Nothing More Precious Than You
A voice of salvation drifted through the open bedroom doors. Lefonya turned her head toward the sound.
"Senior."
It was Felens. Striding into the room, he snatched Lefonya straight out of the Duke's embrace and swept her into his own arms. His skin radiated warmth, as though he had just sprinted across the estate.
"Hey, kid. Are you all right? When did you wake up?"
"Just a bit—"
"You, seriously. Hah, do you have any idea how terrified I was? Seriously. My heart dropped right into my stomach."
"Thank you for saving—"
"Father said the rocking horse was precious to you, so I shouldn't talk about it like that and should respect your feelings instead. But my thoughts haven't changed. Listen closely, kid."
Will you let me speak?
Every single one of her answers had been cut short, so Lefonya simply nodded instead of trying to speak again.
"Remember what I'm about to say."
Lefonya nodded once more.
"Nothing is more important than you."
About to nod again, Lefonya froze.
"Even if someone gave you a gift, and even if that gift meant the world to you."
"……."
"Nothing could ever be more precious than your own life."
Lefonya sank into deep thought. Then, slowly, she parted her lips.
"Even if it was extraordinarily expensive?"
"Yeah. Even if it was expensive enough to buy the entire Imperial Palace."
Felens gently bumped his forehead against hers.
"Don't ever compare yourself to some worthless material object."
A worthless material object? It was precisely because she lacked those worthless material objects that she had spent years in agony and tears.
Lefonya lowered her gaze for a moment before looking straight into Felens's eyes.
"Weren't you trying to kick me out?"
"Right. I was."
"Then……"
Lefonya tilted her head, utterly bewildered.
"Shouldn't you have just let me die?"
At Lefonya's blunt question, both Felens and the Duke of Craitan drew a sharp, synchronized breath.
Yet wasn't it the plain truth? If he had suspected her of being a fraud and wanted her cast out of the household, letting her drown would have been an easy solution.
"I believe you."
"Huh?"
"I believe what you said. That no one put you up to this, and that Father just happened upon you and offered adoption first."
"Uh… why, all of a sudden?"
"I changed my mind."
All right, but why?
Lefonya furrowed her brows, still tilting her head in confusion. She could not comprehend in the slightest why Felens had undergone such a sudden change of heart.
Did I do anything that could have earned his trust?
Her recent actions amounted to following him around and pestering him to be her escort, and then falling into the lake just moments ago.
It's not like I saved him and fell into the water in his place. I just fell in by accident, so that can't be it.
She could not figure it out at all.
Or is he trying to make me let my guard down so he can dig something up?
She had heard that so many swindlers had targeted the family that Duke Craitan and both of his sons were thoroughly sick of them. There was no way he would change his mind so easily.
For one person to trust another and shift their stance was never a simple matter.
In fact, feigning trust to extract information was one of the tactics included in the Pope's personal lessons.
If only trust were something you could see with your own eyes.
Watching Lefonya ponder so intensely, Felens smiled gently and asked, "Are you hurt anywhere else? Truly nowhere?"
"I have already checked everything," Duke Craitan answered in her stead. Having been stripped of the daughter he was holding, the Duke wore an impassive expression.
The two men then engaged in a serious debate, exchanging remarks about whether the Duchy Doctor had examined her thoroughly, and how one should never rely on just a single physician.
"More importantly, what did you mean by that earlier? Had you not returned to the Imperial Academy, Felens? Shortly after Ponya fell into the lake, you were nowhere to be found, so I assumed you had slipped away without a word again."
"I did go."
Had he actually gone all the way to the Imperial Academy and back? Was that why his body felt so hot, as if he had run the entire way?
"You went… and came back?"
The Duke's eyes wavered in disbelief.
I heard Felens hated coming back to the estate.
Yet he had returned of his own accord?
"I'm not going back to the Academy. I plan on staying right here to escort the kid."
"What?"
"Huh?"
The Duke and Lefonya blurted their disbelief at the exact same time. Felens blithely ignored his father and looked down at Lefonya instead.
"What's with that reaction, kid? You were the one who stalked me endlessly begging for an escort, remember? Now that I say I'll do it, you don't want it?"
"N-No. Well, uh, it's not that, but…"
She had wondered whether she was hearing things earlier, but it seemed she hadn't imagined it after all.
"Didn't you say you refused? And that you had to return to the Academy soon—"
"I submitted a leave of absence effective until the day before the graduation exams. I've already fulfilled the mandatory attendance days to sit for the exams, and my allowed leave days are overflowing anyway."
"……."
"Besides, when I told the student council president that I was taking leave until the graduation exams, he practically welcomed me with open arms."
Who would complain if a troublemaker and an infamous Academy Fossil—a student who stubbornly refused to graduate—offered to stay off campus?
"B-But are you really all right with this?"
"With what?"
"Protecting someone……"
You said it was too exhausting.
Held in Felens's arms, Lefonya stole a nervous glance toward Duke Craitan. Not knowing whether it was safe to mention that in front of the Duke, her voice trailed off. Felens chuckled mischievously.
