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CHAPTER 07
Maria, who had been deeply asleep, briefly woke when the sunset light seeped into her room, but soon drifted back into sleep as if fleeing from wakefulness.
Someone came a few times to wake her, but she ignored them. She didn’t want to wake up. It was her father’s election day.
However, unable to ignore her sense of duty, she eventually got up and went down the hill to the church to vote.
The gangsters she had eaten with the day before brought the ballot box from her district. Maria voted quietly, returned to her room, and went back to sleep.
The result was already decided anyway. That made it even easier to fall asleep. It was such a sweet sleep that she even thought she never wanted to wake up again.
She finally woke again around 10 p.m., a full day later.
Still too drowsy to fully open her eyes, Maria sat up in bed. After eating nothing and only sleeping for so long, she still felt weak despite the rest.
She remembered her nanny Moira coming to wake her and nagging her to at least eat something once she was up, so she headed to the table.
She tilted a bottle of water infused with lemon and herbs and drank a glass, then picked up a soft, ripe plum from the fruit basket.
Taking a bite of the sweet-and-sour plum, Maria walked toward the bookshelf—and stopped.
“…Huh?”
The position of the book she had placed had changed.
Maria dropped the plum. It hit the carpet with a dull thud and rolled toward the door.
She hurried to her school bag.
When she opened it, as expected, the contents had clearly been taken out and put back. There was no doubt—Alexander had searched her room and belongings while she was gone to vote.
“No, no….”
With trembling hands, Maria reached for a hidden pocket sewn into the deepest part of the bag.
The pocket had been torn open. She searched inside with her fingers—but it was empty.
At that moment, Maria’s face turned pale.
What she had hidden there was a blue brooch.
The Fifteen who abolished the class system rose to the position of the first mayors of the fifteen eastern Gephel cities through elections, riding a wave of public support.
But even after just 14 years, the system could not change completely.
Some of them, including Kohas Chetty, monopolized mayoral power—and rumors even began spreading that they intended to turn it into a hereditary rule like a monarchy.
The blue brooch was spreading rapidly among the university district of Whitehill, which protected the civic revolution.
In this fourth election, protests demanding the disqualification of those who had held power for 14 years had taken over the university district.
Among those targeted was Maria’s father, Kohas Chetty. Even knowing that, she had taken the brooch into her own hands.
And now it was gone.
“Where is it?”
Maria muttered in a trembling voice, searching the entire room. Even though she knew it was impossible, she desperately tried to convince herself she had placed it somewhere else, deceiving even her own memory.
Alexander both loved his sister and distrusted her innate sense of justice. He believed it would be better to cut off any possibility entirely.
In the end, Maria failed to find the brooch and pressed her hand to her forehead. If Alexander had found it, he might never let her return to university.
She should have prepared what came next before he discovered it.
But if she had thought that far ahead, she would have been too afraid to begin at all.
Lost in despair, she collapsed onto the floor.
At that moment, a pair of shoes stopped in front of the rolled-away plum.
When Maria looked up, Benedict was standing there, his face still bearing the marks of being beaten by Alexander the day before.
“You looking for this?”
He pulled a blue brooch from his coat pocket.
It was exactly the same—silver base with blue glass embedded in it.
Maria’s dazed eyes followed his hand.
Benedict bent down, picked up the plum, wiped it casually with his thumb, and took a bite. Then he looked at her calmly, as if waiting for her to speak first.
His violet eyes looked like a snake. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking—whether he intended to attack, or was simply watching.
Benedict took a large bite from the same spot Maria had bitten.
Her mark disappeared. A faint breeze carried the sweet scent of juice through the room.
Watching him chew, Maria finally spoke.
“Why… do you have that?”
“I figured Alexander would search your room, so I searched it first while you were out voting. The mess in here wasn’t me.”
A year ago, the Benedict Maria knew was always fighting, or sitting in casinos gambling and drinking when he wasn’t.
He constantly withdrew money from the vault, but never kept it—losing it to gambling, then winning big, then losing everything again.
He didn’t use drugs like Hopins, not out of restraint, but because he cared too little for his own life.
Even now, though he looked and sounded more grown up, his behavior was still the same.
Still shallow. Still transparent.
But knowing that didn’t mean she could understand everything he was thinking.
As Maria hesitated, choosing her words carefully, Benedict gestured for her to stand.
When she rose, biting her lip, he walked toward her.
She stepped back.
“If you need something, say it now.”
“I’ll say it when I need it.”
She retreated until her back hit the window.
Benedict closed the distance without hesitation, leaning toward her.
“Don’t be so guarded. This is better than Alexander finding it, right?”
“…I know.”
That was undeniably true.
Because Maria had gone to Room 3, Benedict had gotten to the brooch first—something that could have ruined her life.
He probably wouldn’t return it for free, but keeping it out of Alexander’s hands was still a kind of favor.
When she turned her head to avoid him, he grabbed her and made her look back, then rubbed her soft cheek with his thumb.
“You’ve grown. A little.”
Maria pressed her finger against the wall and looked up at him.
He was difficult to read—she couldn’t tell if he was joking or threatening her.
A foolish thought crossed her mind: she missed him when he was drugged.
Back then, he had been so much easier to understand.
Her mind felt numb, like caught in a spiderweb.
Fortunately, his fingers pressed her cheek again, and she realized he was teasing her.
“Still just as soft.”
“How could I be the same? I grew—hey, stop that.”
Even after being scolded, Benedict didn’t remove his hand.
It wasn’t desire in any ordinary sense—just a strange impulse to touch something soft.
Eventually, he pulled his hand away.
He didn’t return the brooch, nor did he leave—but at least he didn’t seem intent on threatening her.
Maria realized then that her relationship with him was no longer the same.
Her way of dealing with him had changed. He now felt more strongly like a man than before, which made her more cautious.
The problem was that curiosity toward him had grown along with that caution.
