CH 18.1

“Wow, balloons!”

Several balloons were tied to the carriage in which Collen had arrived. It was obvious whose gift it was. I smiled broadly.

“Thanks, Jade.”

Wow. These balloons are so pretty. Gold, silver, even pink.

“They are all so pretty. It’s all for me?”

“Yes.”

I happily touched the balloon. Collen said, looking at me:

“If you want, we can go to the toy store.”

Collen, as far as I know, has always had an impenetrable facade. Calm on the outside, but you never know what he is thinking.

‘Did you feel sorry for the sick child, Collen?’

But today everything was somehow different.

He continued to show interest in me, and it seemed so awkward.

“Why?”

“I saw you looking in the direction of the toy store.”

“Ah…”

“You were looking at the window. It was cute.”

Oh right. The day I ran out of the dressing room in search of my balloon, I looked towards the store with a gloomy face. He remembered this.

But at that moment I didn’t want to present myself as a spoiled child, nagging about a new toy.

“Next time,” I said shyly.

What should I do if I go to a toy store with a character like Collen?

At that moment, I remembered the landscapes of the streets of the capital before the festival. Girls in pretty dresses held hands with their parents and went to the toy store.

I never thought to envy them. Because these were people who lived in a different world. However, the current situation was a slightly different matter.

If Collen doesn’t mind, so will I…

Hehe. Just thinking about it made my cheeks turn red.

“You can go to this store anytime.”

“Yes, later…”

“I just didn’t know what you’d like, so I bought out the whole store.”

“…Yes?”

I couldn’t believe what Collen was saying. No, what?

“Why did you buy a whole store?”

“I told you. I don’t know what girls like and I have never bought toys as gifts I just bought them because I was annoyed.”

“Zion, is it true?” I asked Zion.

Zion laughed at my bewilderment.

“That is definitely true, my lady. Actually, sir…”

“Don’t say too much, Zion.”

“Why? What is it?” I looked at Zion with my shining eyes and asked.

Zion cleared his throat.

“Actually, yesterday the master and I went to the toy store to buy a present for the lady to give to her when she wakes up. But we couldn’t choose anything for a long time.”

“…Is that why you bought the whole store?”

“To be precise, we wanted to make a deposit. We didn’t know what the young lady would want, so we just left them money so that the young lady would take whatever she wanted there when she arrived. However, the deposited amount was enough to buy an entire store.”

“Is that true?”

Collen averted his tense gaze at my words. Did this cold-hearted Duke have that side?

“Wait. You’ve never bought toys. So you’ve never bought Jade’s presents?”

Collen answered after a little thought:

“I just gave money to Marianne. Did she buy him a teddy bear once? Or was it a soldier toy?”

“It was a teddy bear dressed as a soldier.”

Jade laughed as if it wasn’t outrageous at all.

“Oh yeah. Then Jade told me this: ‘You don’t need to treat me the same way as other children, and pay so much attention to me. Let’s have a rational relationship with each other’.”

“Ah, that’s right. While I was talking about it, let’s skip the troublesome days, including birthday presents. The butler was the one who picked presents for me anyway,” said Jade.

“… Have you noticed this, sir?” Zion said in a heavy tone.

“Every year you gave me something useful, such as swords, books and stuffed rare animals. My father couldn’t have chosen such a thoughtful gift.”

“…What do you mean by that?”

Why was this ’rational’ relationship so sluggish? Collen didn’t even bother with Jade’s birthday present.

“Jade, you wanted to do taxidermy. And then I bought you the poisonous snake you wanted.”

“And it died because it’s lifespan was over. But you told me to stop studying the chimera.”

“Oh, that’s because your experiment has failed over and over again.”

Zion looked at me and said soothingly:

“Master Collen isn’t enthusiastic when it comes to gifts.”

It was straightforward.

“If you want an animal, why do you need a little teddy bear when I have many brown bears in the royal forest to hunt?”

I laughed, although it felt strange.

Oh. I see. The point was that Collen never received gifts from his parents.

“The teddy bear can be my friend and protect me from nightmares.”

This is what my mother told me while I was in the hospital.

“When the nightmare begins, the bear will chase it away.”

“This is nothing more than superstition.”

“Well, I don’t know about superstition… Oh, I don’t have a teddy bear, so if I’m scared at night, I’ll come to you.”

I pouted. Then silence fell on the carriage.

What? What does it mean?

Collen suddenly looked at me and stroked my head.

“Uh…”

“I want to bite you…” he said.