‘I must be crazy! How did he get up there?!’

Just as she was about to leave the mansion, something strange caught her eye, and it turned out to be her son.

It was a moment when Aelli was unable to move, her legs twitching in midair due to the absurd situation.

The child, who had been crawling along the sloped roof, slid down.

Aelli rushed to the child’s side without further hesitation.

-Adi!

As she urgently called out, the child’s head turned, barely hanging onto the attic window.

“Li, Liaa…”

-What are you doing here?! No, how did you get up there in the first place?!

“…Where were you going! Waaah…!”

As their eyes met, the child’s face contorted as he wailed, causing Aelli to frantically circle around him.

His chubby arms, characteristic of young children, were struggling to hold on, with his hands tightly gripping the edge of the roof as he sobbed, and his short legs dangling precariously over the attic window.

Aelli, horrified by the sight, opened her mouth. The child’s arms, which were supporting his body and hanging on, were starting to tremble as he was gradually losing strength.

-Where did you come out from?! Can you get back in?! No, I should call someone…!

But no matter how loudly she shouted, it would be of no use.

The servants wouldn’t even notice no matter what she did beside them.

Moreover, there wasn’t even a proper way to get up to the roof.

‘Only when repairs or cleaning were needed did the head butler designate a few servants to use scrolls to send them up to the roof.’

Thinking about such things, even if by some luck someone discovered the child and brought a scroll…

It was uncertain whether he could hold on until then.

He looked like he could fall at any moment, and she couldn’t think of any way to help him. As Aelli realized this, her face turned pale.

“No! If I go back in, you’ll abandon me again, hic… You will! I won’t go! Waaah…!”

Sobbing. The child spoke with his face buried in his trembling arms.

Aelli opened her mouth towards the child.

-C-can you find a way to get back inside?

“I won’t go! I don’t want to!”

-If you fall from there, you’ll get seriously hurt!

In fact, the chances of it ending with just an injury were quite low.

The attic was already high up in a three-story building with high ceilings, and the roof was even higher than that.

If a four-year-old child fell from such a height onto a place without even bushes, the outcome was obvious.

However, Aelli couldn’t bring herself to say that much, so instead, she stood close behind the child. She might not be able to catch him, but her body moved before she could even think about it.

“If you don’t promise, I won’t, sniff…! I won’t come in!”

-…Alright! I won’t go! Is that okay now?!

“Then… pinky promise…”

-…! Baby!

Seeing how precarious he looked, Aelli finally nodded in agreement with the child’s words, thinking it would be truly dangerous if she delayed any longer.

The child, hearing Aelli’s response, raised one of his trembling arms to show how to make a promise, and then fell.

Aelli let out a shrill scream and chased after the falling child, finally closing her eyes tightly just before he hit the ground. She didn’t have the courage to watch with her eyes open.

And not long after, she tremblingly raised her eyelids.

-……?

To her surprise, she couldn’t find the child, not even a single strand of black hair like her own.

Confused by the inexplicable situation, Aelli looked around carefully.

As expected, she couldn’t see the figure she was looking for, not even a passing ant.

Tap tap. Tap tap tap!

Suddenly, hearing a sound from above, Aelli raised her head.

‘…Wh-what? Why is he there?’

At a height almost impossible to see with the naked eye, tiny fingers were tapping on the window from inside the attic room where the child had been hanging just moments ago.

Unable to see clearly from this side, the small forehead and nose tip pressed against the window, nearly flattened against it, made Aelli feel like she was about to faint.

Aelli immediately went up and stood in front of the window. She didn’t know what state of mind brought her there.

As soon as she stepped inside, the child, with his cheeks puffed up and red from crying, held out his pinky finger and said,

“Lia don’t, hic! Don’t go. You said, sniff… you’d stay with me…”

Faced with the finger about half her size held out in front of her, Aelli covered her face with both hands and rubbed it dry.

Along with relief, she felt an indescribable emotion constricting her throat.

-You really…!

“……”

-How on earth did you get up there?! I’ve told you so many times it’s dangerous, and why are you sticking out your hand again! Why don’t you…!

Why don’t you listen. Aelli’s mouth, about to scold, snapped shut.

Chicken-egg-sized tears were falling rapidly down the child’s soft, white cheeks.

“But…”

-……

“But if Lia goes, who will I be with? I don’t want to be alone!”

Waaah-! The child let out a loud cry and finally burst into tears.

