Ch11 - Searching for Hania. Morel rides a horsie with the Earl.

Perhaps Bill was hugging too tightly.

Morel’s mind was an expanse of white; he had forgotten how to breathe. 

His arms hung powerlessly by his side.

Everything happening at the moment felt like a dream.

Bill didn’t speak anymore.

His action was enough for ten million words. 

But young Morel—he couldn’t understand.

He finally released Morel after a long time.

His dark purple eyes were fixated on Morel, and he asked flatly, “Now, can you tell me why you were here in the middle of the night crying by yourself?”

Morel told Bill about his didi.

“Can you walk?” Bill asked.

Morel tried doing so, but his legs had gone numb from being in one position for too long, and he wobbled.

Bill bent over. Wearing white gloves, his arms hooped underneath Morel’s knees and waist and he picked the other up horizontally.

“B-Bill gege, what are you doing…” 

Bill acted as if he didn’t hear him. He walked towards his horse then said to the soldiers and cavalry, “You’re done here, you can all return.”

“Yes, your highness!”

The group of people answered in unison and quickly disappeared into the alleyway.

Bill placed Morel onto the horse. Taking off his cloak, he wrapped it around Morel and got on the horse himself. 

Morel was in a stupor. His face felt hot.

“Hold onto me tightly if you don’t want to fall.”

Bill’s voice mixed together with the summer breeze at night.

Morel’s heart was about to jump out of his chest. 

He carefully grabbed a corner of Bill’s shirt, but when the horse whinnied and sped forward, he felt the danger of falling and tightly hugged Bill’s back like an octopus!

The corner of Bill’s mouth lifted imperceptibly, his sleeves billowing in the wind.

The black steed burst out of the small alley. It ran across the sleeping streets, through the dense forest, and into the field sprinkled with moonlight…

Bill’s hair fluttered incessantly in the wind. Morel intimately, greedily, took in the warmth on the cloak, Bill’s presence, and the unique fragrance that belonged solely to Bill. 

After a while, when Morel finally regained some calm, he discovered that this wasn’t the route home!

“Bill gege, where are we going?”

Morel asked loudly.

But Bill didn’t answer him. 

Finally, they stopped in front of a gate surrounding an ensemble of gothic buildings.

Morel stared for half a day before noticing the words on top: “Milo Royal Academy of Arts.”

Bill got off the horse and someone came out to greet them immediately. Morel stared blankly at the sculpture of Venus bathed in moonlight in the middle of the water fountain and wondered why Bill had brought him here.

After Bill spoke a few words to the people, they led them onto the campus, using candlesticks to light the way. 

The campus was enormous.

They got on the academy’s carriage and by the time they got off again, Morel had no clue where they were. They then walked into a slightly smaller building.

Under Bill’s order, a couple of women changed Morel out of his dirty clothes and wiped him clean with towels. During all this, Bill crossed his arms and waited by the door.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

He took me here to be cleaned? Why do we need to come all the way here, can’t that be done at home? 

Zbgfi kjr ralii qehhifv.

Coafg atja kjr vbcf, atfs kjixfv eq atf rqlgji rajlgkjs ab atf atlgv oibbg jcv atf wjcjufg ecibmxfv j gbbw.

“Xb bc.” Dlii abiv tlw.

Zbgfi’r tfjga rxlqqfv j yfja. 

Why?

Could it be, he doesn’t want to live with me anymore?

Is he giving me to the academy??

Zbgfi’r wlcv kjr lc aegwbli. Lf ugjyyfv atf mbgcfg bo Dlii’r mibatfr: “Gbc’a ifjnf…” 

“I won’t.” Bill promised helplessly and motioned to the left with his chin, “Look, who’s lying over there?”

With the help of the candlelight, Morel peered into the left side of the room.

Peeking out from underneath the navy blue comforter was a patch of platinum curls.

Sucking in his breath, he rushed over. 

The child was completely buried underneath the comforter…

When Hania slept, he liked to hide, just like an ostrich…

He reached out and carefully lifted the cover.

