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I soothed the child who didn’t want to give me the hand holding the pen and was looking at me with suspicious eyes. I put my hands on top of it to write on the paper.
Betty, who was judging things with her eyes wide open like a small animal full of curiosity, saw that the letters were getting longer, and looked back at me again, perhaps she had roughly noticed.
Who dares to glare at her master like this? She really is a cheeky kid.
I held back the urge to rub her freckled cheeks and read what I had written.
“Bernhard Lilier Janus.”
“This is the duke’s name, isn’t it?”
“To be honest, knowing my name is more useful than yours. Don’t you think so?”
When she gets lost, it would be more helpful to say “I have Bernhard Lilier Janus as my master” rather than “I am Betty.”
The child’s lips pouted like a bird’s beak, probably disapproving at not having anything to refute. Disgusted with the pouting face, I spat out on the spot.
“So memorize it by tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Memorize my name by tomorrow. I’m going to test you.”
“…… Aren’t you busy, Duke?”
“No matter how busy I am, I am not so busy that I neglect the education of the child I sponsor.”
It was a pleasure to see Betty’s disgruntled face.
“My precious Betty seems to have a lot to say. What do you want to say?”
“Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule.”
Despite the words of appreciation, the facial expression was saying something completely different.
As I took Betty’s hand holding the pen again and led it to an empty spot on the paper, the child emphasized her request.
“By the way, can you tell me my name too? I want to know my name.”
“Alright, alright, so don’t bother me.”
This time, I wrote short words that the child could not easily distinguish.
The child, who was watching the pen gliding across the white paper, suddenly asked in a pouting voice.
“Did you write something weird again?”
“Fairy.”
The child’s face crumpled when I answered without knowing. But she was so cute that he couldn’t stop. It’s Betty’s fault for being dainty and angry.
“Write my name.”
“Your name? If Betty wants to do it, I will have to do it.”
I taught Betty by pulling her hand and writing all sorts of crazy names on a piece of paper.
This is Cynthia, this is Anton, this is Margaret, this is Anne.
As I wrote down all the names in the world except for “Betty,” Betty was no longer paying close attention to what letters her hands were writing down on the paper. She just sighed and snorted with a pouting face.
“Are you teasing me?”
“No, I haven’t teased you yet. Let’s see, this is John, this is Peter, this is Elizabeth, this is Eric. Why? You asked me to teach you names.”
And again, Duke Janus, who had been listing random names on his mind, suddenly got bored and stopped his pen.
“Yes, it looks like I’ve been teasing you now. Shall I teach you your name?”
“No, I don’t want to.”
This itty bitty…….
Starting from shouting ‘I don’t want to!’ while shaking her head , Betty’s parroting ‘I don’t want to’ was no longer as pitiful as back then.
The Duke, who suppressed his rising irritation, asked with a mischievous face.
“Are you going to go to school without even recognizing your name?”
“I’ll ask someone else.”
“No. Learn from me.”
Then, Duke Janus pulled Betty’s hand, which was trying to hold on with her arm, and wrote ‘Betty’ on an empty spot on the paper.
‘B-E-T-T-Y’ As he read it, the child’s small forehead slowly opened. He read once again ‘B-E-T-T-Y’ and the green eyes moved busily along his hand.
“Is this really my name?”
What is so strange?
Betty had a face like an old man who had been battered by all sorts of storms, but now Betty looked innocent like other kids her age.
“Write it yourself again.”
As he released the hand from holding the child’s, Betty concentrated and wrote her name again in the corner. It was funny to see her write with great care like she was biting her tongue.
For a first timer holding a pen, her handwriting was quite neat, and she wrote it without looking at what I wrote and seemed to have memorized it.
“Good writing. You’ll learn it fast enough to read a few novels.”
“Really?”
He nodded his head roughly, and the child smiled brightly.
“It would be great if I could read a book.”
The eyelids curled, covering the green eyes that did not lose their light even in the middle of winter.
Her small cheeks were dyed a pale pink, and her freckles were like stars embroidered in the night sky.
He stared at it blankly.