“Dietrich! Young master!”

Upon hearing the lively voice coming from outside his office, Dietrich gently set down the book he was reading.

Even without seeing her, he could recognize the owner of that clear voice that made the listener feel excited.

It was Harpe, who had stormed out of the office earlier in a huff.

Whether she calls him Dietrich or young master, she should just pick one instead of unnecessarily using both.

Despite grumbling like that, Dietrich felt his spirits, which had been down since lunch, lift and float.

It was all because of that pure voice, as if she had never experienced a single hardship or sorrow in her life.

“Come in.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Harpe poked her head through the door that had swung open with a bang.

Grinning so widely that her Indian dimples showed, she exclaimed in an excited voice.

“Guess what I brought?”

Even though he told her to come in, she didn’t seem to intend to enter like a proper person and instead stood at the door, playfully wrinkling the tip of her nose.

“What is it?”

Harpe, who had been holding her hands behind her back, fully entered the room.

“Ta-da!”

Her green eyes, resembling the lush greenery of summer, sparkled with anticipation.

“Freshly baked, amazingly delicious garlic bread and chicken breast salad!”

“……”

“I don’t like this lukewarm reaction.”

Harpe, who had stretched out the tray in front of her chest to hand it to him, started chattering away again in high spirits.

“You don’t have to worry about anything else. I personally peeled all this garlic and checked everything from when it went into the oven until it came out! So what I’m saying is, you can eat this food with complete peace of mind.”

Pointing to the garlic bread, she proudly placed her hands on her hips.

As if shouting, ‘How about that, didn’t I do well?’ while raising her eyebrows and clearing her throat, she resembled a puppy waiting to be praised.

‘She got angry and left, but quickly came back to bring me dinner.’

Seeing her refusing to budge from in front of his desk as if urging him to eat quickly, he reluctantly picked up the garlic bread, pretending to give in.

Then he stared at the bread for a moment, as if hesitating.

However, his contemplation lasted only a brief moment.

With a crisp sound, a savory and pungent flavor spread throughout his mouth.

Eating food with a peaceful mind for the first time in a while, the corners of his mouth softened.

Harpe, who had clearly witnessed that subtle change, clasped her hands together and leaned over his desk.

She was undoubtedly expecting a taste evaluation.

“It’s delicious.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then eat all of it! A whole bunch!”

Harpe tried to feed him the food with fire in her eyes.

Even though it was annoying to be asked if it was so delicious that it was bothersome, it wasn’t particularly unpleasant.

In fact, the garlic bread and salad were very tasty.

Had there ever been a time when he could eat food at ease in the mansion after the attempted poisoning?

In the Delgado mansion, filled with the duchess’s people and not a single trustworthy person, he had never once felt at ease.

“Eat the cherry tomatoes too!”

Upon hearing her say that he might collapse from nutritional imbalance, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

‘Nutritional imbalance?’

Thanks to his inherently healthy constitution, even when he caught a severe cold, he had never received worried attention.

Although he didn’t eat well at the mansion, Nocturne occasionally took care of him with potions, ensuring he was getting proper nutrition.

Harpe, who had no way of knowing that, was treating him like a child, going on about adequate nutritional intake.

“Don’t just laugh, hurry up and eat. Don’t tell me you can’t eat cherry tomatoes?”

“Why would I not be able to eat this? Seeing you insist on me eating it, could it be that you’re the one who can’t eat them?”

“Ha, really! I’m crazy about cherry tomatoes!”

Perhaps because Harpe was treating him like a child, he felt like his mental age was lowering whenever he chatted with her.

Even so, he didn’t want to shut her up. He just wanted to let her say everything she wanted to say.

Under her glaring gaze, Dietrich eventually popped a cherry tomato into his mouth.

She even applauded him for doing well, making him feel like he had truly become a little kid.

It wasn’t even that he had eaten a vegetable he disliked, yet receiving applause for it felt awkward.

After all, there had never been an occasion for him to be praised for such trivial things.

Feeling unnecessarily embarrassed, he pushed the empty tray to the side.

While clearing the empty dishes, Harpe suddenly apologized out of the blue.

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

What did Harpe have to apologize for?

For getting angry and rushing out of the office?

She didn’t need to apologize for that.

However, contrary to his thoughts, Dietrich raised one eyebrow crookedly.

Seeing his raised eyebrow, she seemed to think that Dietrich was still in a bad mood.

“I really hate it when people make judgments on their own, but I ended up doing that myself. I even thought about childishly getting revenge by not bringing you delicious food.”

“Getting revenge with food?”

Now what was this about?

Harpe scratched the back of her head in embarrassment and carefully observed his expression.

“I was so furious that I thought, ‘Even if something delicious comes out, I won’t bring it to you!’ I’m sorry.”

“…Did you really think that would be revenge against me?”

“There’s nothing more infuriating than not being able to eat delicious food to your heart’s content. But I was about to do that to you.”

‘She’s serious.’

Tilting his head slightly and nervously fiddling with her fingers while gauging his reaction, his crooked expression crumbled blankly.

‘How can she be so sincere in everything?’

Her pure sincerity, without a hint of falsehood, was clearly visible.

