I Wish You Well In Your Next Love, My Love - Chapter 68
“Hm?”
A forceful hand grabbed my wrist.
“You can walk, right?”
Those assessing eyes swept slowly from my head to my toes, then lingered on my ankle for a moment.
“Walking is fine, but… Where are we going? I need to register.”
The line behind me had already grown long again. Just thinking about having to start over from the beginning made my head spin.
“You’re going straight in to be examined. Someone paid a ginormous sum of money and specifically asked that you be seen first, Miss.”
Did some rich family carriage run you over or something. Muttering to herself, the girl led me into the hospital.
“Doctor Corellita will come as soon as the consultation in front finishes.”
“But who paid?”
The girl gave a light shrug.
“A servant came and paid before leaving. I don’t really know who the master is, but… ah, I think they told me to say it was your lodger.”
I had thought it might be, and of course it was.
There was only one lodger who would do something like this for me.
* * *
“What is this. Did I go back in time or something.”
Leaning against the bedroom doorway, Gerard spoke in a tone of amused curiosity.
“I’m pretty sure that an hour ago you were sitting in that exact same spot, in the exact same position, wrapping that bandage.”
“……”
“How fascinating.”
My closed lips tightened.
On the bed lay the bandage, spread out in a mess without any pattern, after being wrapped and undone over and over again.
At the hospital, they had prescribed a medicinal compress containing a cooling stone.
Medical supplies containing magic stones were far too expensive for a commoner like me to use, but it seemed Gerard had paid quite a lot.
This expensive compress had to be rubbed directly onto my ankle, and often.
The problem was that every time I did that, I had to unwrap the bandage and wrap it again, and I happened to be one of those people with absolutely no dexterity. The bandage kept tangling in directions completely different from what I intended every single time.
Right after dinner, Gerard had watched me for a long moment as I fiercely battled with the bandage, then said,
“It’s so frustrating I could die. Can’t I just do it for you?”
“Hey. Why are you trying to do even this for me? It’s fine. I understand how to do it now, so I’ll finish in no time.”
I said it boldly, but it kept loosening, and the bandage kept opening up, so I had to keep undoing what I had just wrapped and starting over.
“What exactly is it that you understood.”
“You keep staring, so my hands keep slipping. I’m the independent type, so if someone’s next to me, I can’t even do what I normally could.”
At my order to leave, Gerard went outside without a word.
That had been an hour ago.
“We’re going to be here all night.”
“You can turn off the light.”
“Sure. I don’t think there’ll be much difference whether I watch this with my eyes open or closed.”
Unable to bear it any longer, Gerard sat down on the bed and picked up the bandage lying there.
It was strange. As his long, masculine hands neatly rolled up the ruined bandage, it became perfectly organized, almost like magic.
These were the same things that, once in my hands, rampaged around as if they had minds of their own.
Did this thing discriminate between people too?
Though Gerard used playful, sly words, there was also a delicate and precise side to him.
Even when he ate, he was always clean and tidy, without getting so much as a speck of anything on himself.
His straight gait, and the uniform that always smelled good.
He didn’t seem to realize it himself, but he carried the grace of a noble among nobles in his very body.
It wasn’t just his background. He seemed to have been born with that neatness too, because he had been the same way when he was young.
I think that was why I liked him.
Because he was different from the boys around us who had all been like little monkeys.
Just as the other children thought of you as special, I too had always seen you differently.
“Your leg.”
That low voice cut through my thoughts.
Gerard tapped his thigh lightly.
