Chapter 4: The Past (3)
I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. It was only then that I noticed Levina standing behind, looking lost. She was in her nanny’s arms, sobbing with her face covered in tears as the nanny consoled her.
Soon, Levina came running toward us, clinging to my brother’s sleeve and pleading desperately.
“Brother Eugene, please don’t do this… It’s my fault! I begged him to take me with him. I begged him to do it…”
It felt strange. Levina was clearly trying to defend me, so why was I growing angrier?
My brother glanced briefly at Levina, who was hanging onto his arm and begging pitifully, then turned back to glare at me. He sighed heavily, pressing his hand to his forehead as if trying to suppress his rising anger.
“If you have something to say, say it now.”
I felt a wave of complicated emotions wash over me. Something to say? What could I possibly say in this situation? That Levina had badgered me so much I had no choice but to take her? That sounded like a pathetic excuse even to me. Besides, I was still reeling from the shock of being slapped by my brother.
Perhaps realizing I had nothing to say, my brother stared at me in silence for a long moment before abruptly turning away. As I stood there dumbfounded, watching his cold figure retreat, Levina, who was clinging to his hand and walking beside him, suddenly looked back at me.
Then, she stuck out her tongue at me.
From that moment on, I began to truly despise my little sister.
Of course, I knew part of what happened that day was my fault, so there wasn’t much reason to resent her for it. At first, I even seriously wondered if something was wrong with me. Levina just pulled a prank that went too far. Maybe I was too sensitive about it since I wasn’t entirely blameless either.
However, I couldn’t easily accept the fact that my brother had hit me because of her. Sure, it wasn’t admirable for a guy to hold a grudge just because his older brother hit him, but the suffocating feeling in my chest wouldn’t go away.
Was it because it was my first time experiencing something like this?
When I broke my brother’s favorite dagger as a child; when I was playing with our mother’s locket and dropped it into a pond; or even when I made the shy daughter of a marquis cry after teasing her, my brother had never hit me for any of those things.
Similar events happened a few more times after that incident. My father, who had always been distant, grew increasingly intolerant of me, and my brother wasn’t much different. My father was a man who firmly believed that any foolishness from his sons should be corrected with punishment.
At some point, Levina stopped sneaking into my quarters to pull all sorts of pranks or ask me to go somewhere with her. While I was relieved, I couldn’t completely shake my uneasy feeling. Gradually, she began treating me as if I didn’t exist in this household. She only spoke to me when the family was gathered, and other than that, she wouldn’t even glance at me.
However, it wasn’t as though she was avoiding me. Whenever she wanted something, she would come to ask me even though she normally didn’t pay me any attention. But it was not a request, but a demand. For example, some petty and annoying requests she’d make of me were things like insisting on giving her the puppy I received from the son of Count Vinyard, or asking me to pose as a model for her while she practiced drawing.
I had no way to refuse. I knew all too well what would happen if I upset her. Oh, did I know. She had been trying to teach me that. And she had figured out exactly what I feared most.
Maybe that was the real issue. At some point, I naturally realized that my brother had been “stolen” from me. Even though he had never truly “belonged” to me, like my father, my little sister who appeared out of nowhere one day had taken them away.
I sometimes wondered what thoughts ran through Levina’s tiny head. Perhaps she was the type of person who enjoyed ranking those around her, regardless of gender, just as most animals are instinctively driven to do. Or maybe she had a knack for identifying those who weren’t entirely fond of her and getting back at them twice as hard.
The saying “a rolling stone displaces a settled one” must have been for a case like this. Gradually, I was reduced to something as good as nonexistent in the household.
I was never the type to talk much or draw attention to myself, but after Levina arrived, I spoke even less. It became increasingly difficult to even utter a single word when the whole family gathered, and my introverted1Psychologically speaking (correctly), it should be “socially awkward” rather than “introvertedness”. nature caused a number of misunderstandings.
There were nights I stayed awake, wondering how things had ended up like this, and whether I had done something wrong from the start. But no matter how much I tried to reflect, I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong.
After remorse came sorrow. I tried to tell myself that I was too old to cry, but it was useless.
Then came resentment. Brother, why did you turn away from me? When I was a kid… you used to like me sometimes, didn’t you?
There was nowhere in the family where I could find comfort, and it was the same outside. Going out to social gatherings and flirting with pretty noblewomen like my peers didn’t really suit my personality. Perhaps it was because of the bitterness I held toward my sister, but all women seemed frightening to me. Occasionally, I’d see a girl who I thought was pretty, but that was it.
Thus, the moment I came of age, I joined the emperor’s regular army. For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of belonging and camaraderie among the regular knights, most of whom were second sons like me or bastards. I began to discover the joy of life amidst these rough men and enjoyed my newfound freedom away from Levina.
I tried not to think about my family. Sometimes, I would wonder how my brother was doing, but I knew that even if I wrote him a heartfelt letter asking about his well-being, it would only annoy him.
Then, when I was seventeen, His Majesty the Emperor passed away, and the Crown Prince, who was around my age, ascended the throne.
The new emperor made it quite clear that he was displeased with our family: a noble house which had greatly contributed to the founding of the empire and had been heavily favored by his predecessors. My appointment as commander of the distant border outpost that year, which I wasn’t suited for, likely had many layers of political motivation behind it.
Regardless, I followed the Emperor’s orders.
And there, my short life came to an end.
TN: Okay, the super depressing “Past” chapters are finally over! Now we start the genderbend kek.
