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Chapter 7
The grown woman glaring at him with wide-open eyes was quite intimidating to a boy who had been raised spoiled in the folds of his older sisters’ skirts. Hagenti let out a pitiful groan of “Ughhh…” before sharply turning his head away as though he didn’t even want to look at the notebook anymore.
“I know that, but… still… if there’s no kissing, what’s even the point of living…?”
The way he twisted his broad, muscular upper body while whining made him truly seem like a seven-year-old child. For a moment, Shasha was rendered speechless and closed the notebook.
So even with the same appearance, speech and behavior alone could make someone feel a completely different age….
To think that bear-like man was genuinely starting to look like a child.
Suddenly realizing once more how important one’s attitude and demeanor were in daily life, Shasha quietly picked up the razor.
「Don’t move and stay still. You could get hurt.」
She had learned how to shave a man before marriage as part of bridal lessons. At the time, it had looked simple enough, but now that she actually had to place a blade against bare skin, nervousness made her hands tremble.
Fortunately, contrary to her worries, no blood was drawn.
As she carefully guided the blade along the hard line of his jaw, she gradually got the hang of it. It also helped that the frightened Hagenti had frozen completely still.
「Now that you’ve tried it, it wasn’t so bad, right? Do you think you could do it yourself?」
Halfway through wiping away the foam, Shasha quickly scribbled the question into her notebook. Though honestly, even she realized it was a rather foolish thing to ask.
And as expected, the instant Hagenti read it, he shook his head side to side without even one second of hesitation.
“Absolutely not. How am I supposed to do something like this? Next time, Shasha has to do it for me too.”
「Even if not every day, you need to shave at least once every two days.」
“Exactly, so Shasha can just do it every time. You’ll do it next time too, right?”
From now on, I should just ask Mr. Denver to handle it instead.
Shasha merely answered with a vague smile as she began cleaning up. Then suddenly, the chair Hagenti sat on creaked softly, and something warm and soft briefly touched her right cheek before pulling away.
“……”
It took several seconds for her to understand what had happened.
Ah.
Frozen in place, Shasha blinked her large eyes framed by pale sky-blue lashes.
The tiny beings invisible to ordinary people—but undeniably surrounding them—suddenly scattered into the darkness in dramatic embarrassment, as though they had just witnessed something scandalous.
Both of Hagenti’s ears had turned bright red. Grinning mischievously like the greatest prankster alive, he scrunched his nose up playfully.
“There’s nobody around, so please let this one slide, noona.”
The doctor had definitely said that Hagenti’s memories would gradually return over time.
But little by little, Shasha was beginning to doubt the credibility of that diagnosis.
After all, it had already been a full week since Hagenti reverted to being seven years old. Yet during that entire time, rather than recovering his intellect, he had only become more clingy and obsessed with kisses—at times, he even seemed more like a five-year-old than a seven-year-old….
Now their divorce was no longer the only problem. Aiden’s situation was worsening too.
For starters, Shasha had recently learned that he was surviving on only three or four hours of sleep a day and smoking thirty cigarettes from sheer stress. At this rate, wouldn’t Aiden end up damaging his own health and losing his sanity as well? She absolutely could not allow that to happen.
And that wasn’t all. Although Aiden was handling the work in Hagenti’s place, there were important matters only the head of the family could decide. Put simply, the unfinished work was only piling higher and higher.
Everyone was merely pretending to move forward while actually standing still.
But since no clear treatment existed, the only lifeline they could cling to right now… was the magician Windsor.
It had been some time since Aiden sent the letter, so shouldn’t he be arriving soon? Hoping desperately that he would bring a suitable solution, Shasha pulled her straw hat low over her head and stepped into the garden.
Since Shasha had never been particularly sociable and had never been close with her husband, even after marriage she had quickly learned how to spend time alone. She drifted through countless hobbies—from embroidery to painting—before eventually settling on gardening.
It was noon, with the sun blazing directly overhead. The weather was so hot that even the maids refused to come outside.
It was time to pour all the leftover affection she had nowhere else to give.
Her hands moved skillfully as she attached the hose to the faucet and worked the pump, clearly practiced from doing it many times before. Enduring the scorching heat penetrating even through her hat, Shasha spent a long while watering the garden.
Then suddenly, she let out a quiet sigh.
Oh no….
The refreshing stream of water that had been spraying in graceful arcs abruptly stopped. She already knew exactly what had happened without even looking.
Sure enough, when she turned around, a rock had been deliberately placed on top of the hose.
I knew it…. I was wondering why those little troublemakers had been so quiet for a while.
A wave of fatigue washed over her, making her temples throb. Ignoring the dozens of blinking eyes hidden beneath the sunflower leaves, Shasha moved to kick the rock away with her shoe—
If not for the familiar voice that suddenly rang out from the distance.
“Shasha!”
The hidden eyeballs within the shadows all rolled simultaneously toward Hagenti.
He came running through the sunlight excitedly like a foal with its reins cut loose.
“Shasha! Guess what I caught?!”
It looked as though he had been rolling around somewhere. His hair resembled a bird’s nest, and his clothes were a complete mess. Even his buttons were fastened crookedly.
Shasha covered her mouth.
Good heavens.
Surely he hadn’t run into someone looking like that on the way here?
The longer this situation dragged on, the harder it became to hide Hagenti’s condition from those around them. Shasha had already been considering whether she and Aiden needed to make all the servants sign confidentiality agreements, and seeing him like this only deepened her anxiety.
“Look! I caught a frog on the stairs!”
Completely unaware of the worries he caused her, Hagenti sparkled with innocent blue eyes as he eagerly awaited her reaction.
And then, just as he opened his carefully cupped hands to show off the tiny tree frog—
The rock blocking the hose suddenly rolled aside.
At the same time, Shasha caught sight of something giggling mischievously and fleeing from the corner of her vision.
The hose trembled violently as water pressure surged through it.
Ah!
She hurriedly tried to turn the nozzle away, but she was already too late.
“Ahhh!”
Hagenti took the full blast of water straight to the face and screamed loudly.
“Aaagh! What is this?!”
…This was the moment.
The tree frog seized its chance and leapt away into the garden.
“No, I….”
“……”
“Did I do something wrong?”
What kind of bolt from the blue was this?
Water dripped steadily from beneath his black hair as Hagenti stared at Shasha with a completely dumbfounded expression. Then slowly, his shoulders curled inward and he began trembling.
At that instant, Shasha felt her mind go blank.
I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.
Her dry lips parted helplessly as she hastily untied the handkerchief around her wrist and began frantically wiping down his soaked shirt.
The color drained from her face, turning pale with fear.
She had done something unforgivable. Surely he would get angry. Hagenti was the sort of man who tolerated neither jokes nor even the smallest mistakes.
Her emotions boiled over and devoured her reason, making her forget entirely that Hagenti had lost his memories. The image of him lowering his eyes in cold fury rose vividly before her mind, and Shasha couldn’t stop trembling.
Then suddenly, a firm yet gentle hand seized her wrist and snatched the hose away.
Startled, Shasha stumbled backward—
And saw it.
Those bright blue eyes blazing with sparks.
And Hagenti’s lips curved into a wicked grin like a mischievous little devil.
“Dummy. It’s not cold at all!”
Then he spun the nozzle around and sprayed water directly at Shasha exactly as she had done to him.
Gasp.
“Ahahaha! Now see how it feels yourself!”
Even though she twisted her waist quickly to dodge the stream, she still ended up completely drenched. As Shasha’s dress became soaked through, the carefree laughter of a childish seven-year-old boy rang brightly beneath the blue summer sky.
