“How long do you intend to sleep, you lazy thing!”
“Gah!”
For nearly a week, Lea had been waking at dawn to a baptism of water thrown by the baron or the baroness.
Back when she had been trained as a man, her eyes had opened on their own, and she had risen and moved earlier than anyone else. But now that she had become a woman, she was simply drunk on sleep.
“Look at this, will you? You wake up late, and then you soak all the bedding with water. Wash it and hang it out at once!”
“But my lady, you were the one who—”
“Talking back!”
Smack!
If she protested the absurdity, a slap or a switch came flying.
She could see the path of the attack clearly, and she knew how to counter it, but Lea could not.
Even if she struck back with her weakened body, she could not defeat the baron, let alone the baroness.
The Bashports had originally been a family of cleaners for the royal house, and there had been several times when Lea had been struck back instead and ended up lying on the floor.
By the time she finished washing the bedding with her strengthless body, groaning all the while, then hung it out and returned, the sun was already high in the sky.
“You lazy thing! This is already the hour when you should have prepared breakfast and served it to the elders of the house or to your husband!”
The moment she hung the blanket outside and returned indoors, the switch came flying.
She raised her arm reflexively to block it, but it stung fiercely.
The baroness had surely anticipated that she would block and struck at just the right speed.
“A shameless wench like you has no right to eat or drink. Go over there and face the wall!”
This was better, if anything.
Her body, ragged from lack of sleep, could hardly move any more.
Even while standing, Lea was so sleepy that her head bobbed.
Thwack!
“Aaaah!”
A heavy blow struck her backside.
She clutched her buttocks disgracefully and sank to the floor.
The numbing, aching pain was unbearably sharp.
“To dare doze off while standing punishment. You must wish to die.”
When she looked up, tears dripping, the baron was there, holding a club.
His hunched back had at some point straightened properly, and he looked ready to strike her down with a swing.
“Get up. I shall correct that habit of yours.”
“……”
On the first day, she had been cowed, done as she was told, and smiled at their praise. But not anymore.
Lea took on a defiant look, only for the baron’s swung club to strike even both hands that had been clutching her backside.
“Agh! Aaah… aaagh…!”
Startled by the unexpected corporal punishment, Lea could not endure the sorrow that followed the pain and burst into tears.
The fact that she was crying over something as small as this wounded her pride and made her head spin.
“What have you done so well that you are crying? Will you not get up this instant!”
“I was wrong…!”
It was her limit.
She did not know it herself, but her soul had been torn away, leaving her body so weakened that it would not have been strange for her to die at any moment. With fatigue, stress, and irrationality piling upon it, Lea could not endure.
She sobbed and begged for forgiveness.
“I was wrong. I was wrong!”
She knelt and clasped her hands together, pleading.
Neither resentment nor sorrow could catch up to her desperate wish to escape this situation.
When she broke her own stubbornness and begged, Baron Bashport’s force eased and his voice lowered, but the coldness remained.
“What did you do wrong? Speak.”
“I… I…”
What had she done wrong?
She did not know.
Just what had she done wrong for her life to be like this?
Rather than feeling the irrationality of it, Lea wondered in pure bewilderment.
Not only the pain of this very moment, but the total sum of suffering she had endured since being born as Earei—was that truly fitting?
And how much more pain would there be from now on?
Lea thought with a hazy mind, then gave up.
“I… was wrong simply to have been born…”
This time, her life truly seemed to flash before her eyes.
Her parents, who had treated her as a troublesome burden and a useless mouth to feed, had ultimately sold their son as a squire to a pathetic knight.
The knight had been skilled with a sword, but his character had not matched it, and Earei had served him while being abused.
After a certain incident, the knight died, and Earei inherited his surname, Birensha. When he went around carrying out chivalrous deeds, he received a recommendation and went to the academy.
There, he met the current queen, Seorin.
They truly had not suited each other.
And yet Earei had been drawn to her and devoted himself to her.
After all manner of hardships, he had made her king.
As a result, she, whom he had thought would hate him to the very end, opened her heart.
Earei became her first husband, and that was all.
The unfavored husband could not even serve as a man and ended up becoming a woman.
That was the present.
The suffering that had begun at birth had never ended, but had continued to cling to her.
Lea murmured with vacant eyes.
“I should never have been born…”
Lea thought a merciless beating would follow.
But apart from the beating, she was certain that the words she had uttered were the correct answer.
If she had not been born into this world, she would not have known pain.
The pain of receiving hateful gazes.
The pain of hunger.
The pain of loving someone one-sidedly.
And countless other pains born of countless lacks.
Baron Bashport gave a look to his wife, who had been hiding behind the door.
The positions of the two changed naturally.
The baron went in, and the baroness came out to stand before Lea.
Her tears had already dried, but because of her blurred vision, Lea did not realize it.
