Chapter 25
When I came down to the dining room for breakfast.
“What is this!”
“Sorry.”
Ruby teared up when she saw the hem of the negligee dyed red.
“Do you know how much this cost? I saved up my meager salary one penny at a time to buy this for my future husband!”
“Sorry I’m the kind of employer who can only pay you a pittance, you brat.”
Actually, I had meant to tell her that, no matter what she said, it was her fault for bringing it over on her own.
“Hiiing….”
Seeing Ruby with big, fat tears welling in her eyes made me feel a little sorry.
“Ruby….”
“Waaah.”
“That’s why I told you to bring my pajamas.”
“Waaah! Alice is mean!”
Being sorry was one thing, but I had to tell her the truth.
“Bwaaaah!”
If I left her like this, she didn’t seem likely to stop crying for quite some time.
“Sigh, I’ll buy you another one like it later, so stop crying.”
“…Something similar?”
“Something a little more expensive.”
“Sniff. Okaaay….”
As soon as I promised to buy her a new outfit, Ruby sniffled and stopped crying.
At this point, she was so transparent that I couldn’t bring myself to dislike her.
“Instead, I’ll wash this really well, make it look brand-new, and then give it to you.”
“No, thanks.”
“No! Your pajamas are all so plain! A woman needs at least one outfit like this.”
As if one outfit like that were necessary.
‘That outfit made it awkward to face Heter.’
Just remembering what happened yesterday made my ears burn.
At this rate, I’d get indigestion the moment I ran into Heter, even while eating breakfast.
Contrary to my worries, however, Heter didn’t come to the dining room for breakfast.
It seemed he intended to avoid seeing me today, just as he had when he’d avoided me after I put on makeup before.
‘That’s actually better for me.’
I was just as uncomfortable, so I was rather pleased by his attitude.
I had planned to finish breakfast, lock myself in my office, and work all day, but—
“Ugh!”
As I chewed on my bread, I felt another throbbing pain in my stomach.
“Ow.”
“My lady… are you in a lot of pain?”
When I lowered my head while clutching my stomach, I saw that Ruby had already switched to speaking formally, her eyes filled with concern.
“Yeah… The pain is especially bad today.”
“Ugh, should I make you some warm tea?”
“Please.”
Apparently able to sympathize with the pain of that time of the month as a fellow woman, Ruby frowned and headed to the kitchen to brew some tea.
I clutched my stomach and groaned for quite some time, my appetite completely gone from the persistent pain.
“Here. Drink it slowly.”
“Thanks.”
I drank the chamomile tea Ruby had made.
“Ugh.”
Usually, this tea eased the pain a little, but for some reason, today it only made my stomach churn. The pain remained unchanged.
“Ugh. Sorry, Ruby. I don’t think I can eat any more.”
“You can’t even drink tea?!”
Perhaps thinking my condition was worse than she’d expected, Ruby’s face turned pale.
“Yeah… I didn’t sleep properly last night.”
“You didn’t sleep properly… Ah!”
“Wait, whatever you’re thinking, you’ve got it wrong.”
I quickly cut off Ruby’s wild imagination.
Judging by how her face turned red the moment she heard that I hadn’t slept, I could guess what she was imagining.
“Really? The blood on your negligee and your pain right now aren’t because of your period, but because….”
“Ruby… I really don’t have the energy to get angry.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Shall I help you to your office?”
I didn’t even have the strength to answer, so I slowly nodded.
“Yes! Understood. Heave-ho!”
The few minutes it took to reach my office with Ruby supporting me felt like several hours.
That was how bad my condition was.
‘Damn, it hurts. It wasn’t this bad when I first got up.’
I cursed my stomach as I somehow managed to lie down on the bed.
“You look really pale. Is there anything you need?”
“No, nothing. More importantly, I need to get some sleep.”
“I understand. It’s probably because you spent so long riding in a carriage, so get plenty of rest today.”
“Yeah….”
Creak, thud.
“Ugh… I’m cold.”
Then, as the office door closed, a sudden chill came over me.
It was strange. The only thing that had changed was that the person beside me had left.
Shivering, I pulled the blanket up to my neck.
I need something warm. Something warm.
‘Oh, right. How about making a hot-water bottle to use as my next invention?’
If I made one, there might be demand for it not only in the North, but also among people like me in other regions.
Of course, I would need a mage to create a material that wouldn’t deform easily even when filled with hot water and that would be easy to work with, but that was true of any invention I tried to make.
‘How am I going to find a mage, too…?’
My vision blurred from the pain, and in the end, my consciousness shut off as though I had pressed an appliance’s Off button.
***
Creak.
‘What is that…?’
The sound from an unoiled hinge woke me from my sleep.
Creak.
Then I heard someone sit down in a chair.
And then I heard water being poured, accompanied by a trickling sound.
“Ngh.”
Something cold touched my forehead.
That wasn’t all; someone began cooling the feverish parts of me, including my cheeks, neck, and ears.
‘Ruby?’
It seemed she had checked on my condition, grown worried, and was taking care of me.
“Ruby….”
“!”
“Rub my stomach instead of using a wet towel.”
Because I had slept, I felt much better than before, but it still hurt.
I pulled down the blanket, raised my one-piece nightdress to my chest, and waited for Ruby’s hand.
