Chapter 7

Collette had loved Valerian since she was a snot-nosed child. To be precise, from the moment she first saw him at the Verna estate as Leonhardt’s guest, when she was six years old.

“Leon. Who is that?”

“He’s my roommate, Valerian! What do you think? Handsome, right?”

“…”

“No?”

“He’s pretty.”

“Eh?”

A stranger she had never seen before—not family, not a servant.

Hair as black as the night sky. Skin as white as flour. Crimson eyes as pretty as the red mistletoe berries that adorned the drawing room every New Year’s.

It was said that animals and children responded most honestly to beauty. That was the moment when little snot-nosed Collette first reached out to a stranger.

“Hold me.”

“…What? Collette! Come to me, why are you asking him to hold you?”

Leonhardt looked utterly shocked as his younger sister, who had been hiding behind him, threw herself into the arms of a boy she had just met. The boy lifted Collette without a trace of annoyance and asked.

“Is this uncomfortable?”

“No. More comfortable than Leon. Hey, come to our house often.”

“This is insane…!”

The boy who had appeared beautiful even to a snot-nosed child was also kind. Nothing like Leonhardt, who only played annoying pranks. Naturally, whenever Valerian visited the Verna estate, Collette refused to leave his side for even a moment.

“Valen, Valen! Look at this! It’s Valen, me, and Leon!”

“Our Coco draws so well, doesn’t she? Are you a genius or what?”

“Hey. Anyone would think she’s your sister, not mine.”

“With such an adorable little sister, I’d look forward to going home.”

“Heehee!”

Collette truly adored him. When she was cradled in his broad arms and patted on the back, she thought of her late father. When they gathered for meals together, she loved how he would wipe the corner of her mouth from the seat beside her.

Collette loved him so much that one day, Leonhardt—unable to bear his younger sister’s clingy behavior toward his close friend any longer—took Valerian away to the treehouse.

Collette cried and cried, then insisted on climbing the tree herself, only to fall. Had Valerian not leaned out at the sound of her crying ceasing and caught her mid-fall, their friendship might have ended then and there. The guilt that death would have brought was not a weight two young boys could have carried.

So it was truly a stroke of fortune for everyone that Collette had escaped death.

“What were you thinking? You could have died!”

“I’m sorry…”

Though he had gotten angry at her for the first time that day, it did not matter. From then on, Collette’s childhood was filled with Valerian. The seven-year age gap was rather welcome, too—it meant she could act spoiled and be doted upon endlessly.

But now, she was not so sure.

Ever since Leonhardt had been injured in the Labyrinth expedition he had joined alongside Valerian and was forced to lay down his staff as a mage, Valerian no longer told her she was the prettiest in the world, no longer pressed his cheek against hers and kissed her forehead.

At first, she had been heartbroken, thinking Valerian was pushing her outside the fence.

But he still came to visit her and her brother. He still looked after both siblings with care and tenderness. Only now, while he had once treated her as nothing but a child, he would say she was all grown up and keep his distance.

How absurd. He had told her that now that she was a lady, she should not engage in such close physical contact as before—yet his attitude toward her was not that of someone treating her as a grown woman. He still saw her only as a cherished younger sister, a younger sister to be looked after.

“Collette. I have watched over you since you were six years old.”

If only he had rejected her clearly when she first confessed.

“You are a precious child to me. Is it not natural to wish for such a precious one to meet a good person?”

Rather than dismiss it as childish infatuation, he should have drawn a firm line and stopped being so kind.

“Do not say that you will never see me again.”

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