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Chapter : 03
I felt like finger painting should at least be possible.
Thinking about it, a baby this young holding a brush and painting properly made no sense anyway.
I dipped my fingers into paint that matched Ian’s golden hair and smeared it across the sketchbook.
At first, Ian jumped every time I did something, but at some point he fell silent.
Hands were crude tools.
Still, they worked well enough for expressing shapes.
Phew…
Alright, done.
Some places had smudged paint, and some spots hadn’t been colored properly.
Even so, for a child this age, it didn’t look half bad.
At the very least, if it got hung in the reception room, I thought I could forgive myself.
As a finishing touch, I rinsed my hands roughly in the water basin, then pushed the sketchbook toward Ian using the back of my clean hand.
“Dish… Oppa picture.”
“……”
“How issh it?”
Ian still said nothing.
I looked up at him.
His eyes were damp, like someone longing for something precious.
“Uh… iss bad?”
He hastily wiped away the moisture gathering beneath his eyes with his sleeve before breaking into a bright smile.
“No. It’s the best, Elisha!”
“Really?”
“Of course! I’m going to hang it on my bedroom wall and look at it every single day. Then this oppa will wake up happy every morning.”
Ian’s room was tucked away in the most secluded part of the estate.
If the painting hung there, it would definitely be less embarrassing than having it displayed elsewhere.
“Then pwomise.”
Don’t hang it anywhere else.
I held out my pinky finger.
Ian hooked his own around it and smiled.
Back then, I had no idea that promise would eventually shatter in the most absurd way possible.
I had expected the duke not to stay quiet after seeing my painting.
But…
“I called you here because there’s something I urgently need to show you.”
I never imagined he would bring in a professor from the Academy.
Not just any professor either, but Professor Bellen—the most famous professor at the Academy, and supposedly one of the busiest men alive.
“What is it? Has an ancient ruin perhaps been discovered on Mount Pallun?”
“Nothing like that. My daughter drew a picture.”
The professor stared off into the distance.
It looked less like contemplation and more like he physically couldn’t bring himself to stare directly at the duke.
Then, with an exhausted expression, he pressed his fingers against his temple.
“If my memory serves me correctly, Your Grace’s daughter is still too young to have fully learned the Imperial language.”
“That’s true. But not knowing the language doesn’t mean she can’t paint, does it?”
“Well, of course not, but…”
Now the professor openly sighed.
Caught in the middle of this, I felt awkward and lowered my gaze toward the floor.
That was when I noticed the professor’s shoes.
His worn handmade shoes were polished to a brilliant shine today.
He had probably polished them because such an important person had suddenly summoned him.
And that important person is bragging about his daughter.
Silently, I apologized to him in my heart.
Not that he could hear me.
“Look. This is the picture my daughter drew.”
The duke didn’t even glance at the professor’s expression.
Maybe that was simply because powerful people had no need to read the moods of their subordinates.
The professor forced a smile onto his face.
He was probably preparing some generic compliment.
Seeing that made me feel a little sorry for him.
Well… that was working life for you.
But the moment he received the sketchbook, his eyes widened.
He froze for several seconds.
Then, still frozen, he slowly turned his head.
“Wh… who did you say painted this?”
“My daughter.”
“That baby?”
“That’s right.”
Only then did the professor look at me.
His brows, which had been sharply raised in irritation, gradually relaxed.
“May I see your hands?”
I obediently held them out.
The professor carefully examined them from every angle.
“Now I understand. Young Lady used her fingers as her painting tools, correct?”
“Uh!”
“To think such delicate touches could be expressed using only fingers…! And these colors! To boldly use vivid colors to define the subject so clearly!”
His eyes sparkled far too intensely.
Just as I began thinking that looked dangerous, he inhaled sharply and shouted:
“There’s no doubt about it—Young Lady is a genius! A genius the likes of which may appear only once in a century!”
“Are you certain?”
“I stake my position on it!”
The professor’s nostrils flared dramatically.
Maybe it was because I was looking up from below, but he seemed incredibly perverted.
“My goodness, to think I would witness the descent of a genius with my own eyes!”
He looked back at the painting, then turned toward the duke again.
“By the way, what do you plan to do with this painting? If you’re willing to sell it, then perhaps I could—”
“Sell it? Nonsense.”
