That day, everything changed.

Delphius stared in disbelief at people bowing politely towards him.

Those who had previously ignored him were suddenly showing him proper respect. No one gave him sideways glances. No one whispered behind his back.

It was all because he was holding Ariella’s hand.

As the youngest daughter of the Marquis of Calante, her opinion alone carried weight, and she was cherished above all others.

This changed everything: the way people looked at him, spoke to him and treated him.

For the first time since the fever had robbed him of his ability to recognize faces, Delphius felt as though he truly existed.

As though he were someone worthy of respect and deserving of proper treatment.

Of course, neither the Lukehardt family nor the Calante family approved.

From the Calantes’ perspective, a ‘discarded Lukehardt’ was beneath them.

The Lukehardts, meanwhile, thought it equally distasteful that the child they had cast aside was now drawing attention.

They tried several times to arrange for Ariella to play with different children, or to suggest that she spend time with Delphius’s other siblings instead.

But the result was always the same.

Ultimately, both families had no choice but to allow Delphius to remain by Ariella’s side, and they could not hide their unease — especially the Duchess of Lukehardt.

The Duchess of Lukehardt, in particular, was extremely uneasy. She would nearly fall into hysterics at the mere sight of Delphius outside his room.

Eventually, whenever Ariella came to visit, Delphius began shutting himself away in his room.

There was no need to explain just how much of an impact Ariella’s presence had on him.

Of course, Ariella was far from a kind friend.

“Delphius! Bring me that.”

“Delphius! Do this for me.”

She treated him less like a companion and more like a servant—ordering him around at will.

“Delphi, go get that for me.”

At some point, she had started calling him ‘Delphi’, claiming it as a pet name.

Unable to refuse her, Delphius obediently carried out even her smallest errands.

The closer he stayed to Ariella, and the more he obeyed her, the easier life became for him.

“Delphi, what’s that trash?”

After idly wandering into his room for several days, Ariella pointed at something that had caught her eye.

“That’s something I treasure. It’s not trash.”

Delphius frowned.

Ariella had a habit of speaking however she pleased—her standards based solely on her own whims.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s a bouquet. Dried flowers.”

It had been a gift from his first nurse.

When he was ill with a high fever and no one else came to his bedside, she was the only one who did. She took his hand and softly told him that he would get through it.

That bouquet was the first gift he received after he had recovered. Unlike his parents, who could afford to buy expensive gifts, she had gathered the flowers herself and made the bouquet with her own hands.

“It looks so plain. And you’re saying it’s precious?”

Ariella frowned, unable to understand.

“I want to touch it too.”

“No. It’s dried—if you touch it, it’ll fall apart. If it gets in your hands, it’ll crumble immediately.”

“Why? Let me touch it!”

“No matter what you ask, I can’t allow that.”

“How dare someone like you try to stop me, Delphius?”

‘…Ah.’

He should have deflected her instead of refusing outright.

Realizing this too late, he hurriedly looked around for something else to offer her as a distraction, but her eyes were already brimming with tears.

This was bad.

Ariella was fragile. Even the slightest upset could cause her to run a fever.

And if she started crying…

“Why can’t I touch it? Why can’t I, the daughter of Calante?! How dare someone like you—!”

Ariella couldn’t finish her sentence.

Her body gave way, collapsing without warning, and Delphius lunged forward instinctively.

“Ariella!”

He carried her in his arms and called out for help.

Although it was Delphius speaking, nobody dared ignore the fact that the Marquis of Calante’s daughter had fainted.

She was quickly taken away in a carriage.

A few hours later—

—Delphius found himself standing before the Duke of Lukehardt, who had returned in haste.

“How many times have I told you? That child is frail—if she wants something, you are to give it to her!”

“…But… she kept trying to touch something precious to me…”

“What could a son of Lukehardt possibly lack, that you would cling to some worthless object like that?”

Delphius tried to explain carefully, but the Duke only became more furious.

He knew how much the Marquis of Calante cherished his daughter. As a great nobleman, he could not afford to damage their relationship, particularly as it could affect political alliances and business dealings.

“All this—over nothing more than dried flowers?!”

“N-No—please!”

Despite Delphius’s desperate protest, the dried bouquet was mercilessly crushed beneath the Duke’s heel.

In an instant, it shattered—reduced to nothing, its shape completely destroyed.

