After Story: A Bouquet of Happiness Just for You
THE Director’s Office’s private interrogation room was so quiet you could’ve heard crickets chirping. In other words, the world was relatively peaceful, and they didn’t have any major cases at the moment.
Even so, Ophelia cleaned the interrogation room regularly, so it was always ready to be used at a moment’s notice. When she was done with that, she sat in a chair and worked on some embroidery for a bit. If her coworkers caught her doing that, she worried they’d accuse her of slacking off on the job, but no one ever came to this room unless there was an interrogation. As a result, the Director’s Office’s private interrogation room had also started serving double duty as Ophelia’s private breakroom.
Ophelia sat in a chair in a shaded spot in front of the table, which dominated the center of the room, and carefully pierced the cloth with her needle. She’d been using this embroidery hoop since she was a child, so it felt familiar in her hands by this point.
Ophelia, who’d hardly had any friends and couldn’t go to school, had spent many days embroidering from morning until night. It wasn’t a hobby she’d taken up because she particularly enjoyed it, but after spending so many years doing it, she couldn’t deny that she’d gotten pretty good at it. The handkerchiefs she’d embroidered for the Director’s Office staff as parting gifts had turned out even better than she’d hoped.
If you think of the recipient while embroidering, your feelings will be conveyed to them.
With this in mind, Ophelia diligently sewed her heart into each and every stitch. It took much longer than moving her hands on autopilot would have, but the sense of achievement with the finished result was worth it.
“All right, it’s done!”
There weren’t any snags or strange wrinkles in the fabric. It was a job well done. Ophelia carefully folded the cloth and tucked it into the brown bag that contained her embroidery tools. Then she took out a small notebook.
Despite giving her pen free rein to run across the page, doodling everything that came to mind, Ophelia couldn’t come up with an embroidery design. She’d been worrying over it for a while now, but every idea she hit upon was quickly discarded. Nothing felt right. Ophelia set the pen down and braced her chin in both hands, elbows propped up on the table, then closed her eyes.
There was still half a year left until her engagement with Claudio would become official. Frankly, the whole idea still terrified her a bit, but with the support of those around her, she’d decided to try and make her peace with it. She had her family and her coworkers, and even Gian and Stella on her side. With such strong allies, she had a feeling that everything would work out somehow. But there was one thing that still bothered Ophelia…
She still hadn’t told Claudio her feelings yet.
Of course, she loved him, but whenever she was actually in front of him, looking up at his beautiful face, only nonsensical babble came out, so she couldn’t convey all that she wanted to.
Which was why she’d decided to express her feelings for Claudio through embroidery. If she couldn’t put it into words, she wanted to give him a present that she’d put her whole heart into. With how perceptive Claudio was, he would understand for sure.
Claudio had taken the day off work because he had to perform in his role as a duke. Ophelia thought that this would be the perfect chance to brainstorm without becoming flustered by his presence. And yet, although she sketched out every idea that came to her, none of them was quite what she was looking for. Before she knew it, sunlight had already encroached on more than half of the previously entirely shaded table. Ophelia quickly tossed the notebook into her bag and rushed out of the interrogation room.