Cry, Even Better if you Beg

✧After a Long Time✧

Leyla stepped out of the mansion just as the sky began turning a rose-tinted colour and was welcomed by a soothing wind as she exited the rose garden entrance.
Leyla walked confidently, clutching a gold coin in her right hand. Her bold steps, however, didn’t last too long when she saw Claudine sitting under the pergola near the full-bloom flower roses.  The brunette-haired girl was having a fun conversation with her cousins, and she gave a vague smile when her gaze fell on Leyla’s.
“Goodbye, Leyla.”
Claudine was the one who greeted her first. The young men sitting next to Claudine all looked at Leyla with their gazes drawn to her. But thankfully, Duke Herhardt wasn’t among them. So Leyla quickly replied with a single bow to her farewell, but Claudine remained silent.
After she was out of their sight, Leyla began to run. She couldn’t wait to escape from the weird and unknown world and get back to Uncle Bill’s cottage as soon as she could. But it seemed her worst misfortune came at the very last moment.
Leyla tripped at the crosswalk of the garden and the forest path. Her gold coin mockingly rolled down the paving stone and landed on the tip of a man’s shoe. She frowned at the spinning gold coin, and the man lightly stepped on the coin with the tip of his shoe to quell its tinkling sounds.
Leyla moved her eyes slowly to the well-polished shoes, up to the long legs, and finally to the man’s face that loomed upon her.
It was Duke Herhardt.
Leyla startled and immediately sprang to her feet. Her white dress had blood and dust stains from her scratched knee. With a composed expression on his face, the Duke clearly stared at Leyla with his red lips, which seemed to be slightly curved to one side.
Leyla pressed her lips together and brushed the dust from her clothes. Meanwhile, Duke Herhardt took a leisurely step back, then the coin under his foot shone brightly, reflecting the sunshine.
Leyla hunkered down her body in front of the Duke, even though she wanted to leave the place right away.  Just as she was about to stretch out her arms to take the coin, She remembered what she had been told by Claudine.
‘No better than a dog.’
Those words had scratched a deep wound in Leyla’s heart. She took the coin and politely bowed to Duke Herhardt.
Leyla didn’t dare to lift her head. So all she could do was stoop her head as low as she could and hold her breath. As she bowed, surprisingly, the pain she felt when she fell was no longer there.
Leyla left the Duke and continued her run. Because of her injured knee, she couldn’t run as fast as she could before. At the same time, she kept pushing her bloodied legs; she felt something sprouting from the bottom of her heart to the tip of her throat.
Leyla realized what it was after passing through the forest path and facing the light from the cottage.
It was sadness.

***

“I’ll give this for you, uncle.”
Bill’s hairy brows grew to wrinkle when Leyla put out the gold coin to Bill in a hushed way, “What’s this?”
“A gold coin.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Lady Claudine gave it to me.”
“Claudine? Ah, that little noble lady.” Bill showed her a friendly nod as if he recognized her.
Leyla had been feeling down for the next two days, ever since she was invited to the mansion. She didn’t talk to anyone or go for a walk in the woods or the garden. Bill realized he missed the good old days, especially that child’s upbeat attitude. Since the child was silent, the world became quiet. And he wasn’t a fan of the quiet world.
“Can you tell me why you want to give me that money?”
Leyla sat in a straight pose, facing her dear uncle, while Bill leaned a little towards the table. “Because I think it’s worth a lot.”
“It’s worth a lot?”
“… Even though receiving this coin made me sad at first, I couldn’t possibly throw it away because of its high value. So I thought that if I gave you this coin, I might at least start repaying you after being indebted to you for so long.”
“Damn it.”
Leyla flinched mildly at Bill’s harsh mutter, but she didn’t seem to mind his curse.
Bill had been concerned about the nobles hurting Leyla’s tender heart ever since she arrived in Arvis. Since all the aristocrats were the same to Bill, he had expected that they would bully the child because of her low status.
The majority of them were arrogant, rude, and insulting.
Bill was afraid of making the child shed tears if he asked what had happened at the mansion, but he had a good idea of how badly the child was treated there.