CH 25

Knock knock.

“Sister.”

The one knocking on the door was the same person I had been worrying about just a moment ago. As soon as I heard Cassadin’s voice, I unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

‘Thankfully, he didn’t get caught.’

After internally thanking him for just safely making it back to the mansion, I opened my mouth.

“Come in.”

In response, the door to my room opened.

Creak–

The door slowly opened to reveal his figure. Thankfully, Cassadin had returned home unscathed.

His reflection in the moonlight felt different than usual for some reason. There must be something on his mind, as his entire body was letting off a gloomy aura, and his handsome face had a shadow drawn over it.

“…Cassadin, did you get hurt? Or are you sick?”

I expressed my concern to my younger brother, but Cassadin just turned his head sideways.

“Then, can you tell me what’s troubling you?”

I placed a teacup with freshly brewed tea in the hands of the tight-lipped man. But Cassadin just quietly stared down at the cup of tea in his hands.

“That’s what family is for, after all.”

With those words, Cassadin’s gaze rose from the teacup to my face. But the state of the eyes that stared back at me was as dry as the frigid winter winds.

Slowly, his sealed lips opened up.

“Are we… family?”

His silver hair glittered in the moonlight. But the next words that came out of his mouth were ones that I couldn’t predict.

“Do you like green eyes, Sister?”

For a moment, I thought my ears weren’t working properly.

“What do you mean?”

“I asked if you liked green eyes.”

So I didn’t hear it wrong. But I couldn’t just tell Cassadin I said that to Damian to make him flustered, though.

When I didn’t respond, Cassadin continued, his voice sinking even deeper.

“…So that’s why you went all the way to the prison.”

He must have jumped to his own conclusions, as Cassadin’s gaze fell to the floor while he laughed coldly.

“Do you not like me because I don’t have green eyes?”

Why is he saying that with a contorted face?

‘It can’t be jealousy, could it? Or is he still putting on a mask for an act?’

Well, either way, it didn’t matter. The scars within his heart were likely to be as deep as the ones that had been on his body. I just had to continue caring for him as my precious younger brother.

I patted Cassadin’s toned back as if comforting a child.

“Cassadin, of course not. Eye color has nothing to do with how I think of you.”

“…”

Like the first day I brought him here, Cassadin quietly stared at my face, examining it. His purple eyes seemed especially dark today as the moonlight revealed their color.

“Then why did you say such things in front of me?”

“Cassadin?”

“Hair as dark as the night sky, emerald eyes that must be stared at and picked straight out of the heavens. A sleek jawline with even a calming, tranquil voice that resonates like a cave.”

Cassadin recited the exact words I said to Damian earlier today. I felt a little shiver run through my spine, hearing Cassadin cite each word, but I calmly responded to him.

“Cassadin, the person I like the most is you.”

“…”

“Don’t ever say something ridiculous, like about me liking green eyes, again. No matter what you look like, I will love you more than anyone else in the world.”

Just like how a parent comforts an anxious child, I tightly embraced Cassadin.

I released him from my embrace to look back into his eyes, but for some reason, Cassadin was completely expressionless as he stared down at me, watching my every move.

“…Just how many.”

Everything happened in an instant.

Crash!

At the same time Cassadin spoke, the teacup he was holding plummeted to the ground and shattered. Sharp pieces of glass filled the floor, and the contents of the teacup also spilled onto the floor.

I stared at Cassadin with startled eyes.

But regardless of whether the teacup broke, he roughly pulled my body close to him. He only needed a single arm to wrap around my entire waist. I could only see Cassadin’s face as he scanned my body.

I was trapped in his grasp. My eyes widened automatically at the sudden predicament.

There was barely enough space between the two of us that our breaths could reach one another, but as if he were mocking me, Cassadin was looking down at me with an indifferent expression.

A dark shadow cast over his face, and I couldn’t find a single emotion in it.

“How many people have you tricked that way?”

“Cassadin.”

“What number am I on your count?”

Cassadin tilted his head towards me as he asked.

Because of that, the distance that had been more than a hand’s length away was shortened to the point where our noses were about to touch.

In response to his attitude and tone, which seemed to scold me, I turned my head slightly to the side and squinted my eyes.

Even though I expressed my clear discomfort about the situation, Cassadin didn’t seem to have any intention of letting me out of his firm arms.

“Sister, didn’t I ask you a question?”

“…You’re my first.”

Did he want to lock me up in his arms?

The pressure he put on my body was so intense that the lack of breath made it hard to spell out the words in my mouth.

