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Chapter 02
Warm afternoon sunlight poured through the clear glass windows.
Bathed in golden light, Lionel slowly turned the pages of his book.
Today, Lionel wasn’t sitting at his usual desk. Instead, he sat across from the child, reading a book. It was nothing more than a whim.
The child sitting so close couldn’t concentrate on the book at all today. Lionel could feel the stinging weight of her gaze on his face.
Her eyes traced from his forehead, down his eyelashes, nose, and lips before finally looking away.
At the blatant stare, Lionel furrowed his brow and let out a small sigh, careful not to let the child hear.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stop staring. It’s kind of distracting.”
Lifting his head and locking eyes with her, Lionel smiled softly.
“S-sorry, young master.”
The child mumbled an apology barely audible, then quickly looked back down at the rune textbook in front of her.
But while the frequency of her glances decreased, her furtive side-eyes continued.
It was absurd how she pretended to look elsewhere while clearly sneaking peeks at him, as if he couldn’t notice.
‘Does she really think she’s being subtle? I can practically see inside her head.’
Lionel had dealt with kids his age having crushes on him before, but this situation was different.
Usually, they tried to get his attention with subtle glances or conversation—not this kind of outright staring.
Lionel simply ignored it. It was too obvious to take seriously, and frankly, just amusing.
Knock knock knock.
“Come in.”
A maid entered and placed a snack plate and a glass of milk in front of both Lionel and the child before quietly exiting.
On the plate were a few kinds of fresh fruit and a sweet muffin filled with nuts.
Whether snacks arrived or not, Lionel’s gaze didn’t leave his book. He wasn’t particularly fond of sweets, so the snack didn’t interest him.
Deep in his book, Lionel suddenly sensed something strange.
The constant gaze he had been feeling had disappeared.
‘She was staring like her life depended on it… Why stop all of a sudden?’
Wondering why, Lionel looked up.
The child who had been peeking at him now had her bright green eyes fixed on the snack plate. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
Her throat bobbed up and down with an audible gulp. The sound was thunderously loud—so much so that Lionel wondered how he hadn’t noticed before.
She desperately wanted the snack but didn’t touch it. She just stared at the plate as if it might disappear.
Lionel couldn’t understand her behavior.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to eat?”
Finally, she looked up from the plate at him. Her eyes were full of longing.
“Y-young master has to eat first… I-I can’t eat before you do…”
“You mean… you’ve never eaten the snacks until now?”
She nodded hesitantly.
It had already been weeks since she came here. In that time, Lionel had never touched the snacks once.
‘She could’ve just eaten it secretly. How foolish.’
Lionel subtly furrowed his brow so she wouldn’t notice, picked up his glass of milk, took a sip, and then placed it down loudly on the table.
“There. Happy? Now go ahead and eat.”
The child’s perpetually timid face lit up unconsciously.
With her small hands, she grabbed the muffin tightly and took a big bite. Her green eyes widened in surprise.
“It’s… it’s delicious!”
She devoured the food in a hurry. One cheek puffed up like a chipmunk storing food for the winter.
The muffin disappeared in no time, and she nibbled at the fruit before gulping down the milk so quickly it made a loud glugging sound.
Her mouth was a mess of crumbs and fruit juice.
‘Disgusting.’
Her table manners were atrocious. Lionel rolled his tongue in his mouth and raised one eyebrow in disapproval.
The child’s gaze, once so focused on Lionel, didn’t return to him. It was what he wanted, yet for some reason, an unpleasant feeling rose within him.
Like a tiny thorn had lodged somewhere deep inside, Lionel chose to ignore it.
Later That Evening
Again.
Once again, his father didn’t show up for the dinner they had planned together.
Since his mother’s death, Lionel’s time with his father had drastically decreased. No—he could barely even see him anymore.
Since that day, his father had become consumed with work. He was always busy. He often stayed at the townhouse in the capital, and even when he was in Eduard, he spent all his time networking with influential figures or working.
