Chapter 1.1 – Peaceful Daily Life

On an afternoon like any other. Birds chirped endlessly in admiration of the cloudless sky, and in response, the sunlight gently wrapped the earth.

But such tranquility was—

“Kyaaah!”

—shattered in an instant by a sharp scream from the garden.

Startled by the sound, people rushed over and questioned the ashen-faced servant about what had happened. With tears brimming in her eyes and a trembling voice, the servant managed to get out each word.

The children were missing.

In the brief moment they had looked away, the second son of the Ducal family and his childhood friend, the Marquis’ daughter, who had been playing in the garden, had disappeared.

Thinking it might be another of their mischievous pranks—perhaps hiding in the garden to tease the servants—the Ducal household searched the grounds thoroughly, but neither the young master nor his friend could be found, not even a strand of their hair.

During their search of the estate, they discovered a small hole in the corner of the garden. The hole was just big enough for children to crawl through.

Of the two missing children, the Marquis’ daughter was always full of curiosity, so it was clear she wouldn’t have overlooked such a thing.

Upon finding the passage to the outside, she must have coaxed the Duke’s child into sneaking out together.

These children had been raised under tight protection, never knowing the flaws of the outside world. There was no way they would have felt any fear about venturing beyond the safe fence that had always surrounded them.

Upon learning of this, the Duke immediately informed the Marquis and assembled a search party, and only after a week did the children return to their arms.

* * *

“…Alvin, I can’t read my book if you’re stuck so close.”

“Hmm? Is this distance okay, then?”

In the library, filled with the scent of paper, the voices of two young people pressed close together echoed as if they were one. The woman’s voice was laced with irritation, while the man’s was obedient. The space, usually filled only with the sound of turning pages, often became noisy because of their bickering—usually caused by the man.

“Aren’t you hot, Alvin?”

“No, I’m fine.”

She tried to use the heat as an excuse to get his large frame away from her reading, but he was not so easily moved. The man remained so close that barely a speck of dust could pass between them, leaving no real space at all. When coaxing and scolding didn’t work, the woman’s temper began to flare.

“It’s hot, I said! Move over a little!”

“It’s summer, so it can’t be helped.”

“Don’t you think it’s because you’re sticking so close?”

“You don’t even feel the heat…”

The man, whose body ran hot, seemed desperate to show off his presence, rubbing up against her.

The two, pressed together without a gap, were childhood friends—victims of a kidnapping incident that had once made the front page of the Empire’s newspapers. Time had passed, and their once-small bodies had grown, turning them into adults.

Outside, the cicadas were in full chorus. On a sweltering day that was nearly over, the two childhood friends bickered idly.

“Liat, you’re not mad, are you?”

“If I say I am, will you move?”

Perhaps feeling guilty for unintentionally interrupting Liat’s reading, Alvin finally shifted his position a little, but he was still close enough for his breath to reach her, so nothing really changed.

“Liat, I can’t let you get any farther away. The security here doesn’t seem that tight, does it? And that strange woman is around, too.”

Alvin, who was supposed to be her knight and was glaring at everyone around them, now whined loudly. Liat apologized with her eyes to the knight whose face had turned sad.

She couldn’t help but sigh at why she had to apologize for everything this wild man did.

“With a knight right next to me, what could possibly be dangerous? And you’re right here, too. And don’t call my servant strange.”

Feeling frustrated, Liat let out a big sigh and turned another page of her book. Her page-turning was a bit rough, showing just how annoyed she was.

“But lately, the stares have gotten worse. It feels like someone is always watching.”

When Liat looked around, she saw a servant with a strangely flushed face. It was Lisa, the library servant who especially liked her.

“It’s just Lisa.”

Lisa staring at Liat was nothing new. When Liat answered bluntly, Alvin had nothing left to say, but he still didn’t change his mind.

“There must be more…”

This kind of argument had been going on for a long time, and the one to give in was always the woman. Whenever those worried eyes turned to her, she felt a pang of guilt and couldn’t keep up the quarrel.

Still, it was true that she was annoyed, so she let out a hot breath through her nose to show her discomfort.

“We were both kidnapped, so why do you act like I’m the only victim? Why, Alvin?”

“Don’t say such scary things. Just thinking about it…”

Most people, when scared, instinctively hug themselves. It’s a reflex to ward off the chills that run up their spine.

But for some reason, Alvin hugged the woman’s head next to him and shivered.

