Medicine and Love

Before long, my so-called father came rushing over. Besides the family doctor, two people I hadn't expected followed behind him-

Naoya Zenin and Ogi Zenin.

It wasn't exactly Naoya Zenin's first or second time coming to pick a fight with me, so I could understand him being here. But why Ogi Zenin?

My so-called father hurried to my bedside, sat down, and ruffled my hair.

Unused to such excessive affection, I leaned aside to dodge his hand.

He didn't seem to mind. With a concerned expression, he asked, "Are you still feeling unwell anywhere? Let the doctor examine you again."

I was about to speak when I remembered how I'd started coughing nonstop after saying just one word earlier, so I pointed at my throat.

"Does your throat hurt?" My so-called father beckoned the doctor standing behind him over. "Examine the young lady."

The doctor wasn't an ordinary doctor. He even used some Jujutsu Sorcerer methods that I didn't understand but found utterly astounding, all just to examine my hoarse throat.

Then I heard him say, "The young lady had a fever for three days and three nights..."

I stopped paying attention to the rest. All my thoughts were focused on those words: "three days and three nights."

I'd had a fever for that long?

Well, damn. With this useless constitution of mine, I hadn't expected three days of fever to leave me with nothing worse than a ruined throat instead of sending me straight to the grave.

Was this what the Jujutsu Society was like? Even a frail, sickly patient like me, with only half a Jujutsu Sorcerer's bloodline, could have such a resilient body.

"...will need careful care and rest," the doctor finished.

I hadn't heard a single thing in between. So when they asked for my opinion at the end, I nodded blindly, with no idea what I'd agreed to.

Until a bowl of something pitch-black, giving off an unidentifiable smell, was brought before me.

Under my so-called father's gaze, the maid took the bowl, scooped up a spoonful, and brought it toward my mouth.

I recoiled in horror.

I hated taking medicine.

How much did I hate it?

In my previous life, I shouldn't have ended up in the hospital so early. But I simply couldn't stand taking medicine and always thought that if I toughed it out and drank more hot water, I'd eventually get better.

...Instead, that lingering illness turned serious, and a simple cough somehow developed into lung cancer.

Even though not taking medicine had caused it, I didn't regret it. Nor did I ever think anything like, "If only I'd known, I wouldn't have done that."

I honestly found that world terribly dull. The only thing driving me to work hard was the desire to earn lots of money, then go flaunt it in front of the parents who'd abandoned me... But how could it possibly be that simple?

I couldn't understand why they'd abandoned me, only to pamper their second daughter like a little princess, showering her with all their love.

Wasn't I their biological daughter too?

I'd gone to find my parents with the enormous fortune I'd built myself. They seemed unable to believe that the daughter they'd left at that orphanage had not only survived but also founded a company more successful than theirs.

They took my hands with heartfelt emotion, hugged me, and shed tears as they told me how much they'd missed me all these years.

I asked, "Then why did you leave me at that orphanage?"

My mother stiffened as she held me.

After a while, I heard her explain through her sobs that back then, they hadn't yet decided to start a business, and their impoverished household couldn't afford the burden of raising me.

"Then why didn't you come back for me later?" I was utterly bewildered.

My mother said that I'd already made my own circle of friends at the orphanage and grown familiar with the director and the caregivers. They'd feared that abruptly moving me somewhere new would make it hard for me to adjust, and that I wouldn't want to leave.

They said they'd donated money to the orphanage every year so I could have a better life.

...It sounded reasonable enough, but I wasn't satisfied.

Finding out the truth was child's play for me.

Of course I knew they'd donated every year. I also knew they'd wanted to bring me home, but their younger daughter had absolutely refused to live with an older sister she'd never even heard of.

I even knew they'd had another daughter out of guilt toward me, deciding to make up for everything they'd owed me by giving it to her.

Although they still hadn't started their business back then, perhaps because of that guilt, my younger sister had been raised exceptionally well.

I was furious, but I smiled and went home with them.

Then I spent two months quietly using my own methods to crush their business. They remained completely oblivious and even hinted that they wanted me to help.

So I said, "Sure."

Then I tightened the pressure.

I married my younger sister off to a business partner. There was nothing unusual about that in itself; marriage alliances were perfectly normal business tactics. But I knew she had an unrequited crush on someone.

I invited him to the wedding on the grounds that he was "a good friend of my sister's," and even arranged a special segment for "well wishes from friends."

She cried so hard, but everyone simply assumed she couldn't bear to leave her family.

Before the wedding, she'd tearfully told our parents she didn't want to marry him. Our father remained unmoved, but our mother seemed to steel herself before coming to see me.

I said, "If marrying him means she can live in luxury for the rest of her life, why resist? Because of that unrequited crush of hers?"

Her face full of anguish, my mother retorted, "She won't be happy at all! Someone like you could never understand!"

Then she stiffened, as though afraid she'd touched a nerve.

So what?

I wasn't angry.

She was right. I really didn't know what happiness was.