Don't Ask, It'll Hurt If You Know - Chapter 26
Her already desperate feelings grew stronger, embracing her parents’ tears. Emotions she couldn’t swallow turned into tears, welling up in her eyes. As some tears rolled down her cheeks, Chloe covered her face with both hands. Her pink hair fell like a curtain, hiding her tear-stained face.
Just as she was earnestly praying to God—if He existed—to have mercy on this lamb and help her, she sensed a presence.
“Who’s there?”
Could it be……?
Hearing a familiar voice, Chloe suddenly lifted her head. The abrupt movement scattered her tears, which sparkled in the sunlight. Through her tears, she saw a boy with the same blonde hair and close-to-green blue eyes.
“Jeremy!”
It was her youngest brother, Jeremy Elena. So happy to see him, Chloe forgot she was in Bianca Lloyd’s body and rushed to hug him.
“Wh-what……?”
Jeremy’s bewildered reaction, pushing her away, was only natural. Pushed by his strong force, Chloe staggered and fell to the floor. The tears that had been precariously hanging dropped at once, making her wet face look quite pitiful.
“Are you alright, Lady?”
Jeremy held out a handkerchief, seemingly unable to leave a crying woman alone, while still maintaining a wary distance.
The polite tone made Chloe even more sorrowful because she could feel a wall that hadn’t been visible before. To make matters worse, her parents’ tears that she had momentarily forgotten suddenly resurfaced, rapidly expanding her grief.
I want to go back. I don’t want to make my family sad. But I don’t know what to do. I can’t do anything, not by myself.
As a terrible sense of helplessness she had never experienced before wrapped around her body, Chloe bit her lower lip so hard it nearly drew blood.
Just when she desperately needed someone’s help, precisely because she could do nothing alone, that very person was right in front of her.
“Lady?”
“……Jeremy.”
Instead of taking the handkerchief, Chloe grabbed Jeremy’s hand and blurted out somewhat impulsively.
“I-I’m your sister.”
“What?”
Seeing Jeremy’s eyes wide open, looking utterly bewildered, Chloe’s mind—which had been lost in sorrow and helplessness—gradually began to return. She realized her mistake too late, but the water was already spilled. She couldn’t take it back now.
Then she might as well push forward to the end.
She had originally planned to reveal her identity and ask for help if it was confirmed to be related to black magic. Chloe took a short breath to calm her turbulent emotions and spoke again.
“I am Chloe Elena, your sister.”
With Chloe’s final words, silence descended upon the corridor. Jeremy, looking at her as if she was speaking nonsense, soon deeply furrowed his brow.
“What absurd thing are you saying?”
“It might be hard to believe, but it’s true. I am Chloe Elena.”
“I suggest you stop this joke before it makes me angry, Lady.”
She had expected Jeremy wouldn’t believe her easily, but facing his actual reaction made her chest feel heavy, as if something was stuck. Chloe brought her hand to her lace-covered chest in an almost rustic manner and shouted in an agitated voice.
“I really am Chloe Elena! I don’t even know why I’m in this body!”
Having been unable to confide in anyone until now, all her bottled-up frustration and anger burst out at once like a flood.
Chloe told him everything—how she woke up in Bianca Lloyd’s body after falling, the strange blood-drawn magic circle, and all the events that had occurred since then.
It was a story so unbelievable that it would be hard to accept even in a novel, but Jeremy listened seriously without snickering or interrupting. This gave Chloe a glimmer of hope.
“Jeremy, do you believe me? Huh? Do you believe that I’m your sister?”
Chloe asked earnestly, desperately hoping Jeremy would believe her and help her.
Jeremy, who had been staring at her intently, withdrew his hand and shook his head.
“No. I do not.”
