# 70 - 70
What is this?
I need to listen to what he says now…?
My feelings of confusion were only fleeting.
This feature was not like the previous one, as the feeling was more like watching a movie.
It was like...
"Mom? Can't you take me with you too?"
The sounds, sights, and feelings from that night that Leon Fraser could not describe in detail because of his pride began to emerge dimly.
Like a film exposed to light. Blurry but therefore more affecting, like a black and white silent film.
I will be obedient. Good? Mom, I want to come with you too.
Leon Fraser, who was much younger than now, had chubby cheeks.
Young children have an innate fear and intuitive feeling of abandonment.
Just like young Leon Fraser, shedding tears drop by drop in this black and white video.
“Leon.”
The face of the woman who was wearing a robe that completely covered her head was not clear.
Since she was the Marquis's wife, there might be a picture of her in the Marquis's castle in the Imperial Capital, but I've never seen her face neither in the game nor through Tullia's eyes.
Just sad lips holding a pathetic smile.
“Leon has Lycian, so you know you’re not alone, right?”
The little girl is sleeping, cradled tightly in her arms.
Tulia.
Little Leon Fraser's eyes were looking at Tulia as well.
Those young eyes were filled with questions and more questions.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why do you leave me behind and take Tulia?
Why do you say you love me too, but you only take Tulia?
Why?
These questions ran down his cheeks.
“Tulia is alone, so my mother has to take her. Poor our Tulia. If I don’t take her, who will?”
“Mother...”
“Our Leon is good, so you will listen to mother well, right? Make way for Tulia. Okay?”
A man's voice came from inside the carriage, saying in an urgent tone that there was no time.
It was not the father's voice, nor the voice of Marquis Esther Fraser.
Maybe because it was a benefit.
I felt all the shock and pain, the sense of loss and the questions that young Leon Fraser went through as if they were my own questions.
My mother abandoned us and chose another man.
My mother abandoned me and chose my younger brother.
My mother left me behind.
Even when I clung to her, she walked away coldly.
Even when I cried asking her to take me with her, she did not hug me.
“Lecian is sick, so you, Leon, as the younger brother, have to take good care of him. Is that clear? I love you, Leon.”
I knew very well how cruel those words were.
The fact is that even though the Marquis's wife was hugging Leon tightly with love and tenderness, he was no longer able to feel the warmth from that hug.
I watched the carriage leave.
The young and young Leon Fraser continued walking for a long time after that, staring at the dark night road with a blank stare like a frozen statue.
Without being able to take a single step.
Until dawn broke and the atmosphere became bright.
Not for a moment.
"That's how things were. That's why I didn't really love you."
Naturally, Leon Fraser doesn't know that I watched everything from that day until the charity ball.
Because he doesn't know, he talks about it lightly, as if it's nothing special.
As if it were someone else's business.
As if it was no longer special now.
What a ridiculous thing.
I know very well that what is inside is not like that.
Also, he can't bear to reveal those deep wounds to others.
"Leon?! What, what are you doing...?!"
"brother."
Little Leon, who had pink paint poured on his head, is crying and laughing.
“Why can't my hair be pink?”
Tears fall and mix with pink. It leaves long traces on his white cheeks, like spots of young blood.
Little Leon Fraser cried like this for a long time.
All the time that Lycian held him and comforted him, he was crying like an idiot.
“…”
She stared at Leon Fraser for a moment.
His hair was so dark black that even if he tried to dye it pink, it would never acquire that delicate color.
“So you said you don't really love me?”
"Yes. I'll admit that I haven't been a good big brother all this time. I'll even apologize if you want."
“Maybe that's not the reason.”
“What isn't?”
“It wasn't just that you didn't really love me, you must have hated me.”
"Why are you exaggerating again? What else don't you like now?"
“Because my mother left you behind and only took me, you must have hated me so much.”
"Oh. Really. Here we go again. What do I do? Do I kneel before you? Or do I bark like a dog? Ho ho ho?"
“Then you must have found everything about me disgusting...”
“Ha.”
Leon Fraser finally put the herbal medicine on the side table with a muffled sound.
“Hello, Tulia Fraser. What answer do you want to hear from me now?”
“I understand.”
"…What?"
“I understand,” I said.
I also often hated my younger brother, who was loved by my mother.
I thought I would spend my whole life stuck with my mother because of that baby, always outside.
The fact that my older sister and older brothers had grown old enough that they no longer needed the same amount of parental love that I did.
It made me feel a strange feeling of inferiority.
Why was I, younger than them, stuck in this spiral of pain?
What was it like for Leon Fraser, who was abandoned right before his eyes at a much younger age than me?
“I understand, but I'm still angry.”
“…why.”
Leon Fraser asked a little late.
“Are you angry now that I tortured you for such a trivial reason?”
“Did you torture me? No.”
“Then what?”
“Because I feel sorry for you.”
"…What?"
This is correct.
I was angry because I felt pity for him.
This is Leon Fraser, whom I hated to the point of annoyance until this very morning, nay, until the moment when I had just opened my eyes.
Because I felt pity for him.
Because it reminded me of the old Han Ina.
“Leon.”
Sometimes thoughts do not pass through the head, but rather come out of the heart.
“Why can't we have natural parents like everyone else?”
Like now.
“I didn't want to be abandoned either.”
“…”
“You didn't want to be abandoned either.”
“…”
“Why were we left alone?”
“…”
“What did we do wrong?”
Words leave traces wherever they go. Rather, they leave tracks. Tears formed along the thin path and quickly ran down my cheeks.
“I understand you hated me. I would hate myself too.”
“…”
"I understand everything. We were very young. Leon."
“…”
Good. permission.
I had a lot to say, but nothing came out of my throat.
Only then did I realize that the balloon I had been endlessly inflating, no, my heart had actually burst.
The wounds I had deliberately ignored, the invisible marks that looked like patterns on stretched rubber, had become wrinkled and turned into more horrific scars without my knowledge.
“I'm just sorry.”
Maybe I wanted to hear these words from my mother.
Although it was childish and immature, I probably wanted to hear such words from my younger brother as well.
From my older sister and older brothers who said they never thought of me as a family member.
The fact that I was the only one who thought of the family as a family was, on the other hand, extremely frustrating and heartbreaking and, on the other hand, terribly painful.
So perhaps the apology Tulia gave to Leon Fraser was finally the apology that I, Han Ina, wanted to hear from everyone.
“Tulia Fraser.”
It was a sound like the sound of garbage sinking to the bottom of the sea. It was such a pathetic sound.
“Why do you feel sorry?”
“…”
“...I'm the one who feels sorry.”
“…”
“Actually… I'm the one who should feel sorry.”
We were still young, so we did not know how to get rid of the wounds of the adults we loved. We couldn't have known.
This was true for Tullia, who was the ultimate villain in the game.
The same goes for Leon, who was one of the main male characters, who had almost every glamorous thing there was in the world.
They were both sniffling like idiots.
The bowl of medicinal herbs was still ridiculously warm.
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