“What are you doing? I told you to rub my stomach.”
Even after waiting for a long while, she didn’t rub my stomach.
“….”
“Hurry!”
Why was she just standing there when I was freezing to death?
Swish.
“Ugh!”
Only after I urged her on for quite some time did Ruby’s hand come to rest on my stomach.
Then Ruby began rubbing my stomach.
‘…Huh?’
Had Ruby’s hand always been this big?
No, Ruby’s hand wasn’t this large or hard, nor did it have calluses, and it didn’t smell of herbs and wood, either.
Of all the people I knew, only one person had hands matching those conditions.
With a sinking feeling, I slowly lifted my eyelids.
“
Have you woken up.”
“Fuck.”
I saw Heter, his head turned away, rubbing my stomach.
And I was lying there with the blanket lowered and my nightdress raised to my chest, exposing the undersides of my breasts and my underwear.
I hurriedly pulled his hand away and dragged the blanket up to cover myself.
“Y-you—why are you here?!”
“Ruby told me that you were ill, so I came to tend to you.”
“Ugh….”
His kindness was so touching that I couldn’t bring myself to get angry.
My own carelessness was part of the problem, too.
‘Oh, you idiot.’
What was so hard about opening my eyes? Why hadn’t I checked first…?
“How long have you been here?”
“I just arrived.”
“Really?”
I turned my head and looked at the candle beside my pillow.
It had been fairly long when I saw it in the morning, but now it had shortened to about the length of one finger joint.
Besides, judging by the candle wax that had dripped beside it, he couldn’t have cut it down with scissors or a knife.
“A few hours is just a moment to you?”
“If it’s time spent with you, my lady, even several days would be a brief moment to me.”
“Good grief.”
After hearing Heter’s brazen answer, I turned away from him.
‘What kind of line just comes out like that?’
Otherwise, he would certainly have seen how red my face had become.
“Do you need anything?”
“Anything?”
Heter asked me while I had my back turned.
Come to think of it, maybe because the pain had eased a little,
I also felt a little hungry.
“I’m a little peckish.”
“I’ll bring you something to eat right away.”
With that, Heter dashed out of the office like the wind.
“Heh.”
A hollow laugh escaped me before I knew it.
His frantic appearance made him look just like a husband rushing off to get food for his wife suffering from morning sickness.
‘Husband.’
Right. Now that I’d made such a contract, there was a good chance I would end up marrying him.
Judging by the way he treated me now, I thought it might be all right even if we did get married, but there was one thing that worried me.
It was that the driving force behind his actions was his love for me.
I knew Heter truly loved me.
But it was difficult for me to love him as a man.
It was probably because I remembered being a man in my previous life.
The love I believe in isn’t infinite.
I mean that if you kept giving without receiving anything, it would eventually run dry.
What if that love dried up after we got married?
We’d surely become worse than strangers to each other, and that would be worse than not marrying at all.
I don’t know about as a lover, but as a friend, Heter is a good person.
And yet we might end up worse than strangers to each other.
‘Ugh… I don’t want that.’
“I’ve brought it.”
While I was lost in gloomy thoughts, Heter entered the room carrying a bowl of soup.
“I brought something easy to digest. Eat this first, and if it isn’t enough, you can have something else afterward.”
“Thanks, Heter. But can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
I hesitated, then carefully asked him,
“If. Just hypothetically.”
“Yes.”
“Even if I were actually a man, would you still love me?”
“Huh?”
His reaction seemed to ask what kind of strange question that was.
Then again, with the way I looked now, even a three-year-old child would call me a girl.
But for me to suddenly claim I was a man…
It was absolutely impossible.
“Hmm… If you were a man, my lady…”
Even so, Heter rested his chin on his hand and seriously considered my question.
“I don’t think I would.”
When he finished thinking, the answer I had expected came out of Heter’s mouth.
‘Right. That’s the correct answer.’
In fiction, lines like ‘Your gender doesn’t matter. What matters is you.’ sometimes appear.
But that was only something possible in fiction.
‘That would be absolutely impossible in real life….’
“However.”
“Hmm?”
Heter softened his expression, looked at me, and gave a small chuckle.
“If you were a man, my lady, I think we would have become the best of friends.”
“…!”
Thump.
This was strange.
It wasn’t a confession or anything; he had merely said that if I were a man, we would probably have become friends.
Why, then, did hearing that make my heart pound like this?
“Ah.”
I quickly arrived at the answer to that question.
What Heter had just said meant
that he could accept not only who I was now, but also who I had been in my previous life.
As a woman, romantic love.
As a man, friendship.
The kind of love was different, but he loved me as a person.
Heh.
The corners of my mouth rose on their own, and I extended an arm from under the blanket to lightly tap his shoulder.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were the one who asked first, my lady.”
That was true.
‘What is this?’
Was it because feeling happy had caused some related hormones to be released?
The pain in my stomach seemed to have weakened further.
“Well, thanks for now.”
After thanking him, I got out of bed and ate the potato soup.
“Hmm? Did you add something else to this?”
“No. I didn’t add anything.”
“Really?”
Strange.
It should have been the same food I’d eaten for breakfast.
‘Why is it so sweet and delicious now?’