The Morning Star Baby Wants a Family - Chapter 48
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 48
Cheon-eul’s gentle voice came through with particular clarity.
At that, Seowan turned halfway around. Her deep blue eyes gazing down at him were cold.
“So you won’t even offer a greeting now?”
Cheon-eul asked softly. Seowan’s expression twisted with irritation.
“I made myself clear. I have no time for your nonsense.”
Seowan clicked her tongue quietly and turned away.
It was then that anxious Hae-na, still clutching her sister’s sleeve, looked back and forth between Cheon-eul and Seowan.
The smile that had been drawn across Cheon-eul’s face vanished. He took a step forward.
It was an urgent movement, as though he meant to seize Seowan. The sound of earth scraping harshly beneath his feet echoed.
“Wait, Seowan.”
“….”
“I’ve come to apologize. For my previous words and conduct.”
A low voice reached her ears. Cheon-eul’s tone, stripped of its usual gentleness and composure, carried unexpected weight.
Seowan exhaled a quiet sigh. Cheon-eul continued.
“I spoke out of turn. It was my own foolishness, and I ask your forgiveness.”
A brief silence fell, and Seowan turned to face him fully.
Cheon-eul, who had been looking up at her with an expressionless face, lowered his head.
His hair, fine as silver thread, rippled. Seowan, regarding his crown with displeasure, reluctantly opened her mouth.
“Lift your head.”
That lingering man had bowed for once. Against such an unadorned apology, I found myself unwilling to persist in my irritation.
“I won’t hold this matter against you either. Now go.”
Just as Seowan turned to leave, Cheon-eul lifted his head.
“But there was no falsehood in what I said, Seowan.”
Cheon-eul’s voice came without inflection. Seowan narrowed one eye.
“What?”
“I acknowledge that my expression was poor. But what I told you then remains unchanged.”
Their gazes crossed in the empty air. Cheon-eul continued calmly.
“Choose me. It is the best path for you.”
“Don’t presume to judge for me, Cheon-eul.”
Seowan spoke with a growl. Yet Cheon-eul’s jade-green eyes remained steady and unshaken.
“Yeo-ga’s power will surely benefit the Yul Clan. And with this justification, I can support you more actively than before.”
“I’ve already sent a marriage proposal to the Seol Family.”
“The Seol Family is merely one house. A family easily cast aside. If you fear your honor and the Yul Clan’s reputation might suffer because of this, I will take separate measures.”
Hae-na stood silent as a mouse, watching the two of them carefully.
Seeing the child in such a state only deepened Seowan’s discomfort.
“Why should I marry you and accept such help from you?”
Seowan irritably brushed back her bangs. She could not fathom why he kept being so troublesome.
“I’m tired of this argument. Is there something the Yul Clan must obtain through marriage? If so, then speak plainly.”
Cheon-eul’s gaze fixed entirely upon Seowan. Then his eyes trembled, and he looked away.
“No, there isn’t.”
A hint of confusion colored Cheon-eul’s voice as he spoke. After a brief silence, he continued.
“I simply wish to be of help. Seowan is my dear friend, after all.”
At the word “friend,” Seowan’s brow furrowed as if troubled.
Hae-na glanced up at her sister quietly.
Seowan did not deny it.
“I need no help from you. In fact, it unsettles me. You are not the sort of person to offer kindness without reason.”
“Yes, that is true.”
Cheon-eul admitted it readily. His jade-green eyes turned toward Seowan.
“But this time, I simply… wished to do so.”
“….”
“That is all. I swear by the heavens, there is no other intention.”
Seowan let out a short laugh. Her cold gaze mocked Cheon-eul.
“So, in the end, it is merely your whim.”
Her voice was as chill as a winter wind. Soon, all trace of amusement vanished from her face.
“You expect me to marry based on that whim? You want me to trust a heart that could change at any moment?”
Cheon-eul’s lips parted. Then he spoke impulsively.
“Is that not acceptable?”
