YW | Chapter 1.6

Anskar’s voice, usually calm, was terribly cracked.

Forcing himself to look up, he met eyes of the same color.

Emotions overflowed from them, unmistakable even to him. It was affection.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in pain.”

Arnoute’s anguished shout echoed.

Everything was strange.

Anskar apologized to him, and Arnoute offered a gentle hug.

The servants memorized even his natural habits for his convenience, and the gazes he met were filled with warmth.

So, they loved him. And he wasn’t himself.

Moreover, it was supposed to be summer, but it was winter.

Everything was a mess.

Anskar’s fingers gently touched his cold cheek. It was a cautious gesture, like touching a snowflake that might melt at any moment.

Even as his consciousness faded, Liriel thought.

All of this, sincerely.

“I feel like I’m going to die from disgust.”

Liriel fainted and didn’t wake for a long time. Naturally, the Wecker family was thrown into chaos.

The duke furiously scolded the physician, and Anskar set aside his duties to personally care for him. Arnoute was constantly out, searching for medicinal herbs, and renowned doctors from various fields visited the mansion daily. Yet, no one could explain why Liriel Wecker wouldn’t wake.

And so, days passed.

⋆⭒˚☾⋆.˚ ⋆⭒˚☾⋆.˚ ⋆⭒˚☾⋆.˚

In the early hours when everyone was asleep, Liriel slowly opened his eyes. After blinking a few times, his blurry vision gradually cleared.

The silence was profound, not even the sound of insects could be heard.

He rose from the bed with a leisurely motion. Having not moved properly for days, even the small act of walking to the nearby table made his joints creak.

Barely managing to pull out a chair and sit down, Liriel reached under the table with familiarity. Soon, he grasped a soft pouch.

When he turned the pouch inside out, six round pills appeared. It meant there were only six nights left of this strange journey.

After fiddling with them for a while, Liriel closed his trembling eyes.

It had been a week since he started waking at dawn to gather his thoughts, then taking sleeping pills to force himself back to sleep before sunrise.

The pills were prepared as a courtesy by the one who had used his body. It seemed they thought he needed time to adjust to the sudden change in environment after his return. Yet, the specific number of 14 pills was likely because two weeks is the precarious limit a person can survive without eating.

A pointless courtesy.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head. Across from him, a stranger with his face appeared.

Tilting his head back and forth in front of a small mirror on the table, he finally scratched his cheek awkwardly.

‘Talking to a mirror feels a bit embarrassing. Hello, Liriel. This is the first time I’m greeting you like this, right? My name is Seo Hamin.’

The lips of the afterimage moved.

It was the story of the last night before he left.

‘You might not believe it, but I came from another world. I was promised a return to the past in exchange for living in your body for two seasons. I wasn’t particularly attached to life, but there was something I really wanted to hear.’

His expression showed no desperation, but his bright eyes conveyed his determination. Even in a room devoid of light, his large eyes gleamed.

Seo Hamin spoke for a long time. He mentioned trivial things like how pretending to be twenty when he was almost forty felt guilty, or how the food here was a bit bland. The main point came a bit later.

‘I was a lawyer. The reason was trivial, but I lived as if my life depended on it. Though I did end up dying.’

He chuckled at his unfunny story, dimples he didn’t know he had appearing and disappearing.

‘I didn’t care about the means to win. Many can’t win even with such efforts, but I was quite capable.’

It wasn’t arrogance or boasting, just plain truth.

Liriel recalled the past two seasons. As he said, he always won. He shone brilliantly, like someone who had never known defeat.

He’s really different from me.

His eyes sparkled with dreams. It was fascinating. Despite having the same face, he and Liriel seemed like completely different people.

Seo Hamin paused and took a light breath. He continued in a calm tone.

‘What your family did to you was unjust. They took away what you rightfully deserved.’

Finally, the main point.

‘Liriel, I don’t have the talent to be loved by anyone. So, regardless of the conditions, I thought it was right to do what I could. I felt there was a reason I was chosen. So, I aimed to reclaim your rights.’

As he said, Liriel regained things beyond his means. Whether it was right to say he reclaimed them was uncertain, but it happened nonetheless.

After he became ‘Liriel,’ his position rose absurdly, and he became the most beloved youngest in Wecker. It was unimaginable before.

‘I apologize for acting on my own. I might have been overzealous in trying to do well. Those people are greedy, so they might not let you go even after I’m gone. I’ve left things that might help in the fourth drawer.’

Though his tone was cautious, Liriel momentarily smirked. The things he had prepared naturally came to mind and vanished. Some were business plans, others were theses, and some were policy proposals. Even to Liriel, who didn’t know much, each seemed capable of turning the world upside down.

In other words, ‘Seo Hamin’ was saying he left those things out of concern for Liriel, who would live like a shadow in his absence.

