IBTHM Chapter 18

I left Agatha's room after giving her a piece of my mind—no holds barred, exactly as promised—but my chest felt tight, like I'd swallowed a brick.

Maybe Hades would blame me for acting like a complete hooligan without thinking about the consequences, since he'd given me carte blanche to be unreasonable. But honestly? That wasn't what worried me.

Wait. Once we're married, Hades and I will be husband and wife, won't we?

Sure, the moment we stamp those divorce papers, we'll be less than strangers, but...

Short of that, we'd technically be the closest relationship possible.

Spouses share zero degrees of separation.

So if he takes his sister's side over his wife's—well, that would make him a pretty pathetic excuse for a husband, wouldn't it?

In which case, I'd be the one declining the marriage, thank you very much.

Anyway, even after that satisfying confrontation, my chest felt stuffed with a million sweet potatoes' worth of frustration, and the reason was Abel.

'I want to go for a walk. It's nice when I'm with you, milady.'

'I'm not tired at all, so please don't worry.'

That damned old hag had beaten his feet until they swelled and split open, and still—when I came to ask him for a walk—Abel had clung to me without refusing once.

"Ugh, I haven't cursed in forever. This is just..."

I stood alone in the empty corridor and cried for a long time, tears welling up so suddenly I couldn't stop them.

They poured out like a running faucet. I kept wiping them away, but they wouldn't stop.

Abel was so pitiful, so heartbreaking, and I was so oblivious and stupid—I resented myself a little.

How could I call myself his fan when I couldn't even notice he was forcing himself through the pain?

"I'm sorry..."

Apologizing out loud even though Abel couldn't hear me made the emotions surge even harder.

My eyes stung from repeatedly scrubbing them with the back of my hand.

That's when it happened.

Ann emerged from her room—wherever she'd been planning to go at this hour—and saw me sobbing. She rushed over in alarm.

"Oh—oh my goodness! Miss!"

"Ann..."

"Wh-what happened? Did the Countess say something to you again?"

I'd given Ann a rough explanation of yesterday's dining room incident after hearing about Abel getting hit, and as always, she'd been more furious than I was.

She was the same now.

"That—that crazy woman. My miss grew up so preciously in the barony, and she—this terrible..."

"No. I said everything I needed to say."

"But she must have upset you somehow if you're crying like this! Just—just let me go grab that hag by the hair, and whether His Grace punishes me or not, I'll do it. Just wait here."

Ann rolled up her sleeves, fired up with righteous fury.

She looked ready to storm Agatha's room any second, so I quickly grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Really. I shut her down so thoroughly she couldn't say a word. That's not why I'm crying."

"Then what is it?"

"..."

How could I possibly explain that I was crying because I'm a terrible fan who demanded a fan meeting without even checking my bias's health condition? That I'm crying over my complete lack of qualifications as a fangirl?

But Ann had been watching over me for three years since I woke up in this world.

Even without saying it, she seemed to understand. She sighed deeply and pulled me into a gentle hug.

"I told you not to worry about it. It's not your fault, miss. Don't cry, okay? There, there."

"Ann, I don't think I'm qualified to be Abel's fan. If he knew someone like me was his fan, he'd probably be completely humiliated."

"Oh, miss."

Ann patted my back and laughed softly.

Just that was somehow comforting.

Ann was the same age as me here, barely twenty years old, but sometimes she seemed infinitely mature—which is why I ended up leaning on her like this.

Come to think of it, when I first woke up here and felt a little panicked, Ann had been by my side then too.

Even when I tried to make her understand my fangirling, she'd been remarkably generous about it.

A young lady who'd died and come back to life acting crazy—anyone would think I'd lost my mind, but Ann had stayed by my side with patience.

Even in moments like this, when I felt so gloomy and bitter I just wanted to cry.

"Miss."

"Mm..."

"You've met the young master in person and you still say that? I've never seen a child as pure and kind-hearted as the young master. I understood immediately why you wanted to be his fan."

"Right? Abel is the best..."

"You know how much the young master adores you, miss. If he found out you think of him this way, I can't even imagine how happy he'd be."

"No way..."

"I'm serious! Speaking of which, you should finish embroidering that handkerchief before dawn today. You need to present your tribute to the young master quickly."

"Sniff. Yeah, let's do that... But where were you going at this hour?"

I belatedly wiped my eyes and asked. Ann held up the small bundle she'd been carrying.

"I was going to deliver this to the young master."

I recognized it immediately.

