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Chapter : 2
A torrential downpour poured from the sky.
For several days, no one came to find me—not even my mother, who at first had tried to take my side.
Water dripped steadily through the gaps in the rotten wooden ceiling of the collapsing shack.
I couldn’t understand it.
No—rather, I didn’t want to believe it.
No. That couldn’t be. Father and Mother, my brother, His Highness the Crown Prince—there was no way they would treat me like this.
I was their family.
Convinced that something had to be wrong, I left the shack and headed for the mansion where my parents, my brother, and His Highness the Crown Prince would be.
The rain soaked my clothes and hair, but I didn’t care.
I entered the dining hall looking utterly miserable, water dripping from me.
“Father, Mother….”
But I was forced to stop in my tracks.
With Arienne seated at the center, they were all smiling brightly, laughing and chatting together.
As if they had completely forgotten my existence, the seat where I had been sitting together with them until recently was now occupied by Arienne alone.
“…Oh my, Arienne, come here.”
Arienne flinched when she noticed me. She bit her lip briefly, then gestured for me to come over.
“Arienne, she was just a substitute for you. And it’s not like she tormented you that badly. Why even call her over?”
Was that really my lover’s voice—the one who had always spoken so gently to me?
“Arienne, what are you doing outside the shack? The only reason we haven’t formally disowned you is because we did share some affection while living together. Go live quietly there.”
“Mother…?”
“I’m no longer your mother. I’m Arienne’s mother. I’ve heard everything from Arienne. Was it still not enough for you, after tormenting her like that?”
No. That wasn’t the mother I knew.
Where had the mother who always welcomed me with a warm smile gone?
“Mother, please don’t be so harsh. Arienne, still… still, I’m fine.”
“She’s just a commoner, Arienne. You don’t need to protect her. Send her back at once!”
Father was looking at me with a cold expression I had never seen before.
“Isn’t Arienne uncomfortable? Send her back immediately!”
Everyone was treating me like a stranger, wearing faces I didn’t recognize.
My head spun.
Mother treated me like an outsider. Father did the same. My brother and the Crown Prince only stared at me with cold eyes.
It was horrifying. My hands trembled uncontrollably.
I hadn’t done anything wrong—so why were they looking at me like that?
Why?
Just a few days ago, it hadn’t been this bad. Why now?
Denying reality, I approached Arienne, who had first called me over.
“S-sister, what is going on? When did I ever bully you…? If—if I did something wrong, tell me, please? Sister!”
If only Arienne had pretended to listen then, would things have turned out differently?
The moment I took a step forward and reached out to grab her hand, Arienne’s expression twisted in terror, as if she had seen a monster. She jumped to her feet and stumbled backward.
Crash.
Plates and cutlery fell to the floor, shattering into a mess.
“…S-sister…?”
At that moment, someone roughly grabbed my shoulder.
Trembling, I turned around.
The Crown Prince was glaring at me with a terrifying expression.
“Ah!!”
He released me and moved to stand protectively in front of Arienne.
“I couldn’t believe it, but it seems the rumors weren’t false after all, Duke.”
“…Ha. Arienne, return at once! Be grateful we aren’t striking your name from the family registry!”
Everyone glared at me sharply.
I could feel even the servants shooting me harsh looks.
All of them looked at me with eyes full of hostility.
Again—again, this feeling.
My hands began shaking violently.
My whole body started to tremble.
Only then did my confused mind finally reach a conclusion.
All of this was because of Arienne.
I didn’t know what kind of grudge she held against me. But despite the fact that I had done nothing, she was the one injuring herself, fabricating things, and driving me into a corner.
She was the one who stole my parents’ affection, the one who took away everyone’s trust in me.
The cause was Arienne.
Through the people standing protectively in front of her, I saw the corner of Arienne’s lips curl upward ever so slightly. I wanted to scream at them to turn around, to look at that disgusting smile she wore as she framed me—but everyone was staring at me as if I were a deranged villainess.
Terrified, I backed away and fled the mansion like I was escaping. My mouth wouldn’t open.
Why… why were they all looking at me with such unfamiliar eyes?
I was Arienne. Arienne von Eischen. My parents’ beloved daughter. His Highness the Crown Prince’s fiancée, and my brother’s precious little sister.
Because I had no memories from before the age of six, they were my entire world. No matter what they thought of me, they were everything in my world, and my entire existence revolved around them.
I crouched in a corner of the shack.