A small crack formed in the middle of his heart. Using those things meant chasing his shadow for life. Even if unintended, it was an excessively cruel statement.

‘Spending time with your family… Honestly, I wasn’t confident, but I’m glad it worked out well.’

His head tilted at a low angle, then returned, as if genuinely puzzled.

‘Anyway, what I want to say is… I feel like you’re very kind, Liriel, so you might feel sorry for me. I want to tell you there’s no need for that.’

His figure was now so faint it seemed it might disappear at any moment.

Liriel found himself somewhat envious of that.

He didn’t want to hear the following words. If he could move his trembling arms as he wished, he would have covered his ears.

It felt like his forcibly built-up heart would collapse with the slightest touch.

Tinnitus rang. His head spun, and his stomach churned. Though nothing was there, it felt like someone was choking him.

Liriel’s face twisted as if he might burst into tears.

It felt like licking a knife with his tongue.

At that moment, he had the illusion of meeting the eyes of the past afterimage.

As always, no one was there to grant Liriel’s wishes, and his lips parted.

‘I have no feelings for them.’

Time slowed.

The added sentence crawled along the ground, reaching Liriel.

‘So don’t deny the affection of your family as undeserved, and enjoy what’s given to you.’

And that was the end.

Liriel slowly raised his palm to cover his entire face.

It was a mess.

He wanted to suffocate and die, or scream and run out of the room.

His unrefined heart rampaged wildly. Ironically, its sharp edges were stabbing Liriel himself.

His heart pounded as if it might burst.

He didn’t know if it was out of anger or sadness.

The outsider from another world, ironically, was closer to Wecker than anyone.

He knew because it was his body. He had never truly loved his family, not even once.

Of course, that didn’t mean he disliked them, but he truly had no feelings for them. He did his best with everything given, but that was all. There was no warmth in the process. What he offered was a thoroughly calculated duty and responsibility.

‘Seo Hamin’ seemed unintentional, but it mirrored exactly what Liriel had received in the past eight years.

In other words, it was Wecker itself.

In other words, what the family loved was also Wecker.

Realizing this, it was clear. They could only love themselves. Blood flowing through their veins wasn’t important.

Liriel didn’t know how to give calculated affection. He didn’t know how to give it. Not before, not now, and not in the future. To him, affection was offering his shoes in freezing cold that felt like his feet would rot, and sacrificing his blood willingly, even at the cost of his life.

Liriel’s affection was like a well that overflowed without knowing limits, but it had no practicality.

So how could he be loved?

Only now did he realize how trivial and foolish what he had offered them must have seemed.

His palm was damp.

Only after it soaked in did he feel like he might die at any moment.

Yet, he couldn’t hate anyone.

There was no one to hate.

He was the one who wanted it, and he was the only one responsible.

Even in his sorrow, the thought that the Liriel Wecker they loved had disappeared from this world was the scariest.

Miracles weren’t brilliant for everyone. For some, a miracle was despair.

⋆⭒˚☾⋆.˚ ⋆⭒˚☾⋆.˚ ⋆⭒˚☾⋆.˚

Time passed.

Every morning, he started his day with things he liked. He ate bacon and eggs in bed and wore monochrome suits. Yet, he skipped the morning greetings he used to do and stopped drinking the coffee that felt like it numbed his tongue.

Some habits lingered like shadows, while others vanished silently.

Liriel had no confidence to pretend to be someone else effortlessly, nor did he want to. Yet, unable to withstand the lingering gazes, he spent two years in a daze.

The surprising thing was that none of his family blamed him for his irresponsibility. If anything, they were eager to please him.

Every season brought new clothes, and rings piled up, more than he could wear on all ten fingers.

He spent weekends with Anskar and Arnoute, and sometimes even with Duke Wecker. Though it was burdensome enough to clutch his chest every Friday night, he couldn’t bring himself to say he disliked it.

Still, Liriel couldn’t fully embrace or reject their affection.

His already thin wrists now resembled winter branches, and his cheeks hollowed even without smiling, looking eerie. Despite his appearance, the people of the ducal house continued to shower him with sweet affection.

It was ridiculous. He had been there for only two seasons, yet they were entangled for more than double that time.

Liriel gradually felt he was reaching his limit.

The cloying affection that followed him everywhere was driving him mad. He no longer wanted to be loved. He was sick of the attention they gave him.

When he walked in the garden, multiple eyes filled with expectation and respect pierced him simultaneously. If he tripped over a stone, his path would be smoothed out the next day. If he skipped a meal, he heard “Is something wrong?” twenty times, and a paper cut would have his finger wrapped in bandages.

It was an environment perfect for driving someone insane.

Staring at the lake outside the window, Liriel sighed. At this rate, he felt he might unknowingly jump into that lake someday.

Surely, something was broken within him. Or perhaps, as Duke Wecker once said, he was flawed from birth.