Secret Wardrobe of the Duchess

Chapter 19

“Rubica! Rubica!”

As usual, Rubica was going to the river with a bunch of dirty bandages to wash in her arms. She then heard the voice of the man she had been trying to forget but had been thinking of at the same time.

“Ar… man.”

The resentment she’d been piling up quietly melted away at the voice eagerly calling out to her. She called him back only once in a small voice, but Arman could hear her. He ran toward her from afar. He ran into others on his way, but Rubica couldn’t go to him as she was carrying too much.

“Careful! Why are you in such a hurry?”

Rubica scolded Arman as he breathed heavily in front of her. His pants and shirt had stains as if he had just run out of the lab. Even though he was being scolded by Rubica, he couldn’t help but smile. That smile made Rubica’s resentment surface again.

She had been so worried about him for the last two months…

“Rubica, take this.”

Before Rubica could say anything, Arman put something on her hand. Rubica’s heart started to beat fast. Now she wondered that maybe she wanted Arman to present her a ring or something. But at the time, what was put on her hand was something round and grey.

“What is this?”

Rubica tried to hide her disappointment and asked kindly.
“It’s soap.”

“… soap?”

Most soaps Rubica had known had been beautiful and white, but what was on her hand was in a crude shape.
“It’s cheap soap.”

“… cheap soap?”

Her disappointment gradually turned into joy.

“After hearing what you said, I thought cheap soap would be good too, so…”

“Then what you’ve been doing during the last two months…”

“Yes, I didn’t know much about chemistry, so it took me some time to study. It would have been impossible if Priest Lefena hadn’t read the books to me. This is the first soap I made, so… I don’t know if it will make foam.”

The smile slowly disappeared from his face, and he spoke nervously. Had Arman come looking for her the moment he succeeded, even without thinking of testing it?
Rubica couldn’t hold back her excitement and took his hand.

“Let’s test it, now!”

Then, the two headed straight to the river. Rubica dipped the bandages in the water. Arman, meanwhile, started to sweat, worrying that his invention might not work. Rubica put the small soap on the bandages and started to rub.

“Look, it’s making foam.”

“Really? Really, Rubica?”

“Yes, a lot of foam.”

Arman, who had been nervous, started to smile.

Bum!

Rubica still couldn’t forget the heartbeat she heard then. She couldn’t forget Arman’s smile which she saw back then.

She was probably going to remember it for the rest of her life.

The expression beautiful wasn’t enough to describe that smile. If the gods smiled, they would smile like that. Rubica wanted to call that smile sacred.

Wouldn’t the gods gladly let her?
Without Arman’s soap, countless patients would have lost their lives because of dirty bedsheets and bandages.