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“Let’s catch our breath for a second.”
“Play more.”
“Why are you so energetic?”
Chaylen’s face was sweaty from how much he had run around in the yard, and his breathing was ragged. The children, however, were as energetic as ever, and didn’t even want to rest for a moment.
Ellea said with mischievous enthusiasm at their appearance.
“See? It’s not easy, is it?”
“So how do you manage to play like this every time you’re here?”
“I can’t do it every day, so I’ll only play with them a lot when I come here. They don’t get much time with the adults.”
Ellea spoke in a slightly lowered voice, and Chaylen’s gaze fell on the children, who were gathered in groups discussing what to do next. They all had bright smiles on their faces.
“Look at me. I have to catch my breath.”
“Still, you were playing quite well.”
“That’s about right.”
Chaylen played with the kids so well that Ellea couldn’t believe it was his first time here today.
He made eye contact with the children as he approached them without hesitation, as if he had known them before.
Ellea decided to let Chaylen have a short break. Then she clapped and focused the children’s attention.
“Shall we play something else? How about hide-and-seek? Or play tag?”
“Yes!”
“Then I’ll count to 100. Hurry up and hide. Not inside the house. Let’s go!”
As soon as Ellea turned around, the children quickly and happily moved away.
“Take this time to catch your breath. But you’re so much weaker than you look, aren’t you?” (Ellea)
“Don’t get me wrong, It’s because the children are more energetic than I thought. To be honest, they don’t look like children living in a nursery.” (Chaylen)
“They’re unloved by their parents, so I didn’t want them to feel alone. Because the children here are all family with each other.”
After hearing her words, Chaylen’s thoughts seemed to deepen. Actually, when he was a child, he wasn’t in a very different position from those children.
‘If I had a place like this at that time, would something have changed?’ (Chaylen)
At that time, Ellea asked curiously.
“By the way, what was the reason why you agreed so willingly? It wasn’t the money or anything like that, this is something that can be a burden.”
“Well, I have a lot of money.”
Ellea just gasped and laughed at the way Chaylen spoke so confidently. She couldn’t say anything, since he was so imposing as only he could be…
At that time, Chaylen, who had a playful expression, told her the real reason.
“It’s just that those kids were so much like my past. Life that you don’t know an inch ahead of you and the danger of each day. I hope they won’t follow the same path I had taken. There’s no grand reason.”
Ellea finally noticed Chaylen’s seriousness. The countless rumors about him that were currently circulating in the social circles.
She knew he must have a reason for revealing himself to the world now, but she didn’t ask.
Just by looking at his expression, Ellea could see what those times meant to Chaylen. She spoke in a deliberately cheerful voice to change the mood.
“Then let’s find them. I think they’re all hidden.”
Ellea stood up and walked fast, but suddenly a force made her stop, and she saw Chaylen holding her hand.
She did not have time to ask him anything then, because Chaylen spoke first.
“Why don’t you ask me about my past?”
“That’s….”
“Ask me. I’ll tell you everything, every single thing that happened to me.”
It was a past that Chaylen had been hiding from, but if the person was Ellea, he wanted to tell her.
He didn’t want to hide anything from her. And he felt disappointed that Ellea seemed to pass it like it was someone else’s business.
As Ellea was wondering what to say to the look in his eyes, a different voice interrupted.
“What are you doing now?”
Both of their heads turned at the same time at the voice and they found an unexpected person standing there.
Too startled to speak, Ellea called out.
“Your Majesty?”
Despite Ellea’s call, Terban approached the two and took Chaylen’s hand off of Ellea’s.
The two men’s sharp eyes collided and the atmosphere instantly became tense.
Ellea was inadvertently caught between the two men, but the tense atmosphere was broken by the sound of rambunctious children’s voices.
“Why aren’t you coming to find us? We’ve been waiting for a long time.”
“Huh? It’s the uncle from our class.”
As they were talking to Ellea and Chaylen, the children expressed their happiness at finding Terban with them.
He had said he wouldn’t be able to come here, but when he reappeared, the children immediately barged in and surrounded the three of them.
“Yes, it’s been a while.”
Terban was looking at Chaylen fiercely, but as the children approached, he hurried to lose his sharp momentum.
He looked at the children, and his face was full of joy.
Chaylen was wondering about the sudden appearance of Terban and looked at Ellea as if looking for an answer. But she didn’t know either.
“How did His Majesty know you’re here?”
“I don’t know, either.”
Rather, Ellea wondered the same thing. Why was Terban here?