Aelli was at a loss for words, her lips only trembling, as she watched the child sitting on the bed with legs stretched out, roughly rubbing his eyes with both hands.

The teardrops that fell on the sheet left round marks, staining it slightly darker.

‘…That’s right.’

Only after hearing that far did she suddenly realize.

Usually, noble children built friendships at social gatherings they attended with their parents when they reached a certain age.

Whether attending parties held at other mansions or hosting parties in their own.

If not that, then by visiting each other’s mansions following their parents’ connections.

And in most cases, of course, such things were naturally the parents’ responsibility.

Rarely, children directly contacted each other, but generally, it was like that. The starting point for forming relationships was created by the parents, in one way or another.

“Waaah…”

-……

The child’s delicate skin, characteristic of young children, turned red from the rough rubbing.

Seeing this, Aelli felt a deep ache in her heart.

[Hello?] [……] [I’m Aelli Mason. You’re the one who’s going to stay at our house from today, right?] […Go away.] [Oh, don’t be like that! Your room is really close to mine, want me to show you around? Hm? What do you think?]

Aelli and Lutis were also slightly different from the typical case, but the beginning was similar.

After all, it was a relationship that started from the older generation’s acquaintance.

‘But Adi isn’t like that.’

The child, however, couldn’t do that.

More precisely, there were no adults to care enough to even allow him to form proper relationships.

His mother died before he could even speak properly, and his father, left alone, had been away at war for years without showing his face.

In such a situation, being exiled to the annex, it was unlikely that the servants would have properly cared for him.

Putting aside everything else, just look at the commotion that happened from the morning.

‘Just look at how no one has even noticed, let alone thought to bring water for washing up until now.’

She could fully grasp what kind of treatment he had received just from what she had seen with her own eyes yesterday and today.

It was clear that he had always been alone, without a loving family, friends to play with, or servants to take care of him.

It would have been hard even for an adult to endure, but the child had lived like this his entire life from birth until now.

Realizing this, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry anymore.

In a way, it was all Aelli’s fault.

-Adi.

Aelli, who had been staring at the child’s eyes that were not only reddening but also swelling up, softly opened her mouth.

At that brief call, as if frightened in advance, the child, gasping for breath from crying too much, reached out to grab Aelli. Since he couldn’t physically grab a ghost, he seemed even more desperate.

“Hic! Don’t, don’t go… If Lia goes, I’ll be alone again,”

-Stop crying.

“But…”

Aelli bent her knees and crouched in front of the bed.

The child’s gaze followed Aelli’s movement and stopped slightly below his eye level.

Aelli opened her mouth again.

-I’m sorry for getting angry, I was just so worried you might get hurt. I was really scared.

“……”

-…I won’t go.

“Really?”

The child’s eyes widened in surprise as he asked, and their gazes met in mid-air.

Moisture clung to his reddened and swollen eyes, looking like it might fall at any moment.

As tears finally dropped from his wide, jewel-like eyes, Aelli nodded heavily.

-I’ll stay here until you tell me to go. I won’t leave, at least not until you’re all grown up.

“Even, even when I grow up, you can’t, hic! You can’t go…”

-Then I’ll stay by your side even after you grow up. Would that be okay?

“…Mm-hmm.”

Aelli comforted the child, who nodded slightly while sniffling, by wiping the flowing tears from his cheeks with her fingers.

Of course, this didn’t actually wipe away the tears. It was just self-satisfaction.

Aelli clenched her fist tightly over her intangible arm and thought as she soothed the child who was throwing a tantrum.

‘Even if he resents me when he grows up… I’ll have to bear that too.’

Whether it would be in the distant future or in the near future.

It might be a moment she would come to regret, but Aelli had no other choice.

She had originally intended to leave because she didn’t want to be a burden, not to see him suffering like this.

‘If by any chance Lutis tries to change the successor because of this,’

Well. If what the child wanted was the duke’s title, that would be a different story, but if not, she had enough money to allow him to live comfortably for life in a better environment than now, even without a title.

Emergency funds hidden under various names in different parts of the empire, unknown to anyone. Most nobles had such funds.

Aelli was just a bit more extreme in this regard.

-Adi, are you asleep?

“……”

Until the child, who had fallen asleep after sobbing for a long time, woke up around lunchtime.

This time too, Aelli spent a long time looking at the sleeping child’s face.

[This is the timeline separator]

And so, a month passed.