I Don’t Want To Be An Ojakgyo

CW: Depictions of injuries, blood (more than the past few chapters)

Shuraina was busy these days because of Swanhaden. There were a lot of strange, suspicious things about the Blanche family and white magic, so she was pouring whatever time she had to study white magic.

When Shuraina couldn't play with Hestia because of her single-minded focus on studying, Hestia sulked. Because of that, Shuraina headed to the Flowith estate to coax the sulking Hestia.

While Hestia talked with her mother, the earl of Flowith's wife, Shuraina went to Hestia's room to wait for her.

Shuraina walked across Hestia's room, which was covered in pink. There were flower decorations everywhere.

Shuraina briefly took a seat on a chair and, while waiting for Hestia, found a very unfamiliar item hidden under her desk. While every item in her room was pink and princess-y, the item hidden under her desk was dark and dreary.

"What is this……"

Shuraina felt like she was betraying Hestia's trust, so she didn't take it out and just peered closely to see what it was.

"The History of the Kingdom and Future Political Trends?"

There was a heap of thick books hidden under the desk.

These books were ones that Hestia had secretly brought over from her father's study.

She was scared that others in the household would find out, so she couldn't confidently lay them on her desk; instead, she had hidden everything under her desk.

Hestia didn't completely understand the contents of the book she had brought, but she was looking up the definitions for the words she didn't know, little by little, and were memorizing them.

Shuraina looked towards the items on Hestia's desk and landed on her open notebook. Hestia wrote down her thoughts on the kingdom and her opinions about it with her childlike handwriting. When Shuraina read through it, the contents read like something a child wrote, but it was also incredibly straightforward and told exactly what the writer thought. It seemed that Hestia really enjoyed writing.

Shuraina apologized to Hestia in her mind a thousand times and ended up reading a bit of her notebook.

The corners of her lips shook.

'Hestia, you're such a cute brat!'

Shuraina couldn't stop laughing. Even without her worrying, Hestia was doing the best that she could. She was so proud of Hestia. She couldn't help but be proud, imagining how such a young Hestia grabbed a pen every day and tried to think of what to write.

But Shuraina's face stiffened. If she enjoyed writing and was talented at it but was still hiding it behind an act, that had to mean that it was a family problem.

To think that such a talented child found what she wanted at such a young age, and had to hide her passionate studies behind an act.

Shuraina frowned. What could she do to help Hestia do what she want with confidence?

"Shu, Shushu! What are you doing?"

She seemed to have finished her conversation with the earl's wife. Hestia entered her room. Seeing how she was gasping for breath, it seemed that she had ran.

"Just looking at all of the embroidery you've done."

Shuraina lied as she distanced herself from the desk. Hestia sighed a breath of relief before placing a cookie basket over the open notebook.

"But Shushu, why are you not letting me sleep over at your house?"

"Your parents worry."

"Mm, really?"

Hestia scratched her cheek before hugging Shuraina.

"Anyway Shushu! Now that you're here, do you want to sleep at my house today?"

Hestia opened her eyes as wide as she could and puffed out her cheeks. For a normal person, this was a laughable attempt at best, but Hestia was incredibly cute to begin with so Shuraina found herself wavering.

Cheeks…..She wanted to touch her cheeks. Shuraina's fingers shook slightly before she came back to hersenses.

Shuraina wanted to sleep over at Hestia's home as well, but Swanhaden lingered in her thoughts. If she didn't go every day, she feared that he wouldn't be alive.

"I'll sleep over next time. Next time."

Hestia found herself sulking when her cuteness didn't work. Shuraina ended up spending quite a bit of time coaxing Hestia.

Shuraina wanted to teach Swanhaden how to play gong-gi*, so she prepared five little stones. Like always, she prepared snacks, as well as bandages and medicine. Shuraina hadn't prepared any protective weapons or defensive magical artifacts in a while. That was because Swan no longer threatened her life.

Shuraina thought of how proud she was of Swanhaden as she hummed.

"Swan, today I'm going to……….."

But as soon as Shuraina arrived in Swanhaden's room, she couldn't help but stop humming.

"Swan!"

Swanhaden had fallen onto the floor. He was scratching the walls. There was blood pooling on his broken fingernails, and there were clear nail marks on the wall.

Swanhaden held onto the floor as he breathed harshly, tears dripping down his face. Swan was unable to properly move his body. Swanhaden had, until now, never showed him cry out in pain.

Even though he had let her see moments when he seemed to be powerless, he had never genuinely shown such pain and misery like this. Even though his body was comprised of scars and injuries, he always greeted her with a taunting look or tone. But today was different. Injuries, both old and new, flowed with blood.

Swan continued to scratch at the walls as tears dripped down his face.

"Heuk, keugh………. Eugh…….. Uugh."

Swan continued, not realizing that Shuraina had arrived.

It seemed like his new injuries and older injuries both combused in his body. His hair and entire body were covered in his blood. His breaths came in short bursts as Swan grit his teeth.

Shuraina ran towards Swan and held him. Swanhaden, who had been clinging to the wall, let himself be hugged and gripped Shuraina's back. Swan's nails painfully dug into her skin, but Shuraina quietly bore it.

