If I didn’t remember his childhood, I would have collapsed right there.
“Or… did your thoughts just slip out?”
The latter would have been the correct answer. As a member of a fallen noble family, I couldn’t just ask questions to the heir of a ducal family without permission.
‘But what’s this familiarity?’
Ah… I’ve gotten it wrong.
The realization hit me like a slap to the back of my head. He hadn’t changed. Riccardo hadn’t changed but had just learned to hide his inner thoughts under a refined exterior.
But why? Wasn’t he supposed to be free from pain now?
I remained unchanged as well. As soon as our eyes met, my heart, both mine and yet not mine, raced uncontrollably.
Realizing my position, I bowed my head deeply.
Below my downcast eyes, his shining shoe tip twitched. Simultaneously, my chin was grasped by a warm hand.
“Don’t look away.”
“…”
“It upsets me.”
“It upsets you…”
Meeting his eyes straight on, I managed a feeble smile, leaning on the slightest hint of goodwill in his eyes.
“People looking at me only feel two emotions.”
I had heard Riccardo say this in his childhood. I already knew the answer. But could it be the same as back then?
“Fear, or desire.”
Ah, his life hadn’t changed. He must have not felt even a hint of lukewarm warmth. Overwhelmed by an indescribable emotion, my brows naturally furrowed.
“What are you, then?”
Why? What kind of look do I have in my eyes for him to ask that?
“Do I… look pitiful?”
“Ah…”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll visit your mother and then return, so wait for me. I’d appreciate a cup of tea.”
Receiving no response from me, Riccardo nudged me with a soft “hmm?”.
I nodded, and he turned away without hesitation. I watched him walk towards the crowd, the sunlight shattering over his shoulders, making it hard to keep my eyes fully open.
After Riccardo left, I can’t say my life became completely comfortable. However, strange incidents that used to surround me ceased to occur after he returned to the Empire.
No more faint moans or dizzying visions of a past or a faraway future haunted me.
Yesterday, Riccardo suddenly appeared, declaring he would take me to the Empire. True to his word, he arrived at our house the next morning.
I resisted, asking him to at least tell me why he was taking me, but he dismissed my concerns, saying I would find out once we reached the ducal residence.
Due to Riccardo’s impatient arrival at dawn, I had to leave without properly finishing breakfast with my family and board the carriage with him.
It was a bitterly cold morning before the heat of the midday sun. My heart felt just as shaky.
I felt Riccardo’s gaze on me, but I resolutely ignored him. Soon, the dawn began to break.
We both sat in the carriage for a long time without speaking. Even for someone like me, accustomed to life turning upside down overnight, this situation wasn’t pleasant.
Riccardo was the first to break the silence.
“It was quite poignant.”
“What?”
“Not even of direct lineage.”
He must have been referring to the documents he read about me and my family. To him, I was just a recorded bastard of the fallen Fenell ducal family.
“Living together for a long time makes a family. The same goes for our chickens.”
“Family…”
Remembering Sabrina and Jonathan, who had just been clutching my hands, my heart ached. As I told him, we weren’t always a perfect fit as a family.
It had been a long time, huddling together through storms.
Jonathan’s face, likely tear-streaked by now, flickered in my mind. Ever since he grabbed my hand in front of the duchess’s room, he followed me like a baby duck, which hadn’t changed even now that he was fifteen.
As I sighed at the thought of Jonathan, Riccardo’s sharp voice filled the carriage.
“Until now, the fact that I had no memory didn’t bother me…”
My Step-brother Is Obsessed With Me (Female-dominant)
A gentle female protagonist vs pitiful in the early stage, and a sick male protagonist in the later stage
Cheng Songer transmigrated into the body of a vicious cannon fodder female supporting character with the same name as her in a female-dominant novel.
In the original story, the cannon fodder female supporting character was inhumane, committing domestic violence, gambling excessively, being lustful, and even wanting to sell her stepbrother to a brothel for money.
As luck would have it, she just happened to transmigrate at this time.
Seeing Cheng Qingzhi biting his lip, enduring the tears in his eyes, looking pitiful, her heart softened.
She stuffed the money back into the Madam’s hand and reached out to him.
“Brother, come home with me.”
