He was afraid that Estelle would think of him as her father and that she would feel terrible for the family who lost her. She still called him dad, but he was afraid that it was not true in his heart, so he looked at Estelle in the distance with such fear. He heard a small laugh next to him.
“…I think the master and the lady have a crush on each other.”
“…?”
When Damian looked to the side, he saw Reina looking at him with a smiling face.
“It was a gift I gave to you on ‘A Star’s Birth’. It was a little late, but it was.”
“…”
“Reina! Look at this!”
Just as Damian was about to open his mouth to tell her, Estelle called out to her. Reina immediately bowed her head to Damian and headed toward Estelle and Bonita.
“A star’s birthday gift…”
Damian mumbled something that no one could hear and raised his head. White snowflakes were falling in clusters like white flower petals. When he stretched out his arms, the snowflakes that touched his hands melted in an instant. At that time, Estelle’s surprised voice was heard from the other side.
“Really? If there’s a lot of snow, you can make a house?”
“Of course, it won’t be as big as this mansion, but it will be big enough for you and Bonnie.”
“Wow… it would be nice if there was a lot of snow.”
It was a peaceful life that had never been given to Damian before.
“…Wow.”
It was impossible to predict at that moment that the snow would instantly melt as soon as it touched a slightly warm place, covering the entire world in white in a moment.
* * *
After the birth of a star, harsh cold comes. People all over the world believed that Bendicion was due to the loss of his teeth and his grief. Anyway, the cold wasn’t all that bad. The children were extremely happy when the pure white snow fell. Watching children play in the snow, a warm spring has arrived in the hearts of adults who have barely finished preparing for winter.
“It’s snowing heavily~”
Bonita was also one of the children who enjoyed the snow. Bonita moved her chair near her window and she watched in fascination as large snowflakes fell against her window. Even when she lived in a shabby house where the cold wind blew in, she would look around like this whenever it snowed. At the time, Bonita said she wished all the snow that fell from the sky was sugar. She was ‘cute for a reason.’ It was such a lovely thought that if sugar fell from the sky, she would save it all and become rich. If the whole world were covered in sugar like this, sugar would be worthless, but Bonita didn’t seem to have even thought about that. As Reina was giggling, remembering the once peaceful day, Bonita mumbled.
“I wish everything that fell from the sky was flour.”
“Not sugar?”
“No way.”
Bonita jumped down from her chair and shook her head.
“You can’t make bread with sugar!”
“Aha”
“But you can make bread with flour.”
“That’s right, Mom didn’t think about it that far. Our Bonnie is also smart.”
When Reina praised her for being smart, the corners of Bonita’s mouth went up.
“Then, shall we eat a lot of bread for lunch today? If you tell the chef in advance, you can eat freshly baked bread.”
“Is that okay?”
“Of course. “The chef loves our Bonnie so much.”
Reina wrapped her coat tightly around Bonita, who was excited, perhaps because of the bread or the thick snow. Her coat, which she had obviously paid a high price for, was thick and light on the contrary. It was the perfect clothes for a child to spend the winter. She then put on her child’s hands a pair of dainty hand-wrapped gloves of the same light purple color as her coat.
“Look at these, Mom, these are snowman gloves.”
“Snowman gloves?”
“Yes, the snowman I saw on the street two years ago was also wearing these gloves.”
Reina tried to remember her, but no matter how hard she tried, nothing came to her mind. She’s a child and she sees everything that her adults don’t and she remembers. Reina’s thoughts boiled down to one thing.
‘I guess Bonnie is a genius after all.’
How did my child grow up to be such a smart and upright child even in this environment? Even as Reina thought such things, she felt sick to her stomach as she put herself in the position of a guardian looking at her well-mannered child. She felt unwell as she thought about whether she was of no help to that little child. It was because it reminded me of Bonita’s surprise on her star’s birthday. Reina knew the reason. She clearly hasn’t gotten over the trauma of her kidnapping yet. Reina smiled brightly and looked pitifully at Bonita, who was squeezing her hand.
‘She’s still eight…’
Reina couldn’t ask Bonita why she ran away like that. Then she was afraid Bonita would recall her memories of that day again. Even adults get hurt even more when they bring up the wounds of that day, but what about children? In times like this, what you could do was to act as natural as…
She couldn’t help but find out her child’s inner thoughts through her play and conversation.’ Even if you take off Reina’s cover, Bonita was a bright child. She was certain that the child had a rough understanding of the situation he was in that day. So all she had to do was carefully guide the answer. Besides, today was a coincidence, but it was a good time to have fun and talk.
“Really? If there’s a lot of snow, you can build a house?”
