The White Tiger Clan’s Baby Cotton Ball - Chapter 203

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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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Side Story 26

“Gaya Elder Brother…?”

At Gaya’s sudden words telling her not to smile, Soya blinked her eyes.

“You just forced yourself to smile and pretend you’re okay when you’re not okay at all.”

“That’s not it. I was just…”

Flustered, Soya waved her hands, but unlike the other Elder Brothers, Gaya didn’t let it slide easily.

“Now I see you’re not baby Somsomi but con artist Somsomi. You promised you’d show when you’re sad and show when you’re upset.”

A con artist. That was the first time she’d heard such words.

Feeling somehow wronged, Soya quickly protested.

“I wasn’t trying to break my promise. I really am much better now, and I don’t cry even when I’m alone, and just now I just unconsciously…”

It was true.

Soya no longer cried, nor did she wander around looking for Seolyeo.

When she was alone, a feeling of emptiness would visit her very occasionally, but even so, she really was okay now.

“You’re not deceiving yourself into thinking you’re okay, are you?”

“…?”

At those words, Soya’s eyes widened round.

I’m deceiving myself?

It was something she had never thought about.

“No. I…”

Soya’s mouth shut tight.

After not answering for a long while and just staring at her shoe tips, Soya slowly raised her head and opened her mouth again.

“I’ve never broken promises with my family, and I’ve never deceived anyone. Everyone would worry, so why would I do such a thing? Just now I wasn’t upset either, I just passed by this path and remembered when we all played together…”

“That’s what being not okay means.”

Gaya cut off Soya’s words and spoke.

“You just confessed. You’re afraid everyone will worry – that’s what scares you most, Somsom.”

Her crimson eyes shook violently for a moment.

It felt like he had seen right through her heart, which even she hadn’t known.

The White Tiger Palace people always overprotected her.

Their attitude had remained unchanged from when Soya first came to White Tiger Palace at nine years old until now at fourteen.

They were all good, kind people.

They were people who grieved together with others’ sadness.

Soya hated that they would be upset because of her, so she thought she needed to get better quickly.

She consciously made efforts to get better.

She tried not to cry. She tried not to think sad thoughts.

As a result, she thought she really had gotten better.

When she was alone, she would feel empty and depressed, but she still thought she had gotten better.

‘But that wasn’t it. I wasn’t okay.’

Perhaps, as Gaya said, she had thought she needed to get better because everyone was worried.

Maybe she had been deceiving herself, saying she was okay when she really wasn’t.

“…”

Soya’s face grew sorrowful as she belatedly looked into her own heart.

Gaya slowly lowered himself to match Soya’s eye level. Then he looked into Soya’s wavering eyes.

Gayul said he would make Soya laugh every day, and Ga Hyeon said he would never let Soya cry again…

“It’s okay to cry, Somsom. How can a person only smile every day?”

Gaya’s heart was a little different.

“Sometimes you’ll cry. That can’t be helped.”

He just wanted to wipe away her tears when this child cried.

He wanted to become a sanctuary where she could cry to her heart’s content when she wanted to cry.

“I know you don’t want to worry other people, but you don’t need to deceive your own heart. At least in places where people can’t see, you can be a little more honest with your emotions.”

“…”

“Even if you cry your heart out here, other people won’t know, so what’s wrong with that?”

“But… Gaya Elder Brother is here.”

Soya glanced at Gaya and asked.

“Don’t worry about me.”

Then Gaya grinned and said.

“This is a secret, Somsom. I cried when I was young too. When Mother was taken by those scaled eastern fish bastards, I was angry and upset, so I went under my blanket and cried secretly.”

“Elder Brother did?”

“Yeah. This is a secret that Papa and no other family members know, but I’m telling only Somsomi. How about it, Somsom. Now that I told you I cried, aren’t you worried? Doesn’t your heart feel like it’s tearing? Right?”

“Uh…”

Soya couldn’t immediately answer yes and trailed off.

It was pitiful, but it didn’t feel like her heart was tearing… Mother had returned now too…

“So we’ve equally worried about each other. Isn’t that a bit better? Your heart must have torn because of me, so it’s okay to just cry, Somsom.”

“Oh my.”

At Gaya’s cheeky words, Soya burst into laughter.

Glistening teardrops flowed down along her brightly crinkled eye corners.

