DDD 16

With trembling hands, he gently traced over the word as if it were something precious.
That alone made him feel as though he possessed everything in the world.

[There’s nothing Aryan doesn’t know!]
[Aryan really deserves this.]
[Aryan is like an angel!]

Every word she had ever said to him came floating back into his mind.
Just recalling them made his body want to curl in on itself in embarrassment, but at this moment—this one moment—he could endure it.

Am I really that kind of person to Clarissa?

Aryan’s eyes brimmed with joy.
He could hear his heartbeat clearly. Afraid someone might hear it too, he pressed a hand tightly to his chest.

As he writhed in happiness for a long while, the image of the begging boy and girl he had seen earlier that day suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Then… what about those two children?

That question, which slipped out so naturally, plunged Aryan’s mood back into ice.

Yes. Clarissa had been kind to those children as well.

His thoughts stalled for a moment.

…Clarissa is kind to everyone.

She had even said she’d met those two for the first time today.

The buoyancy in Aryan’s heart sank in an instant.

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t find any difference in the way Clarissa treated him and the way she treated them.
If anything, the only thing he managed to find was a similarity in the situation itself.

It was the same strange feeling he’d had when he’d seen that scene.

There was definitely a word for this…

Aryan’s hand began to move busily once more. His eyes scanned the page in a rush.
Amid the dense rows of black letters, he found the word he wanted to find—yet wished he didn’t know.

“Pity: to feel sorrow and compassion for another’s hardship as though it were one’s own.”

The moment he read it, everything became clear.

Clarissa’s slightly irritated attitude.
The way her hand reached out without hesitation to anyone who bowed their head in hardship.

…I see. It isn’t love.

It wasn’t quite disappointment—something close, yet different.
He couldn’t find a name for this feeling either, but he didn’t have the courage to search for its meaning any further.

It felt as though every emotion inside him had been severed, crying out in pain.
Breathing became difficult.

Clear tears fell onto the page.
The tightly packed black letters blurred from view; soaked with water, the characters bloomed like scattered stars.

Aryan pulled the book—now impossible to read—deep into his chest.
The soft rustling sound tickled his ears, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to care.

Amid the stabbing pain that pierced him, Aryan made a vow.

Cherish it.

Even if it was a feeling she could give to anyone at all…

I will cherish the warmth Clarissa gave me for the very first time.

Clarissa flopped cheerfully onto her bed.

By her own standards, she’d done pretty well today.

“Do you think I recovered at least a little of the image I’ve ruined all this time?”

Perhaps because she’d been so ill-mannered before, Aryan still seemed afraid of her.
Every time her voice rose even slightly, the way his shoulders flinched kept catching her eye.

“I know, I know—if I just don’t yell, it’ll be fine… but that’s not exactly easy.”

She’d lived like this for twelve years already.
Even back in her days as ‘Writer Kang,’ she’d never been particularly quiet, and once the environment started reinforcing it, fixing the habit became even harder.

This is why environment is terrifying. Environment.

“Anyway… what do I do now?”

Thinking about environment reminded her of the young boy who, because of it, would likely carry a lifelong wound in his heart.

A diet utterly insufficient for a growing child.
A worthless teacher.
Neglect that bordered on abandonment.
And even abuse carried out where no one could see.

“I need to get Aryan out of that viper’s den.”

She herself had stayed quiet for now, but over the course of several years, she would eventually take over the count’s household completely.
Even if Clarissa wanted to expose what she’d done to Aryan, there was no solid evidence—and most importantly, Count Matthias himself hadn’t even been able to return to the capital area for years.

And even if he did come back… honestly? In the original story, he never said a single warm word to Aryan.

If he’d cared even a little about his child’s upbringing, he wouldn’t have left for the battlefield, abandoning his son with a stepmother barely ten years older.

“Seriously… every last one of them.”

Clarissa stuck out her lips and vented every complaint she could muster.

“If only the engagement had gone through safely, I could’ve just brought him with me.”

They’d agreed to start as friends, but she had no idea when—or if—they could return to that place again.
As long as Bellisa kept pretending she hadn’t seen the annulment papers, it felt like all she had to do was persuade Aryan somehow…

“You idiot, Clarissa.”

This girl really had no eye for things.

“And that idiot is me.”

Faced with a reality she didn’t want to believe, Clarissa let out a groan of pain and grabbed fistfuls of her hair.
Gloomy thoughts surged in waves.

She quickly shook her head.

“No. Let’s start with what I can do for sure.”

Cursing what had already happened wouldn’t put food on the table—or solve anything.
Clarissa clenched her small, fern-like fist tightly.

She had no intention of giving up.
And she couldn’t afford to.

She sifted through the memories of the original story still lingering in her mind. Fortunately, she had a pretty good idea of what she needed to do first.

“First of all… yeah. That, right?”

Early in the morning, Marquis Vestas quickly scanned the crowd of servants and his wife who had come out to greet him.

As expected, she wasn’t there today either.

“Is Clarissa still asleep?”

“Yes… even yesterday—”

Vestas’s eyebrows twitched faintly.

His daughter had always been willful, but lately it had gone too far.
From dawn, she’d been busy chasing after that boy from Count Matthias’s household—Arnya or Iryan or whatever his name was, a lad who barely seemed like a proper boy at all.

“It’s been awfully hard to see her these days.”

“It can’t be helped. At least she isn’t shaking off the knights assigned to her.”

“When does that cursed adolescence ever end?”

Vestas made no attempt to hide his irritation.

Eclea smiled awkwardly and tried to soothe her husband.
She too regretted not seeing Clarissa often, but part of her felt relieved that their daughter wasn’t causing even bigger trouble.

“Very well. Then I’ll be off.”

“Have a safe trip.”

Vestas nodded reluctantly and climbed into the pristine white carriage.
Two horses, bearing the symbol of House Lisette, pawed the ground and surged forward.

The carriage passed the central fountain of Mirga and headed toward the imperial palace.

As Vestas organized the day’s tasks in his mind, he reviewed the most urgent documents.
By the time the rustle of turning paper and the rhythm of galloping hooves faded from his awareness—

Clatter, clatter.

A suspicious noise came from the seat across from him.

Startled, he looked more closely. The wood beneath the backrest was shaking in an unexpected direction.

Vestas’s eyes sharpened.

An assassin?

Just as he reached for the sword at his side—

Crack.

The wood snapped and fell away, and familiar chocolate-colored hair burst into view.
A pale hand clutching broken planks, startled golden eyes following close behind.

“Clarissa?”

Vestas’s voice shot up.

Clarissa rolled her eyes once, then broke into a bright smile. Like the most innocent child in the world, she called out to her father.

“Father!”

“Why are you here—?”

Vestas hurried toward his daughter, now pitifully crumpled beneath the seat.
Before he could unleash a barrage of questions, Clarissa shouted cheerfully at the top of her lungs.

“Hehe! I want to tour the imperial palace!”