“Oscar!”
The cry rang out. My mother, who usually detested loud voices in the house—claiming they were noisy and irritating—suddenly shouted as she rushed to me in an instant.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Does anything ache?”
Her hands, fumbling as they swept over my face and body, trembled in a way they never did before. But I was fine… thanks to the servants who had thrown themselves down in layers beneath me. I nodded to show I was unharmed when—
“I’m sorry.”
It was Erhan, speaking carefully from behind Mother.
Leaning on her arm for support, I rolled my eyes to look at him.
“I was just so happy and surprised that you called my name…”
“Oh, no. I was surprised too. It’s the first time Oscar has ever called someone’s name like that. You must have been even more startled.”
…It made sense for Mother to be surprised, but Erhan? Why should he feel joy or shock just because he heard my voice for the first time today?
Yet my doubt was met with Erhan hurrying over, bowing his head again and again, repeating how terribly sorry he was.
“Goodness, are you really all right? You didn’t get hurt anywhere?”
The Marquis too rushed toward me, eyes wide with worry, joining Mother in checking over my body. Their faces showed nothing but concern.
This isn’t something worth all this attention.
If I had actually been injured, maybe. But with no harm done, being surrounded and smothered with worry was bewildering and overwhelming. I opened my mouth, unsure of what to say—when something peculiar caught my eye.
That angel-faced Erhan.
Taking advantage of the confusion, he wiped the hand I had just held against his pants.
Even now, as he pretended to fuss over me, it was the same.
Though he poured out words of regret and concern, his hands only circled awkwardly in the air, never once brushing against me, as if even by accident. It was as if touching me would spread some disease.
As I stared at him, trying to decide whether this unsettling impression was real or imagined, he asked quietly:
“Can you forgive me?”
Ah. Now I understood.
That sense of wrongness I had felt from the beginning.
“We’re brothers now.”
Even as he spoke those words, his brows lowered in a show of gentleness, the gaze fixed on me was brimming with hostility. It wasn’t hard to realize.
Erhan hates me.
I wasn’t such a fool as to feel hurt by it. Seen from an adult’s perspective, it was only natural for Erhan not to welcome me, the sudden intruder into his life.
What worried me was that I might end up spending half my life in this house… and the fact that Erhan’s age and status within the family placed him far above me.
Will he bully me?
He seemed sharp and clever enough not to torment me recklessly—but I couldn’t be sure. For now, as a child, his hostility showed plainly. But as he grew older, it would surely become more cunning. Would I be able to endure it then? With this weak body of mine?
“Well then, Erhan, show Oscar to his room.”
The Marquis, oblivious to my anxieties, entrusted me directly to the boy who disliked me.
At those words, I turned to look at Erhan. Sure enough, a faint crack appeared between his brows, subtle enough that only I barely noticed it.
“Yes, Father.”
His reply was the picture of politeness, though the distance between them was palpable.
Were it not for the identical hair and eye color, one might not even think the two were family.
What on earth was going on with them?
The Marquis didn’t seem like a bad man. And Erhan—apart from disliking me—seemed good-natured as well.
Could it be something to do with the late Marchioness?
As far as I knew, the Marquis’s first wife had passed away. How, I had never heard, and in this Serpentine household where the servants kept their mouths sealed, no one else seemed to know the details either.
While I studied their strained way of addressing one another, Erhan smoothed over his expression.
He offered me a hand with a smile as if painted on.
“Shall we go then, Oscar?”
His voice was gentle, careful to a fault, and his movements cautious. He held out his hand—but I hesitated instead of taking it.
A child who knew nothing might have grabbed it right away. But though my body was young, my mind was older, and I wasn’t slow on the uptake.
He hated touching me.
Even for the briefest moment, he had recoiled from contact with me. If I took that hand now, there would be trouble.
Just look at his gray eyes now, cool and sunken as I wavered. How could I possibly take that hand?
I was still racking my brain for a way to avoid offending him while escaping this situation when Mother, who had been speaking with the Marquis, turned her eyes toward me.
“Oscar?”
For her, I was always the priority.
Even in the middle of important discussions with the Marquis or anyone else, Mother always gave me her first attention. She had quickly sensed my reluctance and Erhan’s stiffness, and now she came toward us.
“What’s wrong?”
If only it had been just her gaze. But the Marquis too, pulled from his conversation, looked at us. His gray eyes—so like Erhan’s—swept over me once, then over Erhan, and he sighed softly as though he understood.
“Oscar, are you afraid of Erhan?”
Afraid?
Was it that obvious? With a body this weak, how could I not be afraid of the young heir who would succeed the Marquis?
But I wasn’t about to admit it. Instead, I stared back at him, my hands clenching and unclenching, sweat prickling from nerves. I worried that perhaps, as a practitioner of curses or sorcery, he might somehow read my thoughts. But no—it didn’t seem so.
“Erhan. You pushed him and made him afraid.”
He hadn’t seen into my mind, just inferred it from the situation—assuming the shock of being shoved (onto the servants, really) had frightened me.
Still, what stunned me wasn’t his words but his manner.
“Do I have to spell out everything for you? You should have apologized already and made amends. Hurry and apologize to Oscar.”
Though his tone was gentle, his voice dripped with coldness, his expression downright frigid. At that look, even though his reproach wasn’t aimed at me, my breath caught in my throat.
“Now.”
Was this really the same Marquis Serpentine who had been so kind to Mother and me? The same man who had fidgeted awkwardly with his collar just to endure her presence?
This is going too far.
Startled by the Marquis’s scolding, I couldn’t hide my confusion and looked to Erhan. He only clenched his fists tighter, showing no reaction. No—he couldn’t show any.
Because the force radiating from the Marquis was not something a child could withstand.
Though his words were soft, the icy warning in his gaze was crushingly heavy—even I could feel it.
He’s scared.
It wasn’t limited to me; his own son wasn’t spared. Erhan’s face, which had been smiling moments ago, went utterly pale. His body trembled, not just from fear but from sheer inability to endure it.
Perhaps the Marquis was far stricter than I had imagined.
Despite the timid, gloomy first impression, he hadn’t taken his position lightly.
At least he’s trying to look out for me…
I couldn’t know his true feelings, but one thing was clear: toward me, at least, he was favorable. When our eyes met, he gave me a warm smile, as if the icy aura had never been. But as soon as his gaze shifted behind me, it was cold as death once more.
Erhan didn’t move at all.
He could have just apologized and ended it, but perhaps his pride wouldn’t allow it. His lips were pressed into a tight line, his eyes fixed on the floor.
Watching him, the Marquis called his name in a voice like steel.
“Erhan Serpentine.”