Drop, drop, sniffle—

The tears that had been falling one drop, two drops, gradually grew thicker.

Beside Soya, who was crying with sniffling sounds, Gaya quietly took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

Soya, who had calmed down, looked at the handkerchief and laughed embarrassedly with a sheepish voice.

“I guess my embroidery skills were terrible back then. This doesn’t look like a tiger but like a goblin.”

It was the very handkerchief that Soya had sent to him on the battlefield long ago when she had just learned embroidery.

Back then, Soya, who had never met Gaya yet, had secretly worried about what to do if she couldn’t get close to her eldest Elder Brother.

“You thought that?”

Gaya frowned and asked back.

“Yes, you might feel awkward or find it bothersome that a child you’d never seen appeared.”

“That’s too much, Somsom. You thought of me as a bad elder brother who would find his young sister bothersome.”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant…”

The two sat side by side on the rock and chatted quietly.

Since she hadn’t cried much, fortunately her eyes didn’t swell.

Soya felt somehow much lighter and refreshed in her heart.

“But, Gaya Elder Brother. How did you know? That I actually wasn’t okay?”

Soya asked, amazed that Gaya had noticed her heart that even she hadn’t looked into.

“I originally know everything. I’m the smartest tiger in this world.”

He couldn’t not know.

Since returning to White Tiger Palace, his childish competitive spirit had activated, and with the single-minded determination to become the coolest tiger to his sister, he had been hovering around Soya every day.

“How about it, Somsomi. Elder Brother is the coolest, right?”

“Yes, Gaya Elder Brother is the coolest! Elder Brother is the coolest tiger!”

Soya answered with a bright smile.

Finally having gotten the words he wanted from Soya, Gaya smiled a victorious smile.

* * *

Gaya said. Sadness isn’t something you digest alone, but something you share.

[Come find me whenever you feel like crying from now on. Despite how I look, this Elder Brother is very tight-lipped. I absolutely don’t say nonsense either.]

Of course, thinking of Gaya who often said and did strange things, it was hard to completely agree with that last added statement…

‘He said he’d keep it secret and to come find him anytime I want to cry. Gaya Elder Brother is such a kind person.’

Soya felt reassured in her heart.

Coming down the mountain with Gaya, Soya looked back at the White Tiger Palace.

Nine-year-old Soya had first learned how to cry out loud at the White Tiger Palace, and now fourteen-year-old Soya had even learned how to share her sadness.

Along with this realization, she suddenly felt as if she had become a truly remarkable adult.

Upon returning to the White Tiger Palace, Soya boasted to everyone she met about how magnificently she had shot her bow today.

When Gaya chimed in from beside her, everyone said a word or two about how truly amazing our Young Lady was.

After laughing and chatting with people, Soya returned to her room and was alone again.

Until just this morning, whenever she was left alone after being with people, her heart would feel lonely and cold, but now it was different.

Even though she was alone, the air around her felt warm and cozy. Despite autumn already approaching.

‘Just as Gaya Elder Brother said, when I shared my sadness, it ran away.’

It was truly fascinating.

More than when she had tried so hard to steel her heart by saying she wasn’t sad, facing and accepting her feelings had made the sadness run away.

Soya reached toward the wooden box on the desk that she had been avoiding all this time.

Now able to open the wooden box without needing special courage, Soya finally unfolded the letters inside one by one.

【Hello, Cotton Ball. This is a letter written by Yul Elder Brother, the coolest in the world. But um… I have to fill up this whole page, right? The paper seems too big, hmph.】

Gayul’s letter, scribbled carelessly in large handwriting…

【To fourteen-year-old Soya. Hi Soya? It’s me, Arang. To think we’re already fourteen, really! Really!! Really!!! I can’t believe it!!!!! That we’ve become adults now!!!!! I had so many things I wanted to do when I became an adult. Let’s together…】

Spirited Arang’s letter that filled an entire page densely…

【Hello, Cotton Ball Miss? Congratulations on turning fourteen. Is the me from five years later doing well? Are you not having a hard time because Young Master is bothering you? Speaking of which, Young Lady. All this time because of Young Master Yul…】

Reading Su Ri’s letter filled with what wasn’t quite gossip but gossip about Gayul in order…

“Su Ri really. He’s exactly the same five years ago and now.”

Soya giggled and finally unfolded Seolyeo’s letter.

【Hello, Soya.】

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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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