The two boys were meeting in person for the first time today, and Sailorus, who had been climbing the stairs earlier, greeted first.

“Nice to meet you, you can call me Sailorus.”

“I’m… Swan.”

Ariante intervened, “Swan and my room are right next to each other!”

“That’s great. My younger brother is still too young, so he sleeps with our parents in their bedroom. When my brother gets a bit older, we can move him to his own room, and then we can play together even in the middle of the night. Have you two ever done that?”

Ariante and Swan’s eyes met. Swan just shook his head, meaning they hadn’t done that, but Ariante’s reaction was different. Play together in the middle of the night! To do that, they would have to plan something secretly from Meianna and Bridget. Just thinking about it was exciting, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t they thought of doing that before?

“I’ve never done it before. But I want to try it right now.”

Swan’s eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe it. “Right now? In the middle of the night? What are we going to do?”

Before Ariante could answer, noisy footsteps approached, and a door in the middle of the corridor burst open. All three children stopped in surprise, and eventually, Cici, looking furious from head to toe, popped out like a rolling thunderstorm.

“Cici, what’s wrong?”

Sailorus asked, but Cici just glared at him without answering. To be precise, Cici stared at the hands Sailorus and Ariante were holding. However… with big, stubborn eyes, tears began to well up, and at the same time, Lucian and Umbrose rushed out.

“Cici, I’m sorry! I’ll give you one more piece of my cake!”

“Why are you making a fuss over that little thing? You don’t even like apples!”

Umbrose and Lucian shouted one frustrated word at a time. Ariante was thrilled to know that other kids had come to play, but looking at Cici’s expression, now was not the time to be happy.

“I want to go home! Umbrose, you glutton!”

When Cici shouted, Umbrose shrugged with a wounded expression. Seeing this, Sailorus, as always, stepped in to mediate.

“What’s going on? Lucian, what happened?”

Lucian, who had been fiddling with his glasses, sighed like an adult and shrugged his shoulders.

“There was an apple on Cici’s cake. Umbrose ate it without asking. But you know, Cici doesn’t like apples! He didn’t even touch it before, but today, I don’t know why he’s like this. Anyway, he’s a capricious guy.”

Cici shook his head violently, glaring at the annoying Lucian. “I wanted to eat apples today! Why did you eat it without asking? It was mine!”

Sailorus calmly spoke. “Cici, calm down. There’s plenty of apple cake. I’ll bring you another piece. And… Umbrose, you were wrong too. Why did you eat Cici’s thing without asking?”

Umbrose’s expression became even more sullen. Since Cici hated apples so much, he didn’t touch anything with apples, even apple jam or apple pie. But… only because there was an apple mixed among various fruits, Umbrose ate it before Cici could protest.

“Sorry, Cici. I’ll share a piece of my cake with you later.”

“Fine. I don’t want to eat it.”

Cici, with a twisted face, sobbed for a moment, then walked back into the room with a slammed door. When the atmosphere suddenly became awkward, Ariante hugged Umbrose.

“Umbrose, you’re not a glutton.”

Umbrose finally smiled broadly. At that moment, Lucian coughed and patted Ariante’s shoulder.

“Who is he?”

At Lucian’s words, Swan’s pupils trembled slightly. Ariante ran to Swan and took his hand without any hesitation or reluctance. Swan felt a faint sense of guilt.

Ariante spoke enthusiastically, “This is Swan!”
“I’m Swan. I’m the duke’s son, but now I live with my father and Ariante. My father was a very close friend of the duke. We share the eastern mansion. Swan is really good at math! Ash praises him every time.”

Lucian, who lifted his glasses, pursed his lips. Like Cici, Lucian’s gaze was fixed on Swan and Ariante’s joined hands throughout.

“How old are you?”

To Umbrose’s question, Swan coughed awkwardly.

“I’m ten.”

“Oh, then you’re the same age as Sailorus, right? You’re older than us. Should we call you hyung?”

Swan nodded desperately. “No, it’s okay. I also… want to be friends with you like this. You can call me Swan.”

Then, Lucian snorted.

“Hmph, whether you’re eight or ten, it’s all the same. Being good at math or whatever.”

“Lucian! Don’t tease Swan! And Swan is really good at math! He can even do digit calculations!”

Ariante exclaimed. Lucian immediately hunched his shoulders, but he didn’t look particularly displeased.

‘Calculating digits, I can do that too!’

Even if it’s just addition. Lucian grumbled in a plump manner.

The children who entered the reception room sat around a beautiful table decorated with seagulls and wave patterns. Cici, Lucian, Umbrose, Sailorus, and Ariante and Swan, a total of six people.

Ariante, who had taken a sip of lukewarm tea, asked, “Didn’t Crony come?”

“He has a fever. Crony gets sick too often.”

Lucian replied, and Cici wrinkled his small nose.

“He’s such a crybaby. He says he’s sick every time we meet.”