CH 83

“Actually, Herwin was at our house a few days ago.”

“Herwin?”

When he says a few days ago, does he mean the day he ran out of the house?

“Yes, he came to see Lucia, he wanted to see her…….”

Lucas pursed his lips, and Arista repeated,

“He came?”

“Ha, he did, but I kicked him out…….”

Arista’s eyes widened. Lucas finished, looking uncomfortable.

“I got into a fight with Lucia once over that, and I got in trouble with my parents. They don’t think I can just kick a visitor out of the house.”

“Uh, well…….”

She didn’t know how to react. When Arista didn’t answer easily, Lucas smirked.

“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d react like that.”

“No, I’m just surprised… As far as I can tell, you and Herwin were almost as close as siblings, weren’t you?”

Lucas nodded with a complicated expression.

“Then why did you go to such lengths?”

“Well, ……you’re friends with them, so you get the idea.”

After a moment of thought, Lucas mumbled something and looked at Arista. Meeting his intense gaze, Arista flinched.

“It’s because of him that Lucia got engaged.”

“What?”

“No, more accurately, Lucia gave up on Herwin because their hearts weren’t in the same place.”

Lucas’ words reminded Arista of a conversation she’d had with Herwin the other day.

‘At that time right after Herwin rejected Lucia’s confession, Lucia said she had a blind date, right?’

“I thought at first that they liked each other, but that event at the Academy had kept them apart.”

Arista knew where Lucas was coming from. She’d thought the same thing herself until she heard the truth from Herwin.

“Ha, but it turns out that’s not the case. Lucia confessed her true feelings to Herwin over and over again, and he never accepted them.”

Lucas’ shoulders shook, and she could hear his teeth grinding. Sensing that he was upset, Arista swallowed hard.

“But that’s between the two of them. Did you kick Herwin out for not accepting Lucia?”

Lucas, who had been staring at the floor, looked up. Then he looked at Arista.

“Yes, you’re right, it’s their business, and it’s ridiculous for me to get involved. But what kind of a brother stands by and watches his sister get hurt?”

Lucas clenched both fists tightly. It’s hard to say that kicking out Herwin wasn’t out of anger, but it was rational to some extent.

‘I want you to marry someone you really like.’

He remembered Lucia’s dejected face as she told him about happiness.

At that time, he couldn’t bring himself to criticize Herwin in front of Lucia, so he just smiled and left the room as if nothing had happened.

However, Lucas simply couldn’t forgive Herwin.

He couldn’t bear to see his sister, who was not a waste, give up everything just for one man and get engaged as if she were being sold.

Even if Lucia had told their parents first that she wanted to get engaged, he resented her parents for pushing her off a cliff until she did.

Even more, he resented Herwin, the man who had caused all of this, and he wanted to get rid of him once and for all in front of Lucia.

However, all he can do is quietly support Lucia from behind.

At first, he hates everything about Lucia’s engagement, and he can’t even appreciate Bern, her fiancé.

But as time went on, he realized that Bern was genuinely good to Lucia and cared about her, and he felt lucky to have found someone who was.

Then, just as Lucia was beginning to recover from the pain of her heartbreak, Herwin reappeared in her life.

And now Herwin is saying something that doesn’t sound like much, that he likes Lucia.

“If I wasn’t so close to him, I’d have already punched him.”

At the thought of Herwin, Lucas’ anger began to rise again.

After watching Lucas’ emotions run wild for the umpteenth time, Arista spoke up.

“So, all that sighing you’ve been doing today, was it because you were annoyed with Herwin?”

Lucas paused. He rolled his eyes, unable to make eye contact with Arista for a moment.

“Not really, but…….”

“From the looks of it, you’re still holding a grudge against Herwin.”

Lucas wanted to say no, but somehow he couldn’t find the words.

“I heard Lucia and your parents criticized you for kicking Herwin out.”

“……He waited outside for Lucia for almost half a day after I kicked him out.”

“That long?”

“Yeah, he didn’t even go inside the carriage… Anyway, he was kind of sick. Lucia said she had a terrible cold…….”

A sigh escaped Arista’s lips. There was a hint of guilt on Lucas’ face as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

As much as he hated Herwin, he still had concern for him.

“But how could Herwin be sick? I’ve hardly seen him sick.”

She’d never seen him sick before, except when he’d been wounded in an ogre encounter like hers.

It was a particularly cold winter at the Academy. He’d been spry when half the class was down with a nasty cold.

It was hard to believe that an otherwise healthy corpse could catch a cold after only being outside for half a day. Then Arista remembered something.

“Did you happen to notice that the day Herwin came to visit was Friday, two weeks ago?”

“How do you know that?”

“As expected. He must have been sick then.”

“What do you know?”

Lucas asked, suddenly excited, grabbing Arista’s shoulder. Arista shrank back against the eyes that were now so close.

“Herwin was with me before he went to your mansion. He hasn’t been very well since then. From what I hear, he hasn’t eaten in a week and has only been drinking…….”

Lucas looked puzzled. He didn’t believe that Herwin had been drinking.

