My brother died.

They said he died trying to catch a thief who had stolen money and was running away—stabbed by the weapon the b*stard wielded. The absurd truth is that the money wasn’t even my brother’s, and my brother wasn’t the one the thief had targeted.

The people who attended my brother’s funeral, and the grandmother who got her money back in exchange for my brother’s life, shed tears saying how righteous my brother was. To me, though, it was nothing more than a dog’s death.

Because my brother, Lucas, was my only family.

From the time I was too young to even remember, parents never existed for me. When I had grown somewhat older, Lucas explained that they had died in an accident. I accepted that fact without much trouble.

I didn’t worry about whether I’d be ostracized by those around me for not having parents, or whether I’d lack food or clothing. Lucas’s existence alone, looking after me so attentively, was enough for me.

I stared blankly at Lucas’s grave, now completely covered with earth, then blinked my eyes—dry like a desert at midday—and turned my gaze to the people expressing their condolences.

The surroundings, growing dim, bustled with mourners as numerous as my brother’s lofty reputation. Dressed entirely in black, they pressed handkerchiefs beneath their eyes, busy sharing their grief over a young man who had left the world at the young age of twenty-three.

“How can she not shed a single tear when he was her only family?”

“She’s cold, so cold. That’s her only blood relative. Who did Lucas work so hard for?”

“Oh, poor Lucas. That kind boy. Even when he was busy making ends meet, he went around helping others, and then to die like that…”

Their condolences took a slightly different form. Someone from the neighboring house, someone from across the street, and someone else. People I vaguely recognized glanced my way and whispered, their voices reaching me without filter.

A b*tch who doesn’t even blink when her brother dies, a heartless and wicked b*tch, a cold b*tch.

Their hostility toward me—someone who stayed holed up at home and couldn’t even function as a proper person—was as great as their love for my brother. 

Yet I continued to capture the scene before me with an empty gaze and let it pass.

“He lived so hard to take care of her, and look how cold she is.”

“Who says otherwise? How much Lucas must have suffered while he was alive. She can’t even speak, and on top of that, she’s so gloomy.”

“Even though he had a hard time because of his simpleton sister, Lucas always smiled. He was such a kind boy who helped even people he’d never met before…”

Watching me stand firmly by my brother’s grave, seemingly hearing nothing, people gradually escalated their criticism. Their eyes lifted sharply like hawks, and the corners of their mouths repeatedly rose and fell with a smirk, spewing contempt and disgust.

Fortunately, the time I had to endure wasn’t long. Those who had been scanning me with gazes full of sharp hostility soon left, one by one.

Only after even the unfamiliar mourners had completely disappeared did I slowly begin to survey my surroundings. And when I was certain that only Lucas and I remained alone in this empty space, I finally breathed.

It was a moment like finding respite at last.

Brother, how should I live now?

Words that couldn’t become sound circled pitifully in my throat. The fact that Lucas no longer existed in this world still didn’t feel real, yet horrifyingly, my mind thought about reality.

All Lucas left me was a single house to lay my body in.

It was fortunate to have somewhere to return to immediately, but how many more days could a simpleton left alone survive? Having relied entirely on my brother, I was ignorant of how to live.

I had barely managed to put aside my endlessly drifting thoughts and was lifting my unmoving legs to take a few steps when it happened.

“Where are you going?”

A voice, both low and gentle, came from behind me. It was the first monotonous yet comfortable sound to ring out in a space that had been filled only with criticism and condolences, malice and tears.

But I couldn’t turn around easily. The funeral was already over, and my troubled mind had no room to receive a belated mourner.

I continued walking without turning back, dragging my steps.

“Am I being ignored right now?”

A murmur mixed with slight surprise caught my attention again. A voice that sounded somewhat arrogant, like this treatment was a first.

I felt like sighing, but I could no longer ignore him. An ominous premonition swept over me that if I left things like this, he would persistently keep talking to me.

I turned around with an expressionless face.

“Hello.”

It was a man I’d never seen before.

Maybe three or four years older than me? He appeared to be around my brother’s age and raised his right hand to offer me a plain greeting.

The distance between him and me was still quite far, so I couldn’t properly make out his face. I had no intention of returning a greeting to a suspicious person, so I simply stood there watching him.

After waiting a long while and receiving only cold silence in return, the man shrugged his shoulders, then leisurely moved his body and walked toward me. His gaze remained fixed on me from the moment our eyes met, never once looking away.

Thanks to that, I had time to observe this uninvited guest.

