TDAV 10

Chapter 10

Before she knew it, Daniel had stopped stirring his pea soup and was fidgeting with both hands on his lap. He looked much calmer than before.

Betty felt relieved and spoke quietly to him.

“Daniel, I’m really sorry about today.”

Daniel slightly raised his head, which had been lowered deeply, and slowly moved his lips.

“Be, Betty, wh, why…… I-I’m fi, fine…… Be, Betty, ju, just be ca, careful…… Lin, Linda…… se, seems…… an, angry…….”

His tightly clenched hands trembled slightly, and his platinum-blond hair swayed with the movement. The way he tensed his body showed how sincere he was.

Even though Daniel himself had been hurt, he was genuinely worried about her.

Perhaps Daniel was the only person in this harsh place called Cookeville who cared about Betty this much.

That was why Betty was always grateful to him, while also feeling sorry for him.

Because once she left Cookeville, Daniel would be left alone at this school.

But that didn’t mean she could stay in Cookeville.

Leaving Cookeville wasn’t simply because she hated this place.

She had to find her missing uncle.

Betty hid her complicated feelings and gave Daniel a faint smile.

“Yeah. I’ll be careful. Nothing will happen. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah……”

The moment Daniel answered quietly, the bell signaling the end of lunch rang.

Betty and Daniel finally left the suffocating cafeteria.

A week passed.

Contrary to what Betty had told Daniel, her daily life hadn’t been going particularly well.

All because James refused to give up on approaching her.

More precisely, the problem wasn’t James himself, but Linda, who had become one of James’s followers.

But when you got right down to it, James was the reason it had started, so he couldn’t exactly be excluded from the problem.

At first, things had been fine.

The awkward lunch they had shared a week ago had been a rather mismatched combination.

Perhaps James had sensed quite a lot from the atmosphere that day, because starting the following day, he didn’t show much interest in Betty at school.

As though he was conscious of the other students watching them.

Well, even if that hadn’t been the case, James probably wouldn’t have had much time to approach her.

He wasn’t an ordinary transfer student.

He was the most famous hero in the world.

Hero James was admired not only by the girls but also by the boys at school. There was always a line of students waiting just to exchange a few words with him.

And James smiled as he dealt with them one by one.

As a result, he was always busy at school.

For various reasons, he no longer approached Betty there.

Of course, if that had been the end of it, Betty’s daily life wouldn’t have become a problem.

Her life started becoming considerably more difficult two days ago.

It began on the very day James and Linda happened to run into each other at the café where Betty worked.

That was right.

James had stopped approaching Betty at school, but he hadn’t given up on becoming closer to her.

James knew about the café where Betty worked.

And perhaps because of that, he began showing up at the café every single day.

At first, Betty tried not to think much of his daily visits.

Maybe he really just wanted coffee.

Besides, whenever he came to the café, he simply ordered coffee and didn’t talk to Betty much.

So she deliberately didn’t read too much into it and made the espresso he ordered every day.

Betty had thought James really liked espresso.

After all, that was the only thing he ever ordered.

But gradually, the amount of coffee left in his mug increased.

And by around the fifth day, Betty had even noticed a wrinkle forming between James’s brows whenever he looked at the espresso.

Naturally, James hadn’t realized that Betty was watching him when he did that.

But seeing his reaction, Betty instinctively realized that he didn’t actually like espresso very much.

The reason James kept coming to the café every day and ordering espresso despite not liking it.

Betty couldn’t help but figure it out.

He was coming to the café because of her.

And he was deliberately ordering the espresso, which required the least amount of work, out of consideration for her.

James would stay at the café for quite a long time, sitting in the most secluded corner with a hat and mask on.

It seemed as though he was waiting for an opportunity to talk to Betty every day.

But whether that was fortunate or unfortunate, he always came during the café’s busiest peak hours.

As a result, James would mostly just sit there until he received a phone call from someone apparently looking for him, at which point he would leave the café.

Then, two days ago, James happened to come to the café without his usual hat and mask, intending only to get a coffee to go.

That was when he ran straight into Linda.

James naturally greeted Linda before leaving the café, but Linda didn’t believe for a second that James had happened to visit the café where Betty worked by coincidence.

Linda was exceptionally perceptive when it came to things like this.

She realized that James was looking for Betty, and from that moment on, she faithfully kept the promise she had made.

The promise that she would make Betty’s already difficult life even harder.

Hiss—

Just as Betty’s thoughts were growing longer, the sound of steaming hot milk rang in her ears.

