The chocolate cookies were truly sweet. But my mouth felt gritty, like chewing grains of sand. 

Throughout the tea time, Father spoke about amusing incidents at the Mage Tower, and Johnny and his mother listened with delight.

The entire time I was there, I felt uncomfortable. It seemed like I didn’t belong. The place that suited me was the dark, quiet mansion where Mother lived.

What should have been a joyful occasion ended leaving only an unpleasant feeling in my heart. When it was time to return, Johnny kept clinging to me with a face full of regret.

“Brother, don’t you hate being alone? You can stay and play with me longer…!”

At Johnny’s whining, Father laughed and ruffled his hair.

“Johnny, you little rascal. I thought you’d grown up, but apparently not yet.”

His platinum hair, identical to Father’s, sparkled like light in the sunshine. Then with an affectionate smile, he extended his hand to me.

“Haliven, come with me now.”

On the way back to the mansion, I walked holding Father’s hand. Having his large hand clasp mine was an extremely unfamiliar feeling. Something inside my chest tickled, and strangely, I felt like I might sneeze.

All of this was a first for me. Spending such a long time with Father, walking together like this. Then, just when the mansion came into view, Father stopped and grabbed my shoulder.

“Haliven, no matter what anyone says, you are my son. That fact will never change. So if you need any support, I’ll provide it generously.”

Within his faint smile, guilt that had never been there before seeped through. Father would occasionally drop by the mansion and bring snacks or gifts for me. However, that was far from the love Johnny had spoken of.

There was distance between us. I also didn’t know how to treat Father, and he seemed to be in the same position. He would watch me from afar, give me a gift, and leave—repeating this pattern.

“But I’d prefer if you didn’t suddenly visit the annex like today or ask that woman for love. She’s already tenderhearted enough as it is, so it would be difficult for her.”

Though the words were gentle, like soothing a child, the meaning they contained was colder than anything. 

But I kept remembering that woman’s bright smile and Mother’s sad expression when she entered her room and wouldn’t come out.

Sometimes when Mother stared blankly at the front door, or when she gazed longingly at Father’s retreating figure on the rare occasions he visited me, I could tell what that gaze wanted.

“…Then what about Mother?”

“Why bring up that woman?”

“Don’t you love Mother, Father?”

His painted-on smile turned stiff. His face darkened instantly. After a low sigh, a cold gaze without warmth fell upon me.

“I’ve never loved that woman. It was an arranged marriage that started without love from the beginning.”

“But…”

“She knew from the start that I had someone I loved. What the family wanted was a woman from a respectable household and an heir to continue the line.”

All of it was difficult for me to understand. An arranged marriage, or that he had someone he loved from the beginning. I wanted to ask many things, but Father’s firm words continued.

“So you don’t need to worry about that part.”

“…Yes, I understand.”

“Good. That’s my boy.”

* * *

After that day, the face of that brightly smiling woman kept haunting my mind. So I followed the path Johnny had shown me and secretly watched the two people who seemed harmonious together.

Johnny and his mother found joy in the most trivial words. From time to time, Johnny would go pick pretty flowers, and when he brought them to her, that woman would smile happily, like she possessed the entire world.

“When you truly love someone, just being by their side makes you happy.”

The love Johnny spoke of was happiness. Suddenly, I had a thought. Maybe what my lonely, sad mother needed was love. 

If Father didn’t love Mother, I could take his place and give her that affection. After all, Father was only a father in name to us anyway.

‘I just need to make Mother smile in Father’s place, right?’

But before I could do anything, misfortune came to me silently.

It was the sixth day since Mother had locked herself in her room. The meal left in front of her door never disappeared even once. Finally, unable to watch any longer, a servant broke open the door.

What they found inside was Mother collapsed, completely drained of blood. The missing blood was nowhere to be found in the room.

“This can’t be explained medically. An ordinary person should have died long ago…!”

The doctor said Mother’s body was no different from a dead person’s. But strangely, only her heart hadn’t stopped and was still beating.

Father came to the mansion for the first time in a while after hearing this news. He examined Mother with a serious expression, then muttered something incomprehensible about needing to call a priest with divine power to the house.

“Prepare yourself, Haliven.”

“Does that mean… I won’t be able to see Mother anymore?”

“Yes. That’s what will happen soon.”

I hadn’t made Mother smile yet. I hadn’t done anything—I couldn’t just sit here doing nothing.

Not knowing what to do, I frantically searched through the bookcases in the mansion. Even among all those books, I couldn’t find an answer. Books were just books, after all. They couldn’t answer my questions.

With a frustrated heart, I headed to the secret passage Johnny had shown me. I didn’t even know why I ran there. While I was swallowing the tears that wanted to burst out, I happened to run into Johnny.

