Chapter 34
‘Just wait here for a second. Daddy’s going to buy you some cotton candy.’
I never bothered watching movies or dramas with that kind of cliché scene.
Because I’d already lived it.
On my birthday, out of nowhere, my dad took me to an amusement park. I thought, What’s with the sudden kindness? Shouldn’t he be spending that money getting drunk instead?
My sixth birthday. I stood alone in front of the merry-go-round, staring at the glittering night scenery until I was sick of it.
And of course—predictably—he never came back, not until the lights went out.
Scene change.
Hmm… did I go to the amusement park office first and then to the nearby police station, or straight to a shelter?
Anyway, one day, while being shuttled around like baggage from place to place—
‘Great-aunt…?’
Not my dad, but an old woman I’d never seen before came to pick me up.
Even the title I was supposed to call her by felt strange. She held out her hand to me, telling me to come home. Back then, that wrinkled hand looked huge and impressive.
I happily trailed after her to her home, which turned out to be small and shabby.
I mean, the place I’d lived with Dad was a dump too, but this was even worse.
It barely qualified as a house.
A shack? A haunted house? Personally, I called it “the plank heap.”
And yet… it was a home.
The only home I had left.
‘Your dad’s a pitiful kid too.’
That was what my great-aunt—who had actually raised my father—said every day, even though she’d been forced to take in his child too.
At first I couldn’t understand it, and later… I just didn’t want to understand.
My great-aunt was poor.
Not because she drank like Dad—she didn’t touch alcohol—but still poor.
Instant noodles instead of rice, pain relief patches instead of hospital bills, going out early at dawn to pick up recyclables…
Every scene of her life was like something out of a tearjerker documentary.
Up until then, I thought my life would stay stuck in the genre of either gritty documentaries or third-rate dramas.
I never imagined another genre would get added in later…
“Stop reminiscing about the past!”
A loud shout woke me up. The frilly princess canopy over my head calmed my pounding heart in an instant.
Whew. Financial therapy really is the best.
As I wiped the cold sweat from my brow, my head suddenly twinged.
“Ow…”
To be precise, the side of my head hurt. When I reached up and felt around, my fingers brushed something like gauze.
…What happened?
After a short mental buffer, I remembered the moment before I’d blacked out.
Right—I’d stepped on an oily patch on the marble floor in the hall and went skidding.
In that split second, I’d thought, Not the face! Not the back of the head either! and twisted to fall on my side instead.
‘Well done, me.’
From the soreness in my shoulder and arm, it seemed I’d managed to cushion the impact enough to avoid splitting my skull open.
I gently patted the likely-to-be-just-a-bump spot on my head and looked around.
Since it was still bright, not much time must have passed. To figure out the situation, I needed to call Betty—
“Young Lady!”
—oh, here she was.
The moment she saw me, Betty dropped the basin of ice water she was carrying and ran over.
That sturdy-looking basin crumpled like a piece of paper when it hit the floor. More importantly—was it really okay to keep breaking things like this?
I’d always thought of Betty as gentle and timid, but she was starting to seem… a bit aggressive.
“Are you awake? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’re not dizzy or nauseous?”
“Not at all.”
After thoroughly checking me over, Betty finally let out a relieved sigh.
Considering I could have been seriously hurt, a few bruises was a lucky outcome.
“Betty, but…”
Before I could ask “What happened?” another question jumped ahead in my mind.
Where’s Levi?
Normally, I’d be demanding to know immediately, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead, a wave of petty disappointment rose up.
That jerk—his fiancée knocks her head and passes out, and he can’t even bother to check on her?
Then again, knowing his personality, would he even bother to care for his own little brother if he were hurt?
Seeing me hesitate, Betty seemed to misunderstand and clenched her fist in reassurance.
“Don’t worry. No matter how small the young master, he won’t be pulling dangerous pranks anymore.”
“…Huh?”
“Honestly, to torment someone so persistently and dangerously… He’ll have to face Master’s wrath when he returns.”
So—last night’s cold water ambush and the oiled marble were all the second young master’s doing?
He had been a prime suspect, of course.
A fixed stone resenting the newcomer, that sort of petty malice. I’d seen it before.
Still, something about it left me lukewarm.
“Didn’t you say he was sick? Too unwell to even come out and greet me…?”
“Obviously an act. He’s been faking illnesses for years.”
Faking it? For years?
So Levi knew he was faking and just didn’t bother to care?
Betty, still a bit fired up, continued talking and inadvertently answered my real question.
“Either way, don’t be afraid or worry too much. Even the eldest young master, who usually lets him be, went to punish him this time.”
Wait—who’s doing what now?
My brain stuttered. The words felt alien.
