CH 7

“Yes, thank you. I won’t meet him again, so you don’t have to worry.”

Reason can trump instinct. However, in this case, my instinct comes first even in my dreams.

Wow, how much did all this in total? When I opened the bag, sparkling gold coins greeted me.

Oh, what a bright and beautiful sight.

I felt hazy for a moment at such a dizzying sight and placed my hand on my forehead. However, Mary was grumbling in the back and sent a gesture to me to come to my senses.

Oh, alright. We should send these guests home first.

The woman was a little surprised, as if she expected a different response from me. She must have started to realize something was wrong.

“Madam. Forgive me, but Young Master Ciel is not my ideal type. Of course, your son may appear to be the best and coolest person in the Morris Empire from your view. But even if I was a redhead, I didn’t think anyone would like a flirtatious man. There would be one woman who’s fine with it if it was the Crown Prince. therefore, you don’t have to worry, Madam, and return. I will never see Ciel again. I will also put this money to good use. Thank you.”

I hid the bag of gold coins behind my back in case it was retrieved. I looked at Mary with sparkling green eyes.

“Mary, the guest is returning. Please lead her quickly.”

The woman let out a small sigh at my brash attitude. She pursed her lips and finally shook her head as she got up.

It wouldn’t be a shame if she had known the girl her son loved and whom she tried to drive away by giving her money, only to find out that there was no relationship between the girl and her son at all. How much money has been wasted?

This was the content of my dream today.

A very strange dream, and it seemed to have happened before.

* * *

One night, seven years ago.

Claude also suffered from nightmares. The nightmare was always the same.

He was in a horse-drawn carriage. in the scenery faraway seen through the window, a field of yellow-colored ripe wheat swayed in the wind. As he hummed while enjoying the peaceful scenery, his mother patted his head gently and handed him a sweet candy. Then the carriage shook so violently that it stopped without giving him a moment to put the candy in his mouth.

“Oh… no.”

Claude, who realized this, stood up and grabbed his mother’s dress while trying to check the situation outside. However, the mother carefully removed Claude’s hand and crawled to open the carriage door.

“What’s going on here? Oh my god!”

As soon as his mother finished talking, there was the sound of gunpowder explosions. Someone had fired a rifle outside the carriage.

The hot thing pierced through his mother’s abdomen. His mother,who had been shot, turned around with difficulty and hid Claude’s small and young body inside the skirt of her fancy attire. She shrank away in the corner and hoped that her son would not be discovered by the enemy as much as possible.

“Honey. Hukh! Let’s play with mom… We have to do this.”

“Play…?”

Even though she was bleeding, her mother asked Claude in a trembling voice. Blood suddenly flowed from her mouth.

“Until those people leave. You must not make a scene. What do you think? Ukh… Ukh! No, if you win the match, I’ll give you a big reward.”

“Yes…”

The young Claude waited without making a sound, even though he knew his mother’s body was getting colder. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he held his breath with all his might to keep the weeping sound from escaping his mouth. He was terrified in this situation. He heard the horrible conversation from strangers outside the carriage.

“What should we do? Should we just leave her by the side of the road?”

“It doesn’t matter if she were to be spotted by people. Let’s say that this is a horse carriage accident. This gun is owned by the Duchess, and she has to announce that it was fired by accident, so we just have to leave it in the carriage.”

“Wow. I can’t believe we have to destroy such an extravagant carriage. Such a pity. If we sell it, we should get a lot of money.”

“Don’t be so greedy. Do me a favor. We should take care of the horses and push the carriage onto the road.”

“Wait a minute.”

A man was busy looking around through the wagon to see if there were any other items that could be brought in for the sake of money, and that was when he accidentally made eye contact with a child hiding in a dress.

“Huh?”

“What is it, Hendrick? Is there anything inside?”

The man immediately covered the gap between the open door with his body upon hearing his friend’s words, he waved his hand with a smile.

“No, it’s nothing. I was wondering if there were any items we could bring back, since she’s someone with high status. Her clothes are very simple, though. I didn’t see any necklace on her. Let’s go.”

The man who had a long scar near his left eyebrow closed the carriage door hard enough to make a loud banging sound.

The man called Handrick saw Claude with his own eyes and walked away.

He did that out of sympathy. When he saw Claude’s face, he remembered his sick son and decided to leave him there. He also assumed that if the train were to be knocked down on the road, the little boy wouldn’t have survived.

‘Whether he lives or not depends on his luck now.’

One or two orders came from the outside. The carriage crashed somewhere and an extreme shock hit Claude’s body. How long had it been since his mother fainted like this? His mother said that she would give him a big reward if he didn’t make a scene.

Claude seemed to be muttering, ‘Help me’ when he began to lose consciousness. And when he opened his eyes, the first thing that came into his sight was an unfamiliar cabin. A red-haired girl was looking at him with her chin resting on the back of her hand.

“Oh? Wake up. Mom-!”

The green-eyed girl was called Haley. She didn’t ask Claude’s age and even treated him like a little brother. Perhaps, it was because he had almost gone through a death accident, which made Claude smaller in size compared to his friends as a child.

“You should eat regularly to grow faster. Eat more of this.”