And he saw the soft head of hair and the small face! 

Hania made a sound of displeasure, tugging the comforter back and wrapping himself tightly before continuing to sleep.

Morel sat on the edge of the bed.

He gently stroked Hania’s cheek.

“Hania.” 

He quietly called out a few times.

Hania squirmed around and finally opened his bleary eyes.

He stared at Morel for a long time before opening his mouth, “Gege…”

Morel smiled, his pale lips lifting slowly. 

“Hania…Gege finally found you!”

Hania reacted at last. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Morel for a long time before saying, “Am I dreaming?”

Morel pinched Hania’s cheek, “My little young master, you’re not dreaming.”

Unexpectedly, Hania’s mouth quivered and he pulled Morel into a tight hug! 

Then tears streamed down!

“Gege is bad, gege is a bastard, you never came to see me all this time!! I thought you had forgotten about Hania! …Hic, hic…Hania misses you so much…”

“Gege misses you too…”

Bill quietly closed the door. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door. 

Maybe it was the work of the candlelights, but the contours of his face appeared exceptionally gentle.

This sort of smile, it was more ethereal than the moonlight outside the window that played on the treetops.

As it turned out, in the end, it was Bill who had taken Hania to the academy that he was in charge of.

Morel recalled his actions. 

I’m so stupid!

It was a problem that could’ve been resolved with a single question to Bill, but he spent hours rushing to the academy and quarreled with those people for so long time…how embarrassing!

But…you can’t blame him!

Bill wasn’t home at the time and Morel didn’t know how to contact him, not to mention…Bill usually ignored him…he often got the feeling that it was pointless even if he asked! 

But the important thing was, his didi had been found.

He hadn’t seen his didi in a long time. Morel hopped onto bed with his didi and the two began to talk.

This academy was indeed a lot better than the previous one where 10 children slept in one room and all the beds were wire-framed beds. It was completely different here. Here, each room had only two people and the beds were soft and comfortable.

“The child living with you isn’t here?” 

Morel realized after a while and asked quizzically.

“He goes home a lot and rarely sleeps here.” Hania answered with a smile.

“What is he called?”

“Ryan Ethan.” 

“Do you get along with him?”

“Hmph!”

Morel smiled and pinched Hania’s pouting mouth, “What’s wrong, you don’t like him?”

Hania grumbled, “He calls me a crybaby! He also said I’m a snot bug… he only bullies others all day, he falls off the bed while sleeping, and he’s an idiot that often wears his socks wrong!!” 

“Is that so…”

“He’s detestable!” Hania gesticulated with anger, “One time, he caught a toad and placed it inside my desk…he even drew whiskers on my drawing!!”

“So he’s a troublemaker? To think there is a troublemaker that could anger our Hania to this extent, I’m a bit excited to meet him!”

“He’s nothing to look at, his hair is like chicken feathers…oh right, last time he even wanted to dye my hair!! Wuwu…Gege, I really don’t want to live with him…” 

Morel stroked Hania’s downy hair, “You’ll meet all sorts of classmates and you might not like some of them at first, but Hania…bear with it first, and after some time, you might discover the good side of the other.”

“There’s nothing good about him!” Hania said, unconvinced.

“Okay, okay…”

In reality, this was what actually happened. 

Hania wasn’t well-received when he first entered the academy.

He was only 7 years old and even the youngest child here was older than him by a year. Not to mention, due to poor nutrition since childhood, he was especially short and small, causing the other kids to jeer at him and call him “short squash”.

He was still young and had never gone to school in the past. It was always gege who took care of him. He had never been alone in a completely unfamiliar environment. He didn’t know how to interact with strangers and had no idea how to fit into the unfamiliar environment, so he simply created a hard shell to protect himself and barely talked to anyone.

During art class, everyone was busy coming up with stories to draw, but he was the only one without a partner. He held a color pencil and came up with a story by himself about living with gege after he had grown up; during outdoor class, all the children played together in groups, but Hania always crotched underneath the big tree by himself, playing with stones, smelling flowers, and burying his “treasures” in the dirt; at night, he would run to the school’s gate on the dot and stand beside the iron gate in a daze, looking outside even though his face was red from the cold. Because he firmly believed that his gege would come to visit him. 

