MCFLS 09

Chapter 09

Cyril subtly turned his head to avoid Adrien’s gaze.

Adrien, who had been chattering away with his mouth wide open, blinked.

Even though he knew exactly what was going on, Cyril stubbornly avoided his eyes. For some reason, he had a strong feeling that he absolutely shouldn’t be looking at Adrien right now.

After a brief moment, the sound of knock, knock pricked at his ears again. Cyril had no choice but to turn his head back.

Adrien was crooking a finger at him, as if telling him to come over. If he didn’t, it was obvious Adrien would just keep knocking on the window.

Being annoyed once was better than being annoyed repeatedly.

For the first time, Cyril pushed himself up and walked over to the window.

“Why are you calling me.”

When he spoke through the glass, Adrien beamed. He sure laughed easily—after bothering a sick person, too.

Such a strange kid.

Cyril thought sourly.

Hoo—

Unaware of Cyril’s thoughts, Adrien began yet another peculiar act. Blowing warm breath onto the perfectly fine window was suspicious enough.

After repeatedly fogging the glass—hoo, hoo—and creating a big patch of condensation, Adrien pressed a finger to it and started moving it.

“…”

Cyril silently watched the letters forming beneath that fingertip, his eyes trembling slightly.

[ .ja, ha, i, gat ]
(= the rough, backward-on-glass formation of “같이 하자”, Let’s do it together.)

Not considering at all how it would look from the other side, Adrien had written the words exactly as he saw them—crooked, sloppy, clearly terrible handwriting. It unmistakably said: “Let’s do it together.”

He knew Cyril was sick and still wrote that. His handwriting leaned so badly that calling it “messy” would be generous. Everything about it was rude, reckless, and inconsiderate.

“…I’ll think about it.”

And yet—Adrien was Cyril’s first friend. And it was the first time a friend had ever asked him to do something together.

The thought alone tugged at Cyril’s heart, and he nodded.

Behind the foggy glass, Adrien flashed a bright smile.

For some reason, Cyril didn’t feel like facing that smile and pretended not to see, turning away.

＊ ＊ ＊

But that was it.

Four months later, Cyril could not understand what on earth had possessed him that day.

“Ah!”

A light hit made Cyril stagger. The vague flutter in his chest was instantly blown away by the hard thud of a wooden practice sword.

“Why aren’t you dodging?”

Adrien, who had smacked Cyril’s shoulder with zero mercy, tilted his head with a gentle, innocent look—one that made Cyril feel wronged, as if the kid were saying, Can’t you see the sword coming?

His frail body and abysmal stamina made even the most basic training—running—exhausting.

He had spent three whole months building physical strength, and had only held a sword for barely a month.

“Again.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

It was far too early for real sparring, but the knight didn’t interfere.

Children grow up by fighting anyway.

The problem was that these “children” were the count’s daughter and the Duke of Tezar’s son—but calling their bouts “duels” would’ve been embarrassing.

“Ah!”

“Why aren’t you dodging?”

And to make matters worse, the sparring always turned into Adrien hitting Cyril one-sidedly. Even if the knight wanted to stop them, Cyril would wheeze and stubbornly refuse.

From the knight’s perspective, the winner was decided from the start.

Adrien was taller than most kids his age, had great endurance, and had started swordsmanship months earlier than Cyril. Naturally, he won.

The knight also knew that his lord—the Count of Cassinel—often thought, If only Adrien were the heir…

Meanwhile, Cyril was skinny and weak. He had admirable grit, but skill-wise, it meant little for now.

But give it some time. Who knows how things will change.

The two were already clashing for the third time today.

The knight watched Cyril, who pretended to be unfazed even though his arm must be stinging like mad, and continued holding his sword.

For a kid who had spent much of his life bedridden, Cyril’s stamina was improving fast.

He was still small, but his arms and legs were long compared to his height—promising for his future build.

If he kept growing like this, he would one day become a fine young man.

And by then, the young lady would have grown up too… perhaps they would make a good pair.

The aging knight smiled fondly at the bickering children. A bond formed in childhood—his wife would call it romantic.

What nonsense is this?

And one member of that “romantic pair,” Cyril, was grinding his teeth.

Forget romance or fate—only vengeance and dueling burned in his mind.

“Cyril, do you like getting hit?”

