadn’t helped her out of exceptional kindness.
It was because she was strikingly beautiful.
And when that beauty looked at him with eyes full of hope, he couldn’t refuse her request.
That day, Nick gave Hazel the printing house’s address.
On her way home, Hazel set up a mailbox under the name “H.”
Later, when Nick read her writings, he understood what she meant by “kind of strange.”
Her pen was sharp as a blade. She criticized noble society and the kingdom without hesitation, advocating for women’s liberation.
Hazel veiled her messages in symbolic phrases and poetic lines, but Nick—privileged to read countless texts as a printer—recognized them instantly.
She sent her writings to Nick with a second request:
[Sell my writings. I’ll take only 20% of the profits. The rest is yours to do with as you please.]
Hazel clearly lacked practical sense in the publishing market.
She didn’t know where or how to find readers. So she left it to Nick, who found regular buyers, delivered her work biweekly, and helped her earn from her writing.
Of course, it profited Nick too.
The more readers Hazel’s writings gained, the wealthier he became.
It was worth the risk of secretly using the printing house’s machines and paper.
Nick felt no guilt draining the printer’s resources.
Didn’t the owner rake in vast sums monthly without lifting a finger?
If it were up to him, Nick would’ve printed thousands of Hazel’s works and distributed them covertly.
Over time, personal letters mingled with the mail once reserved for writings alone. Thus, the two became partners and friends.
***
Today’s meeting was their first in two years.
During that time, Nick had offered several times to visit Hazel, but she declined.
She also ignored his request for her real home address instead of the mailbox.
Hazel answered many of Nick’s curious questions but stayed silent on personal details.
It inwardly saddened him and, simultaneously, stirred his concern.
What if Hazel had a secret she couldn’t share? What if that secret threatened her safety?
“Hazel, you’re really okay, right? If anything goes wrong anytime, contact me. Thanks to you, I’ve saved a lot, so I can help you.”
“All of a sudden?”
Hazel blinked, glancing at the newspapers haphazardly plastered on the wall.
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