Chapter 17

Anne grabbed the doorknob with the solemn expression of someone entrusted with an important mission.

“Young Lady. I’ll open it on three.”

“Mhm.”

One, two, three!

The moment Anne yanked the door open, Renzard—who had been standing there awkwardly—looked completely startled.

His eyes widened as though he couldn’t process the situation, and he instinctively took a step back to flee.

Seeing that he looked ready to bolt at any second, I hurriedly shouted,

“Stooop!”

Renzard immediately froze mid-step and turned toward me.

“If you run away now, I’ll never see you again for the rest of my life!”

At those words, his fingers twitched.

As expected, he looked exactly like a child who genuinely had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Fine. I’ll rescue you myself.

“Come in.”

“Huh? Uh….”

As Renzard hesitantly entered the room, Anne closed the door behind him, saying she’d go bring snacks.

Even after entering, he simply stood there awkwardly, so I pointed toward the chair across from me.

“Sit there.”

“Okay.”

I quietly observed him sitting down and pressing his fingernails hard into his palm.

I couldn’t forgive what he’d done to Roxina.

But maybe I could at least make him repay his wrongs in my own way.

After all, I was the one who’d continue living alongside Renzard from now on, so I thought I had the right to do at least that much.

Just as I took a deep breath to begin speaking, I noticed Renzard struggling to figure out where to look.

‘He looks nervous.’

The way he kept fidgeting nonstop made him look like a child waiting to be scolded by his parents.

‘Sigh.’

I hadn’t realized it when he was speaking coldly to Pleury, but watching him squirm like this made it painfully obvious that he really was only ten years old.

‘Well… Renzard was young back then too.’

Back then, he’d only been six.

Seeing Priscilla die right in front of him at such a young age…

In that sense, he was pitiful too.

It must’ve been traumatic, vividly remembering the moment your mother died.

‘I understand.’

But understanding it didn’t mean tormenting someone else because of that trauma could be forgiven.

Renzard still kept his head lowered.

Looking at how utterly dejected he seemed made my resolve waver again.

‘No.’

If you forgive too easily, people forget too easily.

I intended to make sure Renzard never repeated this mistake again.

“Renzard.”

Renzard swallowed hard with a determined expression, and I smiled sweetly before asking,

“First… wanna get hit a little?”

Renzard’s pupils shook from side to side before eventually settling again.

If anything, he almost looked relieved by the situation.

“You’re gonna let me hit you, right?”

“Yeah.”

When I asked again, Renzard nodded and walked toward me.

“Turn around.”

Just as Renzard turned his back toward me and took a deep breath—

SMAAACK!

“Ugh!”

The pain must’ve been far worse than expected, because Renzard let out a short cry.

Apparently he’d thought I’d only hit him with a stuffed doll or something, because he kept glancing back and forth between the plush toy on the bed and my hand in disbelief.

“Why?”

Renzard stared at Roxina as she tilted her head innocently.

Suppressing the surge of emotions welling inside him, he recalled the past few days he’d spent reflecting on himself.

‘Because I really was wrong.’

He really had been taking his anger out on Roxina.

When he first heard what she said in the dining room, he’d been shocked, but even then, confusion outweighed guilt.

That was why he’d intentionally avoided her afterward.

Because he didn’t want to admit he’d been wrong.

But when he saw Roxina apologizing to nothing more than the daughter of Count Akarins at the imperial palace, something inside him twisted painfully.

Was that really what he’d wanted?

It was true that he’d always ignored her and wished she’d stay out of sight, but this felt different.

At gatherings with other young noble boys, nobody ever brought up Roxina in front of Renzard.

Even mentioning Priscilla would send him into a rage, so naturally nobody dared speak about Roxina either.

Which meant Renzard never knew.

‘That she was being treated like that.’

The nobles whispering while staring at tiny Roxina.

The young ladies cornering and pressuring her.

It all felt like his fault.

Because he’d ignored her, everyone else treated her the same way.

So he apologized, but Roxina refused to accept it, and Renzard couldn’t even resent her for that.

Because if he were in her place, he wouldn’t have believed that years of cruelty could be forgiven with a single apology either.

‘Yeah… honestly, getting hit like this is better.’

Renzard squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he waited for another harsh blow to land.

One, two, three.

‘Huh?’

But no matter how long he waited, nothing struck his back.

Instead, he heard faint breathing.

“Roxina?”

When he slowly opened his eyes and turned around, he saw Roxina nodding off against a sofa nearly as large as her body.

Maybe she’d suddenly grown tired after using so much energy all at once.

Or maybe Renzard’s lengthy inner monologue had simply bored her to sleep.

“Asleep?”

Her eyes slowly fluttered open and closed. She wasn’t fully asleep yet, but she looked like she would be soon.

Renzard clenched his fists tightly and sat down in front of Roxina.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology that began in a small voice gradually turned into something closer to talking to himself.

“You probably won’t remember this anyway. So I’m just saying it.”

As he absentmindedly rubbed the floor with his fingers, he suddenly noticed Roxina’s tiny feet dangling in the air.

A weak laugh escaped him.

Carefully lowering Roxina, whose body had slowly begun tilting sideways while sitting up, he laid her down properly before sitting back on the floor again.

“I want to get along with you. But if I said that directly, you’d probably hate it, right?”

It sounded like a question, but he wasn’t expecting an answer.

Renzard simply wanted to speak honestly.

“You were right. You didn’t kill Mother. I was just bullying you. I was so sad that I wanted to blame somebody—anybody.”

But there was one thing Renzard didn’t realize as he poured out his feelings.

The moment he gently laid Roxina down, the mind that had been slowly drifting toward sleep suddenly snapped fully awake.

“Having to let Mother go… it hurt so much. She hugged me every day. She told me she loved me. And suddenly they said I’d never see her again.”

Unable to even open my eyes, I could hear his voice gradually growing wetter with tears.

“I kept hating you… thinking that if it weren’t for you, Mom wouldn’t have gotten sick….”

Even without looking, I could tell Renzard was crying.

“I didn’t know… I really didn’t know you were being treated so horribly….”

“……”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. For taking my anger out on you. For bullying you. I’m sorry for all of it.”

Apparently convinced I’d fallen asleep, Renzard finally poured out all the words he’d hesitated to say before.

After sniffling quietly for a long time, he eventually left the room.

‘Ah….’

I opened my eyes at the sound of the door closing.

‘He changed.’

In the original story, Renzard had steadily built up hatred toward Roxina since childhood.

And when she eventually died, he’d coldly remarked that a burden had finally disappeared.

But now Renzard had changed.

The relationship between Renzard and Roxina had changed.

This was different from simply realizing Roxina herself had changed through lessons and building relationships with the people in the mansion.

‘The story is changing from the original.’

Maybe, deep down, I’d already known that.

Why I desperately tried to learn to read.

Why I tried so hard to get Heinox’s attention.

Why I refused to let the medal be taken away.

In the end, all of it came from one desire—

Because I didn’t want to die like Roxina did in the original story.

While secretly trying to soothe that lingering fear inside myself, I kept making excuses because I didn’t want to imagine where those fears might lead.

But the truth was…

This was what I’d wanted all along.

I wanted someone to tell me it was okay for me to exist here.

I wanted someone to acknowledge that I was no longer the Roxina from the original story.

The sunlight streaming through the window was bright.

And for a long time, I quietly watched that warm light spread slowly across the desk.