One Day, I Picked Up a Mom - Chapter 61
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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One Day I Picked Up a Mother – Episode 61
After closing the study door and sitting on the couch, Ludrio pondered how exactly he should bring up the topic.
It seemed like he had many curiosities, and he had arranged this meeting because he wanted to hear the story directly from Luna.
But he hadn’t thought about what more he could actually learn through her.
What could she possibly tell him when she had amnesia in the first place?
“…”
As Luna sitting across from him fidgeted with her hands, her sleeves rolled up slightly, revealing her wrist.
What Dr. Kraban had wrapped up thickly…
“Are you badly hurt?”
Ludrio’s gaze fell upon those white bandages.
Luna seemed uncomfortable with his stare and only shook her head while pulling down her sleeves.
Ludrio, who had been quietly staring at her wrist, slowly raised his head.
It seemed impossible to learn new information through her after all.
“…You must have been frightened.”
Just as he concluded it would be better to receive a separate report from Jane, unfamiliar words slipped out of his mouth.
As he became flustered by those words that sounded quite comforting, Luna pressed her lips tightly together.
She was wearing a very sad expression once again.
“Luna.”
“…”
“What’s wrong.”
What could be making her so sad?
Was her wrist hurting?
Luna buried her head deeply as if hiding her face.
“You’ll have to drive me away now.”
Her tearful voice, which she couldn’t quite swallow, scattered drop by drop to the floor.
“What?”
Ludrio asked back briefly.
His body, which had been leaning toward Luna, froze in place.
Who would have thought that the first words she’d utter after returning from her outing would be about leaving the estate.
“I have to leave this estate.”
It was a notification without beginning or end.
An unkind notification without the slightest explanation of how she had reached such a conclusion.
Ludrio’s gaze remained fixed on the woman before him.
“Before I cause harm to you or Iban.”
Her small shoulders hunched up and her neck bent deeply.
He waited a bit longer, hoping the conversation might continue, but the woman still kept her face completely hidden and now had closed her mouth as well.
Even though she surely had more to say. As if she had said everything she needed to.
“Speak so I can understand.”
Ludrio’s voice became somewhat cold.
Flinch. Once again, her delicate shoulders visibly shrank.
Ludrio suppressed his irritation while grasping at his rapidly evaporating patience.
He exhaled a sigh-like breath and asked again in a voice with as much emotion removed as possible.
“…Luna, speak so I can understand.”
So his voice wouldn’t frighten her. He chose the lowest and gentlest tone possible.
A brief silence followed.
The study was quiet as if the air had stopped, and only the woman’s shallow breathing could be heard intermittently.
‘That child still doesn’t trust you. …She was worried that you might want to abandon her too.’
Then suddenly, the thought crossed his mind that the current situation was turning quite absurd.
“…”
The woman still claimed she couldn’t trust him because she was afraid, but in reality, it wasn’t like that at all.
If she truly feared him, she wouldn’t have dared to ignore his decision-making authority and arrogantly conclude and notify him like this.
And yet he was giving her another chance.
Far from getting angry at her rudeness, he was actually reading her mood instead. Even he found it absurd.
His patience had already been exhausted long ago, and there was no reason to endure it any longer. Just as he was about to end this unfamiliar waiting.
“Rosemund Bain seemed to recognize me.”
Finally, a story flowed from her lips.
“So, Count Bain and I, we slept together.”
Her confession, which began after a long wait, was rather shocking.
Ludrio frowned deeply at the unexpected combination of words.
Slept together. The woman and Count Bain…
Perhaps it was because the words came out too suddenly and quickly.
Though it was a story anyone could understand, the words she had uttered became tangled up in his head on their own.
“But Count Bain and his wife are supposed to visit tomorrow. To apologize.”
Regardless of his confusion, Luna’s voice continued very urgently.
“If that woman recognized me, then the Count will surely recognize me too. For now, I pretended not to know Rosemund. I also told the Countess that I didn’t know her. But when tomorrow comes…”
Like someone who had already prepared what to say, she poured out sentences all at once.
Only when the woman paused to choose her words did Ludrio realize that all of this was being said as Luna, Iban’s mother and a prostitute.
He had thought she would just be a bit surprised by the sudden situation…
It seemed she had grasped in her own way the meaning of the gaze directed at him within Rosemund’s rudeness, her own position.
“Probably more nobles in the capital will recognize me. Even if Count Bain ends with an apology this time, not daring to question the House of Roderich’s authority, if people who recognize me keep appearing, it will eventually explode.”
The woman was afraid that her past as a prostitute would be revealed.
That her existence would cause harm to Iban and the family.
‘So that’s why she’s saying she’ll leave.’
Ludrio’s view caught the woman’s ear, still with her head deeply bowed, burning bright red.
Seeing that even the back of her neck was flushed red, her face was undoubtedly burning hot as well, even without looking.
“So you must send me away.”
“Lift your head first.”
Ludrio reached out his hand.
His unhesitating touch reached Luna’s chin, which was deeply bowed.
The face he forcibly lifted to meet his gaze was very red as expected. Yet it was also pale as if drained.
Tears were brimming under her finely trembling eyelids.
“…”
She seemed ashamed, seemed afraid, and also seemed very sad.
Ludrio observed her for quite a long time, wanting to understand those emotions written on her face and the reasons for those emotions.
However, in the end, he couldn’t fully understand all those complexly intertwined feelings.
“…It’s okay.”
Finally, Ludrio offered an ambiguous conclusion.
It’s okay.
When he heard from the Countess that Rosemund Bain had recognized Luna, there was bewilderment that the situation was flowing in a bad direction, but that was all.
While he would need to assess the situation separately, it wasn’t something to worry about and rush decisions over already.
Moreover, since the Countess had already taken her around the capital, sending her away now wouldn’t solve the problem at all.
He quickly calculated the truth of the words he had just uttered and added more words.
“It’s not such a serious situation.”
Then he withdrew his hand from her and said.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
It was certainly meant to calm her down.
The woman’s gaze wavered and the tears that had been pooling fell helplessly.
“Is it really okay?”
Starting with that, tears continuously flowed down her cheeks. Yet her voice remained calm without much trembling.
“Even though everything might be exposed…”
Her tightly clasped hands and lips pressed so firmly together that the corners of her mouth turned downward. That effort seemed to have some effect.
“Don’t I need to go out?”
Even so, the woman’s voice sounded desperately pitiful to Ludrio’s ears.
It scratched at the depths of his heart in an unpleasantly irritating way.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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