Chapter 55
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7.
( Leila Bailey’s Circumstances )
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Leila’s unusually long and tedious childhood could be summed up in exactly two phrases.
Four-eyes Leila.
Poison-mushroom Leila.
They were disgraceful nicknames she received because of the thick glasses she had worn since early childhood due to poor eyesight, and the skin rashes caused by sunlight.
Of course, Leila neither then nor now had the personality to dwell on such teasing.
In the same vein, she had no desire to grow close to children beneath her who mocked her with insults, and so she naturally became a loner.
Since exposure to sunlight worsened her rashes, outdoor activity was also out of the question. Being allowed only quiet indoor activities she could do alone, it was almost inevitable that she became an avid reader.
Yet for some reason her father did not approve of Leila liking books.
In truth, he generally did not like her. What displeased him most was the frail constitution she was born with.
‘To think such a defective product would be born into our family. A child as sickly as you is rare.’
Despite her father’s unfair criticism, Leila was not deeply hurt. Or perhaps she had insisted she was not hurt.
No matter how composed she tried to be, she was still a child. As the situation continued where neither parents nor friends liked her or approached her, even the dullest Leila could not help but feel isolation and loneliness.
It was around that time, as Leila sank further into books and her inner world, that an angel appeared before her eyes.
The angel descended to her in the form of a boy with blond hair and violet eyes.
* * *
Bjorn believed she had fallen for him and begun following him around from the age of eighteen, but that was not true.
The first time Leila became aware of his existence was when she was eight years old, at the entrance of the temple’s main gate.
Like most nobles of the capital, Leila’s family attended worship at the central temple. The central temple, befitting the headquarters of the Benignus Chivalric Order, boasted a grand scale, and countless devotees came and went.
Therefore, it was pure coincidence that Leila, heading toward the main hall following her father, witnessed that scene.
Amid the crowds moving toward their destinations, she saw a woman around her thirties holding the hand of a young boy.
The first thing that captured Leila’s gaze was the most radiant blond hair she had ever seen in her life. Had she mistaken it for a golden ornament? Because her eyesight was so poor she could not trust her eyes and frowned while adjusting her glasses, but it was clearly someone’s hair.
Naturally, when she confirmed the owner of that beautiful hair, there stood a boy astonishingly pretty.
His delicate and graceful features surpassed even the expensive porcelain dolls her mother cherished, and for the first time they made Leila’s usually unmoved heart flutter.
That day, Leila wrote a prayer of apology to the Lord God in her diary. She could not concentrate on the priest’s words throughout the mass. Instead she kept thinking about the boy she had glimpsed.
The poorly-dressed woman was probably the boy’s mother. When a priest said something, the woman handed the boy’s hand over to him. Even young Leila could easily guess the meaning of the scene.
‘Then will he live at the temple from now on?’
With solemn teachings as background, she thought such things. Secretly hoping that if the boy stayed at the temple, she might have chances to see him again.
‘But… his expression looked too sad.’
Indeed, even in that brief moment the boy looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment. Leila corrected her selfish wish.
She wished that he could just hold his mother’s hand and go back home. He was so pretty that she was sure would recognize him if they met again someday in the future.
However, during her next visit to the temple a few days later, Leila learned her wish had not come true.
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