Chapter 1

“Where’s Owen!”

The girl shouted as she tore down the hallway. Her pink hair bounced with every running step.

The servants watched the breathtaking sight with reverent eyes.

Even a face seen every day could not be helped. She possessed a devastatingly beautiful appearance that simply refused to become familiar.

The moment tears welled in her sapphire eyes and cast a luminous glow, the servants pressed their hands over their mouths without exception. They had to hold back the gasps that threatened to spill out uncontrollably.

Nanny Marta watched them and shook her head, then raised her index finger.

That was the signal to follow the rules.

「Grand Ducal Household Rule No. 1. All expressions of “pretty” or “beautiful” directed at Miss Kaya (verbal and non-verbal alike) are strictly prohibited.」

“Owen!”

Kaya threw the door open with force. The heavy door slammed into the wall with a thunderous bang.

Inside the room, a young man in his Academy uniform was packing his belongings.

Hair darker than darkness itself, beneath it a pair of red eyes gleaming with a dangerous edge, a body and face carved like sculpture. Last of all, veined forearms moved steadily as he folded clothes one after another into his bag.

Kaya’s anxious gaze fixed on the bag.

“You’re really leaving?”

Reflected in her desperate eyes was a man terrifyingly cold.

“……Yeah.”

Kaya’s jaw trembled. Tears streamed down her cheeks without pause.

Her eyes had already turned the same shade of pink as her hair.

Kaya grabbed the pile of gift packages stacked in the corner of the room and began hurling them at him one after another.

“Fine, go! Get out! Take every last one of these with you and never come back.”

Kaya screamed herself raw, but Owen calmly absorbed every bit of it. He took her fury without a single flinch.

By the time Kaya threw the last object, the man’s neatly combed hair was as disheveled as her own ragged breathing.

A thin cut on the man’s cheek began to bleed. The unintended result sent a ripple through Kaya’s eyes. But the word sorry never made it past her lips.

She was arrogant enough to be certain that his wound could not possibly hurt more than what she was feeling.

Just then, the maid who had been standing against the left wall like a piece of furniture stepped forward.

“Miss! Why won’t you understand. Young Master Owen, more than anyone, cares about you……”

The man who had been frozen like a statue snapped his head around.

“This isn’t your place.”

His face wasn’t visible, but the maid’s violently trembling body said everything. He was undoubtedly fixing her with a murderous glare.

The maid pressed her lips shut and lowered her head. Watching that, Kaya felt this moment grow even more dreamlike.

She couldn’t understand it. Why Renya, her own maid, was taking Owen’s side. Why, with her mistress crumbling like this and sobbing her heart out, she was thinking of the man on the other side.

Kaya could only study the maid for some kind of clue.

Notebook and pen in hand, the maid gnawed at her lip as though something pained her deeply.

Kaya had no idea what she was missing. The helplessness pressed down on her until she sank to the floor, and then she wept like a child.

The eyebrows of the man who had been deathly still shifted almost imperceptibly.

“……You could at least stop lying. You’re going to leave just like everyone else, so why.”

Kaya looked up at him with eyes full of reproach, searching for an answer.

She looked like someone who had given up, but she was actually waiting. Waiting for him to do and say what he would have done two years ago.

Two years ago, he would have come running. He would have looked at her with eyes full of worry and said,

I give up. How could I go anywhere and leave a crybaby like this behind.

He would have said that, then stroked Kaya’s hair with a rough palm that didn’t match his proud face.

Yes. That was how it was supposed to go.

Just say it now. Say it was a joke. Say you’ll stay and live with me in this suffocating cage.

But Owen continued packing with quiet composure, as though mocking her wish. He looked like someone who had long since realized that none of this meant anything.

It was only witnessing that shocking sight that finally stopped her tears. With even the last shred of hope crushed underfoot, she seemed to have run out of the strength to cry.

How did things go so wrong between us……

Something twisted deep inside the girl. Words came pouring out before she could think.

“You coward. Don’t ever…… let me see your face again.”

A quiet scoff escaped from Owen’s tightly sealed lips.

“A runaway no one’s chasing. That’s funny.”

Kaya narrowed her brows. She didn’t understand what he meant.

Click.

