Chapter 33 – Don’t Leave Me (2)
Lila smiled to herself, he really had only one thing in mind. “Right! let’s go then.” She remembered that Hir was still only a young child and children usually only had one goal in mind at a time, despite the way he spoke and acted sometimes.
Lila watched as he quickly got up and started running towards the swing. “You’re going to fall again.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Lila sighed to herself silently, she really needed to stop his habit of apologizing too much. At least he had stopped apologizing over everything.
“It’s all right. Let’s walk slowly so you won’t fall again.”
“Yes … Mother,” he said, as Lila wondered what it would take for Hir to come back to his bright self. She knew it was hidden in him.
Let’s just go to the swing for now. She thought to herself trying to avoid that topic for the time being.
Feeling like a school-girl, Lila was excited to show Hir the swing that she had taken time to decorate. She quickened the pace to the point where Hir was the one falling behind, shifting to a big skip in order to catch up to her.
Lila chuckled at the sight of him. He looks like a rabbit. She smiled at him when he caught her bright amethyst-purple eyes. He’s so cute, let’s wait for him then.
Hirah caught up to her shortly after she had slowed down. She didn’t want him to feel as if things would be rushed so she slowly stood next to him to match his pace.
Hir jumped a little as he noticed that Lila was suddenly standing by his side. “Oh! … Mother.”
“Yes?” Answered Lila, not knowing that he said it from being startled.
Hir decided to take the chance anyways and go with a question he had in mind. “Uh… it’s … that.”
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
Lila gently stroked Hir’s shoulder at his hesitating face. He seemed to have gotten some confidence from the action, because he quickly shouted what he had in mind.
“You … you can hold hands!”
Huh? Does he want me to hold his hands?
It seemed that Hir mixed up his sentence while rushing things, and he whimpered when Lila tilted her head. His lips stuck out again while he lowered his gaze, as he thought that his mother had refused the request that had taken so much courage. However, when his mood turned gloomy, Hir felt something warm touch his hand.
“Hir, may I hold your hand?”
Hir was taken completely off guard. He couldn’t believe that his mother actually offered to hold his own hand.
“Shall we walk holding hands together?” Lila said, taking note of the glimmer in his eyes. She waited a moment for him to answer, but got silence instead. “Fine, you don’t want to hold my hand?”
“Ah!” Hir shook his head and quickly wrapped his hand around hers.
“It’s too … too-”
“Too?”
“Too nice.” He said quietly, becoming as red as a fresh tomato.
Lila gently pinched Hir’s flushed cheek and lightly stroked his smooth black hair at the sight of his, once again, embarrassed face. He’s definitely less nervous than he had been at first.
Back when he had a fever in his sorry-state of a room, he froze like a statue from fear when she stroked his hair. But now he was letting her stroke his hair with no apparent fear in his expression. This difference made Lila feel a lot better about herself.
After a short walk, the pair reached their destination. At the sight of the swing, Hir’s genuinely surprised expression was priceless.
“Wow!”His pure voicing was good enough to know how he felt, but she still wanted to hear it from his own mouth. “How about it? Do you like it?”
“I really … I really like it!” He said, not knowing that he had played right into her hand by voicing another cute opinion.
Lila did not actually know how the swing looked like in the original novel, as it wasn’t really described that much, other than the fact that it was made of dried mistletoe branches. So she tried her best to work around making it look similar to the original as well as adding a little of her own handy-work, thankfully, it seemed to have pleased him. She even added soft cloth amidst the intricately woven branches so that Hir would not hurt his palms after using the swing for a while.
“I really like it!” He said again, noticing the satisfied expression on his mother’s face. But despite the clear excitement in his voice, he only touched the swing and started at it intently.
“Why aren’t you sitting on it? It’s my gift to you, go ahead”
“It’s just that-”
“It’s just what dear?”
“I… I want to give you a present.”