Chapter 45
After getting some high-level information from the kitchen, I hurried up the stairs and ran straight into my room.
When I opened the door, Elly was already there, brushing Pepe’s tail.
“Miss, where did you go?”
“Huh? Elly! I—I have something to ask!”
“Huh? Are you alright? Why did you run up the stairs like that?”
Elly patted my back while I panted for breath.
“Elly, Elly! Is the day after tomorrow Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary?”
“Huh? W-Where did you hear that?”
“From the kitchen earlier!”
“Oh dear…”
Elly pressed her fingers to her temple and closed her eyes tightly.
“How do you keep hearing things like this?”
“Elly, that’s not the important part.”
“Huh?”
“I heard Mom once received a huge bouquet and loved it so much that she didn’t even look at the jewels or dresses. She just hugged the flowers and went back with them, right?”
“You even heard that?”
Elly asked in surprise, but I smiled brightly and nodded quickly.
“What kind of flowers were they? Did Mom like them that much?”
“I don’t know what they were. I had never seen them before either. They were very big and looked quite unusual, so the lady liked them very much.”
I see. So Mom was happy when she received Herald’s gift?
At that moment, a light bulb lit up in my head.
If I recreated that happy moment exactly as it was back then, wouldn’t their relationship improve?
If I found the same flowers Mom received back then and prepared a small wedding anniversary event, the two of them might become much closer than they are now.
And that was how Elly and I ended up leaving the mansion together to search for those flowers.
Of course, getting permission to leave was not easy.
Getting permission from Herald and Mom was especially difficult.
When I went on a picnic with Casio before, it was only to the hill inside the Erayton estate, so they allowed it easily. But this time we were leaving the mansion entirely, so both of them firmly refused at first.
Yesterday I spent the whole day clinging to them and persuading them.
In the end, they finally allowed it, and we came outside the mansion…
But no matter how hard we searched, we couldn’t find the flowers Mom had received.
Because of that, we had already visited five flower shops.
“What kind of flower are you looking for exactly?”
The flower shop owner, who had been watching us the whole time, finally asked.
“Elly.”
Since I had never seen the flower myself, I naturally passed the question to Elly.
“The color was mixed red and yellow, and the stem… was thick like this flower. And the petals were bigger than other flowers. It looked somewhat like a rose.”
“…What flower is that?”
Just as expected.
The flower shop owner reacted the same way as the others.
He said he had never heard of such a flower before.
What kind of flower did Herald give Mom?
How could even these people—who know flowers best—not know about it?
The longer we searched, the more frustrated I felt.
“Miss… it seems they don’t have it here either. Maybe we should—”
“Excuse me, is the next flower shop far from here?”
Since we had already come this far, I didn’t want to return empty-handed.
Elly noticed me looking longingly toward the far end of the town and quickly stepped in front of me.
“Miss, let’s go back now. If we go to another shop, it will be too far from the mansion. The lady only allowed this outing on the condition that we don’t leave this area.”
“That’s true… but it feels like such a waste to go back like this.”
“No.”
Elly was firm.
Well, I didn’t really expect it to work anyway.
My lips stuck out in disappointment.
Fine. It seems impossible to find the flower anyway. I’ll just think of another plan for making Herald and Mom reconcile.
In the end, I gave up on finding Mom’s big flower and turned around.
Holding Elly’s hand, I walked around town, looking at various places.
“Miss, let’s stop by a workshop for a moment. The lady asked them to repair a music box.”
“A music box?”
Ah… the swan-shaped music box on Mom’s dressing table?
She had owned it since the time when only Mom and I lived together.
Even though Herald destroyed the house, that music box must have survived.
“Did it break?”
“They said the sound was strange when it plays. It’s very old, so the lady was worried it might not be repairable.”
“I see…”
I had wondered before if it could still work, since it looked so old.
But the house had been completely destroyed back then… so how did the music box survive?
My piggy bank didn’t…
I was about to ask Elly about it when I noticed something strange about her.
She kept glancing around nervously, and beads of sweat had formed on her forehead.
“Hm? Elly, are you hot? Why are you sweating so much?”
“Huh? Am I sweating?”
Elly wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
Then she sighed and continued.
“Actually… the place we’re going today belongs to the person who made the music box… and he’s very eccentric. I’m worried about how much he’ll scold me.”
“Huh? Why would he scold you?”
“He’ll say we didn’t take proper care of his work. He has a very strong craftsman’s pride.”
“Ah…”
But why get angry at someone who did nothing wrong?
“Ah, here we are.”
Still holding my hand, Elly stopped in a small alley in the middle of town.
The workshop she mentioned didn’t even have a sign.
But through the window I could see many crafts displayed inside, so it clearly looked like a workshop.
Elly let go of my hand and asked awkwardly,
“Miss, could you wait here for a moment?”
“Okay.”
She probably didn’t want me to see her getting scolded by that eccentric craftsman.
Thinking that, I nodded obediently.
“I’ll be back quickly, so please don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay.”
Only after making me promise several times did Elly enter the workshop.
“Hm… there are already many people even though it’s still morning.”
I quietly muttered while watching people walking around the street in small groups.
Seian had once said in class that the Erayton territory was located in Calderon, a southern city famous for commerce, so the markets here were especially lively.
I hadn’t really understood it just from hearing about it, but seeing it myself made his words feel more real.
I stood on my tiptoes and tried to peek through the workshop window, but the crafts displayed near the glass blocked my view.
Being short is really inconvenient sometimes.
“Sigh…”
I leaned against the wall of the shop while waiting for Elly, who was taking longer than expected.
Just then, several children ran past me.
“Waaa!”
They were shouting very loudly.
Kids here are noisy too.
“Ow!”
I was watching them play with a faint smile when the last child running behind them suddenly fell.
“Ugh… waaah…”
The child, who looked only three or four years old, stared at his bleeding knee and quickly began to cry.
Oh no, he’ll start crying soon.
I couldn’t just leave him like that, so I quickly walked over.
“Hey, are you okay?”
His knee was only slightly scraped, but quite a bit of blood had gathered.
“Geez… wait a moment.”
I immediately took out a handkerchief from my bag to wipe the blood.
It was a light green handkerchief embroidered with a small daisy.
It was something I liked a lot, but… this situation couldn’t be helped.
Thinking that, I placed the handkerchief on the child’s wound.
Then—
“Got you!”
A man’s loud shout suddenly rang out.
At the same time, my body collided with the child’s.
And when I blinked again, everything around me had turned dark.
I couldn’t see anything at all.
Huh…?
What is this?