In that moment, Owen closed the bag he had finished filling. He left Kaya sitting on the floor and looked around the room.

Eight years had already passed since he came to the grand ducal household. He seemed to be pressing the shape of this familiar room carefully into his memory.

“Is being my brother really that unbearable? …… Enough to leave somewhere you were living well?”

The man parted his lips, then closed them again. The tension in his jaw was visible. And at last, his hollow red eyes met Kaya’s.

“I won’t say this again, so listen carefully, Kaya.”

Kaya stopped crying and focused on him. But she couldn’t stop the hiccups slipping past her full lips.

Her body shuddered faintly with each one. Even so, she couldn’t afford to miss this moment, and she fixed her wide, clear eyes on Owen.

From that cold, expressionless face came a steady, low voice.

“I have never once wanted to be your brother.”

Tap. Pitter-patter.

Shhhhhh.

A torrential downpour erupted outside the window in an instant.

What did Owen just say……

Kaya had short-circuited. She couldn’t process those simple words.

Owen left the pouring rain behind him and slowly walked toward Kaya. He crouched down to her eye level where she sat on the floor, then gently took hold of a strand of her hair.

“What do you think you’re……”

Ignoring her reaction entirely, Owen gazed at her unhurriedly and pressed his lips to her hair. Then, with the dark sky at his back, he spoke in a low, settled voice.

“It’s a beautiful day today.”

❀❀❀

The year Owen turned seven, about a month after losing his parents and coming to live at the grand ducal household.

In the dead of night, the boy was climbing down a rope he had braided from his blankets.

Then a familiar voice reached him.

“Owen, where are you going?”

Startled by Kaya’s sudden appearance, the boy lost his grip on the rope.

The moment he tried to adjust his position for landing,

Fwump.

The boy landed squarely in the arms of the unruly girl, held perfectly steady.

This household had more than one or two strange things about it. One of them was this girl, who was not merely sturdy but stronger than a grown man.

The Grand Duke tried to use an artifact to bring his daughter’s strength to a normal level, but every attempt ended in failure.

Kaya, the grand ducal lady, was growing stronger at a pace that always outstripped her father’s predictions.

Owen quickly pulled himself free from the girl’s steady hold.

“……What are you doing out here instead of sleeping.”

He dropped his voice to a whisper.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I was reading a book…?”

Kaya followed his lead and whispered back with her small mouth. Owen let out a long sigh.

“I asked where you’re going.”

The boy thought back to the Grand Duke, who had kindly explained the household rules on his first day.

“You won’t understand, but our home has rules.”

This household is out of its mind.

“I was just going for a little walk……”

“Hmm, it’s a bit dangerous for a walk. And your bag is too heavy for a walk, Owen.”

Kaya’s gaze dropped to the bag on Owen’s back.

Wait. She actually has some sense……?

“Ah, I misspoke. Not a walk. Camping.”

“Camping? At this hour?”

It was a stupid excuse. Owen was already regretting saying anything at all when the girl spoke.

“Wow, that’s so cool. Take me with you!”

Owen’s jaw dropped.

That actually worked……?

“No. It’s cold, go inside.”

“Owen.”

The girl spoke in an unusually calm voice.

“Camping is when you sleep somewhere other than home for a while. Right?”

Owen could only blink at her cryptic words.

“So after camping, you have to come back home. This is your home now, Owen.”

Kaya looked at him with clear, direct eyes, as though she could see straight through him. Her face caught the light of the full moon and shone brilliantly.

The boy’s throat bobbed.

From the very first time he met the girl, something had been surging up from deep in his chest, trying to burst out.

A voice played on repeat in his head.

“You must never, ever tell the lady she is beautiful. Never.”

Kaya rose on her tiptoes and waved her hand in front of Owen’s face.

“What are you thinking about?”

Red flooded Owen’s face and down to his neck in an instant. He fidgeted helplessly, and at the edge of his wandering gaze, the full moon caught his eye.

“I, it’s a nice day.”

Kaya burst out laughing. That night, it truly was a beautiful night with a full moon and not a single cloud in the sky.

But after that, whether it rained or thundered, Owen would look into Kaya’s eyes and say,

“It’s a beautiful day today.”