“Ah…”

“You will apologize to the Lady of Calante. Do you understand?”

The duke was not interested in his son’s feelings.

His sorrow lingered only for a moment.

The trembling in Delphius’s eyes slowly subsided, settling into something else — resignation or acceptance; even he could not tell which.

‘Yes… this is how it is.’

No matter how much he doted on Ariella, or how obedient he was, violence would ensue the moment he failed to meet her expectations.

That was his place.

A shadow fell over the child’s gaze as he held his breath.

Delphius was still trapped in that sunless western room.

Only the nameplate had changed — from ‘Delphius’ to ‘Ariella’.

But the confinement remained the same.

Delphius swallowed hard.

Scattered petals lay crushed at his feet.

“…Understood.”

Upon hearing that Ariella was recovering from a high fever and was on bed rest, Delphius set off immediately for the Marquis’s villa near the capital, carrying a large bouquet of flowers.

“I’m sorry.”

He handed her the lavish arrangement—so grand it couldn’t even be compared to the dried flowers his nurse had once given him.

Ariella looked at him with a mocking smile.

‘See? You could never amount to anything.’

As if saying exactly that, she lowered her gaze to the bouquet—then casually ran her fingers through it, scattering the flowers without care.

“I wanted to give you something as close as possible to the flowers you seemed interested in, but they said those weren’t suitable for a sickroom, so I brought something else instead.”

“It’s fine. I wasn’t that interested in them anyway, and they weren’t even pretty. This is more than enough.”

As if she had already lost interest, she pushed the bouquet aside carelessly.

The flowers lost their shape, brushed against the floor and crushed beneath her rough hands—but Ariella no longer spared them a glance.

‘So it was all for this.’

Even if he had brought her the dried bouquet, she would have reacted the same way.

She would have handled it with the same indifference — tearing it apart without a second thought before tossing it back at him as if it were worthless.

The moment it caught Ariella’s attention, its fate was sealed.

‘Because of you… I lost that bouquet forever.’

Delphius bit down hard on his lip.

Gifts were piled around Ariella like a small mountain. Most of them had come from the Marquis of Calante, and yet their sheer abundance was overwhelming nonetheless.

Suddenly, he remembered the moment his own world had changed — the barren emptiness that had surrounded him when he had had no one to protect him or give him even the smallest gift.

He remembered wiping his sweat away and forcing himself to stand because there had been no one to help him.

Lowering his head, Delphius let Ariella’s idle chatter wash over him.

All he wanted was to escape the room, which was overflowing with affection.

The carriage that was supposed to take him home never came.

Even an hour after the visit had ended, he was still waiting.

He had come alone because not even the servants had wanted to accompany him.

Standing there waiting felt like a waste of time.

For the first time, Delphius stepped outside on his own.

His feet carried him forward aimlessly beneath the fading glow of the sunset.

Until a certain scent made him stop.

“This is…”

It was a familiar scent.

As soon as Delphius realized that it was the same fragrance as the flowers his nurse used to give him, he turned towards it, as if drawn by instinct.

There, a young woman stood holding a bouquet. Through the thin wrapping, he could see the flowers, and with a single glance, he knew they were the same ones.

They were the same flowers his nurse had once given him.

“Would you like to buy some flowers?”

“Ah, I…”

Without thinking, Delphius searched his pockets, only to realize that he didn’t have any money on him. A faint look of disappointment crossed his face.

He had never held money in his own hands before.

To him, money was something that the servants carried and used to buy things for him.

He had never paid for anything himself, nor had he ever taken money out himself.

As he stood there hesitating, the woman selling the flowers smiled gently at him.

“If just one flower is enough, would you like to take it?”

“But… I don’t have any money.”

“My daughter keeps scolding me, saying I shouldn’t give flowers away for free—that I should sell them properly. She says she’ll be happy just to see a few of them sold.”

After hesitating for a moment, Delphius accepted the flower that she offered him.

Although it was just a single stem, it was fresh and vibrant — far more beautiful than the expensive bouquet he had carried earlier that day.

Slowly and carefully, he lifted it to his nose.

In that moment, his eyes began to burn.

“This… this is the one…”

The flower his nurse had given him—the first, and the last.

Its scent was as gentle as the warmth she had shown him when he was ill.