“W-well, of course I wasn’t going to keep not giving it to you. I was just going to sulk a little and then stop. Definitely.”

“Don’t use weird speech patterns.”

Sensing Dietrich’s silence, Harpe added more excuses to change the atmosphere.

“Anyway! From now on, entrust all the delicious food to me. I’ll bring it all to you.”

The image of Harpe’s gentle face, clenching her fists and smiling with her eyes half-closed, was etched in Dietrich’s mind.

How could she be like this?

Why? Why did Harpe always fearlessly hover around him?

Even if he treated her curtly or showed irritation, she didn’t think that side of him was his entire being.

She met his gaze, her eyes resembling a summer forest shining as if she could see right through his inner thoughts.

Whenever he saw that unwavering gaze, it felt like the walls he had painstakingly built around his heart would crumble helplessly.

His heart pounded, and at the same time, an unfamiliar emotion of endless anxiety welled up.

Unable to face her any longer, Dietrich picked up the book he had been reading earlier.

Although he turned his eyes to the book, thanks to Harpe’s endless chatter about what book he was reading, he couldn’t concentrate at all.

“Shouldn’t you get going now? Don’t you have work to do?”

“All right. But what book is it?”

“Are you not even listening to what I’m saying?”

Even as he scolded Harpe, who was noisy enough to be annoying, a faint smile appeared on the corners of his mouth.

“I’m listening. I was just about to leave!”

“Don’t just talk, hurry up and go. I’m busy.”

Neither of them realized that their expressions had softened as they bickered.

Meem meem.

The cicada’s cry, which resonated in his ears, caused Yurian, who was walking through the garden with his arms full of books, to pause.

When did it become summer?

He had been so busy with days passing by without even realizing it that he hadn’t noticed summer’s arrival.

The child approached the tree placed by the roadside, seeking to find the cicada that was singing vigorously.

Meem meem meem.

The cicada continued to cry out powerfully, but it remained unseen.

As the weather grew warmer, beads of sweat began to form on the bridge of the child’s nose.

“It’s hot.”

If he dawdled here any longer, his mother would scold him.

However, Yurian wanted to stay in the garden a little longer, even if he used the excuse of searching for the cicada.

Perhaps then he could meet that strange maid again.

He wondered about the whereabouts of the maid who had been absent from the main building of the mansion for some time.

Where could she have disappeared to?

Sometimes, he would overhear the maids working in the main building saying, “According to Heidi, Young Master Dietrich is not as expected…”

When he tried to approach them to ask what they were talking about, the maids would scatter in a panic as if they had been caught saying something bad.

He was always too busy with his schedule to find time to inquire about that maid separately.

Looking up at the tree until his neck hurt, Yurian muttered softly.

Her name was definitely…

“I think it was Heidi.”

“What did you just say?”

A long shadow fell over Yurian’s head as he quietly called out the name of the missing maid.

Startled, the child turned around and froze in place.

“G-greetings, Elder Brother.”

As Yurian bowed his head stiffly in greeting, he took a step closer.

“Did you just say Heidi?”

Yurian widened his eyes in surprise and nodded.

In response to the timid nod, Dietrich asked coldly again.

“How do you know Heidi?”

Yurian, who had only come to the garden in hopes of seeing Heidi, felt sweat running down his back at the unexpected situation.

This wasn’t sweat from the heat.

It was cold sweat from tension and bewilderment.

For Yurian, Dietrich was a subject of both respect and fear, a love-hate relationship.

To have such an impressive swordsman with overwhelming sword skills, who elevated the prestige of the Delgado family, as his rival…

It was frightening and he wanted to avoid it, but at the same time, he yearned to be like him.

Yurian’s hands trembled unimpressively as he tried to have a proper conversation with Dietrich after a long time.

The child managed to clasp his trembling hands together and confessed honestly.

“I met her around here some time ago, so I know her.”

It was an explanation with many details omitted.

Yurian, being a man of integrity, couldn’t bring himself to say that Harpe had been slacking off in the bushes near the garden.

“…Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all…”

That was really all.

Since Heidi, who had vowed to attend the banquet celebrating her return to the Delgado mansion no matter what, had not been seen since that day.

Yurian answered with a deflated expression.

Seeming to have finished his business upon hearing that there was nothing more to know, Dietrich turned around.

At that moment, a thought occurred to Yurian.

‘Could it be that Elder Brother also knows Heidi?’

Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to ask how Yurian knew Heidi.

If Elder Brother knew Heidi, could he perhaps tell him where she was and what she was doing now?

Seeing Dietrich already striding far ahead with his long legs, Yurian started running to catch up with him.

“Wait a moment, please. Elder Brother.”

Yurian thought he had gone crazy.

To dare stop Dietrich, whom he feared so much.

But for some reason, today he desperately wanted to find out where that maid was.

Although he was discouraged by the indifferent gaze looking down at him, the child clenched his fists.

Carefully looking up at the turquoise eyes that resembled his own, Yurian slowly asked.

“Do you know where Heidi is?”

“……”

“If you know, could you tell her that I’m waiting for her?”

Yurian was quite earnest.