Click!
Inside the small case placed beside the book was a single, very tiny tooth.
And a little note attached to it.
— Our beloved son’s first tooth
There were little notes stuck to each of the other things as well.
— The first clothes my precious son wore......
— What our son Heman loved the most......
There was even a letter he had sent to his mother, and the toys he had liked as a child were in abundance.
He also saw the first test on which he had brought back a perfect score. Many of the items had already faded in his memory.
On each and every one of those things, there was a note filled with memories.
“I thought she’d thrown it all away......”
He hadn’t imagined it. That his mother had kept all these worn things.
After staring blankly into the box for quite some time, Heman finally noticed a line he had failed to see.
A small inscription carved into a corner of the wooden box.
— My first treasure
“......”
Heman couldn’t say anything for a while.
He just read and reread that short inscription carved into the box.
****
[.......]
“Is there something on my face?”
[No. It’s just... I thought it would change.]
“......”
[I thought once he realized how much I love him, he would change.......]
The director watched Camilla in a daze with a somewhat deflated look in her eyes. Unlike when she had asked her to take out the box hidden in her private space and deliver it to her son, there was no strength in her voice.
A box gathering the things her son had cherished and loved when he was small.
She had been absolutely sure that if Heman saw it, he would fully feel the love she had failed to convey—yet now she was the complete opposite of that certainty.
“Didn’t I tell you to procure cheaper ingredients!”
“Be frugal!”
“Why on earth did you buy such useless things? Do you buy everything just because the children like it? Do we have money to burn?”
Nothing had changed.
Her son Heman was still trumpeting thrift and overhauling every policy she had carried out until now.
[Haah.]
Long sighs flowed one after another from the director’s mouth. It seemed impossible, after all, to leave everything to her son and depart.
“How much do you actually know about your son?”
[Sorry?]
“Just watch.”
[What.......]
“Just watch a bit.”
The director tilted her head.
Even as she kept sighing, Camilla’s faint smile at her was deeply puzzling.
****
DADADADA! THUD!
“U... uwaaah!”
A boy who looked about six ran and then pitched forward, falling flat. His shoelace had come undone and tripped him.
Happening to pass by, Director Heman looked at the boy with indifference.
“Uu......”
The boy, too, looked up at Heman with teary eyes. Like the other teachers had done, he seemed to expect Heman would help him up.
Believing the new director would soon wipe his tears and soothe him, the child looked up at him pitifully.
“......”
But Heman did nothing. He didn’t help the boy up, nor did he tell him to stand.
Yet he didn’t leave, either. Just as at first, he simply stared at the boy in silence.
In the end, the boy wiped his tears and got up on his own.
Step.
Only then did Heman take a step toward the child.
Ssssk.
He undid the perfectly well-tied laces of his own dress shoes and began to tie them very slowly. The boy stared blankly at that sight.
What is he doing?
Under that gaze, Heman untied the knot he had just made and tied it again. He continued that motion slowly, very slowly.
How much time had passed like that?
“I want to do it too!”
The boy, who had been watching in a daze, plopped down on the floor and grabbed his own loose shoelace with his small hands.
But, as expected, eagerness alone wasn’t enough; trying it for the first time, the boy couldn’t properly follow the motions.
Even as he watched, Heman, instead of helping, untied his own lace again.
Then, just as before, he repeated the act of tying.
Even more slowly. Slowly.
“Wow! I did it!”
At long last, the boy finished tying his shoelace by himself. It was very clumsy, but in any case, he even finished the bow.
“Now I can tie them too!”
Proud of himself for tying the laces for the first time, the child was very pleased.
Heman, who had been looking at him indifferently, then finally left.
Without a single word.
[Heman.]
His mother, who had watched the whole thing from beginning to end, looked at her vanishing son with a strange expression.
“At night I told you to turn off all the lights in this corridor.”
“Well, that......”
“Why do you have everything blazing like this for no reason? Don’t you know the more you use magic lamps, the shorter the recharge interval gets?”
“Y-yes, I know.”
“You know, and you still do this? How much money are you planning to pour into the Tower! Are you a Tower affiliate or something?”
“N-no.”
“Be frugal! Frugal!”
“I’m sorry.”
One of the administrators hurried to turn off the magic lamps lit throughout the building.
“Hold it.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you turning off the stair lights too?”
