Dirty Heart - Chapter 10

A pained, ragged sound of breathing kept leaking from Lionel’s mouth. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, then ran down the back of his neck without even a moment to cool.

“…Courtney.”

Even while it was hard for him to hold onto consciousness, the name that burst out like instinct was that of the insignificant woman.

But the space beside the bed was empty. The presence that used to always be standing there whenever he turned his head had been absent more and more often lately.

“Fuck.”

Spitting a curse irritably, Lionel reached toward the head of the bed. Even as his body swayed hard, he frantically yanked the bell pull.

“Y-Young Duke. You called?”

By the time the bell pull was about to snap pitifully, a maid came running and asked Lionel.

Lionel shot her with a flash of ice blue killing light. The fact that the person who came running at his call wasn’t Courtney made his guts twist up for no reason.

“Get out.”

At the voice that even carried killing intent, the maid recoiled in terror and backed away. Only after the door fully shut did Lionel look down at his palm. A thin streak of blood was clearly carved into the spot where he’d gripped the bell pull.

After roughly wiping the area with a tissue, he slowly pushed himself up.

“Ugh.”

Bracing himself against the wall, he moved forward one step at a time, but every time he set his foot down, his head ached like it was splitting open and his vision swam in a dizzy blur. His heart was also pounding so violently that his breath kept catching in his throat.

This fucking illness. He had to make Courtney’s heart his as soon as possible. If you really thought about it, this wasn’t a bad deal for her either.

A long time ago, so long he couldn’t even remember, Courtney had suddenly said this with a face like she was about to cry.

“Young Duke. My wish is… to be with you forever.”

“Is it? Then I’ll grant that wish no matter what.”

“Really? Can you promise me that, Young Duke?”

“Of course. What’s so hard about a request like that?”

If the transplant surgery ended safely, Courtney’s heart would beat forever inside Lionel. They would become truly one body, something that could never be separated.

So what a benevolent gift this was. He was fulfilling the lowly maid’s wish this perfectly.

Barely making it to the dresser by the window, Lionel took out a wooden box whose color had faded and even lost its sheen. When he laid his palm on the tightly shut box, he could feel the delicate grain of the wood as it was.

Click.

When he undid the clasp, inside the box lay a single silver locket necklace in silence.

This necklace, so utterly insignificant and even shabby, was a keepsake of the late Duchess Marianne, and also Lionel’s most precious treasure.

“M-Mother, are you in a lot of pain? There’s so much blood on your back.”

“…It’s fine. I’m… fine as long as you get better, Lionel.”

“I’ll put medicine on it for you, Mother. So don’t cry. Okay?”

“My baby. You really have grown up.”

Lionel still couldn’t forget the sight of his mother Marianne, covered in blood every night when he was young.

The desperation he’d felt in the eyes that looked at her son. Her strained breathing. Her bony torso growing thinner like a corpse with each passing day. Every single scene was still lodged in his chest.

Tragically, Lionel’s birth had been closer to a punishment than joy for her. Even before she could feel the warm body heat of her newborn son, the elders’ blatant condemnation had come flying at her.

“It’s the woman’s lack of virtue that she bore a sickly heir!”

“The mother’s shameful fault has fallen upon an innocent son. What are we to do about it?”

The Council of Elders was the heart of House Erhardt, a den of power holders even the imperial family couldn’t touch carelessly.

And Marianne, who came from a family that was insignificant compared to the Erhardt Ducal House, was dragged to the Council of Elders day after day, unable to even properly recover postpartum, under the charge of having borne a sickly son.

“Do not resent it. Only by disciplining you harshly with the rod will God’s wrath be appeased. This is all for Lionel, so as his mother, you must endure it.”

The old men beat her every single day, claiming she had to repent for her lack of virtue.

Her fragile skin split under the harsh strikes and bruises bloomed all over her body, but Marianne’s face was calm instead. If it meant her beloved son could recover, then beatings like that were nothing.

And so years passed. Before the vivid welts from the rod could even heal, they split open again and again and festered, but Lionel’s illness showed no sign of improving.

“Leave this place, run away. Please. Mother, you should find your own life too. You’ve done more than enough. Yeah?”

The day Lionel turned ten. As he stared miserably at his mother’s body, which was nothing but bone, he finally decided to help Marianne escape.

The old men of the Council of Elders who inflicted horrific abuse, the father who watched it all and did nothing, and even his mother who stubbornly endured that wretched life….

