That night, Felix lay in bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. I didn't want to think about anything in my complicated mind, but a face kept popping up in my head.
With silky light brown hair and mysterious emerald eyes.
I kept thinking of the face of Lucy Keenan, who was hiding under the bushes, looking at her and smiling. The more you try to shake it off, the more stubbornly it goes through your head.
You don't know how much he wanted to say when he smiled shyly and said thank you when he received the hat he had given him as a gift.
Actually, I wanted to give you all the clothes, shoes, and even accessories in that store.
Even if I had given you that much gift, I wouldn't have been satisfied.
Finally, Felix had to admit.
The fact that he likes Lucy Keenan.
I want to see more of Lucy Keenan's smile. I don't want Lucy Keenan to bother me anymore. I want to go out on a date with Lucy Keenan in town every weekend... … .
A shadow as dark as the autumn night outside the window fell on his face, immersed in various thoughts.
But Lucy Keenan doesn't like me. Who does Lucy Keenan like? … .
"Have you been to town?"
yes it is this guy
Felix looked up at Adrian who was talking to him with bitter eyes. At this, Adrian asked with worried eyes.
"Why do you look like that? You flirted with me as if something good was about to happen."
Felix turned his head without answering, and Adrian asked again and again.
"Have you been to the drugstore? I feel bad because I think I wasted Lucy's time."
"… … do not worry. He'll even enjoy making allergy pills for you."
Felix said muttering. However, Adrian ignored his words without much meaning.
"I saw that Rosé was also there."
Adrian asked curiously. Felix frowned slightly when he heard the name he didn't want to think about.
"You didn't use Lucy to date Rosé, did you?"
At Adrian's next words, Felix jumped up.
"What nonsense!"
He jumped out of the bed and screamed as if he was genuinely embarrassed.
"You use it! Rather, I was the one who got in the way!"
Adrian tilted his head at Felix's inexplicable cry. With that or not, Felix lay back on the bed with an annoyed expression on his face.
Adrian looked at him for a moment with a strange expression, and then he smiled and shook his head.
"Come on, read this. It's a letter."
Adrian handed Felix a letter. The coat of arms of the Berg family is stamped on an envelope that exudes a subtle fragrance.
As Felix opened the letter while lying down, the Duchess of Berg's neat handwriting formed neat rows and filled the paper.
'Adrian, to Felix.'
The letter that began like this contained the mother's minor concerns, such as whether she was adjusting well to the new school year, whether she had caught a cold in the increasingly chilly weather, whether her allergy symptoms were ok, and whether her last year at the academy was not too busy.
After reading the letter, Felix put it back on Adrian's bed. He would always hand it back to Adrian after he had finished reading his mother's letter. Because the contents of the letter were never meant for you.
The Duchess of Berg had never written a separate letter to her twin sons. He always wrote only letters beginning with 'To Adrian and Felix'.
It wasn't because they were twins, so it wasn't a one-dimensional reason, either because they were two, or because they loved them equally.
The Duchess of Berg's letter was written exclusively for Adrian. Felix's name was inevitably added to the name as twins.
It had been a long time since he had stopped thinking about why Adrian's name was always written first in his letters, even though he was obviously his older brother.
Now Felix knew the reason well.
Mother loves Adrian more than herself.
Whenever Felix remembered that fact, his heart ached, but he laughed out loud.
You can't even tell us apart.
They still often confuse us and call us the wrong names.
But how could there be a son who likes him more?
There was clearly a problem with the favoritism of the Duchess of Berg, who loved one over the other without knowing who was who.
It would be nice if she didn't find out, but the Duchess would often confuse her two sons, deeply hurting Felix.
'Adrian, come on. Eat before Felix comes.'
'Adrian, keep this as a secret from Felix.'
'Adrian, only you should know what you just said. You can't tell Felix.'
Felix was confused and sad to see his mother's happy expression, who made a deep secret only with his younger brother Adrian, as if she was alienating him, but he couldn't express it.
I felt like I had become a foreign body. I felt like I was stuck in a gap I shouldn't have intervened.
Rather, it seemed that he had become a hindrance between his mother and Adrian.
