~Chapter 34~
The dolls, who had been about to start their work with terrifying tools, suddenly stopped moving.
“What’s the problem?”
“Why? Why?”
Hearing their questions, I smiled gently.
“If you turn me into a doll, I won’t be able to hold you warmly in my arms like this anymore, will I?”
The fabric, wax, or porcelain that made up the dolls couldn’t transmit the warmth that a human body could.
What these dolls wanted was definitely human warmth.
“Th-that’s…”
The dolls at my feet started to get uneasy.
“I won’t be able to hold your hands tightly and warm you with my heat.”
Clink.
A small doll holding a pair of scissors, about the size of its body, dropped them in shock, mouth slightly open.
“Are you really okay with this?”
“Y-yeah…”
Some of the dolls, looking distressed, raised both hands above their heads, as if unsure what to do.
“I don’t want it, I don’t want it…”
“I don’t want to not be hugged…”
“What should we do…?”
Several dolls with glassy eyes, shedding tears like drops of rain, started crying too.
Seeing the confusion among the dolls under her command, the pink dress doll furrowed her brow and yelled at them.
“What’s going on?! Are you tricking us?! We can’t let this happen!”
“But…!”
“Uwaaa!”
The first to burst into tears was a baby doll in a light blue outfit, who jumped forward.
The baby doll pushed aside all the dolls holding my arms and legs and clung to my leg.
“Don’t, don’t… You have to hug me…!”
“Uwaaa!”
Seeing the baby doll cry, all the other dolls began crying too.
They dropped their knives, weapons, and anything sharp, and freed me from the chair.
Then, they clung to my arms and legs, sobbing.
“This isn’t right…”
Even the pink dress doll, who had been maintaining her charisma, started to wrinkle her face and was on the verge of crying too.
“This… this isn’t right… sniffle… sob…”
She finally couldn’t hold back any longer and burst into tears.
“Uwaaa! Why isn’t anyone listening to me?!”
She patted the backs of the dolls crying while clinging to me.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! It’s because you didn’t listen to me! We’ll never find our Queen again, huhu…”
After carefully making sure the sharp objects were out of reach of the dolls, I stood up from the chair.
“Alright, hush, hush, no more crying!”
I started hugging each crying doll one by one.
“Sniff… hic… sniff…”
“I… me too…”
The dolls in my arms slowly stopped crying and hiccupped, their faces covered in tears and snot.
The dolls who hadn’t been hugged yet waved their arms, begging to be held.
I continued hugging, comforting them, and wiping their faces with a handkerchief until their sobbing gradually stopped.
“Okay, next, the ones I haven’t hugged…”
Boom.
The loud noise made the crying dolls scramble and run in panic.
“Kyaaah!”
“What’s that?!”
As the dust settled, I saw a huge hole in the wall.
From the hole, a very familiar black tendril ominously stretched out.
“Oh no!”
“Protect the Queen!”
The dolls stopped crying and surrounded me with open arms, trying to shield me from the black tendril’s attack.
‘Why?’
Just as I was wondering, a familiar silhouette appeared from the hole.
“Damien!”
He was glaring at this scene with a cold expression, and from him, dark curses were visibly writhing.
It was clear—he was furious.
“Give me back my wife.”
Despite their fear, the dolls trembled but shook their heads.
“No! Don’t hurt our Queen!”
“Yeah, don’t hurt her!”
The dolls threw whatever they could find—pebbles, slingshots, paper balls—at Damien.
But their short arms couldn’t reach him.
“Who’s hurting who?”
Damien narrowed his eyes and asked.
“Wait a minute.”
I quickly stood up to mediate before things escalated.
In the meantime, Damien moved.
With a whoosh, I felt a rush of wind and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, I was already in Damien’s arms.
“Huh? Ah…”
The dolls, who had just freed me, now looked at Damien, holding me, with defeated expressions.
“Our Queen is gone…”
“Ugh…”
The dolls mumbled with their shoulders slumped.
“Ruby, are you okay?”
Gone was the threatening aura; now his voice and gaze were gentle and kind.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m not hurt. But what about that curse?”
“I had to use it to break their barrier.”
Damien glared at the dolls surrounding the throne.
“I’ll destroy it right now. These curses are too dangerous.”
“No, wait.”
I took his hand before he could act.
His expression softened, and he looked at me with much more calmness than before.
The curses extending from his eyes dissipated into the air with a faint sound.
“I want to talk to those kids.”
Damien stared at me in silence, as if unsure why I was stopping him.
“Why do you want to talk to them?”
“Those kids really tried to protect me. You saw it earlier.”
Damien, who had been staring down at me in his arms, finally set me back on the ground.
“I’ll give you a moment.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t let go of his hand as I approached the dolls who were still sobbing.
The first one I noticed was the blonde doll in the pink dress, the one who had started all this.
“Hmph, I hate you.”
The moment she caught my gaze, she turned her head sharply.
Crossing her arms, she refused to look back at me.
“You’re never coming back, right?”
“No.”
I kneeled to their level and spoke.
“If you let me stay human, I’ll keep coming to see you.”
“That’s a lie.”
The girl shook her head.
“All humans are liars. You’ll do the same.”
“Why do you think humans are liars?”
A doll raised its hand to speak.
“Humans always say they’ll love us forever when they buy us!”
“Yeah, they say they’ll stay with us.”
“They said we’ll sleep together forever!”
“But then they abandon us.”
“I was left on the street.”
“Eventually, they don’t even look at us.”
The more I heard, the more my heart ached.
These dolls, who loved humans more than anyone, had been hurt by human fickleness.
“And humans are too weak.”
The doll dressed as a mailman spoke.
“Too weak?”
“Yeah. After about 100 years, they get sick.”
“They said they’d stay forever.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I fell silent.
Some owners did love their dolls until the very end, but their lifespans were different from the dolls’, and the ones left behind evolved into curses due to the painful longing.
“…My name is Emily.”
Finally, the pink dress doll spoke, the one who had been silent all this time.
“My owner’s name was Emily.”
“…I see.”
“I played with Emily every day. Emily would kiss me on the cheek every day.”
Tears welled up in the eyes of Emily, the pink dress doll.
“Emily always said we should keep playing together. She said I was the prettiest.”
“…Yeah.”
“But Emily…”
Tears started to fall heavily from Emily’s eyes.
“She died when she was thirteen.”
