The Weight of Life
It was a beautiful face.
A form that seemed crafted by gathering only pretty and precious things, without carelessly discarding a single line or dot.
The meaning of ‘art’ that Lenox first learned in his young heart was pooled in those cold eyes that shone palely toward him.
But people did not praise one so beautiful. Though it seemed like just looking would be enough, other people’s hearts didn’t feel that way.
Arrogant, devil, debauchee, scoundrel, trash, traitor, fickle, fraud.
Everyone called you that.
“You’re annoying, so get lost!”
Only after something hot spilled on his arm did Lenox realize he’d been hit by something. Crash! The sharp sound of shattering also pierced his ears a beat late.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to loiter near me before you understand? Even if you’re just a brat, after saying this much!”
It was the servants waiting nearby who pulled away the dazed Lenox. Restless, they grabbed the child’s arms and quickly pulled him back.
“……Please come this way, little His Imperial Majesty.”
“I’ll call a doctor.”
The child stood blankly, wondering exactly where it hurt.
The arm where lukewarm tea had spilled? The ankle cut by flying shards of broken glass? The corners of his eyes that stung whenever he felt like crying? His bitten lips? Or his heart that had swallowed all those painfully piercing words?
“I’m truly sorry to say this, but Your Highness…….”
What followed was something he’d always heard. How many times had this been now? After counting to sixty, he’d even given up keeping track. Lenox calmly extended his arm and received treatment.
“It would be best not to visit the annex.”
“…….”
“Though he is someone we serve, His Highness Prince Achille is…….”
He knew the words that would follow too. A rotten person, a violent person, someone who treats subordinates carelessly. Aggressive, harsh, sharp…….
“……He won’t cherish little His Imperial Majesty.”
Lenox’s small lips moved slightly.
“Even if I like Hyungnim?”
“…….”
“Even if I like Hyungnim very, very much?”
The attendant who was cooling his arm with a cloth soaked in cold water let out a light sigh.
Was his name Billy? Perhaps because he was competent, though he hadn’t been here long, Lenox remembered he’d taken on many responsibilities.
“Little His Imperial Majesty.”
Billy’s sigh-tinged voice was sharp at the end, and though Lenox knew he wasn’t being scolded, his body seemed to shrink anyway.
“It would be wonderful if good feelings were returned with good feelings. But the world isn’t such a kind place. Wouldn’t it be too wasteful to have feelings that aren’t reciprocated?”
He understood what was being said. Lenox lowered his eyes with a gloomy expression. He felt like crying but couldn’t. If he cried recklessly, people would be troubled.
Because those who already feared and felt uncomfortable about him, his origins, and the curse entangled with him might avoid him even more. He didn’t want that.
Mother always said that. The most precious thing a person can create is a ‘good heart.’ How many times had he heard that feelings of liking someone, following someone, cherishing and loving someone were more valuable than a thousand gold pieces?
But the heart he’d so carefully selected and offered seemed to have no value to his half-brother. It was also true that he felt upset when he saw his heart being carelessly cast aside like a pebble on the roadside.
“His Highness Achille won’t like Your Highness Lenox. Not just little Your Highness, but he doesn’t like anyone.”
At the words added with “That’s the kind of person he is,” Lenox fidgeted with his fingertips. The expression on Achille’s face when he threw the teacup kept flickering before his eyes.
Eyes that don’t like anyone.
Eyes that don’t trust anyone.
Eyes accustomed to casting away rather than cherishing.
Eyes that have ultimately resolved to be alone.
‘I hate you.’
A harsh tongue tip that works to hurt the other person.
‘Throw away any belief that you’ll become close with me. Lenox, no matter what you do, you won’t become close with me.’
‘Hyungnim. I…….’
‘There’s no place for you to stay by my side.’
His heart that had become an iron fortress beyond just being locked.
Lenox thought that Achille looked very, very sad.
***
Lenox first met Achille about three years ago from now, when the small child had just passed seven years old.
It was the day he first disobeyed his birth mother’s earnest plea not to go to the annex because bad people might bully him.
To make excuses, it wasn’t intentional. His mind was captivated by a blue butterfly, and following it, he found himself in front of a building he’d never seen before.
That place was truly strange.
The small garden couldn’t be called in good shape even charitably. It might have been one thing if it was empty and desolate without a single blade of grass, but it was even more eerie because traces remained of flowers being cultivated and trees being tended.
‘Why was it ruined?’
The flowers were trampled and dry branches were snapped off. The birdcage was tilted with its door wide open, and chairs that must have been placed for teatime were cast aside, rolling around in odd places.
As if someone had tried to carefully decorate it and someone else had deliberately trampled it.
He’d lost the blue butterfly, and the building where he didn’t know who lived was nothing but creepy. When Lenox was about to return along the path he’d come from, tilting his head.
Smack!
At the sharp sound, Lenox jumped in place, startled. Then he hid in a large bush and looked around anxiously.
He saw two people standing not far away.
“Didn’t I tell you to only associate closely with those I’ve permitted!”
Goosebumps rose at the piercing voice.
Lenox peeked out his head with a frightened expression. There was someone who resembled him in some ways yet looked different. A man with jet-black, glossy hair, beautiful like a figure in a painting hung in the corridor.
He was holding his struck cheek, just listening to the tirade poured out by the black-haired woman standing before him.
“If you exchange words with a nobody like the Viscount Kalt, what do people think of you? Won’t they mock that the Second Prince has finally given up on the throne and everything else and is just waiting to be purged!”
“I didn’t know he was from the House of Kalt. I just… at the last banquet, he helped me…….”
“What kind of behavior must you have shown to need help from such lowlifes!”
Watching this scene anxiously, Lenox naturally realized who the woman harshly cornering him was.
The Dowager Imperial Consort Betius.
She was the second wife of the previous Emperor and came from a noble ducal house. Angry that she hadn’t become Empress, she tried to make her son the next Emperor somehow, but he’d heard her fury was no small matter after the First Prince formally inherited the throne.
In fact, when his own birth mother entered this castle and gave birth to a son, he had memories of her often barging into where they stayed and pouring out all kinds of abuse. Her harassment had surely played a major role in his mother leaving the castle without him.
Then the man who resembled her was, precisely.
‘Hyungnim Achille.’
His half-sibling whom he’d never met was cold and beautiful as if crafted from winter frost…….
And looked very, very forlorn.
“You gutless thing. You pathetic thing! When you should be getting rid of that Crown Prince or whatever right now, you spend your days so disgracefully!”
“…….”
“Right. It must be the fault of the mother who raised you inadequately. I’ll help you until you can properly function as a person. Once I remove all the useless things by your side, then you’ll come to your senses too!”
Lenox’s finely trembling eyes rolled. Right a few steps away lay a rose that had been trampled into a mess.
Useless things.
Just as someone’s heart was trampled, he thought he could now understand who had ruined this garden.