The fact that Cassadin’s face remained placid even as he did such things to me was so unsettling that I completely turned my face away from him.

Or I tried, to be exact. But before I could do so, Cassadin seized me by the chin.

“…!”

Even as my face scrunched up and expressed distress, my younger brother, in the end, had my eyes facing him, then whispered to me with a face holding no expression.

“Sister. Don’t turn your eyes away from me.”

“…”

“You have to maintain eye contact when speaking.”

“Cass… adin. Why are you…”

My breath was shallow from suffocation, but with the few words I managed to spit out, I glared at Cassadin with resentment. Only then did a faint smile bloom on his cold face.

“I didn’t know my sister could make such an expression.”

The sight made me so shocked that my lips parted slightly. Seeing my surprised expression, he smiled as if satisfied and continued.

“I hate you, Sister.”

Slip-

Saying that, Cassadin released all of the power he was using to keep me locked in his arms. As soon as he let go, I broke free from his embrace, almost as if I were escaping.

“One would think I just did something bad to you.”

Cassadin smiled darkly as he saw me breathing heavily. I massaged my throat while looking at Cassadin, only to find him walking through the shattered glass on the ground over to me.

The manner in which he was staring at me, eyes still and veins on his neck pulsating, resembled that of a predator about to pounce on its prey.

“Though I haven’t even gotten started yet.”

His mouth was smiling, but the eyes that were looking down at me did not move in sync with the bottom half of his face. Then I called out the name of my rebellious younger brother.

“Cassadin.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“…If this makes you feel better, you’re free to do so at any time.”

His eyebrows arched up at my statement. Dumbfounded, he blinked several times before drawing his head sideways, as if he couldn’t believe a single thing I said.

“…Nonsense.”

“If it’s what my one and only younger brother wants, what could I not handle?”

“Sister.”

Cassadin swept his silver hair back frustratingly and bit his lower lip.

“I advise you not to provoke me any further.”

As Cassadin said that, it sounded like a growl was rumbling in the back of his throat.

I truly felt pity for my younger brother.

Poor Cassadin.

How he was trying not to reveal his weaknesses, pretending he wasn’t kind by nature, made my heart ache for him.

Because it meant that although the physical wounds that once scarred Cassadin’s body were gone, there was still a complicated mess left inside his heart. Scars that had been ignored for so long that they had decayed.

It was heart-wrenching how Cassadin had to carry the burden of those scars alone.

Losing the trust he could give to others, he chose to walk down the path of a monster.

But no matter how big the teeth he bared seemed, he was still my soft-hearted, lovely younger brother.

“Cassadin.”

“…”

“I’m always on your side.”

I smiled warmly as I looked at my one and only younger brother.

Contrary to my smiling expression, Cassadin’s scowl only deepened. He opened his mouth to talk, then closed it back up several times before he finally sighed softly.

“I don’t like you, Sister.”

“It’s okay if you don’t like me.”

My answer must have been quite shocking to him, as Cassadin’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“You can use me any time you want to.”

“…”

“So just promise me one thing in return.”

I answered Cassadin’s cautious stare with a wide smile.

“I wish you would stop hurting yourself.”

“…”

Cassadin simply took a deep breath, then turned around. Then I asked the figure who was walking to the door of my room.

“Are you leaving?”

“…Yes.”

He answered me quietly, then walked out of the room without looking back.

Clack–

Only after I heard the door close did I let out a deep sigh. The glass shards from the teacup scattered on the ground seemed to represent Cassadin’s current state.

I lay on the bed. My younger brother was really hard to look after.

His acting skills were one of a kind. Then I pulled up the bedsheets over me and thought back to what he had said to me.

“How many people have you tricked that way?”

‘What number am I on your count?’

I did somewhat agree with what Cassadin said. It was true that I ultimately took in Cassadin as a family to use him.

….But he also tricked me, didn’t he?

Up front, he lovingly called me sister, but he attempted to kill the Crown Prince behind my back and tried to harm me.

‘Oh, what stories the Crown Prince of a fallen kingdom would have.’

Not to mention that Cassadin hadn’t told me a single thing about his past, so I had no choice but to investigate on my own.

‘I’ll need to see this first thing tomorrow morning.’

The paper with a map drawn on it that Sasha provided was hidden away in the drawer of my dressing table.

‘Hyran Kingdom.’

The kingdom that Damian’s father had rendered to ash over a prophecy, and Cassadin’s homeland.

In order to learn about the past that Cassadin wouldn’t tell me himself, I firmly decided to visit the location marked on the map. It wouldn’t hurt to try.