“Levi… punishing him?”
“Of course. With Master away, he has to maintain discipline in the estate…”
Betty’s voice trailed off.
“…I think he might actually be angry?”
“What’s with the uncertainty?”
“It’s my first time seeing it.”
She looked puzzled even as she said it.
And fair enough—if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it either.
An angry Levi? A Levi who punishes someone?
“…Now I’m curious.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m going to see.”
Brushing aside Betty’s concern that I should rest more, I climbed out of bed.
If it was true, I couldn’t miss such a rare sight.
And it’s my business too.
Shouldn’t I meet the culprit who nearly cracked my skull open? Whether it’s an apology or an excuse, I want to hear it from him directly.
“Where are they now?”
“They should both be in the second young master’s room on the second floor.”
Second floor?
As far as I knew, Levi, Wolfgang, and even I had our bedrooms on the third floor. Why was he the only one on the second?
Puzzling over that, I headed down.
I didn’t need to ask which way to go—
Because a crowd of servants was gathered in front of one particular door.
“…I said I didn’t do it!”
A smooth, refined voice snapped from inside.
So they were still at the denial-and-interrogation stage? Maybe this “Franz” kid was more trouble than I thought.
Betty and I exchanged glances and slipped into the crowd.
“Gentlemen, please calm—”
“Franz Bastion.”
I flinched.
The one who cut off Benjamin’s attempt to mediate spoke in a voice that was both familiar and… not.
Levi’s tone was never prone to swings in emotion—calm, sometimes even a bit absent-minded.
He wasn’t raising his voice now, but there was an undercurrent to it.
If I had to name that undercurrent—anger.
I saw the cold air at his back, the stiff shoulders, the clenched fist. Without thinking, I called out to him.
“Levi.”
“…Asha.”
He spun around and hurried over to check me.
“Are you alright?”
I nodded, peeking over his shoulder.
Behind him stood a boy with the same sleek black hair as Levi and Wolfgang.
Whoa—he really is the sickly, prickly pretty boy type!
At least in the face.
Franz looked not only healthy, but downright full of energy.
Guess the illness really was fake. He even had the nerve to glare at me with that spiteful face.
If Wolfgang was the picture of the northern duke archetype, Franz’s features were more delicate.
And his eyes—violet.
Ridiculously pretty, honestly.
If I hadn’t known there were two young masters in the Bastion family, I’d have thought he was a short-haired girl.
But to show me such open hostility with that pretty face… It made me a little sad, honestly.
If we could clear up the misunderstanding, maybe we could—
“Ugly.”
“Wanna die?”
So much for that.
Our eyes clashed like sparks, until Levi cut in.
“Apologize.”
Franz’s eyes widened as if hearing such words for the first time in his life.
Tch—must’ve grown up spoiled in a neglectful family. Too bad for him, he picked the wrong target today.
Clinging to Levi’s arm, I shouted triumphantly, “Yeah, apologize for lying about me being ugly!”
“…And for hurting her.”
Oh, right—that was the priority.
Standing protectively in front of me, Levi’s voice dropped.
“What if Asha hadn’t woken up?”
“Levi…”
He must’ve been really worried. My chest tightened.
“And you tried to stomp me to death.”
“Ahem.”
Benjamin, Betty, and the other townhouse servants all coughed and looked away from Levi.
He faltered, caught off guard.
Oops—inner thoughts slipping out again. Not the time for that.
I waved cheerfully. Go on, go on. Let’s deal with this rude little brother first and then settle the rest later.
I was inwardly clicking my tongue at how every meeting with the Bastions seemed to turn into a mess when—
“For the last time, I said I didn’t oil the floor!”
Franz ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
Maybe because he was more expressive than Wolfgang or Levi, for a moment he seemed like a different breed altogether.
“The rat—fine, yeah, that was me. It got caught in a trap, so I just wanted to give you a scare…”
I hadn’t expected him to actually manhandle it with his bare hands.
Franz glanced at me and then sharply looked away.
“But I really don’t know anything about the rest. First I’m hearing of it. Why would I bother doing something so pointless?”
And tossing a dead rat at me wasn’t pointless?
I narrowed my eyes, studying him. I couldn’t tell—was he a shameless liar, or was he genuinely innocent this time?
Given the circumstances, lying seemed more likely… but something didn’t sit right.
“Don’t lie.”
“What?”
“Like you did that time.”
It happened in an instant.
The air went cold. Franz’s face turned pale.
From one emotionless sentence from Levi, he looked so drained that for the first time, he actually resembled a sick patient.
I was about to step in, thinking this was going too far, when someone else spoke up first—
“It’s my fault. Please punish this Eva.”
