I Start with a Bad Hand!

Despite meeting after several refusals, Godwin maintained a neat and polite demeanor. However, she seemed to have little interest in Cedric, her nephew and the child of her sister. This lack of interest put Cedric in a state of inexplicable anxiety.

When asked why she had visited the empire after such a long time, Godwin gave an unexpected answer.

“I just thought of Rosamund after hearing news from the empire.”

Not as the Duchess of Elexion or the former Duchess, but simply Rosamund. It had been a long time since he had heard his mother’s name. Cedric’s heart swelled with longing. Godwin sipped her tea and continued.

“I heard that a girl won the imperial autumn hunting competition for the first time in nearly 20 years. Rosamund won the hunting competition at that age too.”

It’s her again.

The feeling that had swelled within him deflated, sinking into the mire.

Every time the pressure of the situation intensified, and whenever he suddenly realized that autumn had arrived, nightmares came. Nightmares of his mother slowly walking into the burning mansion, the kind of nightmares that left him on edge all day. These nightmares were getting worse. When he was younger, his mother would slowly turn around to look at him if he called out to her. But her face had been getting blurrier. In the most recent dream, his mother didn’t look at him at all as she walked into the flames.

“If I go back to the duke’s mansion and look at my mother’s portrait, or even the veiled painting in the basement, will she look back at me?”

He didn’t know. This was how Cedric spent sleepless nights, tormented by these chronic nightmares.

“Caw, caw, caw, caw. Caw. Hey, stop lying!”

“Ha ha ha, I’m serious!”

It was during one of the rare moments he had fallen into a light sleep. Laughter floated through the dormitory window. At first, he thought it was a mad crow, but the continued conversation made Cedric get up roughly. Irritated, he opened the window to see who was talking so loudly in the quiet academy. He saw hair glimmering and swaying in his view.

The person speaking brightly hadn’t noticed Cedric was watching. The wind blew her hair across her face, obscuring it. Slowly, the billowing veil of hair clouded his vision. Then, as she brushed her hair back, her face came into view. It was Dietrich, smiling brightly with an expression he had never seen before.

Dietrich’s face, which had been pale like that of a dead person, was now full of color. Lightly flushed red cheeks, eyes brimming with tears from laughter, and hair shimmering in the sunlight—all of this combined to breathe unexpected life into her. A different kind of resonance, unlike anything he had felt before, brushed against Cedric’s heart as if engraving itself there.

The figure, who always seemed to float detached from this world, now blended into the greenery of the campus. Cedric couldn’t take his eyes off her. His emotions, thick and sticky, held his gaze.

There was anger at seeing Dietrich laughing without a care. In truth, from the moment he saw her well-kept hair, he had guessed who it was, yet he couldn’t look away, leading to a subtle self-contempt. And… longing.

The warm feeling rising in Cedric’s chest was brought on by a smile that reminded him of someone whose face he could no longer recall.

‘Perhaps she really is…’

So, if Roxanne hadn’t knocked on his door and entered, Cedric might have kept his eyes on Dietrich until she disappeared.

Cedric tried to erase the indelible impression from his mind. That was impossible. No matter what anyone said, his sister was Roxanne. From the moment he first saw her, Cedric had never doubted this fact.

“Brother, what are you looking at?”

“…Nothing.”

Roxanne followed Cedric’s gaze out the window. She quickly identified the subject of his attention. The girl whom Cedric, who was usually more than just cold and guarded around anyone other than family, could never take his eyes off. The one who always pushed him away with an awkward smile whenever he approached.

Roxanne now watched Dietrich’s back until she turned a corner and disappeared completely.

***

“I’m okay now.”

“If you collapse again… It’s dangerous since most of the students are gone now that classes are over.”

Despite that, Icarus insisted on escorting me all the way to the dormitory. As I stood in front of the dormitory door, I hesitated for a moment before opening it. The visual shock of the black hair was unsettling, even though I knew it came from the body I had borrowed.

‘Oh, what a hassle because of one crazy person.’

I quietly grasped the doorknob and then asked Icarus, “Would you like to have some tea before you go?”

Icarus looked at me in surprise, then nodded with that blank look on his face. I let him in first. The room was unchanged. I needed to break this habit of feeling relieved at such things. I sighed and followed him in.

As soon as Icarus entered, he started fiddling with various things, exploring the room. He soon reached the window and let out a groan.

“Did you really stick this on the window?”

It was my portrait, drawn by Icarus, full of good intentions but poorly executed.

“Does it really keep thieves away?”

“Yes, it seems to be effective. At least for now.”

I shrugged and laughed, and Icarus glared at the picture briefly before stepping closer to me.

“I’ll redraw it later.”

“Sure, I’ll look forward to it.”

When I looked up at him to ask what kind of tea he liked so I could start boiling water, he shook his head while silently gazing at me.

“You don’t look well. It’s better if I leave for now.”

He added that he didn’t have a hobby of being served by a sick person, so he hoped for another invitation later. Icarus led me to the bed and made me sit down before heading to the door. He grasped the doorknob, hesitated for a moment, and then spoke in a whisper.

“…Take care.”

Even though he had only been there for a short while, Icarus’s scent lingered faintly in the air.

***

From a distance, there’s nothing more entertaining than a love quarrel, but up close, nothing is more unsightly. Those involved in a love entanglement drag everyone nearby into their mess just by being close.

That’s what I felt as I witnessed Hayden Saturn in a fierce argument with an unfamiliar student after a long time.

Just as I turned the corner, the hallway had been quiet, save for the occasional murmuring conversation. But as I passed the middle, the noise began to grow louder.

At first, I just thought, ‘It’s a bit noisy,’ as I headed to the classroom. However, what seemed like a simple conversation between two people quickly escalated into something more dramatic.

“Because of your irresponsible love, I ended up looking like a fool, you know that?”

‘Oh dear… What kind of love was that…?’

“Don’t talk about my feelings like that. I’ve never been anything but sincere with you.”

That voice sounded familiar. When I looked up towards the sound, I saw lightly curly brown hair.

There was Hayden, with a serious expression I had never seen before, speaking to the victim of his irresponsible love.

“That girl just liked you as much as I did.”

‘Oh my… What is he doing?’

The girl, who had been breathing heavily in anger, suddenly stopped. It was like the calm before the storm, and I decided to hurry past the scene of this crazy love drama.

“…Trash.”

The girl, with a tear-streaked face, glared at Hayden before slapping him hard across the face. Smack! He didn’t even flinch, as if he knew he deserved it. But it didn’t stop there. She slapped him two more times. Smack! Smack!

‘Wow…’

The problem was that Hayden staggered at the end of those slaps. He didn’t expect the second and third blows, and he lost his balance, stumbling backward right towards me as I was passing by. My gaze involuntarily followed him as he fell.

“Oh, Dietrich.”

You cut your hair, huh?

If you fall, you should get up right away, why make small talk? Hayden’s dark brown eyes were filled with an odd delight. Reflexively turning my head away, I saw the girl’s face, which had distanced itself, contort from contempt to outright disgust.

“Oh… Yes.”