When Spring Blooms – 5

Lee Mina had requested to stay at the mansion for two days.

She promised to interpret the writing Inho had left behind in exchange for staying at the mansion for two days.

While Emma cleaned the long-neglected mansion, Lee Mina wandered around, running her hands over the traces left by the mansion’s owner.

She spent a lot of time in the study, in particular. Emma, busy with cleaning, caught glimpses of her caressing the desk Inho used to use, gazing out at the scenery.

The first day quickly passed, and Emma provided Lee Mina with a guest room she had polished to a shine.

On the last day of her stay at the mansion, Emma went grocery shopping for the first time in a long while.

People were delighted to see Emma, who had suddenly disappeared after Inho’s death, back on the streets.

They thought she had finally overcome the death of her master and emerged back into the world.

Whether she knew or not, Emma hurried through the shops, buying ingredients for dinner.

With her arms full of groceries, Emma began to cook.

She made several dishes, just as she had once served her master.

Emma, eager to see the writing her master had left behind, hid her burning insides and treated the foreign lady with utmost care.

Lee Mina looked slender, but she had a hearty appetite, finishing all the food Emma had prepared.

And so came the last night at the mansion.

In the study, two women sat facing each other.

“Well, then, I’ll read it,” Lee Mina said with a languid expression.

Emma swallowed hard.

“After summer…”

Lee Mina began to read the manuscript in a calm tone.

Emma’s expression, who had been anticipating the moment her master’s veiled masterpiece would finally be revealed, changed as the manuscript progressed.

From surprise to doubt, from doubt to bewilderment, from bewilderment to sorrow.

“……”

Having finished reading the manuscript, Lee Mina looked at Emma, who was sitting across from her.

The maid kept her head bowed, maintaining silence.

Lee Mina stood up, her clothes rustling.

“Have a pleasant night,” Lee Mina said as she left the study.

Of course, she said it knowing that the mansion’s maid would not have a pleasant night.

Lee Mina entered the guest room and sat on the bed.

Her shadow, cast by the lamp illuminating the room, stretched out like a mural and then moved as if dancing.

“I ate well today, didn’t I, Kkumul-ssi?”

At Mina’s words, the shadow trembled. It seemed to be in a good mood.

“I’m sorry for always making you eat such tasteless things.”

She reached out and stroked the shadow on the wall.

The part Mina touched bulged and then receded.

“Inho-ssi seems to have died of natural causes. I wondered if the maid might have been involved…”

Mina spoke to the shadow.

“It’s my first time in this dimension, so it took me a little while to decide what to do.”

The shadow wriggled on the wall.

“Ah, the manuscript? It was just… a whim. It’ll take time to pinpoint the dimension Inho-ssi went to anyway. I have nothing to do until then… Yeah. Just a whim.”

She smiled very faintly.

“……”

She lowered her hand from the wall and caressed the bed.

“Inho-ssi…”

Her voice was filled with much contemplation.

“Inho-ssi is so kind. He even leaves behind such writing for the sake of a woman he’s never even met.”

Mina, feeling the texture of the blanket between her fingers, gathered her legs and buried her face in her knees.

“…Sometimes, I wish that kindness was directed only at me, though.”

Lee Mina muttered, slightly lowering her eyes.

The next day, Mina, who had packed her luggage, and Emma, who had come to see her off, stood at the gate.

“Thank you for providing a place to stay.”

“Not at all. I am the one who should be grateful. If it weren’t for Mina-nim, I would never have been able to understand the writing Master left behind.”

Emma came out of the gate and locked it.

“Where are you going?” Mina asked, seeing Emma closing the gate from the outside.

“I’m going to see Master. I was originally going to visit him on the day I returned, but…”

“Have a good trip,” Mina said to Emma with a smile in her eyes. Emma quietly bowed her head, seeing her off.

“Ah!”

Mina, who had walked quite a distance, turned around.

Thinking that she had something to say to her, Emma, who had been heading to the cemetery, stopped and turned back toward Mina.

“I don’t know for sure, but… Emma’s master would want Emma to be happy.”

Emma stared at Lee Mina.

Emma, who had been biting her lower lip, forced the corners of her mouth up.

“Of course. Master cares about me.”

“That’s a relief. That you know.”

Mina muttered, watching Emma walk away.

Lee Mina entered a quiet alley.

In the dim alley, where the early morning sunlight had not yet reached, Mina stretched out a hand.

“Well, then, shall we start again?”

Following her arm, a black shadow wriggled out.

The shadow, grabbing something in the air, struggled as if forcibly opening the gap.

-Eujijijijik

A cracking sound was heard in the air, and as the shadow gradually widened ‘something’, wind swirled in the empty space.

Finally, when the shadow had completely opened ‘something’, a door with swirling blue colors appeared in the empty alley.

“This is the dimension Inho-ssi crossed over to.”

Lee Mina, who was about to pass through the dimensional door as usual, stopped.

“Huh? What is this?”

