Chapter 4. Arrest Her (2)

Translator: River

When Shushu awoke to the warm sunlight instead of the slightly chilly air of dawn, the first thing he did was to look at his watch. Through his still unfocused vision, he traced the thin line of spit on the clock face. He had a premonition that it was not the time he thought it would be when he woke up.

The clock read 10 o’clock in the morning. Shushu looked at the time with wide eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily, she wouldn’t be late for the meeting.

“I’m sure I set the alarm, but why didn’t I wake up…was I that tired yesterday?”

Maybe the alarm didn’t go off, or maybe I slept so soundly that I ignored it. She felt strange about the unfamiliar situation, but there was no time to think about it. Shushu quickly washed up and put on the clothes she had prepared.

But when she finished, she noticed that the decorative ribbon on the back of her dress had come undone. She looked at herself in the hall mirror and tried to tie it herself, but while she was busy tying the ribbon, she was startled to feel a hand on her waist and almost fell backwards.

“Ouch.”

Fortunately, the firm hand stopped her fall. At the same time, Shushu caught a fresh scent that brushed the tip of her nose. She was acutely aware that the hand that now held her by the waist and finished knotting the ribbon could not be that of her mother, Ganelli. The middle-aged recluse rarely left her room, and she did not have such large hands or such a tall stature. Shushu knew who owned them all.

“Good morning.”

It was Edwin Isadock.

Edwin’s hand, the one that had tied the bow, gently brushed Shushu’s side, then slipped away as if it didn’t matter. Shushu looked at Edwin with an uncomfortable smile.

“When did you get here?”

“A while ago. You were sleeping soundly. I tried to wake you up, but you were too tired.”

Edwin’s green eyes sparkled in the daylight as he spoke. The color of a precious stone. The color of the emblem of House Isadok was the same as the color of his eyes. It was also the reason why the gardens of the family home, Harelvre Manor, were dominated by evergreens, green all year round, instead of colorful flowers. Shushu could not forget the color of those green trees. They remained green until the moment they were consumed by flames.

They never wither, they are eternal!

The Isadok legacy is now carried on by his last direct descendant and heir, Edwin Isadok. Shushu didn’t know much about Isadok family history, but he could guarantee that the man before him was a worthy descendant.

“Sit down. I’ll make you some coffee. With chocolate syrup. You like it, don’t you?”

Shushu watched Edwin back as he made his way familiarly to the kitchen. At nearly six feet tall, Edwin’s presence in the kitchen made the room seem tiny. Whether or not he knew how Shushu felt, Edwin familiarly picked up a teapot from the cupboard.

“Edwin.”

“This will smell very nice, milady,” Edwin said, doing his best butler imitation. There was a hint of sternness in his voice.

“You shouldn’t be at someone’s house this early.”

“Shushu.”

“You should go to your own house.”

The words hurt Shushu herself, but she tried not to let it show. Edwin needed to go back to his own house, where he had a real butler. To the manor house where there was an old gentleman named Henrik, who had been the Isadock family butler for generations. The old man’s mustache would have fallen out in fright if he had seen his master, Edwin, pretending to be a butler.

It was uncomfortable to receive Henrik sobbing calls every time Edwin came home in a hurry, begging me to send my master back home, making me feel like a concubine who had stolen her husband from his poor wife.

“…Don’t say that.”

But to Henrik’s dismay Edwin’s heart sank every time he said that to Shushu with a sad face. Edwin looked at Shushu’s silent face and spoke again.

“How could he? There’s also Mr. Ganelli….”

Ganelli. Shushu’s eyes widened at the sound of the name. the name.

***

Ganelli Maeli. The only blood relative and mother of Shushu, she is the former chief scientist of Rogwin and a heroic genius. Favored by the Isadok family for her talents since childhood, she became the guardian of Edwin, the sole survivor of an accident in which members of the Isadok family were killed.

However, in the accident she also lost her husband, Edwin’s father, and since then she rarely left her room, having lost all motivation. As a child, she was forced to do almost everything alone, until Edwin, who had seen her life up close, told her something that, paradoxically, stabilized her.

“Mommy is….”

Shushu said quietly,

“I’ll handle it.”

“…”

“Now you have to worry about you, not me. Edwin.”

Next time, please don’t come so suddenly. With those last words, Shushu put on her best face and prepared to leave the house.

“I can’t help it.”

It’s not that I didn’t like Edwin. Edwin was a good boy. I loved him like a member of the family. But there was a darker part of his heart that he also kept for his mother, Ganelli, his true blood relative.

Her mother’s reputation made everyone look up to her with expectation from birth, but she never lived up to it. There were things one should not try to die for. My God, what…. Eventually, everyone said those things and looked at her with disappointment.

Without her father’s love, Shushu might have had a ruined life. His unwavering affection gave her the seed of self-esteem, allowing her to live a life without the occasional shudder at the fame and expectations of her mother.

But living so close to those who shone like stars and were admired by all, the ordinary woman still felt a sense of inadequacy and indebtedness. She did not want to hurt them, even if she could not help them.

Edwin was no longer a young man in need of a patron; he was the lord of House Isadok and considered one of the next leaders of Rogwin. Everyone in Rogwin loved him. Edwin was something special. Unlike Shushu, he was like a mother, like a mother ganelli……

She loved him like family, but it made her feel guilty to be around him. She was forced to push him away. Worst case scenario, he would get caught by the paparazzi and some kind of scandal would break out between him and Shushu, and she shuddered at the thought. The mere mention of Garnelli’s name was enough to make her cringe.

“Shoo-shoo.”

Edwin followed her as she spun on her heels and walked out the door. When she turned around, Edwin was still smiling softly, lips curved in a nonchalant line, as if he hadn’t heard her, but the backlighting prevented seeing her eyes for a moment. Edwin back was turned this time, away from Shushu, who was squinting and trying to look at him again. Behind him, I heard a muffled voice.

“Reunion…. Have fun.”

Shushu nodded and walked out the door.

About three hours and forty minutes later.

I felt like going back in time and screaming at the top of my lungs that I shouldn’t have gone to the reunion, either because her first love, a boy, broke his leg and couldn’t go, or because they had found the dead body of a classmate named Elma Hop in the third-floor bathroom.

“Arrest her!”

It was because Shushu Meili…. was a suspect in the murder of that same dead classmate, Elma Hobb. Now. Because God had been named.