TMRDWMP CH 17
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Chapter 17
• ────── ✦ ────── •
We'll Meet Again
In the end, Monica left the boutique carrying four outfits, though in reality Louis was holding the boxes. By the time Monica regained her senses, she was already seated in a coffee house at the corner of the commercial street. She glared at Louis, who sat across from her. He narrowed his eyes and smiled.
“My love, if you keep glaring like that—”
“Louis, what’s in the bundle beside you?”
“…A beautiful purple dress I bought on the condition that I don’t call my lovely Moni-Moni my love.”
Monica pressed her forehead. She had banned him calling her both Moni and my love, and now he had invented lovely Moni-Moni. Louis maintained his smile and offered her tea.
“Black tea with milk is quite effective for headaches.”
She accepted it without thinking and took a sip, feeling rather pathetic.
“We could have just pretended we were friends from the start. Why my love?”
When they left, the shop assistant had even waved at them.
“When you two get married, please have your wedding dress made at our shop!”
They must have looked exactly like a couple about to marry. But Louis strongly objected.
“What do you mean? No gentleman buys clothes for a lady who is merely a friend. If I’d said we were just acquaintances, it would have looked even stranger.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
“But then you wouldn’t have seen the better items. The assistant’s service would have been quite different.”
If it were merely a purchase for a friend, they would not have presented high-quality goods.
But that’s exactly what I wanted!
Monica glared at him in dissatisfaction. Louis wagged two fingers and shook his head. In the end, she muttered sulkily.
“I’ll repay this somehow.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Moni-Moni.”
“Moni-Moni…!”
Louis took it further.
“How about the hat that lady is wearing? Then I won’t call you Moni-Moni, so why don’t we go buy a hat with fluffy feathers this time?”
“Louis?”
Please just stop.
The meaning was clear just by calling his name. Louis rested his chin on his hand and curled his lips, signalling surrender.
“Try to understand. I grew up with three older sisters. Until I was six, they thought I was a girl and dressed me in frocks.”
“Oh my.”
Monica widened her eyes.
“You must have been adorable.”
“Hmm, not particularly…”
“Why not? You’re handsome even now.”
“Um, well…”
Louis stretched out his reply without commenting on her compliment. He particularly doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Anyway, even as I grew older, I liked choosing dresses with my sisters. My third sister was the most particular, but I was always the one who found the perfect dress for them.”
“So that’s why you knew all those fabrics I’ve never heard of.”
“That’s just because Moni-Moni doesn’t know much.”
Monica pouted.
“I’ve been too busy making a living. Not knowing whether the linen I wear is ten-count or twenty-count doesn’t ruin my life.”
“That’s true.”
Monica blinked. She had expected him to say something like ‘what a waste, you’re so pretty’. Instead, Louis merely shrugged.
“No matter how fine the clothes, if the wounds on your body are festering, none of it matters.”
“Ah.”
“And it’s fine if Moni-Moni doesn’t know.”
There he goes again.
Monica narrowed her eyes and changed the subject. She had been curious for a while.
“Are you a doctor?”
“Hmm, to be more precise, I am a medical student.”
“A medical student?”
Louis grinned. Monica instinctively sensed this was another topic he did not particularly want to discuss. Still, it intrigued her, and he had brought it up first. Louis noticed her curiosity.
“I was conscripted while at university.”
“Oh.”
“And then the war ended.”
She did not need to ask why he had not returned to university. He likely did not wish to. Monica smiled.
“You’re similar to me.”
“Were you also a medical student, Monica?”
“No, I wanted to enrol.”
Louis listened to her story with interest. His manner was gentle and warm, making it easier than she expected to mention that she had grown up in an orphanage.
She spoke about wanting to attend a women’s university after leaving the orphanage, and about returning from the war only to find the university gone. As she talked, Monica realised something. Louis Verfeil. Though she had only met him twice, she felt remarkably comfortable around him.
Come to think of it, Garcia as well…
Garcia, the man with the same face as Louis, was similar in a way. Not comfortable exactly, but…
He tears down all sense of manners and propriety…
Looking back, she felt dizzy recalling how unrefined she had behaved. If Lady Mollet had seen her bickering with Garcia, hair dishevelled, she would have been dismissed on the spot. Monica chuckled. Louis tilted his head.
“Monica?”
“Oh, sorry. Where was I?”
“The part where you were proposed to at the hospital?”