“Would anyone like that?”

“Should I go easy on you?”

“Don’t even say that.”

Adrien’s blue eyes were endlessly innocent, but the sword swung with those eyes was anything but. Cyril’s heart burned.

I’ll win someday. Seriously.

Cyril glared intensely at his wooden sword.

That little seed of something that had almost started to grow inside him was half-shattered by Adrien’s wooden sword and would remain silent for a very long time.

＊ ＊ ＊

“…Get up!”

A trembling voice shook Cyril’s ears.

Even in his daze, Cyril thought, So loud.

He heard restless footsteps, as if someone were pacing in place. More chatter followed, but his mind was too foggy to understand any of it.

Why…

A heavy pressure sat on his head, making him frown unconsciously.

Now that he noticed it, the floor beneath him was uncomfortably hard.

To be precise, his head felt soft—but his back felt like it was digging into the ground. It was like lying on the floor with only a pillow under his head.

Cassinel wasn’t as grand as Tezar, but its beds were not so bad that they felt like the ground.

So what was wrong?

Why did the bed he’d slept in for months suddenly feel like the hard floor?

After thinking for a moment, a question surfaced in Cyril’s mind.

…Did I collapse?

He was sure that just earlier, he had been leaning against the headboard reading a book.

Watching the wavering text in the dim lamplight was a small pleasure of his.

Then he saw a shadow by the window—strange, suspicious. He had walked closer and discovered… something.

And the moment he locked eyes with them, he fainted.

Yes. That was his last memory.

He must’ve witnessed something highly confusing.

What was it again…?

Still keeping his eyes closed, Cyril tried to recall.

“Adriana! This kid isn’t dead, right? He didn’t die, right? Huh?”

“No. He’s alive.”

A voice slipped into the gaps of his hazy memory.

“Look, he’s breathing.”

A warm fingertip passed briefly beneath Cyril’s nose.

The annoyingly bright voice felt strangely familiar.

Adrien.

Cyril remembered the name abruptly.

Right. Adrien was definitely…

As soon as he remembered the name, the final scene he saw came back with it.

Cyril recalled the two silhouettes peeking in through the dark, faintly lit by moonlight.

There were two.

A chill crawled up his spine. Cyril flinched and opened his eyes.

His blurry vision cleared, and the world slowly came into focus.

Two pairs of bright blue eyes looked down at him.

The gem-like blue wasn’t unfamiliar. But the fact that there were two identical pairs was very unfamiliar.

“He opened his eyes! See, I told you he was alive.”

“Thank goodness, thank goodness…”

Adrien stared blankly from the left; a tearful, worried-looking Adrien stared from the right…

Cyril instinctively fixed his gaze on the Adrien on the left.

That one’s the real one.
He thought so immediately.

“Oh my…! My lady, could you please explain what on earth is going on? After we move the young master to the bed first.”

With a crash, the door burst open, and Jerome rushed in, quickly lifting Cyril into his arms.

He felt heavier in Jerome’s grasp than before—meaning one of two things:

Either Jerome had aged,
or Cyril had gotten heavier.

Maybe both.

Even while being moved to the bed, Cyril quietly hoped it was the latter.

It would mean he had grown healthier.

“Reed wanted to see Cyril, but Cyril was asleep, so we didn’t want to wake him. We just looked through the window a little.”

“We really only looked. But then suddenly he collapsed. He must’ve been really shocked. We were too much, weren’t we? That’s not what we meant…”

While Jerome tended to him, two voices chattered nonstop.

Cyril focused all his mental clarity on one particularly striking word.

Reed? He’d heard that name somewhere…

He blinked once, twice—then his eyes flew wide open.

“Reed?”

The heir of the Cassinel family. Adrien’s older brother. That must’ve been it.

Reed de Cassinel Blois.

Cyril had heard the name in passing before.

Adrien often mentioned him, proudly calling him “my brother.”

When Cyril asked where he was, Adrien had said, “Reed is with Grandmother.”

The elderly matriarch of House Blois—Adrien’s maternal grandmother—cherished Reed deeply and kept him by her side because he was frail.

Cyril had assumed “older brother” meant simply an older sibling—never imagining they would look exactly the same.

He stared back and forth between Adrien and Reed, the twin brother who had entered the world only five minutes earlier.