It looked like ointment for the wounds that were probably swollen and burst open.

"From what I hear, the employees at the ducal castle treat the young master like a ghost. It's obvious he got hit, but there doesn't seem to be anyone who'll look after him, so..."

"Ah."

My emotions surged again.

Treating him like a ghost.

Right. How lonely must Abel's childhood have been?

The Ruvermonte Duke's only blemish, pointed at as a dirty bastard—and yet he'd endured it all somehow.

Because he had a father who truly loved him more than anyone.

Hades tried to be a good father, but his position and responsibility as Duke meant he unintentionally had no choice but to leave Abel alone.

Even when his father was alive, Abel had to endure this loneliness and hardship.

Sadly, Abel wasn't the type of child to complain to his busy father about being lonely and struggling. He'd grown up too fast, it seemed.

The Hades I'd seen seemed perfectly capable of cherishing and loving Abel even if he'd been more childish, but...

The more I thought about it, the more heartbreaking it was—Abel's childhood, glossed over in just a few lines of description in the novel.

"Haah..."

"Oh my, miss. Why are you crying again? Because you feel sorry for the young master? Oh dear..."

Ann comforted me while handing over the bundle she'd been holding.

"Don't do this out here. Why don't you go visit the young master yourself? Go hug him tight. Don't cry."

"G-go see Abel?"

"Yes."

I hesitated for a moment, but not for long.

Regardless of feeling ashamed to face Abel, I was worried about him—whether he'd even be able to sleep properly while in pain.

The area in front of Abel's room was empty.

It felt like Abel's lonely, hollow heart, abandoned within the ducal castle itself, and I barely managed to hold back the tears threatening to burst out again.

"Um... Young master."

I called Abel quietly, but there was no answer.

When I opened the door, I could see Abel's small body lying asleep on the bed in the distance.

He must have been exhausted. Today had been incredibly difficult for Abel.

Should I just go back? I hesitated for a moment, but then headed toward Abel anyway.

I was worried about his wounds, which probably hadn't been treated at all...

Abel must have been truly exhausted—he didn't stir even when I quietly sat down on the bed.

His steady breathing occasionally reached my ears.

"Young master."

Abel still didn't answer, so I gently lifted the blanket covering his small body, starting from his feet.

The moonlight was bright enough to clearly reveal the child's small feet.

"Ah—"

I felt like bursting into tears again.

The child's feet, barely the size of my palm, were a mess, just as I'd heard.

The traces of a thin switch cutting across them dozens of times.

Blood still flowed from the burst, torn, split wounds, and the white blanket was stained here and there like red flowers had bloomed.

The wounds had probably opened even worse during our forced walk, when they'd already been terrible.

"I'm going to lose it. Seriously."

I couldn't let tears fall onto Abel's bedding, so I forced my eyes wide open and fanned myself with my hand to barely hold back.

"Abel..."

I didn't want to wake the exhausted child, but I couldn't leave him untreated either.

I decided I'd let him wake up if he woke up, and opened the bundle Ann had carefully packed to begin treating Abel's wounds.

While carefully wiping the wounds with a clean cloth and applying medicine, Abel flinched unconsciously a few times from the pain but slept deeply without waking.

I ended up crying silently again while applying medicine to those terrible wounds.

"Hic..."

The sobbing sounds escaping were so hard to suppress that I bit my lip forcibly.

My vision kept blurring, and even when I wiped my eyes with my forearm, the tears gathered again immediately.

"S-sorry, I'm sorry..."

What had this small child been thinking while walking on those painful feet to match my pace?

"I... I didn't know anything and I... hurt you..."

Like an idiot, I hadn't even noticed when he was limping along like a puppy that only knows its master.

"You were lonely. That's why..."

I'd wondered how he could open his heart to me so quickly.

He must have been lonely. Even though I hadn't treated him all that warmly when we met—always so stiff—he wanted to cling to someone that desperately.

What's so important about a stupid walk? There was no need to force himself to walk with me on those painful feet.

This child.

Why is he so...

"I-I'm so, sniff... grateful that you like me, Abel. I'm—I'm not that... hic... g-good of a person..."

Stupid.

"Can I... really be suited to be the mother of such a sweet... sob... and kind child? When I couldn't even notice you were hurting like an idiot..."

Between wiping away tears and making this confession-like apology, I wrapped bandages around Abel's wounds as carefully as possible.

The child's small feet trembled from the pain.

My heart hurt so much that I had to stop breathing for a while and cry some more.