The Duchess also chose Adrian without hesitation when faced with a choice. Felix witnessed it right before his eyes, eight years ago.
It was around the time that a deep feud had developed between the Duke and Duchess. They raised their voices and fought fiercely, and the Duchess entered the room and wept for a moment.
After the Duke left the mansion, wiping her angry face with her hand, the Duchess left the room again. In his hand was a bag of luggage.
Felix, who was the only one who saw it, got up from the chair he was sitting on.
"Mom, where are you going?"
The Duchess stood there, rolling her anxious, dazed eyes to and fro, then turned to the sound. Her lips kept twitching as if she was chanting a spell.
The Duchess then strode over to Felix and snatched her son's wrist.
"Adrian! Come on!"
"Where are you going?"
"Come on!"
Ten-year-old Felix thought instinctively as he was seized and dragged by his mother's wretched hands. Whenever my mother often mistook herself for Adrian, she was silent, but now she shouldn't. Obviously, not only his mother, but also himself would be seriously hurt later.
"Mom, I am Adrian… … ."
But Felix, who was about to reveal the truth, saw the Duchess's expression and kept her mouth shut.
The look of the Duchess, rolling her bulging eyeballs back and forth between her spooky eyelids like a ghost, seemed insane at first glance.
Preoccupied with running away from the mansion in a hurry, she didn't even notice that the little son in her hand was about to say something.
It seemed as if he had only thought of hastily shoved his beloved 'Adrian' into the wagon and then had to leave.
The wagon, once started, never stopped and ran down the road. It wasn't until the hills and lakes brushed past the window, and darkness fell slightly over the world, that Felix found courage.
"Mom, I'm not Adrian."
The Duchess, who had been staring blankly out the window, slowly turned her head to look at Felix.
Felix could have jumped out of the wagon if he could avoid the situation. But I couldn't do that, so I just kept my eyes closed.
"I am Felix."
After saying that, Felix slowly opened his eyes again and thought.
Wouldn't it be great if, when I opened my eyes again, my mom told me that I was lucky, and that I was so lucky to be with you instead of Adrian?
Through the slowly opened eyelids, the mother's face became clear.
At the same time, a very sharp wound was deeply engraved in Felix's chest.
The Duchess was sitting before her eyes, more disappointing than ever. Felix had never seen her mother's face so distraught.
And when Felix realized that the cause of his despair was his own, Felix's heart seemed to sink to his feet.
should have told you in advance Before the wagon left, I should have said that I wasn't Adrian, and that Adrian, my mother's beloved, was in the mansion.
Felix regretted it. But it was already too late. The carriage was already entering the estate of the Everne family, the home of the Duchess.
The Duchess's father, the Marquis of Everen, severely rebuked his daughter for returning home as if fleeing home.
"Are you crazy to run away to your home because you had a fight with your husband? What kind of family disgrace is this?"
The Duchess, who would normally bow her head at her father's thunderbolt rebuke, was also stubborn this time. She said she would not go back to the duke's house and went back to her room and locked the door.
So she didn't come out of the room for a whole month.
Felix, feeling guilty, waited for his mother to come out of the room. Walking alone in the gardens, lakeside and grass fields of Everen Street.
If it had been Adrian, not me, who came here, my mother would have been less sad.
If that was the case, he might not have been locked up in a room like that. Perhaps he and Adrian took a walk in this garden, and shared good memories of childhood to soothe his gloomy mood.
And a month later, the duke appeared on the Everen Street. It was to take his wife and son.
Felix saw his father go into his mother's room. And I don't know what the two of them were talking about.
All he knows is that after a short conversation with his father, his mother came out after a month. She called Felix and got back into the wagon.
Thus the duchess' month-long run away came to an end.
When Felix returned to the duke's house, he tried to forget about it. Remembering it will only hurt you again, because there is nothing good about it.
But still, sometimes Felix had a question like that popped into his head.
Why is it Adrian?
We have the same face, height, and voice.
How did my mother come to love her younger sister more than me?
And these days, that question raises another question that plagues Felix.
Why is it Adrian?
We have the same face, height, and voice.
How did Lucy Keenan fall in love with Adrian, not me?