“Waowng.”
I meowed softly and approached the desk. Gathering strength in my hind legs, I sprang onto it.
The boy looked at me in surprise.
“...Did you come over to see me?”
I settled down beside his book and gently bumped my head against his arm, letting him know he could pet me.
His face lit up with the brightest smile I’d seen from him yet. He put down his book and cautiously reached out to rest a hand on my head.
“...You’re so soft.”
Luiden smiled innocently as he gently stroked my fur.
“This is the first time my brother has ever brought an animal home. Actually... we’ve never had any pets at the estate.”
Despite looking like such a quiet, well-behaved boy, Luiden was surprisingly talkative. He chattered away to me in a soft voice, and it was honestly adorable.
“I’ve always been jealous of the boys from other noble families because they have dogs or cats.”
“...”
“I don’t know how long you’ll be staying, but... I’ll take good care of you.”
Oh, right. He doesn’t know I’m leaving tomorrow.
Raymon had only told him he’d be looking after me for a little while. He hadn’t mentioned that I was leaving the next day.
I looked at the boy.
“Are you hungry?”
Luiden tilted his head with a lovely smile.
Come to think of it, this boy looked a little like Lippert.
The male lead and Lippert didn’t resemble each other at all, apart from their eye color, but there was something about the youngest brother that reminded me of him.
Wait a second. Why the hell am I thinking about that guy?
I shook my head rapidly, as though I could physically shake the face that had popped into my mind right back out.
“Maong.”
Belatedly answering that I wasn’t hungry, I jumped down from the desk.
Luiden immediately climbed off his chair and followed me.
“Where are you going?”
“Myaong.”
“Do you want to play tag?”
“Maong.”
We spent some time chasing each other around the spacious room.
Well, technically, I was humoring him.
By the time the sun began to set, Raymon had returned to the estate.
Luiden approached him with an excited expression, holding me tightly in his arms.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yes!”
“Then it’s time to go downstairs for dinner.”
Raymon spoke in his usual reserved but gentle tone and reached out to take me from Luiden.
The boy tightened his arms around me.
“...Are you taking him away?”
Apparently, he’d already grown attached to me after spending just a little time together.
“...Brother. I want to spend more time with Roro. We’ve only just become friends.”
“Roro has to go back to his owner tomorrow morning.”
“Oh...”
Luiden looked down at me, his face falling.
“Then... please let me sleep with him tonight. Just for tonight.”
With his little brother pleading like that, even Raymon seemed to have trouble refusing him outright.
As he fell silent, apparently considering the request, I immediately rubbed my forehead against Luiden’s chin.
“Myaaaang.”
Yeah, I’m sleeping with your little brother tonight.
I’d much rather share a room with a kid than sleep in the same room as another grown man. That would be a hundred times less awkward.
Besides, things were still a little uncomfortable between Raymon and me.
With me joining in the appeal, Raymon finally nodded.
“All right. But make sure you lock the door and windows before you go to sleep. And don’t take off his collar.”
The boy’s face instantly brightened.
“Yes!”
******
After eating our fill at dinner, Luiden and I spent the rest of the evening in his bedroom.
Having changed into his pajamas, Luiden looked incredibly excited about sleeping with a cat for the first time.
When night fell, he climbed onto his bed and sat down.
I settled beside him and began kneading the covers, pressing my paws into the fabric until I’d made myself a comfortable place to lie down.
But now that bedtime had actually arrived, Luiden seemed reluctant to let the evening end. His earlier excitement faded into a quieter mood.
He looked down at me with a faint smile.
“We’ll have to say goodbye tomorrow... but I’ll never forget you.”
Why is a nine-year-old getting so sentimental?
I felt like I’d somehow become the protagonist of a heartbreaking romance drama.
“Roro. You mustn’t forget me either.”
“Maong.”
“...Oh! That’s right!”
Luiden suddenly sprang out of bed.
What’s gotten into you?
I hopped down after him.
“I want to give you a present. Could you wait here for a moment?”
Apparently, he wanted to give me a farewell gift.
Luiden rummaged around in his wardrobe and pulled out a box.
“This is my treasure chest. I keep all the treasures I’ve found in here.”
He smiled brightly as he opened the lid.
The box was full of objects that offered a pretty good glimpse into the boy’s personal tastes.
“Weowng?”
What’s this?
