Oscar Richter.

Since when had I become used to seeing my elder brother’s name engraved on that solid stone?

As I silently stared at my brother’s name, Serpina poked my side and whispered.

“If there’s something you want to say to your brother, go ahead. I’ll step away if my presence bothers you.”

Dante’s lips curved into a smile at Serpina’s considerate words, her face filled with determination.

“It’s alright. There’s nothing like that.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

That’s right. It’s true. There was nothing I wanted to say.

“I’ve already said everything I wanted to.”

After my brother died and was buried here, I visited every day to pour out my resentment.

Why? Why on earth?

Why did you make such a choice?

Why did you leave me behind?

…Did you really have to do that?

One day it was resentment, another day anger, another day sorrow, and another day pity.

But as time passed, the emotions faded.

Just as my brother’s face in my mind grew blurry, they gradually disappeared.

Is there a total quantity to words and emotions? When I stood in front of the tombstone, not knowing what else to say, Dante regretted the past.

I should have saved some of my resentment.

So that I could come to my brother for a long time and have something to say.

Since then, all Dante did was come to see his brother, gaze at him blankly like this, and then leave.

Unable to think of anything to say, he couldn’t even open his lips.

However, unlike the emotions towards the dead that fade, the emotions harbored for the living do not easily disappear.

The resentment and anger left in him became solely the share of the living.

The share of Julia. The woman who betrayed him and his brother and left.

But he couldn’t bring himself to curse Julia in front of his brother.

Because his foolish brother would be sad. Even on the day he died, his brother longed for the woman who had abandoned him and left.

He loved her.

So Dante had even less to say.

All that remained was resentment towards Julia, but it wasn’t something he could say to his brother.

What pulled him out of his momentary contemplation was a round forehead gently tapping his shoulder.

As he lowered his head at the sensation, Serpina was looking at him, her eyes shining.

“Then, can I speak to him on your behalf?”

“You, my lady?”

“Yes! I have something I want to say.”

She has something to say to his brother?

Dante nodded, albeit feeling dazed.

“You can do as you wish.”

He was also curious about what Serpina would say.

Serpina smiled brightly, untangling her arm from Dante’s and placing both hands on her belly button.

It was quite a formal preparation pose.

“Ahem. Hmm.”

After clearing her throat a few times, she suddenly bowed 90 degrees towards the tombstone.

Then, in a lively voice, she shouted.

“Hello, I am Serpina Richter, married to your younger brother!”

Dante’s eyes widened at the greeting that far exceeded his expectations.

Who would have thought she would deliver such a resounding introduction?

He was certain that his brother in the grave must have been a little surprised too.

But Serpina didn’t stop there.

Having finished her groundbreaking self-introduction, she straightened up and pulled Dante’s arm, holding his hand tightly.

Then she raised their clasped hands high, as if to show them off.

“Dante and I are in a relationship where we love each other to bits! I will take responsibility for Dante and make him happy. So…”

So?

Dante was curious to see where this story would lead.

Glancing at her face, he saw Serpina smiling faintly, her gaze fixed on the tombstone.

“You don’t have to worry about your younger brother. I’ll always be by his side to look after him.”

Dante stared blankly at that smile, then slowly turned his head towards his brother’s tombstone.

Today, his brother’s face, which had been blurry, seemed to appear clearly.

〈Dante!〉

To be exact, it was his brother’s face, brightly smiling and calling out to him.

Dante gazed at that illusion for a while, then slowly nodded.

“My wife is such an amazing person. So don’t worry, elder brother.”

He thought he had exhausted all the things he could say, but apparently not.

Perhaps as long as he was with Serpina, the stories he could tell his brother would never run out.

After the lively greeting with his brother, Serpina went to find Dante’s father and paid her respects in a similar manner.

“Phew. Now it’s done. I feel like I’ve properly greeted Dante’s family members.”

“Yes. With this much, I’m sure my father and brother resting in their graves heard it loud and clear.”

“Right?”

