I Didn't Want to Know (8)

"His family treats you very well," my mom sat on my bed.

My dad and Evan were with Luke, who decided to show them better things around the mansion that may interest them. My mom didn't know how the Roselia family was cruel to me with their contract they wanted me to sign. She thought all of this stuff I was forced to receive was for free. Luke was much nicer to me around my parents.

I nodded my head as I noticed something sticking out of her pocket. I wondered what it was as I could smell a sweet scent coming from it. My mom, noticing my curiosity, pulled a package of jelly out. I gulped, wanting to take a tiny bite as I imagined the smooth texture melting inside my mouth. This was the limited-edition flavour that I could rarely find when I visited the third district. Melon soda flavoured jelly was comparable to the strawberry flavoured ones that I used to have a supply of hidden inside my room.

"Evan likes this flavour too," she noticed my sparkling eyes.

"May I please have one if you don't mind?" I clasped my hands together.

"I don't know," my mom recalled me not being able to eat solid food in the morning.

"Only one bite," I pulled out the most pitiful eyes I possessed.

"Please?" I moved closer to her.

My mom sighed as she allowed me to take a package of jelly away from her hands. I smiled as I began to open the package. Once I popped the jelly inside my mouth, I flopped onto my bed in bliss. This was almost like the comfort food I ate at Elise's house. I didn't think I would miss it this much even though only a few days had passed.

But oddly, the next time I opened my eyes from blinking, I was finding the younger Luke treating Rika more gently than before. He stroked her hair, trying to encourage her that he could become her new family. Rika rubbed her head against his chest as she started to believe him. I couldn't believe the big changes that happened from his simple actions.

Instead of leaving Rika to cry alone in the night, he went to her room to sleep together with her, lightly rubbing her back until she fell asleep. Whenever she cried from missing her parents, Luke would hug her, making her instantly calm down. He held her hands while walking, making sure she stayed within his line of sight. He patted her head whenever she solved a question that the tutor gave her. He was imitating all the actions he had read from a book about child rearing, forgetting who the child was.

Rika became more reliant on him, only speaking to him. She also listened to what Luke said, following him as if he was her second mother. Meanwhile, he read these books every night to not disappoint his parents again. He noticed that everything his father had said to him was right the more he interacted with her. Rika couldn't do anything on her own without him, she was still a baby. She never knew what the best for her was, it was up to him to manage everything.

He had to protect her as his parents started to look over them with a brighter atmosphere during mealtime. Rika wasn't that fussy anymore after he changed his attitude. When his grandfather visited the mansion, he treated Rika better than his own grandson. They couldn't help but treat Rika like this since she needed more care. His family was tougher on him since he was the heir to the family.

Except his parents scolded her when they took a test on which kindergarten to enter. Joanna brightly smiled when she discovered they didn't have enough points to enter the first district later on after the seal was removed on Rika. She shivered in front of her, hiding behind Luke's back as Joanna told her that she has no choice but to bring more tutors into the house.

The Roselia family decided to invest in a kindergarten where they would both enter to increase the chances of them switching to the first district later on. I did wonder how the third district had a kindergarten where time-space rooms existed while the middle schools did not. I never knew this was the reason why. Even when Rika was together in the third district with her parents again, she was still reliant on Luke for everything.

She wouldn't talk to any of her classmates as Luke spoke for her. The language in the school in the third district still used the one in the first district from the Roselia family's requests to change the curriculum. She hid behind Luke when he was with her. When he wasn't there, she preferred to go to the infirmary to sleep.

Rika struggled to follow the classes in school. Luke had to teach her everything that the teachers explained during class, being more patient as he made sure not to miss a single thing. This was how the intense study sessions started as Rika began to become more familiar with the language. Although she didn't know how to read and write in the language of the third district, she knew how to do it in the language of the first district.

I continued to watch them. Not knowing this was how this vessel began to understand the people around her. I just assumed this language was her home tongue.