Cold attacked her.
It was terribly cold, yet her body did not tremble.
In that state, Lea let out, truly without realizing it, in a very small voice.
“…I want to be loved.”
Even for a single moment.
I want to be loved without fear.
It’s all right even if I can’t act spoiled.
I don’t even wish for that much.
No.
I’d rather everyone simply be indifferent to me.
At the very least, I don’t want to be hated.
Eyes stained with disgust and hatred, malice and hostility, frighten me.
Ah, it is futile.
Everything I have struggled for until now is empty.
And yet, the reason Lea was trying to endure like this was, in the end…
“Yes, that is exactly the feeling.”
All at once, a warm voice and a gentle embrace wrapped around her.
Lea could not grasp what had happened, but she liked that embrace.
“A woman is, by nature, a being who lives to be loved.”
The baroness spoke to Lea softly and gently.
“But to be loved, one must possess a vessel worthy of receiving love. That vessel contains many elements, including conduct, conviction, and attitude.”
Ah, it feels safe.
How long had it been since someone had spoken to her so kindly?
“A woman who possesses those elements is called a lady. Do you understand, Lea?”
“I… I… I…”
At the warm words and attitude, Lea’s grief burst forth, and she could not speak properly.
Then she firmly closed her mouth and turned her head aside.
Her bangs slipped down, covering her eyes.
Only her pale, delicate jawline was revealed, and a single large tear slid down along that line. Even the baron and his wife, who regarded her as an enemy, felt pity and sorrow at the sight.
“Do you wish to be loved?”
In the baroness’s arms, Lea gave a very small nod.
The baroness hugged Lea more tightly and whispered in her ear.
“I shall become your teacher and make you into a lady.”
The first teacher in Lea’s life had appeared.
“It will not be easy. It will be difficult. But once you achieve it, the fruit of that love will be very, very sweet.”
The actions of Baron and Baroness Bashport, breaking Lea while attempting to plant hope in her, were a vile deception.
It was not simply to take hold of Lea’s reins.
They inflicted pain and made her submit to it, but then, in order to keep her feeling that pain more vividly, they suggested the possibility of a better future.
They were carrying out their revenge faithfully.
“Imagine it. A partner who loves you. Your children, crying and laughing as they seek out you and your partner.”
“I don’t know.”
Lea answered reflexively.
“I’ve never been loved, so I can’t imagine what it feels like to be loved, or what it would feel like for people I love to love me and stay by my side…”
When one gazes into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into the one who looks.
Facing the abyss deep within Lea’s heart, the baroness grew slightly flustered and wavered.
Baron Bashport had guessed it to some extent, but when it was confirmed as truth, he even stifled his breathing and chewed over Lea’s sobs.
That was right.
The queen had opened her heart to Earei from the time he made her king.
Just as Earei’s affection was about to bear fruit, he had been checked by the great houses at the same time as the marriage, forcibly separated from her, and neglected.
Even so, Lea now worried for the queen’s safety and, in order to gain her love, struggled on even in a state like a half-dead corpse.
Despite the fact that the queen still clung to her pride and continued their battle of wills to the very end.
“This teacher guarantees it.”
“……”
The baroness met Lea’s eyes.
She forced an intense gaze into those vacant eyes and wiped away the tears that flowed down.
“It will take a long time, but I will see to it that you are loved.”
“I’m afraid of love now.”
“Love is, by nature, a frightening and great emotion.”
Finally, the baroness enunciated each word with strength.
“But if that frightening and great emotion is conveyed wholly to you, you will no longer suffer or be in pain.”
“……”
The baroness gripped Lea’s hand firmly.
“Do you not wish to be loved?”
“…I want to be loved.”
“Then believe in me.”
Lea swallowed and wet her lips with her tongue.
“Yes, Teacher.”
Having received her answer, the baroness returned to her cold expression.
After brushing off Lea’s shoulders a couple of times, she gave her a bowl of cold soup.
Lea did not remember well what happened afterward.
She only felt strangely reassured by the sense that the baron and his wife had somehow acknowledged her.
And the next day, at dawn.
Bang!
“Still asleep—”
Holding a bucket of water as she opened the door, the baroness could not continue speaking when she saw Lea sitting on the bed with dark shadows under her eyes and a hollow gaze, her back held ramrod straight.
Having achieved her goal of waking and preparing before the baroness entered, Lea wore a faint smile.
The very moment that smile formed, the baroness’s switch struck her cheek and ear.
Crack!
“How dare you stay up all night without sleeping in order to endure this. To become a lady, your skin must be beautiful, and for your skin to be beautiful, you must sleep. I gave you sufficient time to sleep, yet you do this. This is rebellion against your teacher, is it not?”
Lea showed the whites of her eyes, toppled sideways, twitched, and fainted.