But gege didn’t come.

Not once.

Could it be gege didn’t get better after all?

But the Earl who came to get him told him that gege was living with him and he was well now. 

Then did his gege forget about him? Was it because he was small, just like the people around him said? He was small, weak, and helpless…so gege thought he was a burden and didn’t want to see him??

He didn’t attend his classes that day.

In the academy’s garden, sitting on the swing, he tightly gripped the metal dip pen his gege had bought for him.

The noises that came from the school building were like a distant baritone from a pipe organ and were filtered out by Hania. 

The light cherry blossoms bloomed and thrived, and the petals danced in the air.

The tulips in the flowerbed were red, like a cluster of flame.

But Hania didn’t have the heart to appreciate any of their beauty.

He slowly swung on the swing. Maybe the wind was too cold. His nose became pink and drops after drops of liquid fell from his blue eyes. 

Unbeknownst to him, not far away, there was a group of children playing truant.

9-year-old Ryan Ethan and his friends were having a water battle.

He noticed Hania in the distance in the sea of flowers.

“Hey!” 

Hania was startled by the shout and lifted his head.

Entering his blurry vision was a boy with wine-colored hair.

Hania ignored him and continued weeping.

The boy was stunned. He turned around and left but quickly came back with a large snail in his hand. He gave it to Hania like it was a priceless treasure, but Hania dodged away in disgust and continued crying. The boy ran away again, and after a while, he brought back a tulip that resembled fire and gave it to Hania, “Hey, don’t cry anymore!” 

Hania stared at the tulip.

Remembering how he used to sell flowers with his gege, his weeping that had nearly stopped became full-blown bawling…

“Hey, hey, crybaby!! Is your true form a snot bug?” The boy blurted.

Hania ignored him still. 

“Ew, your snot is dripping down…heck…don’t wipe it on your sleeve!!”

The red-haired boy quickly gave Hania a handkerchief and Hania took it.

“What are you waiting for, wipe your nose!”

Objectively speaking, the red-haired boy was quite handsome. 

He was the third best-looking child after him and gege!

His hair was wine-colored, his irises were light blue, and underneath his right eye, there was a small mole.

He easily attracted attention at school.

Originally, Hania thought he made a kind-hearted friend. 

But reality proved otherwise.

His personal space was encroached by the red-haired boy.

First, the red-haired boy made fun of him.

Whenever the red-haired boy saw him, he would say in his obnoxiously loud voice, “Oh? Aren’t you that crybaby from the other day?” 

“You’re the crybaby!!” Hania would retort unhappily.

“Then you’re a snot bug!”

The red-haired boy made fun of his drawing. Hania would draw a person and he would say it was a monkey; Hania would draw a monkey and he would say it was a bear; Hania would draw a boy and he would say it was a girl…and worst of all, when Hania drew bread, he said it was poop!

And he always popped out of nowhere, like a ghost. 

For example, during art class, he popped out from god knows where and always fought him for the paintbrushes…then during outdoor class, he always pestered him to play games that he didn’t know how to play, like fencing with tree branches, and even though he knew he was afraid of ghosts, he always impersonated a ghost to scare him! He loved seeing him make a fool of himself, and the most hateful thing was, he knew full well that he hated slimy creatures, so he always caught those things to scare him with…toads, caterpillars, and such became frequent guests of Hania’s desk and toolbox.

And the most unbelievable thing was, when they were assigned dorms, he put together with that despicable “turkey”…Hania, having been bullied to a pitiful degree, wanted to cry but had no tears left to shed!

Thankfully, the “turkey” was taken home often and his bed was usually empty.

This was joyous news for Hania. 

But whether it was Ethan who laughed at Hania every day for being a “crybaby” or Hania who regarded Ethan as his natural enemy, none of them were aware of the entanglements that would occur between them 10 years later.