Though it seemed like he tried to make time for Lionel, that was all it ever amounted to. Breaking promises like today had become routine.
Lionel was always an afterthought to his father.
As Lionel sat in gloom, the butler asked,
“Young master, shall we serve dinner?”
“Yes, please do.”
In the vast dining room, Lionel was the only one eating the soup served as an appetizer.
He had to continue the meal with the empty chair as his companion.
At first, he had disliked eating alone and had asked the butler or servants to sit with him.
But they had panicked, saying it violated proper decorum.
Silence swallowed the room. In the unbearable stillness, the sound of Lionel cutting his food echoed like an unpleasant noise.
The soft steak, prepared with care by the chef, felt like chewing rocks.
After a few bites, Lionel put down his knife. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“You won’t have more, sir?”
The butler, who had been serving him, offered more with a worried expression.
Lionel didn’t want to meet that pitying gaze. He hated how the huge dining room made his solitude feel so obvious.
‘I should’ve just eaten in my room.’
Lionel regretted it, but there was no taking it back now.
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Shall I have something else prepared, young master?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be done with dinner for today.”
Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Lionel left the dining room. Tonight, too, promised to be a long, bitterly lonely night.
The Next Day
Snap.
The tip of the pencil broke. The lead rolled across the desk and came to a stop in front of Lionel.
The child hesitated, then put down the pencil. Her gentle face, resembling a puppy, looked sullen.
She could’ve just asked to borrow a sharpener, but instead, she sat frozen, mouth opening slightly without any words. Her pitiful behavior irritated Lionel.
He closed his book and walked over to the desk.
A pen holder caught his eye, filled with unused writing instruments, including a fountain pen he never used.
It was luxurious and ornate. The ivory body was engraved with blue vine flowers native to Eduard, and the edges were trimmed with platinum.
At the tip of the cap sparkled a large, bright green diamond.
It was far too flashy for Lionel’s taste—he’d never liked it, so it had sat unused. Now that he thought of it, the green diamond did match the color of the child’s eyes quite well.
Lionel picked up the fountain pen and ink bottle and handed them to the child.
“Use this.”
The child’s already large eyes widened to their limits.
Her eyes, which took up half her small face, looked like they might fall out.
“Th-thank you, young master.”
She held the pen for a long time, fingers brushing over the engraved design, carefully removing the cap, admiring the delicately shining silver nib.
But that was it. After staring at it for a while, she gently placed the pen on the desk.
Lionel tilted his head in confusion.
“You’re not going to use it?”
“I-I heard ink doesn’t erase once it’s on paper…”
‘So what?’
Lionel didn’t understand her reasoning at all.
“And?”
“I-I can’t afford paper… If I use pencil in books, I can erase it and reuse the pages…”
Her fingers fidgeted as her face flushed red.
‘Annoying. Are all commoners this pitiful?’
Suppressing his rising irritation, Lionel rummaged through a drawer and found a stack of paper.
He handed it to her, forcing a polite smile onto his lips out of habit.
“Take this too.”
“Th-thank you.”
The child looked overjoyed. She touched the smooth surface of the paper and held it up to the light. Then, picking up the pen, she began to write.
Each time she wrote a letter, she let out a gasp of amazement.
“W-wow… it—it writes so smoothly…”
She seemed to catch herself, glanced nervously at Lionel, then quickly looked down again.
The paper soon filled with crooked rune formulas.
‘It’s just a pen. What’s she so amazed about?’
As playtime ended and it was nearly time to go, the child returned the pen and leftover paper to Lionel.
“Th-thank you for lending them to me, young master. I used them well.”
Lionel shook his head and placed the pen and paper back into her hands.
He never used them anyway, and now someone else had touched them—he’d never use them again.
“Take them. They’re yours now.”
She looked down at the pen briefly, then shook her head firmly.
“N-no, it’s okay.”
“Why? You don’t like it?”
A bitter smile formed on Lionel’s lips. His eyes, tinged with the sting of rejected kindness, turned to her.