Betty snapped out of her thoughts, finished making the latte, and handed it to the waiting customer.

“Here are your two lattes. Thank you. Have a nice day.”

After seeing the takeout customer off, Betty looked around the empty café.

Time had flown by, and it was already almost time for her to get off work.

As she cleaned the café, which had been busy all day, Betty glanced at the clock and murmured quietly.

“……Is he not coming today?”

Even after his encounter with Linda, James had continued coming to the café.

Yet, for some reason, he still hadn’t appeared today.

The time when he normally came had already passed by quite a while, so it seemed he wouldn’t be coming today.

If James didn’t come……

That should actually be a good thing.

But for some reason, when someone she had seen every day suddenly failed to appear, Betty felt strangely unsettled.

She even found herself worrying that something might have happened to him.

But soon, Betty shook her head at her own contradictory feelings.

Who was she to worry about him right now?

Her own situation was much more hopeless than his.

Especially because of Linda.

In the past, Linda had at least bullied Betty indirectly.

But over the past few days, she had openly hurled insults at her and behaved rudely without hesitation.

Just yesterday, Betty had to retrieve her belongings from the trash that had been thrown outside the house.

Even thinking about what happened yesterday made Betty furious.

Because Linda had touched something precious to her.

Betty could tolerate the harsh words and outrageous behavior.

But throwing away the teddy bear that was her only connection to her family was something she could never forgive.

That was why, for the first time, Betty had raised her voice at Linda.

“Linda! Why did you throw away my things without asking me!? Do you even know what that means to me?”

“Betty, are you raising your voice at me right now? I felt sorry for you because you were too busy living your miserable life to clean your room, so I helped you out. And look at how you’re acting. That old stuffed bear was filthy, so I threw it away. Shouldn’t you be thanking me for taking care of it for you?”

“Linda Steffan!”

At Betty’s loud voice, Linda’s eyes widened.

“What on earth is going on?”

The bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Meryl came out wearing a nightgown.

Mrs. Meryl looked back and forth between Linda and Betty before asking her daughter,

“What’s all this commotion in the middle of the night?”

“Mom, Betty is getting angry at me like this just because I cleaned her room for her. I thought she was so busy that she didn’t even have time to clean it, so I helped her. And yet…… Betty, you’re really mean.”

“Ha, Linda, that’s not why I’m angry about the room. You deliberately threw away the stuffed bear I treasured. And you……”

“Betty.”

Meryl called Betty in a low voice.

Betty stopped speaking and turned toward Mrs. Meryl.

Meryl was looking at her with an expression that clearly said, Please, just stop already.

As though she couldn’t stand Betty.

In the end, Betty had no choice but to close her mouth in the face of that unmistakable annoyance and hostility.

If she caused any more of a commotion, this would no longer be just a fight with Linda.

An irritated sigh seemed to settle over her head.

“Betty, stop making a fuss and go upstairs. Honestly, can’t we just live quietly? Linda, you go to bed too.”

Bang.

Mrs. Meryl slammed the door shut, making her displeasure obvious.

Linda glanced around to see how things stood before going upstairs to her room first.

That was yesterday.

Yesterday, Betty had hugged her dirty teddy bear tightly and bitten down hard on her lips to keep herself from crying.

So worrying about James was truly pointless given her situation.

If she continued fighting with Linda like this, she really might end up being kicked out of the Steffan household.

Betty scrubbed the café floor vigorously with a mop as closing time approached.

She did it to drive away all those unnecessary thoughts.

But soon, someone other than James began occupying Betty’s thoughts.

Daniel.

Because Daniel hadn’t come to school today.

In fact, Betty wasn’t the only one whose daily life had become difficult over the past few days.

After the unpleasant incident with James in the cafeteria, Daniel had been teased relentlessly at school.

It had nothing to do with whether James was showing interest in Betty and Daniel anymore.

The boys were making fun of Daniel by imitating the scene where he had been frightened by James.

They deliberately exaggerated it to make it even more ridiculous.

They even pretended they were going to touch Daniel, telling him to do it again.

It had gotten so bad that even the teachers, who had been watching from the sidelines, finally couldn’t stand it anymore and intervened.

Whenever Betty happened to share a class with Daniel, she tried to stop the boys from bullying him.

But it hadn’t been very effective.

They barely listened to anything Betty said.

And amid all that, Daniel had been absent from school entirely today.

He had never missed a day before.

Betty remembered Daniel, whose back seemed to hunch more and more every day, and bit her lip.