IYWHM Chapter 166

After the servant who had received her orders disappeared, Kisa felt like lying down and resting right there.

“I’ll help you change your clothes.”

However, another servant approached to help her remove the dress stained with the beverage, and Kisa had to entrust herself to her.

“…Thank you. Please do.”

In this comfortable guest room equipped with the finest facilities, there was no space where she could rest at ease.

The next day, Kisa left her room at the usual time she would take her walks.

Today there was no particular proposal from Seyard, so unlike yesterday, the servants and guards he had assigned stayed by Kisa’s side instead.

“Dear guest!”

Just as they were about to enter the garden, someone approached them with quick steps from the distance.

The brown-haired woman was the laundry worker she had seen just yesterday.

Since the guard remembered her face and didn’t stop her, the woman was able to approach them closely.

“There you are. The laundry you entrusted to me yesterday is almost dry, and I was on my way to your room to deliver it when we fortunately crossed paths.”

She pulled out white fabric from the laundry basket she was carrying and held it out toward Kisa.

“I don’t know about other things, but since you entrusted this to me with special instructions, I thought I should show it to you directly. Fortunately, thanks to you giving it to me right away yesterday, when I washed it, the stain was completely removed. Look.”

Saying this, the woman moved past the servant by a step or two and approached a little closer to where Kisa was, as if telling her to look carefully.

Since it was laundry that Kisa had paid particular attention to, she was showing it to her directly for confirmation.

Given this natural flow, the servants and guards showed no particular defensive reaction.

Moreover, since this was outdoors with other people around, their attention couldn’t be focused solely on one seemingly ordinary hotel employee.

“Hmm.”

Kisa looked at the shawl the woman held for a moment and then nodded slightly.

“The stain really can’t be seen. Thank you. It was something I liked, so thanks to you I can continue wearing it.”

“Think nothing of it. This is my job after all.”

The worker smiled brightly and folded the shawl neatly before holding it out to Kisa.

At the moment she received it, Kisa felt something foreign nestled between the soft fabric.

Something was definitely rustling at her fingertips.

Without showing any outward sign, Kisa looked at the servant beside her and said:

“I’d like to show my appreciation. Could you give her a tip?”

“Yes.”

At those words, the servant who had been about to take the shawl for her instead took out her wallet from her pocket.

In the meantime, Kisa quickly extracted the problematic object that had been wrapped in the shawl and hid it in her bosom.

Even Kisa herself thought it was a movement swift as the wind.

Neither the servant nor the guard showed any sign of witnessing her strange behavior, and only the brown-haired woman was watching Kisa with meaningful eyes.

But even that vanished without a trace the next moment.

“Thank you so much! If you have any clothes that need washing next time, please entrust them to me anytime!”

The woman who received the bills from the servant reacted with ordinary delight like any hotel employee pleased with unexpected income, then asked the servant:

“Oh, and do you have any laundry to entrust today?”

“There are several items in the room. If you go get them now, my colleague in the room will give them to you.”

“Yes, I understand. I’ll probably be in charge only until today, and from tomorrow you’ll see the original person in charge.”

“I see.”

“But I’ll continue working in the laundry room, so if the person in charge is briefly away and urgent laundry comes up like yesterday, please ask for Chloe in the laundry room.”

Chloe. Chloe from the laundry room. Kisa pretended not to be interested as she eavesdropped on their conversation and remembered that name.

After Chloe left, the walk resumed.

Kisa enjoyed the flowers and trees in the garden leisurely as usual. Of course, only in appearance.

Her attention was focused entirely on the object nestled in her bosom.

What she had glimpsed briefly earlier was a memo paper slightly smaller than her palm.

A few lines were written on it, but she regretted not being able to check the contents due to lack of time.

‘She wasn’t just a simple hotel employee after all.’

Chloe had hidden intentions.

Who exactly was she working for? What on earth was written in the memo?

She was so curious her heart was pounding, but Kisa didn’t take out the memo to check it right there or end her walk earlier than scheduled.

If she showed any unusual reaction different from normal, there was a risk that Seyard’s servants and guards might notice something.

Kisa barely suppressed her urge and walked as usual before returning to her room.

“Could I change clothes a little later? I’d like to sit and rest first.”

After sending the servants out of the bedroom with an appropriate excuse, she finally took out the memo from her bosom.

Her tense eyes scanned the letters.

Peculiarly, the first sentence of the memo didn’t begin by revealing the writer’s identity like other letters.

It was a somewhat unexpected question.

[Do you use your alarm clock well every morning?]

But Kisa immediately associated one person with the word “alarm clock.”

Gale. The man who had once given her an alarm clock as a gift.

‘…At least the handwriting looks similar to his.’

With that judgment, the shadow of another man who had been cast over her heart since yesterday, Seyard, became slightly fainter.

Judging from the circumstances, it was almost certainly true that Seyard’s people had been watching Gale for quite some time.

However, could they have known specifically what gift he had given to Kisa?

Kisa recalled the memory of receiving the alarm clock from Gale.

At that time, the two of them were definitely alone in the carriage, and since it was evening, it was dark all around, making it difficult to identify the situation inside the carriage from outside.

‘There’s also the possibility they inferred it later from seeing the alarm clock I had, but…’

It didn’t seem like Seyard would have relied on such an uncertain possibility to write such a sentence.

Above all, Kisa’s intuition told her. This was a message Gale was sending to her.

Instead of explicitly writing his name at the beginning, he was indirectly revealing his presence by mentioning the alarm clock, a gift only the two of them knew about.

Just in case this memo fell into someone else’s hands.

‘There’s nothing good for Gale in being further entangled with me.’

Even as Kisa thought this, she quickly read through the text that followed the first sentence.

[There are many things I’d like to say, but the first thing I must confirm is this. Are you currently proceeding according to your own will? This is an extremely important matter.]

Kisa stopped her gaze at that passage, but soon took in the letters again.

[It doesn’t seem to be something that can be answered simply, so I request to meet and discuss. If it’s possible to see you in the near future, please let me know with blue; if not possible, with red.]

Blue? Red?

[If you are proceeding according to your own will, then I would only be holding you back unnecessarily, so please just ignore this letter and don’t give any color. If you give red, I’ll understand that you have the intention to meet but due to being very busy, it’s difficult to make an appointment right now. In that case, let’s think of other methods together.

Looking forward to the day we meet again.]

The short letter ended with a simple word of hope.

Meeting. Kisa moved her lips as she repeated the word.

No matter how she looked at it, it didn’t seem to simply mean making an appointment to meet normally.

‘Rather, he’s asking if I can go outside the hotel.’

Apparently, Gale planned to make contact when Kisa went out.

Kisa first took out a matchbox from the luggage bag she had stored deep in the wardrobe.

Then she lit a match and burned the paper until no trace of its form remained.

At her previous lodging, she sometimes needed to light fires directly, and she was glad she had thoughtlessly put the matches she had prepared then into her bag when leaving.

After roughly disposing of the remaining ashes in the bathroom, Kisa fell into deep contemplation.

A moment later, while putting her luggage bag back in the wardrobe, she looked at the dresses hanging side by side.

She hadn’t stayed at this hotel very long, yet there were so many clothes.

It was thanks to Seyard, who had given her everything as gifts without her even asking first.

Thanks to that, almost all colors were available here. Of course, including blue and red.

Particularly, the red dress was the most glamorous among the dresses Kisa owned, whether because it was his favorite color or because it matched his hair color.

She passed by that red dress and picked up a blue outdoor dress.

Tomorrow, she would go for a walk wearing this.