Mina tilted her head, as if looking at a machine that didn’t work even though she followed the instructions.

“Kkumul-ssi. Is this right?”

She asked the shadow, and the shadow moved up and down as if to say it had done nothing wrong.

“That’s strange. Why…? Could it be an error caused by natural death…?”

She kept tilting her head, looking at the dimension connected to the alley.

“Master, I’m here. It’s been two months.”

Emma, who had come to Inho’s grave, cleared the weeds that had grown around the tombstone.

“……”

She stood blankly, looking at her master’s tombstone.

“Luckily, I met someone who could decipher the writing Master wrote. So I’ve deciphered the entire manuscript.”

“You said it was a masterpiece. Why did you lie? Haha….”

Emma’s dry laughter floated in the cemetery.

“…Master, you know. I’ve tried everything you told me to do.”

Emma crumpled the hem of her skirt.

“The inn in Rown Village was just expensive. It gave me a room that was worse than my room in the mansion and shamelessly charged me 20 Darks.”

“The Transmission Tower was just ridiculously big. The tourists around it didn’t keep order, so the streets were crowded. It was very distracting.”

“The Eleanor Cathedral was sure to drive away anyone who came to pray because of the musty smell and construction noise. It seems that a cathedral isn’t all that great just because it’s big.”

“And the food at El Pio was really bad. The wine, the steak…”

Tears streamed down Emma’s cheeks.

“Master, I…”

“I like the small room in the mansion where I live with Master more than the famous inn in Rown Village.”

“The stone tower I built in the mansion garden is more beautiful than the Transmission Tower.”

“The comfort of Master’s study suits me better than the sacredness of Eleanor Cathedral.”

“And the dinner I had with Master was more delicious than any food in any restaurant in the world.”

Emma’s hands trembled.

She forced down the rising breath and continued, hiccuping.

“Master is kind. Master is thoughtful. Master is smart.”

“But… but!!!”

“There’s one thing Master doesn’t know.”

Emma gave a sad smile.

“Ever since I was taken in by a nameless gentleman, my season has always been spring.”

Emma knelt down.

Her knees were wet with the dew that had not yet disappeared.

She didn’t care and hugged the tombstone.

Hugging that hard stone, it felt like the same feeling as when her master had hugged her was revived.

“But… but!!”

“But… now it’s winter. An endless winter.”

She cried out loud.

She spat out the words as if a wound that had been torn by sharp claws deep in her heart had suddenly surged up.

“Nothing is as good as doing things with Master!”

“Nothing tastes as good as eating with Master!”

“No place is as good as seeing the scenery with Master!”

“Whatever I do, eat, hear, see, or go… I have no value in living my life. Not a single one.”

Many emotions were mixed in her desperate cry.

Emma took her body away and looked at the tombstone.

The gray stone with Inho’s name on it stood in front of her.

Emma carefully reached out and caressed the side of the tombstone.

As if shaving her master’s prickly beard. With utmost care.

She put her hands on her knees and stood up.

Clutching her trembling legs, she struggled not to fall.

Emma bowed politely to Inho.

“Master. But I’m a good maid, so I’ll do as you say.”

“It’s a cold winter, and it’s so cold that I want to close my eyes and sleep soon, but… I’ll stay awake.”

“Although I may not see the flowers of spring… there will be flowers that bloom even in winter.”

The slowly rising sun shone on Emma’s face, which was crying brilliantly and smiling sadly.

10 years later.

On a crowded street, people’s attention was drawn to one place.

A girl was being held in the air by someone, and it seemed that she was a pickpocket, a nuisance on the street.

“Let go! Let me go!!”

“You! How dare you touch Teacher’s wallet?”

The man who lifted the girl up scolded her in a stern voice.

“That’s enough.”

Next to the man stood a woman dressed in luxurious outerwear.

She held a small wallet in her hand, which seemed to have been recovered from the child.

“But, Teacher.”

The man said that these children should be severely punished, but the woman called Teacher shook her head.

Eventually, the man put the child down.

The woman called Teacher bent down and put her hand on the child’s shoulder.

The dirty girl, with streaks of grime, averted her eyes from the elegant woman looking at her.

“Little one. Do you need help?”

The woman opened her mouth.

At the woman’s question, the child’s face turned slightly tearful and then relaxed.

She seemed to be trying to hold back the rising tears.

“My, my sister is sick.”

A tear fell from the eyes of the girl who spoke.

“Is that so?”

The woman paused for a moment and then spoke kindly again.

“If it’s okay with you, would you guide me to your sister? I’ll help you get a doctor to examine her.”

“……”

The child looked at the woman for a long time.

The child’s eyes were naturally filled with distrust.

‘Was I looking at her with those eyes too?’

The woman was lost in thought for a moment.

“Okay. Follow me.”

“Thank you. Little one, what’s your name?”

The woman asked, following the little one.

“It’s Annie.”

At the child’s words, the woman widened her eyes and then smiled.

“Okay, Annie. Let’s hurry and help our sister.”