Translator: Elisia
Editor/Proofreader: Wojo
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When I think about it, Yang Hye-in’s attitude was subtly different from when she was at the mansion.
At the mansion, she used to stand up and bow as soon as she saw me, but here, she didn’t bother to stand and bow even after I called her.
Though it seemed like Yang Hye-in herself didn’t realize it.
So… it wasn’t as if my coming here had no effect. At least that much was a relief.
“……”
“……”
Neither of us said anything.
And perhaps, like me, Yang Hye-in was unable to sleep.
“Just call me by my name.”
I said that.
“……”
Yang Hye-in turned her head silently to look down at me.
I couldn’t see her expression clearly.
I wasn’t looking directly at her, just glimpsing her out of the corner of my eye.
“I’ll call you sister Hye-in when I’m here… like Ha-neul does.”
Honestly, the title ‘sister’ was too cringe for me to use.
It wasn’t just because the other person was Yang Hye-in.
It was more fundamental—because I was a man, I didn’t want to use such a term.
Well, in the Joseon Dynasty, even men used ‘sister,’ but this isn’t the Joseon era.
Whether calling a man or a woman ‘sister,’ people would think I was strange.
If I used that term while in Sara’s body, people wouldn’t say anything… but it’s not like I fully see myself as a woman, either.
‘Sister!’
…At least you, please don’t call me that.
Hearing Sara teasingly call me that in a dream, I let out a bitter smile to myself.
Well, I did take on Sara’s appearance in her dreams.
“Understood.”
After thinking for a moment, Yang Hye-in answered.
“At least in front of your grandmother, speak informally.”
“Yes, understood.”
Yang Hye-in replied once again.
And then, silence resumed.
Ironically, I felt less awkward with Yang Hye-in’s silence than with the awkwardness and unease I felt in front of the affectionate grandmother.
Not that it wasn’t uncomfortable at all—I was originally just a commoner’s child who had never had a maid or anything like that before.
But Yang Hye-in’s silence didn’t stem from discomfort or reluctance to speak.
It was the stance of someone trying to be as unnoticeable as possible, waiting quietly in the background so as not to disturb her employer.
Whether this attitude came from her nature or was something she had learned, over the past few months, I had come to appreciate Yang Hye-in’s kind of silence.
Even now, in this moment.
“……”
But,
Even so.
I didn’t know much about Yang Hye-in.
Naturally, it was because I hadn’t really had any personal conversations with her.
With Ha-neul, So-hee, and Soo-ah, I could quickly get to know them by talking to them, since I knew they were heroines.
But it wasn’t easy to get close to Yang Hye-in.
It wasn’t her lack of words that was the problem—it was because of the impact Yang Hye-in had on Sara’s life.
After all, an accomplice is still an accomplice.
No matter how much Sara said it didn’t matter, for some reason, when I looked at Yang Hye-in, that thought kept coming back.
And because of that, I didn’t quite understand.
Why had Yang Hye-in, who had silently done her job, suddenly started showing human concern for Sara and even tried to apologize?
Why had she told the police about her actions?
When I was kidnapped, why did she rush over, shattering the car window without worrying about what others would think?
If she had only been doing her job as a maid, it didn’t make sense why she would do something so dangerous.
Unless it was like in some other comics or games, where there’s a ‘personal maid who’s the only one on the young lady’s side’ sort of setup.
“……Haa.”
Well, I’m not sleepy yet.
“I have something I want to ask.”
“……Yes.”
At my words, Yang Hye-in answered politely.
It felt like the professionalism of someone who didn’t care about the age difference between us.
“I once asked you why you didn’t report to the chairwoman, right?”
When I was wildly straying from the routine Sara had carefully maintained, I once asked Yang Hye-in if she had reported it to the chairwoman.
I hadn’t expected much from the question, but I was a little surprised when she answered, “I didn’t.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
Yang Hye-in nodded as if she remembered the moment.
Well, her memory is probably better than mine.
“I think it started then. You began helping me little by little.”
At first, she didn’t help me outright.
She would skip reports or not contact the chairwoman…
She helped indirectly, but at some point, she started actively helping me.
It was so sudden that it was hard to accept.
…The incident where she brought Sara’s will to my friends still makes my heart race when I think about it.
“At the time, you said it was ‘just something you felt like you had to do.’ If I asked again now, would I get a proper answer?”
Sara said she had forgiven Yang Hye-in.
Though I hadn’t had much time to look through Sara’s memories because I was talking to her in my dreams at night, I had heard it from her.
An infinitely light, simple forgiveness, one that even the forgiven might not understand.
It was a memory from a time when she didn’t have much passion for her life, so Sara just said a few words and moved on.
And probably, Yang Hye-in thought she hadn’t been forgiven.
That’s why she had been doing everything she could to help me, trying to save me from Choi Na-kyung.
Most people would have just given up and left it at that.
But those actions weren’t the sort of thing someone who said, ‘I just felt like I had to do it,’ would do.
“That’s because…”
After pondering for a long while, Yang Hye-in finally spoke.
“That’s because I saw the young lady smile.”
“……What?”
What is she talking about?
“Could you explain in more detail?”
“……”
Yang Hye-in remained silent for a long time, as if she didn’t fully understand what she herself meant.
“It’s just that, after seeing you smile, I wanted to protect it.”
“……”
Now it was my turn to fall silent.
Of course, I didn’t fully understand this, either.
Yang Hye-in knew that, as she tried to continue her explanation, albeit slowly, as if unraveling a difficult problem.
“When I first took this job, I thought I was lucky.”
Yang Hye-in began speaking honestly, like a confession.
“I got paid a lot, and the work was easy. The biggest reason the work was easy was that you had a quiet personality.”
“……”
It was true.
Sara had a quiet personality.
Of course, it wasn’t a normal kind of quiet.
Like a ticking time bomb, she had so much pent up inside but didn’t know how to express it.
“And…”
Yang Hye-in’s usual stiff tone softened slightly.
“And, I didn’t think you had such thoughts.”
“Even though you were watching from the side?”
“……”
Maybe Yang Hye-in was biting her lip.
“I probably just rationalized it to myself.”
She spoke as if squeezing the words out.
“You were rich, and even though you might be having a hard time now, you would become an adult in a few years, and then you’d live freely with that wealth.”
“……”
I couldn’t say anything in response to that.
What did I think of Sara at first?
“I think I wanted to justify my job. I wanted to keep earning this much money, doing this easy work.”
“……”
“When you screamed that night, I thought of my job first rather than you. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of consequences I would face if something happened to you.”
‘……’
“But after you woke up, and I saw how you started to change, my thoughts changed, too. I realized you were just a normal child.”
“……”
No.
No, that wasn’t right.
Sara had been a normal child from the beginning.
The reason Sara became someone with such a difficult personality was simply due to the abnormal situation surrounding her.
An abnormal stepmother and people who didn’t treat her like a human being.
To turn her into their own puppet, devoid of emotion or relationships, Choi Na-kyung had pushed Sara past her limit.
For years.
“And because you were such a normal child who couldn’t endure this situation, I wanted to protect that smile.”
“…But that wasn’t Sara. That was me.”
“……”
I heard Yang Hye-in take a sharp breath.
The sound was trembling.
“…Yes, that’s correct.”