Chapter 31

I think surprised was not the correct word to express what I was feeling at that moment. Astounded? Taken aback? Amazed! That's what I was looking for!

It was a marvelous sight, truthfully, to see three men ungraciously devour a pot of bone soup so quickly. It was as if they had been starved for a few days. I was lucky to save a portion for myself and for Ethan. If not, we would be having just the usual pancakes for lunch and dinner.

But, I could understand the enthusiasm to a point. Despite being his first time, Felix had done an excellent job. Well, I had no recollection if bone soup was supposed to taste like this, but it was delicious.

The point was that it must have been their first time tasting something like this. In that case, I closed one eye to the pot being fought over by them to refill their bowls.

Once we ate, we went back to our own tasks.

I went back to embroidering—my body was a bit sore from yesterday, but I had to keep going if I wanted to end on time. Felix went into the house to take a nap after feeding Mrs. Rabbit; he was the only one among the brothers who napped. Lucas and Joseph said they would go gather some wood.

They took a lot of tools with them for collecting wood.

When Ethan came back home, Felix was already cracking his head to think what he could cook for dinner. He bemoaned and regretted having eaten all the soup at lunch. I just heard him miserably mumble by my side as he watched with childish curiosity what I was doing.

Lucas and Joseph were not back yet. I was not worried yet as there was still a bit of sun in the sky.

"Only you're here?" Ethan asked after he put away his bag where he carried his lunch, and a spare shirt, just in case.

Felix nodded as he readily reached for the thread I told him to hand me. "Said they would go for wood."

"Oh." Ethan replied.

I noticed he sounded a bit awkward, so I raised my head and saw him with his head down, as if pondering something. It was obvious he wanted to say or ask something very important, but same as that time when he had to open up with his problems, he had to learn how to ask for things.

So, I waited for him to speak.

"I… Are you busy, Isabelle?"

"My hands and eyes are busy, Ethan, but I will always listen to you." I replied, giving him a quick smile. It seemed that reassured him as he minutely sighed relieved. He first sat in front of me, then spoke.

"There's a chance at the workshop. To carve wood." He began.

"You want to apply." I stated, my hand never stopped stitching.

"Yes… the man who used to do it is gonna move to Silk Town 'cause he's marrying. His fiancée's family's from that town, that's why. The place's more prosperous than here, and the family didn't want for the daughter to stay in Basin Town…"

"Ethan." I called out.

"…Silk Town has a waterway, so their local products can be sent to other towns…"

"Ethan!" I raised my voice to get his attention. He looked at me bewildered, never thinking I would yell at him. "You are dithering."

"I, what?" He furrowed his brows.

Ah, yeah, I always forget they do not know many technical words. Their speech was sometimes hard to understand due to how fast they talk and with the many contractions, but I was getting used to it.

I sometimes even hear them trying to replicate my way of speech, it was fun. Maybe I could also try to speak like them.

But, back to the topic. "Get to the point. You want the job, and then?" I prompted him.

Ethan took a deep breath to calm down and started again.

"Carving wood's not only about making shapes on the wood. There're times people want to carve words on the wood…" He looked away. At this moment, I had put aside my embroidering. And I'm sure Felix was also attentively listening to his brother. "The pay is good. 10 coins a month plus the commission."

I frowned. It was all well and good, Ethan surely wanted to finally have a stable job at the carpentry shop; however… "You cannot write." It may have sounded cruel, but that was the reality. The reason the pay was good was most likely due to the fact the person needed to know how to read and write.

Which was not something an illiterate villager could do.

I felt the disparity between Town people and Village people was deeper than I first thought.

"I know." Instead of sounding defeated at his lacking abilities, there was determination shining in Ethan's eyes as he looked at me. Oh my, he looked extremely handsome like this! "Teach me how to read and write, Isabelle." Sure darling, I will teach you A.NY.TH- wait, what?

"Excuse me?" I must have heard wrong.

"Isabelle." He called out, tightly grabbing my hand. "I know you can read and write, so teach me. The sooner the better. I really need this job. I wanna prove to myself, to my brothers and to you that I can still provide for this family. It's good if you wanna help us, but we want to take care of you, too. And… and if we have children in the future, then I also wanna take care of them!"

Was this a serious proposal?

Since I have no memories of what my life used to be, I have no idea what my goals used to be.

I am aware of some emotional and mental aspects of myself; but something as a future, a family, someone to share my life with was vague in my mind. Nonexistent even. I probably never thought about that before, or simply did not care about the matter.

I had agreed to live with the four brothers as my partners, my lovers if you would, but I think I was not taking it seriously. At least, not like how these brothers were.

They wanted a Wife, a life-long spouse. A family. They wanted children.

The question was if I was ready to face all those expectations from them. If I was willing to fulfill their wishes, and if they were also willing to follow all of my plans so we could become a real family. Regardless of that, I guessed the first step to know all that was to answer Ethan's question.

I squeezed his hand back and smiled at him. "I will do my best." Next second, I was being held by long and strong arms as a pair of lips melted against mine.

It was a good thing Ethan did not go further than kissing as Felix was most likely watching our shameless performance. He still left me breathless and flustered. There was even a thread of saliva uniting our mouths that he mischievously licked.

"Thank you." He whispered over my lips before pecking them. "Come, Felix, I'll help you with dinner today." He beckoned the teen as he himself walked towards the kitchen.

After seeing the two entering the kitchen, I went back to my embroidering. At this rate, if I keep being distracted by the gorgeous brothers, I will not finish on time. Without messing the stitches, I sped up.

Lucas and Joseph returned right before sunset. They were carrying big stacks of wood as well as a few bushes and even a small tree.

When I asked them what those were, Joseph said they were for my flower bed. He ignored the name of the plant, but had seen—from where he had gotten it—that it looked nice with its small flowers hidden under the large leaves.

It did look cute, so I was looking forward to when he planted more of them.

The small tree turned out to be Eucalyptus. They call it fresh tree due to its smell and that is what they burn to use as paste to clean their teeth. They quickly planted it by the well since they had hurt the roots while digging it.

The flowering bushes were left in baskets together with the one Lucas had brought earlier. Their efforts to bring things I liked reminded me of Ethan's words. They were really trying hard so I could stay with them.

My heart tightened uncomfortably, but at the same time it made me happy.

I did not know, until then, that I was actually afraid of taking my own decisions. Maybe it was a subconscious reaction, to not allow myself to do everything I wanted in fear of what others would say; like that woman in my dream.

However, although I was afraid, I was really happy. I wanted to be afraid together with them. I wanted to move towards an uncertain but blissful future.