I tapped the first thing that caught my attention with my front paw: a white pebble.
Luiden immediately explained.
“Are you curious about that? I found it when I was eight. It’s white and looks like a pearl, doesn’t it? It sparkles when the sunlight hits it.”
That reminds me of a certain little rock collector with a runny nose.
And this?
Whenever I pointed at something with my paw, the boy eagerly explained what it was, one item after another.
“A close friend gave me this for my birthday. It’s a ring. He said he took it out of his mother’s jewelry box.”
...That kid needs a good scolding. And you shouldn’t be accepting things like that so casually, either.
“I found this in the garden. Isn’t it a pretty feather? I asked my tutor about it, and he said it probably came from a blue-billed bird.”
I stuck my head farther into the box.
A diary caught my eye.
Luiden seemed to notice it at the same time, because he immediately took it out and began explaining.
“Oh, this! I found it when I was seven, while I was exploring the annex.”
The leather cover was worn and frayed. One glance was enough to tell that the diary was old.
“I think it was written by a child younger than me. But I don’t know who wrote it...”
Luiden lowered his voice, as though he were sharing a secret.
“I asked my nanny if a little child had ever lived in the annex... I’d never seen her look so startled before.”
“...”
“She told me I must never tell my parents or anyone else about it. So I’ve been secretly keeping it.”
The boy was certain that the diary must have been precious to someone, considering how carefully it had been hidden away like a treasure in one of the rooms of the annex.
“If I ever meet the person it belongs to, I’ll make sure to give it back.”
With that, Luiden returned the diary to the box and took out something else.
“...Oh, here it is. Roro, I want you to have this.”
It was a slender silver bracelet set with a small blue gemstone.
Luiden slipped the bracelet around my neck.
My neck is the same size as a human wrist?
That was a little shocking.
“Whenever you look at this, I want you to remember me. All right?”
“Maong.”
I now had a bracelet around my neck like a choker, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
Luiden yawned sleepily.
He hid his treasure chest deep inside the wardrobe, then headed back to bed.
I followed him and climbed onto the mattress.
When I lay down in the spot I’d picked out earlier, Luiden gently stroked my head with his little hand.
“Good night.”
A moment later, he lay down properly and closed his eyes.
Once Luiden was fast asleep, I quietly got to my feet in the darkness.
I pushed the slightly open wardrobe door farther aside with my head and approached the treasure chest hidden in the corner.
Opening the lid was easy enough.
I pulled out the diary from the bottom of the box and opened it.
[Mother’s illness has gotten worse. She coughs every day. I hope Mother gets better soon.]
The handwriting was clumsy and uneven, as though it had been written by a young child.
The ink had also spread across the paper in several places, leaving many of the sentences illegible.
[I couldn’t go to my lessons today. ... said I wasn’t allowed to leave the annex today.]
[I overheard ... talking. I think it’s another child’s birthday.]
[Father didn’t come today. I waited and waited, but... I’m a little angry with him. No, I’m very angry with him.]
[I don’t want to live here anymore. I want to leave. If I can get out, I’ll study even harder. Then I want to make Mother happy.]
As I turned the pages one by one, I grew increasingly certain of who had written this diary.
...I had a feeling.
Who would have thought the youngest son of this family was keeping a diary written by Lippert when he was a child?
This hadn’t been in the webtoon.
Reading those words, filled with a young child’s anxiety and confusion, made my conscience prick at me.
I closed the diary before I’d finished reading it.
...Maybe I shouldn’t have looked.
Knowing what I did about Lippert’s past only made me feel more conflicted.
As would eventually be revealed, Lippert was actually the male lead’s older half-brother.
To the outside world, Raymon was known as the eldest son of the ducal family.
In reality, however, the duke had a secret firstborn child.
And that child was Lippert.
After Lippert’s death, the webtoon briefly revealed his past in a two-chapter flashback.
To sum it up, this was what had happened.
Before the current Duke of Dekalen inherited his title, back when he was still the future duke, he had fallen in love with a woman as though it were fate.
That woman was Lippert’s mother.
The two loved each other and even had their first child together, but because Lippert’s mother was of low social standing, she could not become his lawful wife.
When Lippert was two years old, his father inherited the dukedom and entered into a political marriage.
In other words, he officially announced that he would be marrying a woman from another noble family instead of Lippert’s mother.
That woman was the current duchess, the male lead’s mother.