CHAPTER 1. A Dull Summer

In the early days of summer, when the sunlight was growing hotter by the day, the heat had arrived earlier than usual and spared not even the quiet villa in the kingdom’s north.

Rieta had arrived at the villa two days ago and downed glass after glass of chilled fruit juice. It wasn’t only because of the heat pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Eat plenty, sweetheart. You look a little thinner than last year.”

“I haven’t lost any weight.”

“You’re eating well at home, aren’t you? You can’t skip meals just because you don’t have an appetite.”

“Dad, honestly, I’m not ten years old.”

Though that was exactly the age she’d been separated from him.

Rieta gave a light shrug as she looked at the middle-aged man studying her with fond eyes. She wasn’t particularly small-framed or thin enough to warrant concern, yet her father checked on her eating habits every single summer.

“Well, it’s a relief if you’re eating well, but……”

“Cardmon, Rieta’s twenty this year. She can take care of herself. She’s a capable girl, isn’t she?”

Right?

The gaze that turned to her naturally made Rieta reach for her glass out of habit. The middle-aged woman with her red hair swept up elegantly waited for Rieta’s answer with a gentle smile. Unlike when she’d just gently put her husband in his place, her tone and expression were carefully measured.

Well, given the nature of their relationship, that was only natural.

Droplets slid down the surface of the glass where the ice had melted. Rieta swallowed a gulp of grape juice she couldn’t taste and nodded.

“Yes, well…… of course.”

“Ahem, is the food to your liking? Have you grown taller? I thought you were shorter than me when I saw you last year.”

“Yes, a little.”

The stilted conversation ran dry within a few minutes. Rieta hesitated briefly, wondering whether to say something, then added a pleasantry that would’ve been better left unsaid.

“……Thank you for your concern, Viscountess.”

“Viscountess? Really, I’ve told you to speak comfortably.”

“Mm……”

Comfortably… but how?

The middle-aged woman in front of her didn’t seem to have meant it as anything more than a polite formality, because she offered no suggestion of what Rieta should call her instead. She simply curved her lips with considerably more ease than Rieta could manage and resumed her meal.

Viscountess Merian Obrion.

A noblewoman who’d held her place firmly even in an era when commoners entered parliament and had private audiences with the king, her character was unpretentious and warm despite her polished appearance. Of course, what mattered to Rieta wasn’t the Viscountess’s rank or personality.

She was the woman her father had remarried.

Rieta’s parents had legally separated the year she turned ten. There’d been a long, drawn-out string of conflicts leading up to it, but… none of that mattered much anymore, so she’d set it aside.

Unlike her mother, who’d thrown herself entirely into work without a single relationship after the divorce, her father had married someone new within less than a year. The two were so devoted to each other that before long, they’d had a daughter who was the spitting image of the Viscountess.

In any case, a divorce between parents didn’t mean the children had to sever ties, so Rieta spent her summers with her father. More precisely, with her father, his new wife, her half-sister, and… her one and only twin.

“Riet, let’s take a walk later. I found a nice path before you arrived.”

“Sure.”

Eyes that mirrored Rieta’s own curved in an unhurried smile. Her lips, stiffly set until now, finally softened at the familiar suggestion.

It was because of her twin, her soul’s other half, that she could endure being among these members of a family that wasn’t quite hers.

Rieta smiled faintly as she watched the face beside her picking peas off the plate, just like when they were little. Right, even if no one else understood, the time she’d spend with Viola was something she’d always longed for.

Black hair falling to the waist, blue eyes, pale skin, round-toed shoes tapping lightly against the carpet. Rieta quietly compared the Viola of last year to the Viola sitting beside her now. The throat bobbing up and down with each swallow was exactly as she remembered.

The tension in her shoulders gradually eased. With the most relaxed expression she’d worn since arriving, Rieta whispered softly.

“What should we do after the walk? This is our last summer like this, you know.”

“Our lives are long enough. Surely it won’t be the last?”

“We’ve both graduated now.”

On top of that, Rieta was set to start working at an academy in the capital come autumn. Viola planned to continue her studies at the Royal Theatre Academy, so even if she’d still be a student, she wouldn’t be able to take a full break the way she did now during the holidays.

Viola had to know that, yet Rieta pressed her twin with growing urgency in her voice.

“You said it yourself. At the theatre academy, you have to prepare productions even during breaks, so it’ll be busier than the semester. That’s why we have to make the most of this summer. Just sitting by the lake with you would be enough for me, but…”

“Oh, right.”

Clink. A slender silver fork knocked idly against the plate. Viola rolled her eyes with the slowness of someone just waking from a dream and delivered the unwelcome news.

“My friends will be coming in two days.”

“……Friends? You never mentioned that.”

“Hmm, didn’t I write it in my letter?”

Friends, really. Viola added her explanation with the breezy calm of someone who hadn’t read Rieta’s expression at all. The short of it was that she’d invited several classmates from the academy to the villa.

To finish conversations left unfinished at graduation, to prepare a graduation play… Viola’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she laid out her plans.

Friends, of all things. Rieta couldn’t hide her displeasure and snapped back.

“Then what about me?”

“You can join us, silly. I’ll introduce everyone one by one. They’re all lovely people.”

She’d thought that since it was their last summer, they’d spend it quietly together, just the two of them. Viola had to know that obvious feeling, yet she refilled Rieta’s glass herself and kept saying whatever suited her.

“It’ll definitely be a summer you won’t forget.”

“But……”

“I promise you, Riet.”

* * *

Foolish Viola.

Just as Viola had warned, two days later the villa filled with noise and unfamiliar guests. Silver wheelchair wheels whirred down the corridors and accents thick with regional flavor flew from every direction. From the sound of it, she might as well have been at a harbor rather than a manor house set apart from the village.

A broad-shouldered man with dark curly hair, a woman who’d left paint smudges on the wheelchair wheels, a slight foreign exchange student from a neighboring country, the niece of a famous actor who’d enrolled two years late… Viola’s “friends” were too many to count on two hands.

Every one of them was lively and easy to get along with. Even though they were meeting Rieta for the first time, they closed the distance between them the way people do after knowing each other for ten years.

“I’d only heard about you two, but you really do look exactly alike! Just the height… never mind, hey, Viola. Take off your shoes.”

“Rosie? As I’ve said repeatedly, my shoes are my pride and my attitude as a director. I understand you’re jealous of my sleek legs, but…”