Chapter 3.10

Kaiden Bannon had been given two duties from birth.

He had the duty to be grateful for not being born in the slums, and thus the duty to kill his own self and become his father’s puppet.

Yet, Kaiden sometimes gazed out the carriage window at the streets and wondered.

Were those people really unhappy?

They were smiling like that—couldn’t they be happy?

What does it mean to be happy?

Was it the feeling in the small candy the nanny secretly gave me?

‘……I don’t know.’

Of course he didn’t know.

Happiness was a story far removed from him from the very beginning.

He remembered the day he met that tiny girl. He remembered his father’s words to build a deep bond, since she’d be a good match.

And he remembered the first time he saw that child’s smile.

Her fidgeting fingers and chubby cheeks as she said that—everything.

It wasn’t just because of his father’s orders that he’d been good to Brienne. His eyes kept being drawn to the girl who looked like a yellow chick, and he was desperate to do something for her.

Before he knew it, he found himself looking forward to the days he would meet Brienne Ford.

Seeing the bright smile she showed, he felt like he might come to understand what happiness was. If he learned that, perhaps he too could be happy someday.

But the closer he got to Brienne, the more his father’s praise came back.

<You’re doing well. I hear she goes around saying she likes you. Like a child, she must believe that a promise of marriage will truly come to pass. I thought you were a foolish son, but at least your face is useful.>

The first praise, with a rough hand patting his cheek, and that satisfied gaze.

He foolishly got excited over that unfamiliar praise. But it didn’t last long.

Marquis Ford left the noble faction. The year he turned sixteen, his father introduced Melosi Bailey. For Kaiden, who had to stick by Brienne’s side out of necessity, it should have been a relief.

Even if Melosi Bailey’s arrival was annoying, at the very least, it meant he should have kept Brienne Ford at a distance.

But his heart felt stifled.

Of course, he couldn’t understand why.

It would be fine. It had to be fine.

If he went against his father’s wishes, only a terrible hell would await him at the end.

The Duke of Bannon had never once allowed his son’s opinion. He could never forget the day he said he wanted to learn piano as a child and saw his mother being strangled by his father.

That day, Kaiden saw many emotions in his mother’s eyes. Resentment toward her son, fear, terror. And ever since, whenever he wanted something, that scene would come to mind.

That’s what fear ruling a well-trained body was like.

Every time he faced his father, he looked back on the past, wrapped in an indescribable dread.

So why had he made such a foolish choice?

The day after his father introduced Melosi Bailey, Kaiden ran away while on his way to the bookstore with his tutor.

He thought he just had to go somewhere, anywhere, and before he knew it, he had arrived at the Ford Marquisate.

<…Kai? What are you doing here without a word?>

That day, Brienne was drinking tea with her family under the garden pergola. Sitting on Marquis Ford’s knee, Brienne looked happier than ever.

He realized then.

Happiness was not something he could have at will. He was someone who had been wrong from birth.

When Kaiden returned home, his tutor, who hadn’t stopped him, had already been dismissed. He had grown attached to that person, who had been with him since he learned to speak, but he couldn’t even say goodbye.

At first, he was puzzled, but then he felt relieved. At least his tutor hadn’t suffered the same fate as his mother—surely his tutor was living well somewhere.

But that was a naïve thought. After that day, every time he secretly met Brienne, the servants who waited on them disappeared one by one.

Naturally, there was never any news of them. They vanished without a trace from the peaceful world he lived in.

There was no way Kaiden, the Duke of Bannon’s son, wouldn’t notice the method.

So, for the first time, he began to lie to his father. It was a pure gamble. But he could no longer just watch the consequences of his own existence.

In those few years, he had already wasted many people’s lives.

Even knowing there was no way the Duke of Bannon would be fooled so easily,

<I’m destined to marry Melosi Bailey anyway. No matter what, I won’t go against your wishes.>

Just barely enough not to slip off the well-laid board the Duke of Bannon had set.

And all that time, the Duke of Bannon consistently warned Kaiden.

With the same hand that struck his mother, he gripped others’ throats. Right in front of Kaiden’s eyes.

So, emotions…

He lived a life where he must never possess or feel them.

Kaiden looked down at the people who laughed and chatted as if nothing was wrong.

What is a predetermined fate?

And does he believe in that fate?

To marry a woman he doesn’t want, as his father wishes, to hold a woman he doesn’t desire, and create another loser.

So then, what will be left in the end? What will remain to keep him living and breathing?

Does he think he can change his fate?

‘……Brienne.’

Kaiden glanced anxiously at his wristwatch.

There was still about an hour left until the engagement ceremony began.

* * *

She was on her way home. Fleeing as if running away, Brienne stared blankly at the scenery passing by outside the carriage window.

Of course, she didn’t see the engagement ceremony begin. She had no intention of watching, and there was still about an hour left until it started.

Besides……

<Brienne, you’re the one who said you’d grant any wish.>

The moment she almost kissed Herace. His gentle voice kept swirling in her head. Brienne sighed and pressed her forehead against the window.

She had run away, scared like a fool, but she didn’t know if she’d done the right thing.

‘……Why am I so selfish?’

She was the one who kissed him in front of Kaiden, yet at the most important moment, she ran away like this. She felt so pathetic that she didn’t think she could face Herace again.

Her self-reproach didn’t end even as the carriage left the main road and entered an alley. She kept thinking, regretting, feeling sorry. How many times had she repeated that? Staring vacantly out the window, Brienne suddenly realized something was wrong.

‘What is this? Why is the carriage going down this kind of road……?’

Brienne, snapping out of her thoughts, narrowed her eyes and stood up. There was only one way to travel between the Duchy of Bannon and the Ford Marquisate. The carriage should have exited onto the main road lined with mansions through the square. In other words, this was a road she had never seen before.

She had a bad feeling about this. Brienne pounded hard on the ceiling of the carriage.

“Excuse me! Is something wrong? Why are we going this way?”

But no matter how long she waited, the coachman gave no reply. She was certain that when she boarded the carriage, it was the Ford family’s coachman. Because the structure was blocked so the coachman couldn’t look inside, Brienne also couldn’t see what was happening up front.

“Hey…!”

Feeling uneasy, Brienne knocked on the ceiling several times.

And finally.

Creeeak……

The carriage stopped with an eerie sound.

『Playing House Is Extremely Dangerous』Continues in Volume 2