His pale blond hair swayed softly, tickling his eyebrows, and beneath them, his horizontally elongated eyes were sharp, like they could pierce right through me. 

His blue eyes held the sky at sunset, and below his chiseled nose, his red lips were slightly upturned, like he might smile at any moment.

He was the most beautifully formed man I’d seen in my twenty years.

But I had neither the time nor the presence of mind to admire him. It was merely an instinctive thought, the kind of bland impression you’d have looking at a beautiful sculpture. My mind was completely filled with my dead brother, my pitch-black future, and this suspicious mourner.

As the man approached, I was gradually consumed by his shadow. 

When he finally stood completely before me, his height so great that I had to crane my neck to look up at him and his upper body so large it seemed ready to swallow me whole, I unconsciously stepped back.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Perhaps a bit flustered, he lightly scratched his smooth cheek with his long index finger. Then, closing the distance I’d created by moving closer to me again, he muttered like he didn’t understand.

“Do I look that scary?”

I barely held back from snapping that didn’t he think it was creepy for a complete stranger to approach someone so familiarly?

As my eyes grew increasingly intense, he laughed like he found it amusing. With just a slight smile, a small dimple formed on the smooth cheekbone beneath his right eye.

I found myself drawn to that small well without realizing it.

“Come with me.”

It was a sudden statement. So natural, like asking whether I’d eaten, that I needed a moment to understand.

And when I fully grasped the meaning of those words, I could only blink in bewilderment at the confusion washing over me.

“Ah. My greeting was too brief.”

Perhaps my confusion showed on my face, because the man’s eyebrows rose slightly then lowered. With one hand shoved carelessly into his pocket, he added in a monotonous tone.

“From now on, I’ll take care of you. So come live at my house.”

What in the world. Unlike me, frozen in confusion, the man seemed to think his explanation was sufficient. He waited calmly for my answer, a faint smile playing at his lips.

Actually, it wasn’t even a matter that required thought. Follow him when I didn’t even know who he was? Groundless charity was only suspicious and uncomfortable.

Now that kings and nobles had become nothing but hollow honors, human trafficking had disappeared but still occurred not uncommonly in the shadows—a fact even I knew, holed up in my room.

At my silent, stubborn refusal, the man repeatedly furrowed and smoothed his eyebrows, then added a more detailed explanation. Seriousness began to settle on a face that had been relaxed and languid throughout.

“I’m a close friend of Lucas. I’ve received his help before.”

“……”

“So this time, I want to repay Lucas.”

For a moment, light seemed to shine in his indifferent blue eyes.

He withdrew the hand he’d had shoved in his pocket and held it out to me. A large hand with faint scars that didn’t match his beautiful face stopped in midair, waiting for me.

“My name is Ernst Rachberry. I’m going to be your guardian from now on, Liv Hallen.”

Ernst Rachberry. That was the man’s name. I rolled the name around in my mind instead of with my useless tongue.

It wasn’t a name I’d heard from my brother’s mouth. I was somewhat suspicious, but then again, the fact that he knew my name wasn’t particularly suspicious either. My overzealous brother had gone around bragging about his embarrassing sister everywhere.

Suddenly, I wondered if this man might be one of those who had sent me those terribly crimson gazes. Whether he was trying to harm me under the guise of goodwill.

When I stared at him instead of taking his hand, the man calmly withdrew it and declared seriously, like he’d read my mind.

“I won’t do anything that would harm you.”

“……”

“I only plan to look after you until you can be completely independent. For now, at least. After that, I’ll let you do whatever you want, so you don’t need to be wary.”

“……”

“I have no grudge against you whatsoever. I simply want to repay the debt I owe Lucas.”

He didn’t seem to realize that made him even more suspicious.

At my stubborn face that remained unchanged even after his lengthy explanation, the man finally threw up both hands. His smooth brow created faint wrinkles then smoothed out, and his red lips released a small breath.

“You’re not making this easy. But you’ll come to me eventually anyway.”

I didn’t know what made him so confident, but my mind was firm. I was all the more wary because it was a name I’d never heard from Lucas.

Finally, troubled by my stubborn attitude, the man presented a unilateral compromise, saying he’d give me a week. Think it over carefully for a week. He’d come to our house after a week, so if I changed my mind, don’t hesitate to tell him.

Then, about to leave without hesitation, he added.

“I thought I had a fairly trustworthy face.”

With a serious expression, he stroked his clean-cut jaw, then pulled something from the shirt pocket near his chest and held it out to me.