“Little one, you seem to have a talent for business, but your common sense is laughable… You can’t go around saying things like that these days. Do you know how long ago the empire abolished slavery? Over ten years ago.”

“Really? But I was sold here. So was he.”

Glen regretted not picking a fight with the young masters earlier. They were working children like these as sl*ves? He should have hit them. Aristocrats or not, he should have landed an ethics punch and an equality kick right on them.

“Anyway, if you’re family, are the two of you siblings? You look nothing alike for that.”

‘And that little one over there looks distinctly unhappy about the word family.’

Glen looked at the boy, whose expression had turned sour since a moment ago.

“Yes. We have different mothers and fathers. But we’re family.”

‘There must be some complicated history there.’

He decided not to dig into it. It had always been wiser not to pry too deeply into other people’s money or family affairs.

Whoosh.

A summer breeze carrying a faint humidity drifted between them.

Swaying tree shade, sunlight that had grown hot by now settling over Glen’s deep navy hair.

‘Children who can’t be more than ten years old, and already tangled up in an outdated class system.’

He looked up again at the tree stretching high into the sky.

Rosewood. Too fine a thing to be spending its life rooted here just to decorate a Manor.

‘This tree and these children alike have taken root in entirely the wrong place.’

A vast and wealthy Manor. Shadows as wide and deep as the height they had been built to.

Insufferable aristocrats who had clearly been raised with great care, and scrawny, grubby little children.

“…Hey, little one.”

“Yes?”

“Later… that is, a few years from now.”

Glen ran a hand over the back of his head and continued.

“When I become head of the trading company and I’m old enough to take responsibility for people… I’ll make you a member of my family.”

“You mean you’ll become family to me and Cedar?”

“Hmm, I suppose that’s what it comes down to.”

Glen scratched his head.

Strictly speaking, he meant he would give them a job at the trading company. He thought so himself, and Rainesfield’s benefits were the best around.

‘The meaning is a little different, but our company does think of all its employees as family.’

“Can that be called family… Sure, why not. I’ll make you family.”

“Hooray!”

The girl leapt into the air at a promise that was nothing more than words.

The girl’s laughter scattered on the wind, and as the swaying tree shade cast a shadow across her face for a moment, Glen’s gaze landed on Cedarwood.

The boy who had been doing nothing but following along, pulled by the girl’s hand like a doll. Those eyes that had been watching Glen with wariness were now gleaming with open hostility.

It had started, unmistakably, from the moment the word family had left Glen’s mouth.

‘So no matter how I think about it…’

“You’ll fall. Come here.”

Cedarwood said it quietly and slowly drew the rejoicing girl behind him.

‘…This little one seems to dislike the word family.’

Glen stroked his chin as he watched the two children bicker.

⊹ ☼ ⊹

‘Now I know why that boy was like that back then, but who could have known it at the time.’

That those two grubby little children had been the Manor’s young lady and her manservant. Glen let out a small sigh looking at the young lady who had grown up so quickly before his eyes.

“…Why are you staring at me like that?”

“No reason.”

Well, he could admit that to a manservant, his words “I’ll make you family” would have sounded like a declaration of “I’m going to steal your young lady from now on.” But Glen Raines was genuinely aggrieved.

If he had known the little one he met that day was the Manor’s young lady. No, before that even. If he had known that Cedarwood Carlisle had been devoted to Lanen Rockefeller from the time he was still that small boy.

If he had had any inkling that after those words, Cedarwood would come to see him as a rival.

“I would never have said anything about family to you either.”

“Not you too…”

Lanen murmured weakly, having lost two family members in a single day.

“So, little one. As for when exactly Cedarwood stopped thinking of you as family.”

In other words, as for when exactly that man had been rotten from the start, probably.

“From the very beginning, I’d say.”

Haaa. Lanen buried her face in her hands.

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

“What do you mean, what…”

It was an extremely serious matter from Lanen’s perspective, but Glen thought the sight of her agonizing looked like the frantic flailing of someone about to drown in a children’s paddling pool.

“What’s certain is this. Little one, it all depends on you.”

Because naturally, Lanen Rockefeller was the only person in existence who could resolve every problem Cedarwood Carlisle caused. The person to stop him when he was beating Nathan Rockefeller half to death? Lanen Rockefeller. The person to resolve it when he was wrestling with inner conflict and a profound existential crisis? Lanen Rockefeller. The person to stop him if he tried to bring the world to ruin? Lanen Rockefeller, of course.

“The way I see it… if you just tell him you want to leave here, I think he’ll let you go.”

Let her go and nothing more? He would personally bring the carriage around and escort her attentively all the way to wherever she wanted.

“What? That’s absurd. Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking. I’ve never been more serious.”

“If a single word could solve every problem, why would there be wars and conflicts between immigrants and native peoples in this world?”

Then why have the two of you been at war for ten years when you’re neither immigrants nor native peoples. Glen took a moment to breathe.

Honestly, the thick walls of this imprisonment she was agonizing over, and the walls of his abyss of a heart, could all be brought down with a single kiss from her. No, a kiss wasn’t even necessary. A wink would probably shatter them. He was certain of it.

“Just… try being honest.”

But how was he supposed to explain that? Even with his way with words, if he stuck his nose into ten years’ worth of tangled feelings, there was no telling how his own life might get tangled up in the process. Hadn’t he gotten himself into this very situation years ago with a single word, “family”?