Terban exchanged greetings with the children and turned his gaze towards the two. And finally, it reached Chaylen.
As if to ask why they were here together.
Chaylen, too, sensed the significance of the gaze, and once he did, he tried to bow his head in greeting. But it was Terban who stopped him. He didn’t want to expose his identity in front of the children.
“No greetings. So why are you two together?”
But it was the innocent children who answered his question.
“That uncle came with Miss El. He was playing with us.”
‘El?’
At that moment, Chaylen’s eyes turned to her at the word referring to Ellea.
But before he had time to think about anything else, the children tugged on Terban and Chaylen’s hands.
“Let’s play together, uncles. And Miss El, don’t be a seeker again.
You’re not even looking for us.”
“Then I’ll be the hidder this time.”
Before she could say anything else, the children scattered again, and only the three of them were left alone. The garden was filled with the cheerful voices of the children, leaning against a tree counting numbers from a distance.
Ellea tried to calm down at the sudden situation. Then she looked once at Chaylen, and once at Terban, who were in front of her.
‘How in the world did this happen?’
Even in this chaotic situation, Chaylen was the first to think about playing with the children.
“Let’s hide first. If we don’t do it again, the children will complain.”
“Okay, let’s do that.”
Ellea tried to do as he said, but unlike her idea of hiding separately, the two men followed her.
Feeling their presence, Ellea asked in bewilderment.
“Why are you two following me? Aren’t you going to hide?”
But the two men just looked at each other and did not move.
Then, from a distance, the children finished counting and said they would be looking for them.
Ellea gave a small sigh and said to the two men, as if she couldn’t help it.
“Follow me for now.”
And so the three of them went to the laundry area, behind the bushes. Ellea was just bewildered by the situation where she ended up sitting between the two men.
‘How did this happen?’
She just wanted to spend some peaceful time with the children, but since these two started coming, those days were gone.
And she was mad at herself for bringing them here.
‘It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have brought them here in the first place.’
At that moment, she heard Terban’s voice in the silence.
“It seems that the person you mentioned earlier is Duke Chaylen.”
“Yes? Yes, that’s right. Fortunately, he’s willing to help.”
Terban was strangely unhappy with the fact that Chaylen would be helping Ellea sponsor the nursery.
The fact that Chaylen was the one person that Ellea could rely on without any burden.
This time, Chaylen asked Terban.
“By the way, how do you know about this place, Your Majesty?”
“I knew about this place before the Duke did. I’ve been here twice before.”
“So that’s how the children recognized you.”
Chaylen didn’t feel too good about the fact that Terban had come here with Ellea one step ahead of him.
From the time he saw Ellea and Terban together, he had been somewhat curious. What was the relationship between the two of them?
“What brings you here today, Your Majesty?”
“I just suddenly remembered. I didn’t have anything else on my mind. I hope you’ll note that I don’t want people to know about my identity.”
“Yes. It’s a mutual thing.” (Chaylen)
With that, silence descended again between the three of them.
As Ellea was sandwiched between the two men to the point where their bodies touched, she felt like even breathing sounds would be felt by each other. From a distance, they could hear the voices of the children who had already been captured.
Ellea wanted to get out of this awkward atmosphere as soon as possible, but the two men kept talking to each other, with her between them.
“I didn’t know that the Princess was so close to the Duke that she would ask such a favor.”
“That’s what I want to tell you. I didn’t know that Your Majesty would come here again.”
“I didn’t know I’d be here with you two like this.”
The two stopped talking for a moment at the sound of Ellea’s voice, which prevented a nerve battle.
“I received help from the Princess at the banquet, and I wanted to return the favor.” (Chaylen)
“I see.”
Terban thought of the two of them dancing together at the banquet last time, but he couldn’t understand what Chaylen meant exactly.
“What kind of help did you get?”
Ellea exchanged glances with Chaylen, meaning not to say useless things, and in Terban’s eyes, they looked very close.
“Then you’re saying you’re close to the Princess.”
“Well, you can say that since we can call each other by names.”
When Chaylen bragged about it, Ellea gave him a quick nudge.
For Terban, he didn’t like the appearance so much that even his brow furrowed. As the three of them talked, they could feel the child’s steps moving closer to where they were.
Ellea gestured for them to be quiet.
The two men also felt the presence of the child’s footsteps and held their breath, not wanting to be discovered.
When the child passed by without finding them, Ellea’s laughter suddenly came out.
At her laughter, the two men stared at her.