His jade-green eyes, which had always shone softly, grew sharp.
Cheon-eul, looking up at Seowan, appeared angry.
“As you say, it is whim. Then you need only use my whim, Seowan. I have said I would give freely—take as much as you desire, is that not so?”
A sharp wind swept through, stirring Cheon-eul’s silver hair.
“I cannot understand.”
“….”
“I simply cannot understand.”
It was unclear to whom the final words were directed.
The light slowly drained from Cheon-eul’s eyes as he stared at Seowan. Then he lowered his head.
A heavy silence descended. It was a child’s small voice that broke it.
“Forgive me for interrupting. May I say something?”
It was Hae-na.
Two pairs of eyes turned toward the child simultaneously.
Hae-na’s lips trembled with anxiety.
‘I was trying to stay quiet.’
I had tried to hold back, but failed. If I did not speak the words rising to my throat, I felt I might cry out.
“First, hello, Cheon-eul. It has been a long time since we last met.”
Hae-na bowed her head respectfully in greeting.
“It has been a while, Hae-na.”
Cheon-eul, unusually, accepted the child’s greeting a beat too late.
“I have been listening to your conversation, and I wondered if I might ask Cheon-eul something?”
Hae-na’s words followed before Cheon-eul could finish his response.
Cheon-eul’s face went slightly blank, but the child did not stop speaking.
“Why do you speak that way?”
The child’s clear voice rang out sharply.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment.
Seowan, Cheon-eul, and even the Servant Girl who happened to be passing by all opened their mouths slightly.
Hae-na, meeting the gaze of Cheon-eul who stared at me with a dazed expression, realized she had misspoken and pressed her lips together.
“I apologize. What I meant to say is….”
“….”
“Why do you speak that way?”
Cheon-eul’s mouth, struck twice over, opened even wider.
Hae-na’s words continued deliberately.
“Your words keep circling around and around. You do answer the questions my sister asks, but you speak so indirectly that it becomes terribly difficult to understand.”
“….”
“Of course, I think this is partly due to the prejudices my sister carries. But even accounting for that, the things you’ve said, Cheon-eul….”
Hae-na paused to choose her words carefully. With her limited vocabulary, it was difficult to decide how to express this.
“They are hollow inside.”
Having selected her words, Hae-na delivered another weighty statement.
“You did not say the most important thing. If you had said just that one thing, no explanation would have been necessary at all.”
Transparent jade-green eyes fixed upon Hae-na. They held a bewildered light.
“If you do not speak properly, there is no way to understand. For anyone.”
Hae-na spoke to him with careful consideration.
Cheon-eul blinked slowly. Butterfly-like long eyelashes fluttered.
Just as he moved to speak, Seowan placed a hand upon Hae-na’s head.
Hae-na lifted her gaze to look at her sister.
Seowan murmured with a slight frown.
“They say children learn everything easily, but….”
“Sister?”
Hae-na tilted her head in confusion. What have I learned?
“Don’t learn that kind of tone. Watching you ramble on with words I can’t understand, just like him, gives me a headache.”
At Seowan’s following words, Hae-na blinked several times.
It seemed that Seowan, too, found Hae-na’s speech as puzzling as Cheon-eul’s—because she did not know the “important thing” that lay hidden in his words.
Hae-na understood her sister immediately.
From the start, Seowan had not known what was missing from Cheon-eul’s speech. Therefore, she could not help but fail to understand Hae-na’s words as well.
How presumptuous of me to lecture an adult as though I knew something, when I myself had failed to consider my audience.
“I apologize. I did not think to consider that it would be difficult for you to understand, sister.”
Hae-na spoke with deep reflection.
“What I meant was that Cheon-eul’s words are too complicated and vague.”
Explanations become lengthy because one does not understand the matter well.
Things one understands clearly can be explained in a single phrase, no matter what they are.
And to Hae-na’s eyes, Cheon-eul’s emotions were clear enough for her to see.
“Why not simply tell him you wish to marry because you love him?”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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