A merchant’s first principle: never put up a guarantee on a deal that’s clearly going to cost you.

Glen set his jaw and placed a hand on Lanen’s shoulder.

“Lanen. Your relationship can’t get any worse than this. What I mean is, no matter what you do, it won’t get more disastrous than it already is.”

“What kind of comfort is that?”

“I’d like you to take this chance to really think carefully about your relationship, little one. And I think… you should allow yourself to act a little more boldly. No, make that, please do so if at all possible. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

Little one, you’re smart. Glen put all the earnestness and trust he could muster into his gaze, the way a dependable older brother would give his younger sibling love advice.

What is he on about? Lanen hadn’t been fully convinced at first, but she found herself drawn in by his sparkling eyes, and her own began to grow moist.

At last she made up her mind, clenching her fist with a resolute expression.

“All right. I mean, what’s worse than this? A complete falling-out?”

“Exactly.”

“Right, this time I’ll say it honestly.”

What I feel!

At her firm resolve, Glen dabbed at the corner of his eye with his sleeve.

Thank goodness, thank goodness. We’ll get out of this safely!

He looked at Lanen’s determined fist and felt a wave of relief he kept hidden from her. Once the two of them confirmed each other’s feelings, everything would be resolved.

Glen said his goodbyes to the days gone by, days spent tossed about in the storms and upheaval those two children had caused.

Relief for himself, farewell to the days of a breaking back!

“Yes, I’ll undo it.”

Cedarwood nodded without resistance at Lanen’s “undo it.” Having braced himself for at least a small argument, Lanen was left blank-faced by the unexpected compliance.

“R, really?”

“Yes. It’s your ‘order,’ after all.”

‘This easily? Is it really resolved?’

Just then, Lanen noticed Glen sending her a signal through the gap of the door, open a hand’s width.

A very simple gesture made with just the index finger and thumb. Roughly meaning “you’re the best” and “finish him off.” Lanen quietly raised one thumb in response to Glen’s encouragement.

‘Right, the fight isn’t over yet.’

Lanen, who had been biting her lip and hesitating, finally raised her head.

“Cedarwood, there’s something I want to say to you.”

Slightly moist eyes turned toward him with care, and a voice with the faintest tremor at its edges spoke his name.

The moment Cedarwood saw Lanen’s face, flushed red as an apple before he had even noticed, his eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise.

“Yes?”

Cedarwood’s throat moved in a small, quiet swallow.

‘Yes, yes!’

Glen, who had been chased out into the corridor, clenched a fist.

“…Yes, I’m listening.”

“I was afraid you’d go completely serious on me if I said this, so I swallowed it back down about… seven times. You can praise me for that.”

Something you want to say. Cedarwood looked quietly down at his young lady, whose face was blooming red. As always, she was so dear to him it made his chest ache.

But Cedarwood had just noticed that a moment ago, Lanen had unconsciously sent a “signal” in the direction of the corridor.

“I actually had a better script prepared… but I can’t remember any of it now. I practiced every night, which is honestly ridiculous. So please, even if I don’t say it well, bear with me. It’s genuinely rare for me to be this flustered.”

“Yes.”

The only person she had ever looked at with eyes that trusting, from the very beginning, was one person. The man with the long dark navy hair visible through the gap in the door. Glen Raines.

“Being with you, sometimes I get so frustrated I could scream, and there are times I genuinely think you’re the worst, and honestly I’ve thought about grabbing you by the collar. About… five times a day.”

“I see.”

Cedarwood, who had a habit of letting insults go in one ear and out the other, answered without much feeling and turned his head.

At that moment he caught his own cold, dead eyes reflected in the window.

Finally, at this very moment.

Cedarwood realized that he looked like a disposable villain wedged between two whispering lovers, there only to bring them closer together.

He gritted his teeth and began trying hard to focus on Lanen.

And to resist the urge to abandon Glen Raines on a deserted island where no one would ever find him. That was the kind of development that wouldn’t even appear in a third-rate play.

“But through all of that, I…”

“One moment, my lady. Before that.”

After a brief silence, he opened his mouth again.

“The part about undoing it. Glen advised you to say that, didn’t he?”

“Wh, what? Yes. How did you know?”

“Because you don’t give me orders.”

Is that so? Lanen scratched her head with a sheepish look.

“My lady… does what Glen tells her to do.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Lanen frowned with a look of disbelief.

Finally, at this very moment.

She had been about to confess the feelings she had been holding down for so long…

“Why is Glen coming up right now?”

A different man’s name, out of nowhere. It felt like a cousin had unexpectedly tagged along to a confession.

Lanen shot a resentful look at the back of Glen’s head.

‘It’s fine, it’s not like Cedar ruining a good moment is anything new.’

Lanen swallowed a sigh and rubbed the corner of her mouth with her fingertip.

The cold water he had thrown on the mood was already beyond salvaging, but he wasn’t the only one holding cold water.

‘I’m holding cold water too. In the form of a confession.’

Lanen put strength back into her feet and looked straight at him again.

“I’m confessing that I like you right now, Cedarwood.”

And splash. Lanen poured her confession over his handsome face.

Cedarwood blinked like someone who had just had a bucket of ice water dumped over their head.

Glen, who had been on the receiving end of pointed looks despite not being involved at all, clenched a fist again.

‘Yes, yes!’

The room, already quiet.

“…Was that Glen’s advice too?”

A cold current spread through the air between them.

‘We’re done for.’

Glen struck his own chest with his fist.