CHAPTER 02

“Stop, Joshua.”

“Huh?”

“I said stop.”

I frowned and stopped Joshua from pushing his tear-soaked face toward me.

Then I roughly wiped his face with the handkerchief I always carried.

Ah, right. Gently, gently!

Relaxing my grip, I handed the handkerchief to Joshua and smiled brightly.

“I’m fine, so don’t worry.”

Joshua, whose nose had turned red from my careless touch, looked horrified.

“No way! The usual you would never smile like this or say you’re okay!”

“You would’ve gotten angry, saying I was mocking you for not being able to go out over something like flowers…!”

“Joshua.”

“E-even calling my name like that! You always strictly called me Mr. Benson’s son!”

Seriously.

I briefly considered flicking that round head of his, but calmed myself down since I couldn’t build up bad karma over something like this.

Seriously… how does someone that foolish become a doctor and even end up killing me?

At times like this, I felt wronged for still being a child.

If only I had the prophetic dream a few years later, I would’ve been able to understand everything perfectly.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t comprehend the choices of adults in my current state.

So I had no choice but to do what I could right now.

“I don’t really get what you’re saying. Anyway, thanks for the bouquet. You picked one similar to my eye color on purpose, right?”

With a shamelessly calm expression, I accepted the purple bouquet and smiled.

Joshua, who had been staring blankly at me, moved his lips before suddenly running out of the room and shouting.

“This… this is definitely an emergency! Father! Leila is in danger! She must be seriously ill!”

…Should I just give up on everything?

At this rate, it felt like Joshua had changed strategies and was trying to kill me with stress instead.

After the commotion passed, peace barely returned to my room.

But I didn’t have the luxury to enjoy the silence.

Taking out paper and a pen, I rested my chin on my hand and fell into thought.

How can I avoid being mistaken as terminally ill while also not accumulating bad karma?

Simply smiling brightly and acting like a kind storybook protagonist… didn’t seem to work.

If time passed, the misunderstanding that I was terminally ill would only deepen.

That absolutely won’t do! They’ll definitely stop me from going outside, saying I need rest!

If that happened, I’d end up trapped in my room again, just like in that twisted future.

There are so many things I want to do.

Watching fireworks at a festival, attending a royal party, dipping my feet in the sea, visiting my mother’s hometown, and…

As I wrote down everything I wanted to do, I soon slammed my hand down with determination.

Right, there are so many things in this world I haven’t experienced. So…!

I have to survive and do everything I want!

Let’s make a perfect plan. And absolutely never do anything bad!

Imagining a happy future made a laugh naturally slip out.

“Hehe…”

“U-um… Miss?”

Ah.

I must have been so absorbed in planning that I didn’t hear Phoebe come in.

I quickly pushed my bucket list to the corner of the desk and turned to her with an innocent expression.

“What is it?”

“A letter has arrived from the Dawson family. It’s from Miss Isabella.”

“Thank you.”

Phoebe’s gaze lingered on me before shifting to the paper I had pushed away.

“You seemed to be writing something, and that eerie laugh…”

“It’s nothing. More importantly, I want to write a reply. Could you prepare it?”

After quickly reading Isabella’s letter, I cut off Phoebe’s curiosity and began writing.

Isabella, my closest friend—and in my dream, someone I had bullied with my own hands.

In other words, my second target.

No matter what, I’ll throw you into a pit of happiness!

To do that, first…!

After some thought, I finished a letter of appropriate length.

Perfect.

Unless something unexpected happened, everything would go according to my plan.

“Hehe.”

After handing the reply for Isabella to Phoebe, I lay down on the bed feeling refreshed.

It felt like things were going smoothly.

…Though dealing with Joshua still seemed far off.

Watching me crawl under the blanket, Phoebe smiled while holding the letter.

“Good night, Miss.”

“Yeah. Good night, Phoebe.”

Just before leaving, Phoebe’s footsteps paused briefly as if she was tidying up.

That was unusual.

Normally, she would quickly leave after fixing my bedding.

But exhausted from the earlier commotion, I soon fell asleep.

And a few days later—

I realized that the feeling of things going well… was just my imagination.

“Leilaaa!”

“Isabella?”

The owner of the letter, Isabella, had suddenly come to the mansion.

Even though I clearly wrote that it would be difficult to meet for a while!

I stared in shock at Isabella’s fluttering blonde hair as she ran to me and hugged me tightly.

“Why are you here? How did you even come?”

Isabella blinked her innocent green eyes and replied.

“Why? You said you were so sick you couldn’t even reply to my letters or meet me anymore. So of course I had to come!”

What?

I stared at her, dumbfounded.

How does that lead to the conclusion that you should come here?

At that moment, I recalled my thoughts while writing the letter.

How could Isabella be happy, unlike in the future I saw in my dream?

The conclusion I reached was simple.

I just had to disappear from her life.

After all, her unhappiness started because I bullied her.

Wouldn’t it be easier to stay by her side and treat her well instead?

That wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

I already wasn’t on good terms with her other friends.

And most of all… I don’t trust my future self.

So I lied.

That I was too sick to reply to letters or meet her anymore.

Kind-hearted Isabella would try to understand me, even if she later found out I wasn’t actually that sick.

I was planning to naturally grow distant and secretly support her from behind… but…?

“What’s wrong, Leila? Are you hurting somewhere again?”

Not knowing my thoughts, Isabella placed her hand on my forehead with a serious expression.

Her soft hand and affectionate gaze made me feel her overwhelming concern.

At that moment, I admitted something important.

Isabella herself was a huge variable!

She’s always been like this.

Unlike me, Isabella was like a perfectly drawn kind child.

She seemed predictable, yet always acted in unexpected ways.

Looking at Isabella, who stared at me with big eyes as if wagging an invisible tail, I fell into thought.

So what do I do now?

My grand plan had already gone wrong from the very first step.

No, to be precise, it started going wrong with Joshua.

But it wasn’t fair to me either.

One’s a crybaby, and the other’s like a puppy—this is too much!

In the second week of my operation,

I was being completely tossed around by two very abnormal blonde children.