“No, just now—”
“What if a child wanders around at night and falls? Won’t the medical bills cost more! Leave the stair lights on.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Tsk, look here. Do you see this nail poking out, or don’t you?”
“I—I see it.”
“Instead of spending time buying uselessly expensive furniture, hammer in nails like this properly! Don’t you know kids get hurt catching on things like this? Where do you think the treatment costs come from!”
“I’ll fix it.”
Everyone was all over the place. He gave off a strong miser vibe, and yet it didn’t seem like he was completely ignoring the children.
They all looked at the new director, Heman, with curious eyes.
[.......]
And so did his mother.
****
“This was on that man’s desk?”
“Yes.”
Dorman and Reaper Havel, who had gone to fetch the box the director had requested, had brought something else along as well.
Just in case, she had told them to bring back anything that might serve as leverage against Director Heman—and they had indeed brought something.
If worst came to worst, she would resort to threats.
One way or another, she intended to make Heman step down from the directorship. In any event, what the director was worried about now were the orphanage and the children.
What Dorman and Havel brought was a bundle of papers that looked fairly thick.
“Hm?”
Reading through the stack, Camilla let out a small laugh a moment later.
“This grandmother is hopeless.”
You really don’t know your own child at all, do you?
The papers laid out in meticulous detail Heman’s deliberations on how he would run the orphanage going forward. It was, essentially, a plan.
“Does he actually hate the orphanage?”
“If he did, wouldn’t he have handed it off to someone else?”
“Exactly.”
In hindsight, it was far too strange. The very idea that he would take on and run an orphanage he supposedly hated and found loathsome made no sense.
“Hmmm.”
It was plainly a plan that called for more frugality than before.
But when it came to what the children truly needed, he hadn’t touched a thing.
He had cut back very boldly where things had been overused, but to Camilla’s eyes it was a reasonable plan.
“Put this back where you found it.”
“Understood.”
After skimming through the documents, Camilla had them returned to Heman’s desk.
And a few days later, when the director looked at her with a hint of reproach, Camilla could smile and say it.
Just watch. Trust your son.
A week passed like that.
[You were right.]
A smile hung at the corner of the director’s lips when she came to see Camilla.
[My son has his own way.]
For a week, she had refrained from entering the teddy bear and had done nothing but follow and watch her son; she couldn’t hide her pleased expression.
He didn’t lavish blind kindness and affection on the children the way she had, but he knew perfectly well what the children needed.
[Thank you.]
After offering Camilla her thanks, she looked at Reaper Havel standing beside her.
[Sorry for the trouble.]
“You must depart at once.”
[Yes.]
Seemingly with no intention now of refusing him further, the director nodded obediently.
She bowed her head politely to Camilla one more time.
[Please keep taking care of our children.]
“...Excuse me?”
[Then I’ll be going.......]
“Wait—just a second...!”
Why dump the kids on me?
Smiling gently even at Camilla’s call, the director vanished as she was.
Reaper Havel, too, without another word, glanced once at Camilla and disappeared on the spot.
“Haah.”
Looking at the space where the two had disappeared, she let out a short sigh.
“Dorman.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not your higher-up, right?”
“...Pardon?”
“He treats you awfully politely, doesn’t he? Sometimes it sounds like he even uses formal speech.”
“My superior is, by nature, very courteous......”
“......”
“...I’m sorry.”
Under Camilla’s steady glare, Dorman at last bowed his head.
“Tsk.”
Clicking her tongue briefly, Camilla looked toward the spot where Havel had vanished.
“We won’t be seeing him again, will we?”
Then we’re done here. One soul sent off properly.
But a few days later—
“What are you?”
“Havel.”
“Who asked your name! Why are you here again!”
“There is another soul who won’t listen to me.”
“...So?”
“It means I’m asking you to help me once more.”
“......”
“W-wait. Don’t take off your shoe. Let’s talk.”
Chapter. The Duchess’s Bracelet
“Really?”
“Mm.”
“Wow! That’s such a good idea!”
Laila literally bounced around. Camilla had just said she would join the Service Club.
“I’m only filling exactly the hours that get counted as class.”
“Yes, you don’t have to do anything! Just stay by my side.”
“...Don’t throw lines like that at me anytime you please.”
I’m not into being confessed to by girls.