She pretended to be considerate and tried to act like a big sister, but all Haley gave him were vegetables that he actually hated, such as broccoli and peppers. She never offered meat or soft bread.

‘Ish.’

Although he felt annoyed sometimes, he was not in a position to argue because this was related to living together with her. And ever since the train accident, he couldn’t remember anything about himself or even his name, except for the fact that his mother had died right in front of him. He had to survive by staying in this house until he reached adulthood.

Perhaps due to the shock of the accident, Claude had a mental breakdown and didn’t speak at all until now. Because of this, he was often ridiculed and bullied by the local children as a fool. Especially Charon, who had a crush on Haley, had bullied him the most.

“Hey! You can’t even talk, can you!?”

One day, an orange-haired brother, who acted as a leader in the neighborhood, grabbed Claude harshly by the shoulders and dragged him under a tree. When Claude glared quietly at Charon, he bent his index and middle fingers and threatened to hit Claude in the face.

“What are you looking at? This?!”

“…”

“Who are you? Why are you always hanging around Haley? I heard you’re not even her little brother. I heard you were just an orphan who got picked up on the street.”

Claude wanted to answer, but nothing came out of his throat. Haley’s mother, Bella, said that it must have been caused by psychological shock. Claude didn’t know when his voice would return.

Charon hated seeing Claude hanging around Haley. Come to think of it, he couldn’t even bear to see the local children talking to Haley.

“You’re an orphan whose identity no one ever knows about, even when you die begging on the street. Think about this. Haley is mine. She will marry me later. Do you get it?”

Haley didn’t even think of Charon as a man. Charon treated Haley as if she was his woman. It strangely made Claude angry.

“Umh! Umh!”

Claude tried to answer Charon with all his might. As expected, his words didn’t come out properly.

Charon laughed when Claude tried to speak.

“Pft. It doesn’t matter if I leave a fool like you here as you can’t even talk.”

Hearing those words, Claude was furious and attacked Charon. On that day, Claude returned home after getting beaten up. Haley was furious when she saw Claude’s bruised face. 

“Who bullied my little brother? What kind of person is he? Tell me! I’ll take revenge on him on behalf of you!”

Haley ran around the neighborhood with an angry grunt. She eventually found out that it was Charon who hit her younger brother, so she immediately hit and fought Charon without saying anything more. In the fight, Charon pretended to be in pain and let Haley beat him up. Claude looked at him with a disgusted look.

Claude started trying to speak again and touch his neck which didn’t move as he thought it was supposed to.

‘We’re the same age. Maybe I’m older than you.’

Claude had wanted to say that for the past two years. When he had written on notes or on the ground, he forcefully acknowledged Haley as his older sister. Moreover, every time he referred to Haley as an older sister, Haley looked at him with eyes that shone beautifully. Claude felt his heart skip a beat every time he got that look.

‘If it went on like this, Charon might really take my sister away.’

It would never happen. To such an angry and ruthless man. Haley should stay with someone who only loves her. Claude thought, for example, such as himself.

When Claude realized this matter, he gradually practiced speaking in secret. He began to pronounce basic vowel letters, and his mouth slowly could form a couple of words. Lately, he practiced speaking sentences fluently in the bedroom at night.

‘I have to give my sister a surprise later.’

Claude had to work hard to protect Haley from the bad environment that surrounded her. Although he couldn’t protect his biological mother when she died, he wants to protect his own new family starting from now.

After Claude’s mother died, he lived for several months with a wish to be dead quickly. But, there was someone who helped Claude and was always willing to stand by his side. At some point, he finally had a new purpose in life because he started to feel love for them. The person whom Claude cared for from the time he woke up in the morning to before he went to bed at night. It was also for his own sake.

‘I want to be strong.’

Claude has been working hard to achieve that one particular goal …. and he has been worried about something insignificant lately.

Lately, Claude saw Haley as a woman. She was Claude’s first love.

* * *

What kind of dream was it? I thought it was so detailed and vivid, as if I had experienced it. I was very surprised when I met the main character of this world the day before. I even had a strange dream.

‘Is this a precognitive dream?’

The name of the newspaper I would build in the future is <Golden Goose Daily>. I had never heard this name before, but somehow I liked it. I was the one who wanted to create a gossip newspaper in the near future. Then, I got out of bed whilst thinking about setting up a newspaper company with the name which had been predicted in my dream.

After tying my hair and washing my face, I went out to the living room and kitchen. My mother wasn’t home yet as she was on a business trip to the countryside.

“Uh… No! Don’t!”

I was beyond shock that my heart almost stopped when I heard the shout from Claude’s room. The scream that came from my younger brother’s mouth, the person whom I hadn’t spoken a word to in two years. His mouth finally said a couple of words.

‘I wasn’t mistaken, was I?’

I hurriedly ran over and opened the door to my younger brother’s room. My younger brother was in a cold sweat and had a frown on his face, as if he was having the same nightmare again. I held his trembling, sweaty left hand to calm him down. And I whispered in his ear.

“What you’re experiencing now is just a common nightmare. You’re living happily with your family now, as well as your new sister, Haley, who is really beautiful.”