"Kid, you're only five years old. Who are you worrying about? You said you needed me."
His light tone and slouching posture were the same as ever, yet he somehow looked remarkably unburdened.
Perhaps because of that, her gaze lingered on his smile for a long moment.
"You told me yourself that having me guard you was far less frightening and much better than having that guy do it. Or would you rather have him protect you instead of me?"
Lefonya shook her head in a panic.
"N-No! I like you much better, Senior!"
Wasn't that obvious? Between that terrifying escort who seemed willing to tear his own heart out for House Craitan and Felens—who, despite sharing Craitan blood, didn't even consider the Duke his family—Felens was by far the safer choice.
"See?"
Felens patted her head approvingly.
"And drop the 'Senior.' What kind of five-year-old calls someone 'Senior'? Are you my junior at the Academy?"
"When I go to the Academy later—"
"Then call me Senior then. You aren't there now."
Lefonya closed her mouth. What should she call him, then? Using his name felt far too familiar, so should it be 'Young Master'? Or 'Second Young Master'?
As Lefonya massaged her furrowed brow in contemplation, a voice gentler than anything she had ever heard from him drifted down from above her head.
"Brother."
"…Huh?"
Lefonya lifted her gaze.
"Why overthink it? You should obviously call me Brother."
Brother? Wouldn't that be usurping everything that belonged to the 'real young lady'?
She had already taken the bedroom that should have belonged to the real daughter, burned it to ashes, and taken her place. If she went so far as to call his family her own…
"Ponya."
Lefonya flinched at the sound of her nickname.
"I'll stop calling you 'kid' and call you Ponya properly from now on, too."
Lulled by a voice as soft as down feathers and a smile as warm as a hearth melting away the winter chill, Lefonya found herself nodding before she could stop herself.
"…Brother."
The awkward word caught on her lips.
It was a title she had never uttered in her entire life.
If I'm destined to be an unforgivable sinner anyway, would it really matter if I indulged in a little more greed?
She had gained a brother.
"Ponya, I'm not moving an inch until you give me a proper answer. I'm dead serious right now."
"Move, Brother."
"Answer me first."
"I'm asking nicely, Brother. Please move."
"Who's more comfortable—me, or that rocking horse?"
She had gained a brother who was slightly unhinged.
"You'd better move before I reveal this side of you to the entire world."
"It's obviously much more comfortable when I carry you around! What, I lost to a dumb rocking horse like that? You're lying, right?"
"You trying to pick a fight with a piece of wood is far harder to believe."
"I should have left that damn horse at the bottom of the lake."
"Stop picking serious fights with a block of carved wood. Every time you do this, I genuinely start questioning whether calling you 'Brother' was a mistake."
"Whoa, Ponya. Where did a five-year-old learn a word like 'questioning'? Huh? Why are you so ridiculously smart?"
It was the first brother she had ever had.
When she was younger, she had harbored a faint wish for a dependable older brother. Of course, having neither father nor mother, Lefonya knew an older brother would never appear, so she had abandoned the dream quickly.
Yet… was this truly what an older brother was supposed to be like?
"Ponya. Eat this too, and eat this one, and eat this as well."
"Felens. Do not subtly dump all your greens onto Ponya's plate. Have you still not outgrown your picky eating? …Ponya, you have no obligation to eat the vegetables Felens foists upon you."
"Ponya eating plenty of greens will make her healthy and strong, which is great for her. Honestly, Father, you're far too uptight."
Lefonya stared down with a deadpan expression at the mountain of vegetables piled high on her plate.
To be precise, they were the exact vegetables Felens had refused to eat.
Weren't older brothers supposed to be… dependable, protective figures?
Perhaps older brothers were the kind of thing best left to the imagination.
With an emotionless face, Lefonya silently chewed through the vegetables piled on her plate.
To someone who had survived days of starvation, picky eating was an unthinkable luxury.
Except for the hours spent sleeping, Felens remained glued to Lefonya's side at all times. Even during her reading hours, he lingered right next to her.
Having someone stick to her like a shadow was an entirely new experience, so she had expected it to feel suffocating, but it turned out surprisingly tolerable.
In fact, having Felens on hand to assist with whatever she needed made things rather convenient.
Lefonya also applied herself diligently to reading every day. If she studied like this, she could naturally segue into studying the family history and smoothly inquire about the family heirloom.
It was a flawless plan.
"Ponya. You finish an entire book every single day, don't you?"
"Because that makes you smart."
"And what are you going to do once you're smart?"
Sitting in the library with a thick, oversized volume that looked comical in her tiny hands, Lefonya tilted her head at Felens's question.
Her expression seemed to ask why he was posing such a bizarre inquiry.
"What I do doesn't matter. What matters is that people like smart children. Everyone prefers a smart, quiet child who attends to their own duties over one who throws noisy tantrums and causes trouble."
Don't you even know that much?
Resting his chin in his hand from across the table, Felens gave a casual nod.
"Books, my foot."
With a sudden flick of his wrist, he snatched the book from Lefonya's hands and tossed it behind him.
"A five-year-old ought to be running around outside. Come on. The weather's great today."