Arista gave a slight snort and looked at Lucas seriously.

“Do you think Herwin’s words are lies?”

Lucas’ face hardened at once.

“Of course he does. He didn’t even bother to look at Lucia when she told him she liked him, and now he says he likes her. It’s ridiculous. I don’t want to have it, and I don’t want anyone else to have it.”

“I don’t know, I just don’t see how Herwin is that bad of a guy. You’ve known him longer than I have, so you know how he is.”

After Arista continued to defend Herwin, Lucas gave her a sour look.

“What’s your point?”

“I’m just saying, Herwin has his issues, and it’s probably not an illusion that Herwin said he seemed to like Lucia.”

“What?”

“Herwin hasn’t known his own heart until now. It wasn’t until he saw Lucia with another man that he realized how he felt.”

Lucas was stunned for a moment, then got confused.

He continued to mutter a series of “huhs” and “ohs,” until he suddenly realized that Arista was speaking for Herwin and looked at her.

“But how do you know that Herwin likes Lucia?”

“Because he told me so himself.”

“You heard it from him? And you know why he didn’t realize it until now?”

Arista paused. She remembered that before Herwin became aware of his feelings for Lucia, he mistook his admiration for her for love.

‘I can’t tell anyone about this, especially not my brother….…’

Arista pursed her lips, even as Lucas’ eyes widened, urging her to tell him. Then she hurriedly blurted out.

“Well, I don’t know about that. But, if it’s true that he went to Lucia after being with me, I think he would have confessed?”

“What?!”

Arista shrank at the sound of his voice.

“It shouldn’t be that surprising, didn’t you already expect it when Herwin was looking for Lucia?”

“Well, yeah, but I thought he was just trying to sway Lucia’s mind…….”

“No swaying. He was terrified that Lucia would reject him, and Herwin didn’t do it with a light feeling either.”

Lucas thought back to Herwin, who had asked him with a serious face to let him meet Lucia.

No matter how dispassionately he made the decision, he was already biased against him at that time.

His apologies for Herwin ran into the resentment he had.

“Well, I still can’t forgive Herwin…….”

However, despite his words, Lucas couldn’t keep a straight face. He looked guilty.

Arista nodded, not knowing how he felt.

“Yes, hate him, roast him, whatever you want to do with him. But brother,”

Lucas raised his head at her subdued voice.

“This is a business of two people, and no third party should interfere.”

Lucas didn’t have the heart to argue. Arista was right about everything.

He’d loved his sister since birth, and he knew he couldn’t help but feel bad for Lucia.

So, even though he knew he shouldn’t have done it, he let his emotions get the best of him.

Suddenly, Lucas felt embarrassed. Arista was watching the whole thing with a cool head, separating fact from fiction, and he, who was older than her, was so emotional that he couldn’t even grasp the situation.

Lucas looked into her serious violet eyes and muttered to himself.

“…… is cool.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“……Ah, nothing!”

Lucas quickly looked away and changed the subject. For some reason, he couldn’t see Arista’s face properly.

Was it because he was showing his younger sister his less-than-grown-up side?

‘I think it’s a little hot….…’

What Lucas didn’t realize was that his earlobes were flaring.

“But if you fought with Lucia, Herwin must have been very sick. since he was already close to death before he left.”

Lucas, who had been stroking his itchy fingertips, was jolted back to reality by the voice next to him.

He paled as he remembered what Lucia and his parents had told him a few days earlier.

“Was he really in that much pain? I thought Lucia and my parents were exaggerating…….”

“What did Lucia say?”

“Nothing…….”

“Nothing?”

“She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me with disdain.”

Seeing Lucas’ frustration, Arista imagined how Lucia must have looked at him.

If that’s how Lucia, who usually puts on a smile, would have reacted….…

“Yes, my brother is at fault.”

“Hahaha… What should I do? Should I go to Herwin and apologize?”

“Well. But did Lucia say anything else besides glaring at you? She said that Herwin was very sick, that he wasn’t feeling better, that his cold was not over.”

“Well, come to think of it, Lucia did seem a little off when she got home.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Well, her face was a little flushed, and at first I thought she’d caught a cold from Herwin because she wouldn’t talk to me.”

Lucas, remembering that time, scratched his head and questioned Lucia’s behavior. But Arista had a hunch that things might have improved between them.

Arista stole a glance at Lucas. His face had brightened, unlike the sigh, he’d let out a moment ago.

“So, did you manage to solve your concerns?”

“Huh?”

Lucas snapped his head up and looked at Arista.

Arista felt a twinge of anxiety, wondering if she was just talking to herself when she was supposed to be counseling Lucas.

But Lucas smiled, showing his evenly spaced teeth.

“Yeah, that cleared my head a lot, thanks, Arista, if it wasn’t for you, I’d feel uncomfortable all along.”

“Well, you’re welcome… I’m glad I could help.”

Lucas smiled, promising to repay her later. Arista smiled shyly at the relieved Lucas.

She fiddled with her trailing hand. Her heart fluttered with the excitement that spread through her body.