Because Swanhaden was silently weeping into Shuraina's shoulder.

Swanhaden clung onto Shuraina and sobbed. Blood and bloody tears fell, drip by drip, onto the floor.

"Why…….. Eugh, heuk…….."

Swanhaden seemed to drown in anguish.

"Why do I………… Why do I have to……."

"Swan. Breathe."

"Uu, eugh……………."

His voice shook. Shuraina swept Swan's sweaty, bloody hair back and continued to put ointment on Swan's injuries, but it was no use. Swan slapped away Shuraina's hands. It seemed like her touch was hurting him.

"I wanna kill them……….. I'm going to kill them all………."

But Swan was unable to do anything. He was locked in. All he could do was go through the pain as he yearned for murder.

Shuraina looked into Swanhaden's eyes, gleaming with murder. Cold sweat poured down her face.

Swan cried as if he was going to fall apart.

"Why do they want to hurt me like that………..?"

"………."

"Why should I sacrifice myself for disgusting people who don't care about my pain……….."

Shuraina quietly listened to Swanhaden's words. It seemed that he was mentally strained as his pain continued to grow worse. He had never shown any emotions other than boredom or hatred, but now this young boy was crying in pain. His eyes were blank. He wasn't in his right mind.

"……….what's the difference, between me and a trash bin. Eugh. I stuffed down everyone's hurts into my body and now I'm in tatters."

Swan's breaths came in pants. He seemed to be losing consciousness.

"I'll mess them up so they'll understand………….."

Right when Swanhaden was delving deeper into insanity, he fainted in Shuraina's arms before he finished his sentence.

Shuraina checked to see that he had indeed passed out, and silently wiped the blood off of him, cleaned his clothes, and reapplied fresh bandages. Then, she also added a spell that would increase the power of his natural healing abilities.

While Swan was passed out, the hurt that had caused his body to become tatters quickly began to fix themselves.

Once Swanhaden looked more human once more, Shuraina carried him on her back to his bed.

Swan opened his eyes not long after passing out. Swanhaden checked to see that he had been gently placed on the bed, looked at Shuraina, then closed his eyes again.

"……."

He pretended to sleep for a white before he opened his eyes wide.

Swanhaden came back to his senses after his injuries had fixed themselves after a while. He hated, no, absolutely detested the idea of someone seeing him in pain like that. He wanted to bury himself in a hole ten feet underground thinking of how Shuraina had heard his monologue. Although he didn't really remember what he had said.

"……….."

Swanhaden looked at his clean body and bandages, then turned to look at Shuraina.

Every once in a while, when his magic became stronger, he experienced something called a 'Backflow of Pain'. Injuries that failed to be treated through natural healing magic due to an overflow of magic became scars, and those scars burst whenever his powers became unstable. His body held countless amounts of tiny scars from these incidents.

Swanhaden had thought that when he woke up, he would've been a sight to see with blood from new and old injuries alike. But contrary to what he had thought, his injuries had quickly closed, and the scars were neatly covered by bandages.

He had always hated his scars and injuries, so he always covered them with bandages or long-sleeve shirts. This time, Shuraina had done it in his place.

This was the first time he had felt gratefulness towards her, but he didn't know what the emotion was at the time, and he was too awkward to say it out loud.

"You, near your shoulder…"

After he calmed down, he looked at Shuraina and found the injury he had caused on her shoulder. Shuraina said it was nothing and tried to cover it with her hand, but Swanhaden swept her hand off with an angry gesture.

"This, it's because of me right?"

Swanhaden looked at how the skin on her shoulder had been punctured and scowled. He felt grateful yet sorry, but didn't know what those feelings were so kept quiet.

Instead, Swan put his hand on Shuraina's shoulder and focused his magic. He wanted to heal her injury. This was the first time he had wanted to heal somebody without prompting.

But Shuraina pushed off Swanhaden's hand from her shoulder.

"Don't."

"Stay still."

"I said don't. Your trying to use your heal."

When Shuraina continued to refuse, Swanhaden frowned.

He hoped it wasn't true, but it seemed that Shuraina had learned his family's secret. If Shuraina, who didn't like being hurt by him, was refusing his heal…that meant that she knew the true meaning of 'healing'. He put his hand over his forehead.

"If you don't want to lose your memory, shut up and show me your injury."

Learning of the duke family's secret meant that all memories related to that secret had to be erased. The Blanche family was as secretive as they were closed off, and there wasn't a lot of information out there about them. Moreover, they had generated white magician duke after duke through unimaginable, inhumane methods. It was impossible for white magicians to come from a family other than the Blanche dukedom, so this process was deemed especially important.

Swanhaden was almost completely sure that Shuraina had learned of their secret. When Swanhaden tried to force treatment on Shuraina, she yelled.

"I said I don't want it!"

TL;DR: The Blanche family's natural healing skills are able to heal others by taking in their injuries onto their own bodies, and the family has been raising their children like this for a very long time. Shuraina finds out and refuses treatment from Swan because she doesn't want to give him more pain.

We still haven't gotten to the memory loss just yet though…………..SOON!