She seemed used to her childhood friend hugging the back of her head for protection, so she calmly marked her place in the book to avoid losing her spot.

“I’m an adult now, and so are you. Why do you treat me like I’m still a child?”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just that you’re precious to me…”

Reading would have to wait until this bear of a man left.

“Fine, you win. Let’s just go! Let’s go to my room.”

“That’s a good idea. Let’s go back to your room, Liat. You can read there, can’t you?”

As she picked up her book and stood, the man looked positively delighted, as if he’d wag his tail, and quickly followed after her.

Alvin’s overprotectiveness had long surpassed even that of her father, the Marquis. Her father had built a library the size of a small mansion next to her own house, saying the outside was dangerous, and now her childhood friend claimed even the library was unsafe.

If one were to weigh the level of overprotection, it would clearly tip in Alvin’s favor.

As ‘that day’ approached, Alvin’s anxiety was growing worse. Feeling sorry for him, Liat stood on tiptoe and stroked his soft hair.

‘What really happened back then?’

Without noticing Liat’s complicated feelings, the man bent down to meet her eyes. His smile was filled with the scent of sunshine. His eyes, curved like crescent moons, were so focused on Liat that it was almost overwhelming.

“Did I do something worth praising? Did you like the snack I brought today?”

He looked ready to bring over the pastry chef who made it, so Liat shook her head.

“I just felt like it.”

One would think she’d be used to her friend’s heavy affection by now, but sometimes it still felt suffocating.

Liat covered the back of her neck, tickled by her pale pink hair, with her palm. Despite the warmth, goosebumps slowly rose on her skin.

It was because of the scar running down the back of her neck.

Even though it was Liat who bore the mark of being kidnapped, the memories belonged only to Alvin. It was a strange contradiction.

Liat, protected by her family and her own self-defense, had managed to forget much of the incident, but her friend still had one foot trapped in the mire of those memories.

‘Liat!’

Among the few fragments of memory she had, one stood out sharply: in her blurry recollection, a young Liat ran toward Alvin. Whenever she tried to remember, the scar would burn and her breath would catch in her throat.

She wanted to ask him about everything that happened, but she didn’t want to prod his wounds, so she kept her mouth shut. The fear she felt when following the thread of memory also played a part in her silence.

‘You, you protected me. With your whole body.’

That was all he ever told her.

In any case, Liat could understand the guilt Alvin must have been carrying, knowing that she was the one who had thrown herself to prevent even a single scratch from being left on Alvin’s body.  

Had it been the other way around, she would have felt just as he did. When she pictured the situation with their roles reversed, nothing really changed except their positions.

“This big, clumsy oaf—hurry up and go!”  

She nudged her other half’s backside with her book to hurry him along.  

Alvin, embarrassed, whined at Liat not to do that. His ears, flushed all the way to the tips, only made him look more ridiculous. Despite his mountain-like size, he was adorable for simply taking whatever poking she gave him.  

“Liat, stop, stop it.”  

Liat enjoyed watching his darker-colored ears turn pink, so she repeated her actions several times despite his protests.  

This was one of the few pranks she was allowed to play.

Liat used to enjoy pranks like digging holes in the ground to trip up the servants, or putting frogs in teapots to startle guests. But after that incident, she was confined to her room at an age when mischief should have been permitted.  

She knew Alvin’s influence had played a big part in her confinement. Liat remembered clearly how Alvin, while learning swordsmanship, had left her stuck in the mansion.

‘Didn’t even let me attend his knighting ceremony…’

Alvin hadn’t joined the knight order because he wanted to stay by Liat’s side, but she knew there had been many knights who admired him.  

She wanted to see her childhood friend’s proud moment, but Alvin had threatened not to attend the ceremony if she came, saying he was worried about her health since she had been fainting so often then.

Thinking of these not-so-pleasant memories, she pressed the corner of her book down hard, full of resentment.  

“Ow, ow, that hurts. Huh? Now that I look, you’ve got two books.”  

“I’m almost done with one, so I brought another.”  

“It’s not one of those books recommended by that woman, is it?”  

“Just hurry up and go.”  

She slapped Alvin’s hand, which was hovering over her book like a predator stalking prey, with a sharp smack, then attacked him with the book itself.  

Even as he groaned and whimpered, he never pushed her hand away, and Liat burst out laughing, feeling her frustrations melt away.