Chapter 08
I slowly walked toward Kashiyar, who was still standing stiffly at the door.
But instead of letting me get closer, Kashiyar stepped back, widening the distance between us.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m covered in sweat. You’ll dislike it.”
“It’s fine. I’ve trained with the knights and gotten sweaty too. I’m not the type to fuss about that.”
“But—”
“Do you not want to see me?”
He froze. Finally, his backward steps stopped.
“Of course not.”
“Really?”
Since he had stopped moving away, and I continued forward, the gap between us quickly closed.
I stood right in front of him and looked up.
Kashiyar’s brow was furrowed, as if my words made no sense to him.
“No matter what you look like, you’re still Kashiyar.”
I held his gaze.
“You’re precious to me.”
His expression instantly softened, his eyes widening as though he couldn’t believe what he just heard.
For a moment, he looked like the boy I remembered — the boy whose round eyes always looked so big.
“I missed you.”
“Sister…”
At my words, Kashiyar couldn’t hide his joy. I took a quiet breath.
Why he suddenly returned after 11 years didn’t matter.
What mattered was this: in front of fate that said I should die, I still had a chance to live.
That thought filled me with hope.
“I wanted to see you so badly… but I couldn’t. So I chose to forget you instead.”
I lifted my cold, trembling hand and gently touched his cheek.
“Thank you… for not forgetting me, for coming back to find me.”
My lips were dry from the lies and the guilt of deceiving him.
Still, I forced a smile.
“I’m happy… to see you again.”
Kashiyar’s face looked as though it might burst at any moment.
“I missed you.”
“….”
“I missed you, Kar.”
As soon as I said it, Kashiyar grabbed the hand touching his cheek and pulled me into his arms.
In an instant, I was trapped in his strong embrace.
“I wanted to meet you.”
“…Yes.”
“I wanted to talk with you.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to be this close to you.”
“Yes.”
“…I missed you.”
His arms wrapped around me tightly, as if he would never let go.
No—he was clinging to me.
I reached up and stroked his hair.
“Yes.”
I could smell faint sweat from him, his clothes damp,
but still, his familiar scent — the one from long ago — filled my nose.
‘Whew… at least I got through this.’
I barely held back a sigh of relief inside his arms.
He was a boy who had never known parental love, who grew up abused by relatives, starved for affection, desperate for love.
Back then, when I realized he was fated to kill me,
I had targeted that weakness to survive.
I approached him like a kind sister, a gentle friend, even a loving mother.
So that he would never feel like killing me.
So that I could use his weakness against him.
And it worked.
‘For now I’ve bought myself time… but what about later?’
Nobody would want to keep standing face-to-face with the reaper who held their death in his hands. Neither did I.
His warmth didn’t comfort me.
It only made me want to run away.
‘Why does my heart feel so uneasy?’
Something sharp twisted inside my chest.
Was it guilt? Guilt for manipulating someone’s emotions just to protect myself?
I closed my eyes in his warm embrace,
and my memory dragged me back to the moment I first realized the truth.
It was about a month after Kashiyar came to our house when I first started wanting my normal life back.
“Sister.”
Because he had become like a shadow stuck to me, following me everywhere.
Even though he was quiet and not much trouble, after a month of babysitting him, I missed my own daily life.
“Sister.”
“…What?”
“What’s today’s snack?”
“…You could ask the maids that, you know.”
Did he really have to come all the way to my room, where I was lying face down on the bed, just to ask that?
“Why are you lying like that, sister?”
“….”
He wasn’t a troublemaker kid, but he was a little clueless, and very curious.
I turned my head on the pillow and saw him leaning over my bed, his face close to mine.
“Sometimes there are days like this. Days when you don’t want to do anything.”
“Days when you don’t want to do anything?”
“Days when you just want to lie in bed all day.”
“Is today that kind of day for you?”
Yes. A day when I was too tired to run around with him.
What I really wanted was to sit at a table, pile snacks high on one side, and on the other side spread out my sewing kit and finish the doll Father gave me.
But if I did that, Kashiyar would be buzzing around, distracting me.
I buried my face back in the pillow and sighed deeply, then finally sat up.
“No, I was just resting a bit.”
What I wanted was time alone,
but Kashiyar wanted to play. That was just his role as a child.
If I had to spend time with him anyway,
then it was better not to show him my weariness.
“Want to play for a while before we eat?”
At that, his sulky face lit up instantly, and he gave me a big smile, his round eyes crinkling.
“Yes! I want to play with you.”
So that was why he had come to my room — just to play with me.
I sighed silently and reached out my hand.
“What do you want to play?”
“Exploring the hill behind the house.”
He placed his small hand in mine.
Someone once said: never underestimate a boy’s energy.
I had hoped for something quiet, like playing house in my room. Instead, I ended up regretting that I even asked.
The hill behind the Astante estate was perfect for kids to explore.
Of course, with a young noble boy going out, the knights had to follow us in a line.
“Sister, look! Chestnut shells!”
“Sister, there are black berries!”
“Sister, come see this giant spiderweb with me!”
“Sister, our old treehouse is still here!”
“Sister.”
“Sister.”
“Sister.”
After an hour of following him up the hill,
I finally sat down on a flat rock, exhausted, staring blankly at him.
“Why do kids have so much energy?”
Even though my body was also a child’s, I couldn’t keep up with him.
“Pfft.”
I turned to see one of the duke’s knights covering his mouth, trying not to laugh. His face was red, his body shaking as he suppressed his laughter.
“Sister.”
“What?”
“Are you watching me? Are you watching what I made?”
“Yes. Amazing. You stacked those stones so high without them falling.”
He beamed at my praise.
“I’ll stack them taller, as tall as you!”
“Alright. Do your best.”
“Okay!”
He happily went back to stacking stones beside me.
“You’ve changed a lot, haven’t you?”
“Hm?”
“Kashiyar, I mean.”
The knight finally spoke after calming down.
I followed his gaze to Kashiyar.
It had been a month since he came to live with us. In that time, he really had changed.
He had more expressions now. He talked more.
The boy who didn’t even know how to play now begged me to play with him.
He looked… like a normal child now.
“Doesn’t that suit him better?”
“Yes. It suits him very well.”
Just then, thud — a heavy sound.
“Ah, I dropped it.”
It was the sound of a stone rolling away after Kashiyar threw it.
The stone stopped on the ground. It was smeared with red.
“What are you doing, Kashiyar!”
He looked at me with wide eyes.
“There was something there.”
“What was it?”
“Long ears, white fur, red eyes.”
He made a circle with his small hands to show the size. He hadn’t looked like he was trying to hurt it.
“Then why did you throw a stone at it?”
“What if it knocked over my stones? I was going to kill it.”
A month with him… and sometimes, his words chilled me. Like now.
“It didn’t even come close to you. It didn’t hurt you. It didn’t even touch your stones. And yet you tried to kill it?”
“Yes. It was in the way.”
“Sigh… Kashiyar…”
“What?”
I covered my face with my hands, not knowing what to say.
Children can be innocent, but that innocence can turn cruel. I knew that.
But Kashiyar… was different. I couldn’t explain how, but he was.
“You could’ve just chased it away.”
“But what if it came back? Then I’d have to chase it again.”
“Then just chase it away again.”
“Why? That’s annoying. You hate annoying things too, don’t you?”
“Life is precious, Kashiyar. More precious than my annoyance.”
At my words, he scowled.
“Killing isn’t hard, sister. Why choose the hard way when the easy way is right there?”
On his first day, I hadn’t believed everything he said.
I thought maybe it was just his relatives’ harsh teachings that made his morals unclear.
But now… it was different.