Louis winked. Monica, who had been lost in thought, suddenly felt her face burn. His looks were dangerously distracting. Louis pulled out his watch and frowned slightly.
“Oh dear, it’s already this late.”
It was time to return.
“I’d like to spend more time with Moni-Moni, but—”
“Louis!”
Louis grinned. They had not spent that long together, yet it felt as though they had grown close. The four dresses were far too much for one woman to carry alone. The dressmaker had offered to call a porter, but Monica refused, reluctant to spend extra money.
However, seeing Louis carrying them, she could not bring herself to take them back. Eventually, they went to a porter’s stand in a side street and handed over the packages.
“Number 8 Blue Seagull Street. The large white mansion. For Monica Offen.”
As she wrote the address on paper, Louis frowned.
“What is it?”
Louis shook his head.
“It’s nothing.”
She blinked, but he didn’t bother to add anything. They left the porter’s office and walked quite a distance along the commercial street.
“Wait.”
Louis suddenly grabbed her and turned her around. Monica was startled.
“Louis?”
“Just a moment.”
He pulled her into the narrow shade between buildings, as if seeking refuge. The spaces between the buildings were extremely narrow, perhaps a sign of an effort to cram shops into the narrow street. Flustered, Monica about to call out to him, noticed something beyond his broad frame.
“…”
“…”
Several people emerged from a yellow brick building. One face was familiar. Riella.
Monica involuntarily held her breath. The building looked to be another boutique, as two clerks bowed deeply to greet her. A woman who looked like a noble lady took Riella’s hand and saw her off, and Riella smiled gracefully. Several young ladies stood beside her, likely noble daughters like herself.
“I have something to attend to in town this afternoon…”
So this was Riella’s outing. Soon after, a carriage arrived. The young ladies boarded together and departed. Monica looked up at Louis. He was blocking her path while watching the carriage sharply until it disappeared. He was so carefree just moments ago, but the man, with his mouth closed and staring in that direction, looked like a completely different person.
That right eye…
Monica stopped herself.
“Louis?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s going on?”
“…Pardon? Oh!”
Louis was becoming flustered. He wanted to explain the situation to her, but unable to think of a good excuse.
“Well, it’s…”
“Do you have a lover over there?”
“…What?”
“I understand. I suspected as much when you started calling me my love the second time we met. You’re quite the flirt.”
She deliberately cast him a sidelong glance. Only then did Louis laugh awkwardly.
“It’s not that…”
“Don’t lie. I knew it. Men, honestly.”
Though his bright smile returned, it was too late. Monica shrugged and stepped out of the shadows. The strong arm that had blocked her earlier had long since relaxed. Louis followed after her.
“Even if your lover had questioned it, you could at least have said we were friends.”
“Ah, it’s really not—”
Louis stopped mid-excuse and smiled in resignation.
“I’ve been caught.”
He seems like a man good at lying, but why can’t he pull off a lie at this time? Still, Monica had no desire to press further. She gestured towards the road.
“I should head back now.”
“Ah, I see.”
Louis answered awkwardly. Monica smiled sweetly with her hands clasped behind her back.
“We’ll meet again.”
Louis used the same greeting when they first met. He blinked a couple of times before relaxing into a smile.
“So you’re answering the question I was wondering about. As expected of my clever Moni-Moni—”
“If you call me that, we won’t meet again.”
She raised an eyebrow sternly.
“Give my regards to that loafer too. Tell him not to do anything dangerous.”
“You mean Garcia. That’s more concern than he deserves.”
“One more thing.”
Monica stepped back slightly.
“Is Garcia’s surname Verfeil too?”
“I don’t think that’s for me to say.”
“…So it’s different?”
“That as well.”
Louis gave her the same flamboyant farewell she had seen before. It meant they were to part here. Monica nodded and turned away. Her neatly tied black hair flutter in the salty sea breeze for quite some time, never once looked back.
“We’ll meet again.”
Louis had talked freely about his sisters and his days as a medical student, yet he had never revealed where he lived in La Spezia or what he’s doing now.
After all, Louis was someone who did not exist here. And Monica likely already suspected he did not intend to meet her again. Nevertheless, Monica greeted him that they would be able to see each other again.
If anyone else had said that, Louis would have recoiled. But somehow, hearing it from Monica filled him with unexpected gratitude.
“Monica.”
Louis scratched his chin.
“But it would be best if we didn’t meet again.”
It was a quiet voice, too soft for her to hear.
Comments