Prologue

Whenever she had the chance to quietly gaze into a lit fireplace, there was always a memory that came to Anaïs’s mind.

It was a Christmas night when snow had piled up to knee height. Was she eight? Or nine? Since it was a time when the whole family was together, it must have been before she turned twelve.

Father sat in his personal single-seat sofa, nodding off drowsily. It was thanks to Mother showing off her skills for the first time in a while because it was Christmas.

Having eaten his fill of steak and roasted potatoes with butter, mushrooms and carrots, Father held his protruding belly with both hands and smacked his lips in his sleep. He seemed to be eating Mother’s cooking even in his dreams.

Mother, who had been knitting, soon noticed her husband’s state and said to her daughter.

‘Anaïs, tell your father to go in and sleep.’

Anaïs, who had been lying on a cushion with her belly down watching the Christmas tree that would be taken down in a few days, jumped up at her mother’s words. She approached Father and grabbed his thick arm, shaking it.

Father, drunk with sleep and out of it, blinked his eyes while smacking his lips as if the taste of meat still lingered in his mouth. When she repeated Mother’s words like a parrot telling him to go in and sleep, he nodded and stood up. He staggered, perhaps having had too much wine with the steak. Anaïs quickly supported him so he wouldn’t fall.

The large-framed man was too heavy for a little girl of about ten years to handle. When she tried to hold on with all her might until her face turned bright red, Father chuckled.

‘Our daughter is so strong.’

He looked at his daughter with pride and put strength in his legs so she wouldn’t collapse under the weight. Instantly, the weight she had been supporting became lighter. She now carefully held just one of her father’s arms and guided him to the bedroom.

‘Dad, look. There’s so much snow outside!’

Anaïs exclaimed while looking out the window. She let go of Father’s arm and ran to the window. Snow had piled up so much that the whole world looked white.

‘Can I go out and make a snowman?’

Father, who was lying down on the bed, made a thoughtful “hmm” sound. When Anaïs asked once more, he answered drowsily that it would be better to go out when day broke.

Even in his drowsiness, ready to fall asleep any moment, he seemed to recognize that the night was pitch dark. Anaïs’s lips pouted when she didn’t get permission to go out. She tiptoed carefully out of the bedroom so as not to wake Father, who was snoring.

Coming down to the living room, she eventually ran over to Mother.

‘Mom, I want to go out and make a snowman.’

Her strategy was to get permission from Mother if Father said no. Anaïs promised she wouldn’t go far, that she would make it right in front of the house, where Mother could see her through the window.

Mother, who had been making a scarf to give to her daughter, checked the time and firmly shook her head. It was already past nine o’clock, too late for a young child to go out alone.

Both attempts failed in the end. Anaïs remembered being quite disappointed. What if all the snow melted and disappeared during the night? She wanted to make a snowman but couldn’t.

She tried rebelling by hanging on Mother’s arm and making whining sounds, but it was no use. Mother looked much smaller and more delicate than Father, but she was sharp as a knife.

‘You go in and sleep too.’

She got kicked out of the living room after bringing up the topic for nothing.

Did she go out and make a snowman the next day? Or did she stay up and get a fever, ending up unable to go out at all? Was the snow still there? She couldn’t recall what happened after that at all.

It was a memory that was hard to call joyful, yet ambiguous to call sad. It was such an ordinary time. But Anaïs felt that those days had been nothing but beautiful and happy.

Back then, she resented her parents for stopping her from going out to play. Unfortunately, she didn’t know that was love. She only learned that after losing them.

A few years later, twelve-year-old Anaïs lost her father and mother one after another to war and became an orphan. Though she always missed them both, today the longing pierced her heart particularly deeply.

Anaïs swallowed her breath and turned her gaze away from the fire. She wanted to hug herself with both arms and rub to generate warmth. Doing so would let her taste, even if just for a brief moment, the feeling of being embraced by them both.

But she couldn’t spread her arms because of the rope tied around her wrists. Anaïs felt frustrated and had no choice but to bring her knees into her arms.

“Are you cold?”

When Anaïs curled up her body, Roderick asked. Rising from his seat, he grabbed the kindling that had been placed next to the fireplace. He added a bit more firewood and stirred it a few times, making the fire stronger. The cold air in the room began to gradually warm up around the fireplace.

Anaïs rested her chin on her drawn-up knees and watched his back.

“Didn’t you say we need to conserve firewood since there isn’t much?”

“What’s the use of conserving if you catch a fever?”

How affectionate. Anaïs bit her lips hard while resenting him. It was cruel how he kept acting affectionately when he noticed her feelings but desperately turned away from them.

Perhaps there was some hope after all. She tried to hope once, but now she knew. His attitude of seeming to worry about her body was hypocrisy. It was like a carrot given after the whip to keep her from running away.

“Is it warm now?”

The calculated affection was very stiff and mechanical.

Anaïs was angry. If he was going to act cold, wouldn’t it be better to keep his distance from beginning to end instead of confusing her heart by acting affectionate whenever she was about to forget?

She felt resentful that only she continued to feel confused and suffer from his inconsistent attitude.

It would have been a bit better if she didn’t have to see his face. But with both hands tied with rope and Roderick holding the other end, it wasn’t easy.

How did their relationship deteriorate to this extent?

While Anaïs hung her head low in self-blame, she reached the impulse to ruin their already bad relationship even more. With tears slightly forming in her eyes, she glanced at her inventory. Soon chocolate appeared in her hand. It was chocolate he had given her.

The culprit that made her get sucked into an emotional whirlpool hard to escape from. She wanted to return to the time when she didn’t love him by giving this chocolate back to Roderick.

“Roderick.”

She threw the chocolate she had carefully kept. The man who instinctively caught the flying object opened his hand to look inside and frowned. He remained silent for a while, thinking about something.

“Didn’t you say you ate it?”

The man who had been staring down at the chocolate in his hand for a while finally spoke. Anaïs laughed self-deprecatingly and shrugged her shoulders. What she had received from him was so precious that she had told a shallow lie. Though it was now exposed, it was rather fortunate. He would accept her as a fickle woman who changed her mind quickly.

Roderick unwrapped the packaging with a frown and put the chocolate in his mouth in one bite. Anaïs leaned against her drawn-up knees and watched how deliciously he ate it.

His brow showed no sign of relaxing, as if it didn’t taste very good. She was glad she hadn’t eaten it. Anaïs thought it served him right and snorted inwardly.

Secretly mocking him didn’t improve her mood. Rather, she felt bitter thinking that what she had treasured was just an annoying object that made him frown.

“How full is your gauge?”

The man who had been quietly chewing the chocolate asked. His tone was stiff.

Anaïs glanced at her infection gauge. If this filled up completely, quite troublesome things would happen, so it had to be resolved before then.

“It’s not full.”

Checking the completely empty gauge, Anaïs answered. She even gave him a faint smile to reassure him. Though it probably wasn’t clearly visible to him from far away since she was so weak, she made the effort. She wanted to show that she no longer intended to rebel against him.

Hearing her answer, Roderick jumped up from his seat and approached her.

“If your gauge is full, say it’s full. Don’t beat around the bush.”

She had momentarily forgotten that the trust between them was shattered. Roderick grabbed her chin and covered her lips. Anaïs struggled and tried to push him away against the force that pushed through recklessly.

“Wait a moment. The gauge really isn’t full yet……!”

“Stay still.”