When she asked back, sounding sincere, Dante also nodded his head earnestly.

Serpina slowly looked around.

“So when I die, will I also be buried here?”

At the question thrown without much thought, Dante’s expression turned peculiar.

A realization seemed to dawn on his face as he slowly nodded.

“Well, I guess so. You’re also a Richter, after all.”

“Oh. Awesome. Then can I reserve a spot in advance?”

“Yes. You can.”

Dante had to hold back his laughter at the sight of her seriously assessing the spot.

To think she could talk about such things here with a nonchalant expression.

This was where his brother was buried, where his father was buried.

At the same time, it was the place where the Richters who had died young due to the curse were buried.

The long history of the curse was here.

It was also his own future, not too far away.

So naturally, coming here always made it hard to breathe…

Today, there wasn’t even a chance to feel suffocated. Serpina, who had been looking around as if searching for a really good gravesite, finally pointed to the spot next to his brother and declared that she would be buried there.

“Dante, you can be next to me and your brother. What do you think? It’s a great spot, right?”

“Yes. It’s a great spot.”

At Dante’s easy agreement, Serpina smiled brightly, then suddenly made a serious expression as if realizing something.

“But is it okay to choose a spot so freely like this? Sometimes, there are families where the wife and husband’s graves are not next to each other.”

If there was a unique rule for the Richters, shouldn’t they follow it?

“It doesn’t matter. If Serpina is buried here as a Richter, you will be the only Duchess buried here.”

What does that mean?

Serpina, who had been processing Dante’s words for a moment, widened her eyes and asked back.

“Then, there are no Duchesses buried here?”

“…No. They all abandoned the Richter name and left before they died. Like my mother.”

Oh my.

It newly hit her why people referred to the Richter marriages promoted by the imperial family as ‘transactions’.

Still, she had no intention of cursing the women who had stayed in the Richter family.

After all, our beginning was no different.

Didn’t my past self, overwhelmed by the frustration of being sold to the Richter family, just lock herself in her room?

In the end, in the original story, Dante even divorced her out of pity.

‘Besides, if I say the wrong thing here, it would be unfilial.’

It would be like attacking Dante’s mother as well.

“Still, my mother endured for a relatively long time. She left after giving birth to and raising my elder brother, and then me.”

“Did you… resent her?”

“Who knows? We never had a proper conversation, so rather than resenting her…”

Right. He never resented her.

When he was young, he wasn’t even aware of his mother’s existence, and even after learning the truth…

He accepted it as the natural course of things, having been born as a Richter.

But very occasionally,

“I was sad.”

Dante, who spoke in a flat tone, looked up at the sky once, then down at his father’s tombstone.

“I think I was a little sad.”

Sad, he said.

Serpina silently tightened her grip on Dante’s hand.

He was pitiful. Dante, who couldn’t resent those who left, who couldn’t rebel even once and lived in resignation to his cruel fate.

The little boy.

This person.

“But you’re not sad anymore because you have me now, right? As long as your heart doesn’t change, I will remain a Richter until I die.”

Serpina, who had been speaking with a bright smile, suddenly startled and corrected herself.

“Ah, no. Not until I die, but even after I die, I will be buried here with the name ‘Serpina Richter’.”

Why was she so serious about making that correction?

Dante chuckled softly and nodded.

“Since my heart will never change, you’ll be a Richter for life.”

The two, who had been giggling playfully, took out the flowers they had brought.

One was placed on Dante’s father’s tombstone, and the other on his brother’s.

It was thanks to Serpina’s opinion that since it was his brother’s death anniversary, his father would feel left out if they only brought flowers for his brother.

After neatly placing the flowers and paying their final respects, they were about to prepare to leave.

“Isn’t that a bouquet over there?”

As they were about to turn their backs to leave, a flower that felt out of place suddenly caught her eye.

Dante also turned his head in that direction.

Just as Serpina said, there was indeed a bouquet.

It was stuck in the bushes, perhaps blown by the wind, so they hadn’t noticed it, but it was definitely a bouquet.