He’d rather die than face this terrible tragedy any longer.

But that very night, a tragedy occurred when the carriage carrying his mother, racing through the torrential rain, overturned.

The mother he’d urged to leave was brought back to the ducal residence again, barely clinging to life, and the duke, looking down at his wife’s blood-soaked face, gave a short order without even looking surprised.

“It’s fortunate she’s still breathing. Prepare the transplant surgery at once before her heart stops.”

“Yes…? Father, what do you mean? A transplant surgery?”

Even though a heart transplant surgery hadn’t been officially developed yet, the duke had already assembled medical staff and conducted countless clinical trials. And now, right at this moment, the perfect donor was before his eyes.

Lionel’s birth mother. A heart that would save his beloved son, the most biologically perfect match. Her death would be unfortunate, but if it meant saving his son, what was there to fear?

“F-Father! No. No! Look! Mother is still alive… she’s still breathing!”

“Lionel. Don’t feel guilty. Your mother is leaving after giving everything to her child to the very end.”

“No! You can’t. Kill me instead, Father!”

“What are you all doing! Inject Lionel with a sedative at once!”

The moment the sharp needle pierced his upper arm, the world slowly flipped over. Even as his vision blurred, Lionel screamed for his mother until his throat tore.

When he opened his eyes again, his mother was already gone. She’d died before the surgery could even properly begin. 

Because a heart that stops beating before it can be taken cannot be transplanted, it was, in a way, fortunate for Lionel.

After drifting through that painful past and returning to the present, Lionel slowly opened the locket.

A beautiful woman with delicate features. He stared for a long time at the face of a woman who didn’t resemble him in a single way, unlike himself, who looked exactly like his father.

He also thought it was truly fortunate that he didn’t resemble his mother. Because each time he stood in front of a mirror, nothing would be more painful than facing the woman he’d loved more than anyone in the world.

His cold, stiff fingertips carefully traced the face of his mother in the portrait. After a moment, Lionel whispered in a small voice.

“…Please celebrate my last birthday for me, Mother.”

***

“Your face is different from the maid who always comes.”

The guard standing watch in front of the duke’s study narrowed his eyes.

“Vicky caught a cold. She can’t even get out of bed.”

Courtney calmly rattled off the answer she’d prepared in advance, but the guard’s gaze was still full of suspicion.

“I haven’t received any report.”

“Of course not. Not long ago… that awful thing happened.”

“Ah, it’s a pity the head maid died. That’s what she gets for touching the oak tree the Young Duke cherished so carelessly. Tsk, tsk.”

“Anyway, the atmosphere’s still chaotic. I’ll just clean quickly and come right back out without making a fuss.”

Maybe her smooth talk worked, because the guard gave the cleaning box Courtney was holding a cursory glance. Then he issued a short order.

“Finish it diligently.”

“Yes, sir!”

Hiding her excited expression, she stepped into the study, and her lips soon fell open in surprise.

“Wow….”

In the original work, the duke’s study had been described at length, but the sight spread out before her eyes went far beyond what she’d imagined.

Hundreds, thousands of documents lined up neatly on the shelves, file binders squared off in clean rows and columns. Piles of papers stacked like mountains, even dense notes crammed everywhere. It was a space where you could feel firsthand just how immense the duke’s single-minded resolve to save his son truly was.

Holding a mop, she silently pretended to sweep the floor while quickly scanning her surroundings, but the deeper she got, the more of an obstacle it became. There were far more materials than she’d expected, so it seemed like it would take quite a long time to find anything meaningful.

More than anything, what troubled her most were the paper titles that she couldn’t understand at all with an ordinary person’s level of intellect. Something about correlations between values, something about systematic analysis… the moment she read them, her mind went blank.

“Hey! Stop dragging your feet and hurry up!”

“Y-yes!”

The guard staring at Courtney like a hunting dog was just as much of an obstacle. If she showed even the slightest suspicious sign, he looked ready to bite her on the spot, so she couldn’t relax for even a second.

Lowering her head as if resigned, she offered up a desperate prayer in her heart.

‘I’m not asking for much. Just one decisive thing… no more than that, just one thing, please let me take it.’

After taking a deep breath and steadying herself, she slowly raised her head.

“…!”

Maybe her prayer reached somewhere. One intuitive title seized Courtney’s gaze at once.

『Report on Heart Transplant Side Effect Cases』