The duke snatched away the sketchbook as though the professor might steal it.
“I plan to preserve it as a family heirloom.”
Then he added:
“So it can be passed down for generations.”
“Ah.”
The professor nodded.
“I understand.”
Why do you understand?!
More importantly, shouldn’t this exact kind of thing never become a family heirloom?!
This ducal house is doomed…!
But Ian was standing there adding comments like this too:
“Elisha’s paintings are certainly worthy of that.”
So under my breath, I muttered:
“Everyone in this house is weird.”
I don’t know whether the duke truly intended to make that painting into a family heirloom.
What I do know is that he hung it in the reception room.
The very room where honored guests were first brought.
This is humiliating…
The painting itself was one thing, but the worst part was my inability to properly ask them to take it down due to my baby mouth.
After that, I felt an urgent need to learn how to speak properly.
Partly because being unable to communicate was frustrating.
Humans are social creatures, after all.
Sooner or later, I would need to talk.
And to do that, I needed practice.
“Snack! Paper! Bu! Not that, bu! Bu! Brush!”
I diligently tried pronouncing “brush.”
Ever since I drew that picture, art supplies had been left in one corner of the playroom.
I had no plans to hold a brush right now, but someday I wanted to at least be able to say, “Please give me the brush.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t going well.
While I was struggling alone, a maid approached me.
“Young Lady, what are you doing?”
“Pwacticing.”
“Practicing?”
I nodded vigorously.
“I can’t tawk good.”
The maid, who had been looking at me adoringly, suddenly frowned.
“Who said something so awful? If I catch them, I’ll smash them into minced meat—”
“My thought.”
“Young Lady. Not thought, you meant thinking.”
“Ba ba.”
“Oh dear, this mouth! This troublesome little mouth!”
The maid lightly smacked her own lips with her palm as though they were the problem.
“Who you smash?”
“You mustn’t learn that phrase!”
Then she turned pale and straightened up.
The maid quickly looked around to make sure no one had overheard us before continuing.
“Anyway, Young Lady doesn’t need to worry about such things at all. You’re already very clever. Just one more year and you’ll speak far more fluently than now.”
“Nooo!”
Do you know how long a year is?!
I want to be good at it right now!
But since the maid refused to help, I began practicing on my own.
“Bu. Bu. Bwu! Brush.”
Still no luck.
And while countless failed “bu” sounds filled the playroom—
The liar showed up.
“What are you doing, Elisha?”
It was Ian.
For a brief moment, I considered pretending not to notice him.
But compared to the maid, who only saw me as an adorable child, Ian seemed more useful.
So I answered him.
“Word pwactice.”
The maid explained our earlier conversation to Ian, leaving out the “minced meat” part.
“So our little princess wants to speak better?”
“Uh!”
Obviously.
“Then shall oppa help you a little?”
“How?”
“Elisha understands almost everything oppa says, right?”
…Was it suspicious that I understood too well?
But it was too late to pretend otherwise after everything I’d already done.
So I nodded.
“Then you probably don’t need vocabulary practice.”
Thankfully, Ian didn’t seem suspicious.
“The problem is pronunciation, right?”
“Wight.”
“In that case, it helps to practice long and difficult sentences.”
“Long and hard sentence?”
“Exactly.”
Ian smiled, saying he’d gone through the same thing himself once.
Today, his dazzling flower-like beauty somehow looked dependable.
“Ooh.”
“Then repeat after me.”
Ian cleared his throat dramatically.
“Elisha likes oppa.”
“Uh?”
That’s a weird example sentence.
“Is it too difficult?”
“No!”
It wasn’t difficult.
“Elisha wikes oppa!”
“Good!”
Ian smiled in satisfaction.
“Then next sentence! Elisha likes oppa the most in the whole world.”
“That same as before—”
“It’s different. And it’s longer too.”
…Was it?
Now that I thought about it, he had a point.
So I obediently repeated it.
“Elisha wikes oppa most in whole wowld!”
“Aww, whose little sister is this smart?”
Ian grinned foolishly before continuing again.
“Then the next sentence! Elisha likes oppa the most in the whole world, very very much, more than anyone else in this mansion!”
At that point, even I could tell what Ian was trying to do.
I clenched my fist of justice.
“Go away!”
“Gah!”
Who are you trying to scam here?
