007

“Right! You said you had experience serving a young lady! Then I’ll leave it to you. If the young lady seems too uncomfortable, don’t force it.”

“How could I refuse?”

Kanna placed the brown wooden brush firmly in Sion’s hand with evident relief before departing without looking back. He should have noticed how unusually light her footsteps were as she left the room.

Sion merely dismissed her as an inexplicably cheerful girl, incomprehensibly happy about helping someone else with their work.

“Miss, I’ll clear away your meal.”

Just as Agate set down her fork, Sion promptly began removing the empty plates and utensils.

“……”

Having finished clearing everything away in an instant, Sion found himself at a crossroads.

After eating so enthusiastically and smearing cream around her mouth, Agate made no attempt to wipe it off and instead resumed her insufferable contemplation.

He was momentarily taken aback by the traces of her satisfying meal, having only ever seen her eat reluctantly before.

But that passed quickly—if something was smeared, he simply needed to wipe it. While refined ladies typically didn’t get food on themselves in the first place and would use napkins themselves, Sion was well aware that expecting such basic etiquette from this lady was a luxury.

“Miss, let me wipe your mouth.”

Sion announced his intention before bringing a napkin to Agate’s face to clean off the cream. The moment the napkin made contact, he once again felt the stinging sensation of her hand.

“……!”

This time, he couldn’t prevent his expression from contorting. Caught off guard by the sudden bony hand, Sion dropped the napkin to the floor without resistance.

The one fortunate aspect was that his quick action had managed to wipe away the cream around her mouth. What was her problem? She looked fragile enough to collapse with a light tap, yet her temperament was irritatingly excessive.

Sion chewed the inside of his mouth irritably while observing Agate, whose expression remained utterly impassive. His anger continued to rise. The stirring in his core suggested he might genuinely lose his temper for the first time in ages.

‘What am I supposed to do with this ill-mannered young lady?’

It had been quite some time since anyone had made him this emotional.

He had to admit that the woman before him was truly remarkable in many ways. Sion satisfied himself by imagining giving her a round of applause in disgust.

“…I apologize, Miss. I was not careful enough.”

Translating his inner thoughts into their exact opposite, Sion dusted off the fallen napkin and placed it beside the cleared plates.

Agate, having committed the *ssault, naturally didn’t spare him even a glance. This level of thorough disregard was something he hadn’t experienced since his past days wandering dark alleys like a stray dog.

Sion stared blankly at Agate, who was a fresh shock to him in many ways. With her meal finished, she had returned to her usual self. In her usual spot, with her usual posture, staring in her usual direction.

Sunlight filled the window, pouring through the glass and drenching Agate. Though the light must have been harsh, she didn’t move a muscle and continued staring blankly outside.

‘What on earth is she looking at so tirelessly?’

By this point, he had developed curiosity about her ridiculous posture, which he hadn’t even questioned before. Sion silently moved behind her and followed her narrow line of sight.

‘Is she seeing the ghost of her fiancé who disappeared at sea or something?’

His somewhat altruistic gaze, attempting to understand his target even slightly, passed through the glass window. However, disappointingly, all he could see outside were Gilbert diligently trimming shrubs with pruning shears and Kanna sweeping up fallen branches.

Naturally, no ghosts appeared in broad daylight.

So she was just spacing out meaninglessly after all.

Sion felt embarrassed by his brief attempt to understand her.

As he was about to look away from the window, a white-painted iron gate entered his tall field of vision. The whale-back-like main gate of the villa formed a straight line with Agate’s bedroom, as if deliberately arranged.

‘Could it be…’

After looking at the villa’s main entrance, Sion dropped his gaze to the crown of Agate’s head at his chest level. Then he followed her line of sight again.

Once more, he saw the imposing main gate.

‘…Is she waiting for someone to open that gate and come for her someday?’

Agate’s daily static activity wasn’t meaningless time-killing after all.

She had been waiting, without missing a single day since her fiancé’s disappearance three years ago. Waiting for the day when her missing fiancé would come to take her from the Ponten villa as if nothing had happened.

Sion felt an unpleasant twinge in the corner of his heart, as if he had unwillingly witnessed someone else’s intimate secret. Apparently, he was the only one who knew the poignant reason behind the lady’s repetitive, futile daily routine.

Of all people, Agate had revealed her pure devotion to the man who cared least about her in this mansion—the most dangerous man for her.

“How foolish…”

Once again, his mouth ran wild of its own accord. Sion bit his lip in punishment for his thoughtless remark, but the water was already spilled. Why did he keep making mistakes he’d never made before in front of this woman? The real fool was himself.

Sion rolled his eyes downward to check the small blonde head, but she remained motionless. She must have heard his muttering. If she had shown any reaction at all, his chest wouldn’t feel so constricted.

He couldn’t bear this suffocating air. To ventilate this stifling atmosphere, Sion tightly gripped the brush placed on the vanity, careful not to break it. Then he stood behind Agate’s head again.

Holding the brush like a knife, Sion swallowed hard with determination. Though he prided himself on having experienced almost everything in his twisted life as a swindler, here was an unexplored territory right before him.

‘It’s just brushing hair, nothing to overthink.’

Theoretically, it was a simple, easy task—insert this large brush into that broom-like blonde hair and gently untangle it. …In theory.

“Miss, I’ll brush your hair in place of Kanna, who couldn’t do it earlier.”

Unlike the napkin incident, Sion left a gap between his announcement and action, extending his hand toward the blonde hair with a hint of challenge.

Indeed, the lady’s hair was parched and rough like straw, exactly as it appeared. At the extremely unpleasant texture, Sion freely contorted his expression since no one was watching.

The lady remained calm, perhaps thanks to his practiced technique. The brushing process started without a hitch. He selected a strand of hair—or rather, broom—and carefully placed the brush near the crown of her head.

He intended to brush from top to bottom in a wave-like motion, according to proper technique.

As imagined beforehand, Sion inserted the brush into the blonde hair and began brushing downward to untangle it.

“……!”

However, his hand stopped after barely an inch. Sion couldn’t hide his bewilderment. The hair was so tangled that the brush was caught like prey in a Venus flytrap—it wouldn’t move forward nor could he pull it out.

Learning for the first time that human hair could tangle this badly, Sion’s expression twisted fiercely.

‘Ah!’

While struggling to overcome this obstacle—or at least extract the brush—he accidentally caused Agate’s weak head to bend sharply at an angle. Despite having her head yanked along with the hair stuck to the brush like glue, Agate didn’t make a sound despite what must have been painful.

“Ah, Miss. I apologize. I’ll remove the brush right away.”

Oh no! If he had known it was this horribly tangled, he should have started brushing from the ends! This realization came too late.

The urgent task was to extract the brush half-devoured by her hair. Sion widened his eyes, holding the hair in one hand and the brush in the other, and began carefully untangling the mess. Progress soon became visible, and finally, he succeeded in liberating the brush from the hair net.

During this tumultuous recovery period, Agate was unexpectedly docile.

‘I can’t figure out her standards for anger. It’s fortunate that she’s waiting patiently, though.’

Silently sighing, he put on his usual relaxed expression and resumed his task. There would be no second mistake. Sion carefully lifted the severely split ends of her hair and gently scraped the brush through various tangled spots.