Large teardrops rolled down my cheeks and fell heavily to the ground.
If only this were a joke, a prank—if only they would come and apologize, even now.
It felt like a nightmare.
No matter how cruel the joke, if they would just say they were sorry at this moment, I felt like I could go back.
My chest ached as if it were being torn apart.
Clunk.
After crying for a long time, I sat there blankly staring at the wall with a haggard face when I heard the shack door open. Slowly, I lifted my head.
Arienne stood before me, smiling.
“Oh my, poor Arienne. Everyone has abandoned you.”
An ice-cold hand brushed against my cheek.
On Arienne’s face, which had worn such a gentle smile in front of everyone, a naked sneer now appeared.
It was horrifying.
“W-why are you doing this to me?”
My hands shook.
“Why, you ask?”
Ignoring my near-screamed question, Arienne leaned close to my ear and whispered, as if sharing some profound secret.
“Actually, there’s no reason at all.”
I blinked.
By the time I understood what she had said, Arienne was already gone.
Raindrops dripped steadily through the cracks in the ceiling.
I stared blankly at the falling droplets.
My mind felt completely empty.
No reason at all.
After stealing my family, my precious people—everything—from me, she said there was no reason.
I felt like I was going insane.
Someone tell me this isn’t real.
I prayed to God again and again. Please, make it stop. I don’t know what I did wrong—but no, I must be wrong about everything, so please, just make these horrible things stop happening.
I wanted to go back to the days when we lived peacefully and happily together. I wanted to return to being Arienne, the one and only beloved daughter of Father and Mother.
But that miracle never came.
Arienne continued to drive me into a corner.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
While I slept, she secretly hid her jewelry—jewelry that had once been mine—in the shack and framed me as a thief.
She shattered a glass bottle by herself and claimed I had thrown it at her.
That still wasn’t enough—she somehow obtained poison, put it into her own teacup, collapsed, and accused me of attempted murder.
No one took my side.
No matter how much I screamed that I hadn’t done it, all that came back was Father’s violence and the contemptuous gazes of those I loved.
I became a wicked woman who, despite having been taken in by the duke’s family, tormented the returning noble lady and even wanted to kill her. My mind grew more and more broken.
Cornered at last, I screamed in front of them all.
“I was the one who spent time with all of you! Then why—why are you doing this? I was your family too!!!”
What came back was laughter, mockery, and condemnation.
I lost count of how many times Father struck me.
Yet no matter how much I was beaten or kicked, I couldn’t give them up.
Because I still loved them.
“Your Highness, please believe me. Please!”
“How noisy.”
Kneeling and crying, I clutched at the trousers of the man who had once been my lover—only to be kicked away and sent tumbling down the stairs.
It was far too miserable for someone who had only just turned sixteen.
I struggled desperately.
The reality that had descended upon me was like a horrific nightmare—no, I wished it were a dream. At least dreams end when you wake up.
“You lowly thing. We spared you out of past affection, but it seems that was a mistake.”
In the end, exactly six months after Arienne entered the House of Eischen, I was expelled by the duke and duchess, who even mobilized knights to do so. With nothing to my name, I was thrown out alone into the heavy rain.
“Ha… haha….”
I let out a hollow laugh in front of the tightly shut gates of the ducal mansion.
Something hot—whether rain or tears, I couldn’t tell—streamed down my face.
I looked up at the dark sky.
What was I supposed to do now?
I had been rejected and abandoned by everyone I loved—by everyone I believed to be my family, everyone who had loved me before Arienne came.
Abandoned by those who had been my entire world.
No—
My thoughts slowly began to grow cold.
Had “I” ever truly been loved?
[Arienne, sleep well.]
[Arienne, I love you.]
When was it? My parents, my brother, and the Crown Prince habitually calling me “Arienne” instead of my own name.
They hadn’t loved me—they had loved the “Arienne” they saw in my face. Now that the real Arienne had returned, was I no longer needed?
Was I nothing more than Arienne’s substitute?
The love directed at me had never been real.
It was only meant for someone who resembled her.
“Ha, ha, hahahahaha! Haha—ha—h-hic, uhk….”
The mad laughter that spilled uncontrollably from my mouth eventually turned into choking sobs.
Soaked through, crying wretchedly on the ground, I finally stood up.
Staggering, I began to walk aimlessly.
My once-beautiful teal eyes lost their clarity and grew dull.
And so, five years passed.
