The Quack Lady - Chapter 29

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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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Episode 29

* * *

That afternoon.

“This time I just need to color inside here, right?”

When I pointed to the inside of the outlined area on the parchment, the child nodded happily once more.

‘This is killing me in its own way.’

It had been two days since I was moved by the fact that the child had finally allowed me to participate in his activities.

There had been quite a big change in my previously simple(?) daily routine.

From attending to the child to now having to draw pictures following him, my work had literally doubled, no, tripled.

‘I need to do something about this.’

Especially sitting there silently just coloring while listening to birds chirping, I felt like even my mental health was being threatened.

I had to say something.

“By the way, Young Baron, do you know what you call a book that makes you tired from reading?”

“….”

“Manual.”

“….”

“Haha… ha…”

I rolled my eyes at his awkward gaze.

I felt like crying if I could.

The wind blowing through the crack of the open window pleasantly tickled the child’s hair.

The pretty child’s gaze was fixed entirely on the parchment painted black, as if an artist had just finished brush strokes.

And this lively appearance was only possible when the child was holding a brush.

‘Why is he working so hard like this?’

Does he want to escape from painful feelings?

So he’s trying to concentrate on something?

And then. Strangely, I saw myself overlapping with the child who was silently drawing again.

Perhaps that’s why.

Strangely, my mouth began to move on its own.

“Young Baron. Would you like to hear my story?”

Once I made up my mind, it was making such a loud noise as it headed toward the child.

“Actually, I don’t have a mother. My mother passed away four years ago. While holding me in the flames.”

“….”

“Someone set fire to our house and mother tried desperately to put out the fire but ultimately failed. I didn’t know anything and was so shocked by mother’s words to get out quickly that I just sat down and cried. Hoping that all the tears I shed would put out all those flames.”

I calmly brought out memories from the past.

Everything was still so vivid.

Mother’s cry to get outside quickly with a face I’d never seen before, and all the moments when the flames devoured the house with crackling sounds – the air and temperature of every moment, even all the acrid smells.

“Mother held me, who was too young, and endured in the flames. Worried that something might happen to my body, that I might catch fire, she kept checking and checking my body. Not even knowing her own body was burning.”

“….”

“When I came to my senses, everything had disappeared. My beloved mother, the cozy bed, everything. Young as I was, I didn’t know that was death and eternal separation. So for days and days, I just stared blankly at the burnt ashes in that spot. Because I missed her so much.”

On that day when everything collapsed, I stared blankly at the house full of nothing but ashes.

Whether it was from inhaling toxic gas from the fire or from the sadness of losing mother, I still don’t know.

Just that feeling like something had been completely hollowed out in my chest.

That moment when the world looked ashen remained clearly in my heart.

Like an unavoidable wound because the golden time had passed.

“But I felt like mother would be too sad if I kept being like that. Mother liked it when I talked and laughed…”

As my throat became choked up past my chest, I quickly cleared my throat.

Then when I looked straight ahead, the child’s gaze, which had been focused on drawing, was already fixed on me.

“Anyway, after that I was dazed as if my heart had been carved out, but at some point I had this thought. That mother wasn’t dead but had just gone on a trip somewhere far away.”

“….”

“Thinking that way, I felt like my chest was opening up. Just the thought that she might be alive gave me strength, you know? Because if she’s living well somewhere, she’d be cheering me on.”

I didn’t even know what I was saying.

I just conveyed the emotions I felt exactly as they were, and the child even put down the brush he was holding silently.

“At first, mother’s death felt like it was because of me. I thought she died trying to protect me. But that wasn’t it. Mother made the choice to protect me.”

“….”

“Barten, our former clinic director, told me. That I should respect mother’s choice. That whatever results mother’s choice brought, it was mother’s choice, so if I loved mother, I should make sure that choice wasn’t in vain.”

Clinic Director Barten, who said he owed mother a great debt, was someone who treated me like his own granddaughter while he was alive.

“Life and death are as thin as a sheet of paper.”

I couldn’t understand it then, but I think I know now.

That all those words were actually for me.

Anyway, at my words, the child made a somewhat complicated expression.

Come to think of it, Tete’s attack on the Count was probably also a choice made to protect his own master.

Just like my mother made that choice to protect me.

“So I worked hard to live better as if to show her. Missing mother by doing things I did with her, and thinking about what mother liked, wondering what mother would have done.”

Emotions seemed to be alive and breathing, so just thinking that mother was alive made me feel like I could breathe.

It was something I realized on my own only after a very long time had passed, but what was certain was that as long as I remember forever…

‘Mother lives forever in my heart.’

It was also because I realized that fact.

“I wanted to live without shame. So that when mother sees me later, she can say ‘you grew up well,’ I just need to become mother’s proud daughter.”

“….”

“Of course, before that, I need to properly soothe and comfort this sad heart.”

“Children are easily exposed to wounds, but they have good resilience and overcome them quickly. And all of this comes from your sincere treatment. Remember that.”

I remembered my professor’s words that when dealing with children, you must treat them sincerely at the child’s eye level.

So I decided to bring out my own wounds.

Hoping that the child could gain a ray of hope from my painful memories. How someone who lost something precious responded.

That’s when it happened.

Tears flowed from my eyes for unknown reasons.

I couldn’t cry in front of a patient, so I quickly rubbed my eyes with my sleeve.

Because even at this moment, I missed mother more than words could express.

As I desperately thought of other things and forced myself to hold back tears.

A small hand very carefully tugged at my clothes.

It was usually the behavior Demian showed me when he had something to say or needed something.

“Yes? What can I get you?”

When I hurriedly wiped away my tears thoroughly with my sleeve and tried to smile brightly, the child looked lost as if he had committed some great sin.

Then after hesitating for a moment, he spread out a piece of dried parchment that was placed nearby and began writing something.

The child wrote and erased several times repeatedly, then held out a piece of parchment toward me as if telling me to read it.

And that’s when my eyes widened in disbelief as I faced each letter.

Soon I felt my wide-open eyes becoming moist.

〔I have something I want to say. Help me.〕

What the child had written, pressing down each character firmly, was the child’s courageous wingbeat trying to move forward into the world.

I silently stroked the child’s back.

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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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