“Of course. It won’t be as big as this mansion, but it will be big enough for you and Bonnie.”
When her first snow came, Reina and her children talked about the snow house. It was clearly just a conversation between the three of them, but the promise they made was rumored throughout the mansion, and many knights made bets to participate in Estelle’s snow house building project.
‘It was like that in the early morning.’
Reina slept well without waking up despite the commotion. She was so surprised when Peter, with a strangely shabby complexion, came to her in the morning and told her this. Even the first place was Damian Winternight, the owner of this mansion and the owner of the estate.
‘It’s the girl’s father in the first place, so she wouldn’t have had to participate in the game.’
Reina’s conclusion was that she never would have thought of it that far. Strangely, Damian could not remember that he was Estelle’s father and his natural rights as a guardian. Although he acted as if he would give Estelle everything, including her liver and gallbladder, he froze in shock when the child tried to give him even the slightest affection. Reina took Bonita’s small hand and left her room, taking Estelle with her as well. Estelle had just changed her clothes today, not with Reina, but with the help of her other maid, Sophia. Bonita’s clothes were dark purple, but her Estelle’s were light yellow. She, like Estelle, also wore light yellow hand-wrapped gloves that were a set with her cloak.
“It’s a complementary color….”
“What are complementary colors, Mom?”
“What are complementary colors? Reina?”
As Reina mumbled to herself, two small children ran up to her and asked. Reina answered in a friendly voice, looking at the children who were showing curiosity despite nothing with bright eyes.
“Complimentary colors are colors that are completely different from each other.”
“Yellow and purple are completely different things?”
“Yes, it’s the opposite.”
Estelle twitched her eyebrows as if she didn’t like something about those words and looked back and forth between Bonita and her clothes.
“Bonnie, would you like to switch gloves with me?”
“Yes? Um… yes. I like it.”
Bonita was suspicious of Estelle’s somewhat unexpected suggestion, but then nodded calmly. Bonita wore a dark purple coat and light yellow gloves, and Estelle wore a light yellow coat and dark purple gloves.
“Look, it’s completely different if you do it this way.”
Reina tried to hold back her laughter as she saw Estelle smiling brightly. She did the same with other adults around her. This was because it was the result of a young child’s serious consideration.
“I see!”
Bonita did not deny it and smiled brightly. The sight of the two children laughing the same way was both endearing and funny, so the adults held back their laughter even harder. As the two children walked out holding hands, they saw a large group of men gathered in the distance.
‘Wow, I really don’t want to go…
‘
It was a sight that might have seemed somewhat threatening to people who did not know it at all. Among them, the one that stood out was Damian. Everything looked black, like the color of his hair. Among them, there was one item that particularly caught my eye, and that was a shovel. It wasn’t the rusty shovel that Reina knew, but a very shiny looking shovel. No matter how you looked at it, it looked like it was going to bury a person rather than just shoveling snow. So, that’s what Damian’s serious face looks like, not a shovel, but someone holding that shovel.
“Reina?”
When Reina was lost in her thoughts and didn’t move, Estelle raised her head and looked at her.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Reina slowly moved forward again.
Knock-knock-knock, the footprints of three people remained among the many footsteps. There was so much snow that my feet were soaked.
Crunch crunch.
Puff puff-
When the sound of people walking hard, as if buried in the snow, was heard, a large group of people gathered together turned their throws at the same time.
“Ah. Hello?”
When Reina met many eyes, she smiled awkwardly and said hello. The knights, who had serious expressions as if they had encountered some kind of gigantic beast, hurriedly walked towards where Reina, Estelle, and Bonita were.
“Sorry for not putting it aside!”
“I didn’t clean it up because I was afraid the lady would get upset when she saw the snow piled up! If she had a hard time walking like this, I should have cleaned it up!”
“Do something! 3rd unit! Quickly clear away the snow!”
“…yes?”
‘Please, I wanted you to tell me this, one person at a time.’
But her wish was in vain. They all started making restless noises and began to shake off the snow in front of the three of them. The funny thing was, everyone was just digging in and moving forward.
“…Waa.”
“…Wow.”
Estelle let out an exclamation with a surprised face, while Bonita looked at the knights with a sparkling face. Raina couldn’t understand why Bonita’s eyes were sparkling like that. Damian spoke resolutely to Estelle.
“Estelle, you can make it big enough to fill this land.”
“…Can I do it?”
“Whatever you want is possible.”
“Is it possible?”
She took a quick look around the garden. No matter how inhumanly strong the Duke and his knights are, was it possible to build such a snow house in just one day? Reina tilted her head. Bonita and Estelle looked at Reina and followed suit.
—————————————————————
Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. I hope you liked it <3
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