Chapter 12 : Old Memories (3)

Helen listened attentively to the sound of footsteps approaching the garden, following each one with curiosity.

'He's coming here' she murmured and turned to see who it was.

"Dharma?" Helen raised her eyebrows in astonishment. Should not this naughty boy supposed to be inside chatting with the guests?

Dharma also looked in the direction of Helen who was sitting alone in the garden, and spoke.

"Oh, so this is where you've been hiding." There was joy in Dharma's eyes that he had finally found the person he was looking for.

Then he walked into the garden with the big tree and came beside Helen.

Helen did not understand why Dharma was here. Why was Dharma, who was supposed to be celebrating, hanging around outside?

Besides, she knew he would be in trouble if Master Zen found out that. But she could not bring himself to ask these questions.

After they both stared at each other in silence for a while, Helen could not get over her curiosity and asked: "So why are you here when you should be inside celebrating, and won't you be in trouble if Zen Master finds out you snuck in here?"

She wondered why he was wandering around here, but at the same time, she was worried that Dharma would be scolded by his master.

After making sure that no one was around, Dharma sat down next to Helen and replied with a silly smile. 

"Don't worry, don't worry. I have been there long enough. The questions I get are always slightly modified versions of the previous ones. No, Mr. Dharma, we will support you all the way, no, Mr. Dharma, we come from that family. I'm really sick of it, they're all manipulative hypocrites."

Dharma's face was red with anger as she thought about it. 

Helen still didn't understand. "But isn't that a reason for you to run away? You should have known this was going to happen."

Dharma nodded. "Yes, but unfortunately predicting it is not the same as living it. Seeing that I was slowly starting to stutter and give strange answers, the old asshole pulled me away and started answering for me."

Then he continued with a look of exasperation on his face. "When things calmed down a bit, Old asshole looked at me and realized that I was probably being overwhelmed by stupid people. So he told me to rest in the corner for a while. I wanted to take this opportunity to come to your table, but guess who was missing?"

Dharma frowned and glared at Helen. 

"Anyway, afterward I kept looking for you at the celebration but I couldn't find you anywhere, so I decided to go out and look around...well, it took me a while but I managed to find you." he finished with a smile. 

Even though Dharma was smiling, when Helen took a careful look at Dharma's face she could see that he was indeed exhausted and tired.

'Well,Still... That's a really unexpected move from him.' She thought.

But no matter how tired he was, it didn't mean she could miss the opportunity to make fun of him.

"Hehe, would you look at this? Our little master ran away from his own celebration to find me," Helen spoke as she looked at Dharmaya with a mocking face. "Wow, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't honored."

"W-what, not at all! I just wanted to at least hang out with someone I know, since everyone is so manipulative," argued Dharma, who couldn't hide the fact that he was blushing with embarrassment.

'Helen, you wretched woman! You tricked me!' he thought.

But still, he couldn't suppress the small smile that formed on her face. After all, how many people in the whole world could he be so comfortable around? Chatting and joking around in Helen's presence had relieved some of the stress he'd been under all day.

As much as he tried to hide it, Dharma was stressed. Because one wrong move and his name would have been ruined for the whole community. And if there was nothing to gain from it, he didn't want that to happen.

At the same time, even though her words were sarcastic, Helen was secretly happy.

She didn't know how many people she could call family. But Dharma was certainly one of the few.

Dharma paused briefly before speaking, gazing at the tree. "Hey Helen, why didn't you visit me?"

Little Dharma sounded bitter as he expected Helen to approach him first during the celebration, but she didn't appear, indicating her lingering disappointment.

Helen looked at Dharma. Her heart ached when she heard those unexpected words from him, but she could not show it.

'Not because I don't feel like it...' She said, inwardly saddened.

So she told a little lie to hide her pitying expression and thoughts.

"I actually wanted to come too. But thanks to our master Dharma, who has made a name for himself recently, I find it hard to get any closer to him," She said mockingly. 

Dharma laughed. "Ha, excuses. As if they could stop you if you really wanted to."