“Oh, Brother? I was just about to go see you!”

His face filled with worry at my darkened expression. Then he asked carefully.

“What’s wrong? Why do you look so upset?”

“Well… they say I might not be able to see Mother anymore. I haven’t made Mother smile even once yet. I can’t let her go like this.”

“That’s really serious, isn’t it? What should we do? What can we do?”

Johnny paced back and forth with a serious face, pondering for a long time. Then with a deep sigh, he turned to me.

“Ah, at times like this, flowers!”

“Flowers?”

“My mother loves flowers most, after me. I’m sure your mother will be happy if you bring her lots of flowers!”

Looking back, I had no memory of ever bringing Mother flowers. I’d never even thought to do so. Johnny helped me pick pretty flowers.

“I hope your mother likes these flowers. If she doesn’t like them, I’ll secretly pick flowers from the greenhouse and bring them!”

Johnny said he really hoped our mother would smile, and told me to come to the annex anytime I needed him.

“I’ll visit again, Brother! Let me know how it goes.”

After parting with Johnny, I gathered an armful of pretty flowers. Then I entered Mother’s room. A quiet stillness hung in the air.

The mansion’s servants said Mother was ominous and tried not to approach her. They complained about the smell of rotting corpses coming from somewhere and avoided entering.

“I’m here, Mother.”

Mother sat on the bed today as well, staring into space with an empty face. Sometimes I thought this: Maybe Mother was already a dead person.

“I brought… flowers. I hoped you’d smile when you saw them.”

Mother still didn’t move. Not even a blink of her eyes. Suddenly, I was seized by a frightening thought. Maybe I really would never see Mother again.

“If you don’t like these flowers, should I bring different ones next time? Please? Please say something, anything, Mother…”

Without Mother, I would truly be alone in this world. Though she never smiled at me even once, though she never taught me what love was, she was still my one and only mother.

“I’d rather you get angry at me like before. I’ll do better… I’ll work harder than now to become an unprecedentedly powerful mage, okay…?”

I stared at Mother for a long time, waiting for an answer that would never come. Then suddenly, one realization flashed through my mind.

Mother had never once asked me to pick flowers for her. That wasn’t what Mother wanted. With that, I would never see Mother’s smiling face in my lifetime.

‘Mother wanted me to become a more powerful mage than anyone else. By reading the truth written in that book.’

I turned my head to look at the bookcase full of books. Countless books were crammed there. “Demon Summoning” and “The Price of Contracts.” Most had titles like that.

Among them was one anomalous book with the title “The Heretic of the Gods, the Plague of the World, Chesi.” Mother always opened that book and asked me.

“So you still don’t understand?”

“Look again! You really don’t see anything? Any truth written here?”

It was a question mixed with pleading within a cold gaze, begging for an answer. Like someone exhausted to the point of being sick of it all.

What truth did Mother want me to find in a book made of blank pages? Could it possibly mean that if I read that book, I could become a powerful mage?

‘What kind of nonsense is that.’

But if that were true, if I could return Mother to normal. No, if I could see her smile just once, even for the last time, I was willing to try anything.

Just then, one book that had been on the shelf fell with a dull thud. It was that book. It had opened to a random page, but it was still blank.

“Why did that suddenly…?”

As I was about to pick up the book, I heard a cat meowing from somewhere. When I turned around, a black cat stood before me—I had no idea when it appeared. The creature licked its front paw and leisurely washed its face.

‘Where did it come from? There’s definitely no way it could have gotten in.’

The window and door were tightly shut. The mansion didn’t keep any cats. Then where on earth did this creature appear from?

Suddenly, the cat looked at me and grinned. It was a smile clearly filled with emotion. Before I could be surprised by that behavior, the cat asked me.

[Do you want to read that book?]

It was unmistakably a human voice. I looked around, but aside from this cat in front of me, no other person existed near me.

“Did you just speak?”

[Well, who else is here besides me?]

“How can you possibly talk? You’re a cat.”

[My name is Chesi. I’m different from those ordinary cats you know.]

That voice was strangely familiar, like I’d heard it before. The creature narrowed its eyes and smiled. Then it pointed a finger at the book that had fallen on the floor.

[To read that book, you must pay a price.]

How did it know my innermost thoughts that I hadn’t even spoken aloud? At that moment, goosebumps rose all over my body. Now that I looked, the area around Chesi was faintly distorted. A strange energy extended outward.

Instinctive fear came first. But it was a tempting offer I couldn’t ignore. Wouldn’t it be okay to at least ask what the price was?

“…What kind of price?”

[Give me what’s most precious to you. Then I’ll grant that wish.]

“What’s most precious to me? What is that?”

[I can’t tell you. It’s more fun that way.]