Dharma believed it was so. One thing was certain about the girl in front of him: Once she made up her mind, no one could dissuade her. It was this quality that Dharma admired and identified with. The people around Dharma, like those in the meeting, were often deceitful and controlling. But Helen was different; she was the first of her kind that Dharma encountered - fragile but resilient. She was a strange individual who resembled Dharma herself. 

'Well, he's not wrong,' Helen thought. At first, she genuinely wanted to congratulate him.

But something was bothering her.

'Tris's words...'

Did she really care so much about Tris' words? She wasn't sure... Still, Tris' words haunted her. Was Helen only friends with Dharma for her own benefit? She knew it wasn't true, but with every step, she was strengthening her clan's bond with the temple.

'When did I start caring so much about the opinions of strangers?' Helen questioned herself. She had never befriended Dharma for personal gain.

They were friends because... they were friends.

But, as Dharma pointed out, she was surrounded by hypocrites. Could Helen boldly claim that her own ambitions were not hypocritical?

That is why she did not approach Dharma. No, she couldn't, because she saw Dharma as a true friend, not a tool. So even if she lost her position in the clan, she no longer wanted to be a tool using her friend.

Helen's mood worsened a little.

She gazed at the young man and as she encountered his gentle gaze, she started to ponder his own reflections.

'Am I overthinking?'

Feeling embarrassed by her inner musings, the young man was taken aback when he heard him voice them so candidly.

'If even this arrogant brat in front of me can go after his beloved friend and call him without caring about his position, what the hell am I, whose tomorrow in the clan is not even certain, doing?'

"Haha," Helen chuckled to herself as she reflected on her own actions.

Dharma's expression changed. "Why are you laughing, did I say something funny?"

'Maybe I was worrying unnecessarily 'Helen thought quietly because she had been worried that as time went on and the status gap between them grew wider and wider, the two of them would grow further apart, but she knew from Dharma's behavior that her worries were misplaced.

Helen watched Dharma get angry, which amused her. Finally, she answered the question.

"What, you wanted me to come to you so badly you couldn't do without me? Well, you're not wrong. I couldn't do without someone like me." Helen said in a mockingly arrogant tone to lighten the mood.

Dharma didn't agree. "Nonsense! Who couldn't do it with you? I've never needed you anyway! Anyway, I'm going, I'm going."

After Dharma said that she couldn't stay there any longer, she got up and thought about leaving, but then she came back and sat down next to Helen, who seemed relaxed and calm.

While he looked at the tree, deep in thought, Dharma began to speak. "Helen... it's nice to see that you haven't changed."

Even though everyone around him came and went, Dharma was relieved to see that at least one of them still behaved as usual.

Helen was surprised, but quickly recognized the mood and calmed down.

Then she spoke too and looked at the tree.

"You too..." For the first time in the entire conversation, Helen said what she honestly felt 

The two of them then continued their conversation in a relaxed manner.




...




Meanwhile, at the Celebration




'Where the hell is the little runt?'

Master Zen had been waiting for almost half an hour for the little bastard he had sent for a little rest.

'Is he planning to pin all this talk on me or something?'

He started to get slightly annoyed and looked towards the table where the Rousseau clan was, which was his only guess as to where he was from.

"?"

Master Zen was surprised. He obviously didn't expect his guess to be wrong.

'What a hassle.' Then he clasped his hands together and closed his eyes.

'Let's see where our runt is hiding,' he thought. 

Then he spread his spirituality throughout the large celebration hall, but soon his eyes widened in surprise.

"What is this?" Master Zen went into a state of alarm, but not, interestingly, because he could not find the dharma.

He looked around, and after confirming that every important person present at the celebration was still there, he began to brood.

As Master Zen spread his spirituality around, trying to find the brat named Dharma, he noticed something interesting.

The Troops normally stationed around the Temple...there was something wrong with them.

Maybe if someone else had spread their perception they wouldn't have seen any difference, but Master Zen knew, something was wrong.

The guards around the perimeter were still holding their positions, waiting in perfect stillness, although this was what they had been taught to do, that was the strange thing.

That perfection... was too perfect.

Chapter end