As Sicily stepped into the villa—
Risa slowly opened her eyes.

Her eyelashes trembled quietly.
The movement was slow and heavy, as if someone who had slept for far too long was cautiously feeling their way back into the light of the world.

   Her gaze settled on the blanket.
   Below her waist, sensation was faint, and a heavy lethargy hung even at her fingertips.
   She slowly moved her slightly tense hand over her abdomen.
   As her pale hand brushed the fabric—suddenly—

‘Rumble.’

   The hollow sound from her stomach broke the silence.
   Her brow creased minutely.
   It wasn’t shame or embarrassment…
   Just a fragment of sheer, relentless annoyance.

   For a long time, she had refused to succumb to hunger.
   Eating was an extension of care, and here, no one had the will to care for her.
   What meaning could food hold if it was swallowed without even a trace of acknowledgment?

She would rather starve than beg for nourishment.

   Her current life—
   was merely survival.
   Even that was done by following the motions dictated by others.

Risa stared at the ceiling and thought.

‘So, dying while still breathing… it’s not just in books.’

   A ray of sunlight slipped through the white curtain outside the window,
   softly caressing the lines of her face.
   Bathed in light, she looked like an old, preserved statue.

   Pale, translucent skin.
   Silver hair, neatly settled as if no dust could touch it.
   Long lashes trailing beneath.
   Eyes calm as a frozen lake.

   She was beautiful even without care.
   Yet that beauty seemed like a crystal of untouchable solitude.
   A being balanced on a sharp, cold boundary, fragile to anyone who dared approach.

At that moment—
a faint sound of footsteps seeped into the still space.

Risa instinctively listened.

‘One, two… two people. One heavy, slow step, another slightly off rhythm.’

   She analyzed mechanically, without emotion.
   It had long since become a meaningless habit.
   She knew by now that she shouldn’t expect anything from anyone.

   Lying on the bed like a stuffed doll, she waited.
   As always, the door would slam open,
   and the housekeeper’s grumbling voice would follow.
   They always called her “Milady” with their mouths, but their actions never matched.

And, as expected—

The door swung wide.

But—

“……?”

   The familiar noise was absent.
   No grating voice of the housekeeper.
   No mechanical gaze to ‘check if she was alive or dead.’

Her eyes turned to the door.
And—she saw.

A strange girl was standing there.

   Around seventeen.
   Incredibly neat appearance, rare in this house.
   Her right hand extended, frozen mid-pose,
   like a statue caught mid-knock.
   Mouth slightly parted, eyes wide, a flustered expression as if realizing a mistake.

Crack, crack—
She could sense the girl’s startled breath and subtle tremble.

‘A face I’ve never seen… who is this?’

The familiar shadow of the housekeeper was gone,
leaving only this girl, standing unsure, lingering for a long moment—

Before carefully closing the door.

Risa felt an unfamiliar tension.
It might be the first time anyone had ‘quietly closed the door’ since she arrived here.

‘Odd.’

   No one did that.
   In this house, knocking was a forgotten custom,
   and respect a tale of the distant past.

Her eyes stayed on the door.
Would the strange girl return, or just leave?

Then—

— Knock, knock.

Polite, cautious tapping.

For a brief moment, Risa’s eyebrows twitched minutely.

It was the first knock she had heard since arriving at the villa—or rather, since the day she injured her leg.

“……A knock?”

Risa murmured, narrowing her brow.
The sound was unfamiliar to her ears.

The door had opened and closed, and then knocked again.
The order was wrong, but strangely, it wasn’t unpleasant.

Though clumsy and difficult to decipher, there was a faint, unfamiliar warmth in the action.

For Risa, who had lived long receiving only rude, mechanical touches,
that strangeness quietly stirred her heart.

Her gaze had been firm, but for a moment, it softened ever so slightly.

“…What is it?”

Her casual voice flowed dryly out of habit,
but an unidentifiable cautiousness lingered within.

“Ah… Milady. I… I’m Sicily. I… will be working at the villa starting today…”

The voice beyond the door sounded like someone who had yet to be disappointed by the world.
In the awkward, nervous tone, she felt the utmost courtesy.

   It was warm.
   It was gentle.
   But Risa didn’t believe it.

‘Everyone started like that.’

   At first, polite, speaking respectfully.
   Soon after—
   whispering by the bedside, leaving food like a tossed burden,
   treating her body as an “annoying load” was no different.

Risa slowly lowered her gaze.
Fingers fiddling with the edge of the blanket, she muttered to herself.

“…Pointless.”

Her eyes froze once more.
The subtle feeling from moments ago vanished into her expressionless face.

   It was the marquis’ doing.
   Without considering her condition, feelings, or consent,
   he had simply sent another person.

Formal treatment, a facade of care, perhaps.

“What is he thinking… my father.”

Her eyes wandered casually to a decayed flowerpot beside the bed, murmuring to herself.

   Risa Drnold.
   Daughter of a marquis.
   Yet no longer part of the family.
   Her political value gone,
   she was gradually being erased from existence.

   And now, another “new maid” for her.
   It wasn’t help—it was an unpleasant performance.
   Fatigue, rather than expectation, overwhelmed her.

“Come in.”

The voice was short, precise.
No emotion, simply granting permission—no welcome implied.

“Yes…”

The door opened carefully.
Sicily appeared.

Black as if incapable of reflecting light.
Her hair fell straight below her waist, like the gentlest dawn shadow.

Yet what was striking was her skin—pale, fragile, almost translucent.
It contrasted with her dark hair, forming a harmonious duality of extreme light and dark.

   Her nose was small, with a neatly defined curve,
   and her slightly flushed cheeks hinted at her nervousness.
   Clear eyes flickered toward Risa, lashes trembling beneath, betraying both caution and carefulness.

‘…A well-formed girl.’

   Risa’s gaze lingered briefly.
   Had the girl not spoken, she wouldn’t have believed anyone had come to work here.
   She seemed like a lost noble, wandering into the room by mistake.

But reality was different.
The girl had not grown up behind the noble veil.

   Sicily’s clothes were slightly worn, simple attire of a commoner.
   Stains stubborn from washing remained on her sleeves and skirt hems,
   and her shoes were worn down.

Yet even such clothing couldn’t diminish her presence.

Her life’s hardships had given her maturity,
adding mysterious depth to her delicate beauty.

Sicily glanced at Risa’s face, worry preceding pity.
Her lips pressed together, as if hesitating to speak.

Then, as blood again trickled from Risa’s mouth, her eyes widened.

“Blood? You’re bleeding?!”

Her startled voice echoed through the room.
She picked up nearby tissues and strode forward without hesitation.

   Her approach was unfamiliar.
   Risa flinched instinctively,
   and before her fingers could reach, she reflexively swatted Sicily’s hand away.

Tap.

A small, crisp sound where flesh met flesh.

Risa herself was slightly surprised at her reaction.
Her body had moved before her mind.

Though Sicily’s touch was not careless,
Risa could not allow even this brief contact.

Sicily blinked, startled, but showed no resentment or anger.

Instead—pausing briefly, her eyes seemed to mull something over.

Then she spoke gently.

“Milady, I’ll leave the tissues here.”

Her voice was lower than expected, composed.
Not overly polite, not unnecessarily emotional.

   Sicily carefully placed the tissues on the table.
   Within reach of Risa’s hand.
   The precise distance showed she had been raised to value respect, not pity.

Risa looked down at the neatly folded piece of paper.

   Born to the Drnold marquis family, producers of imperial knights,
   she had been given the destiny of the sword from birth.
   Risa had accepted that fate.
   Her body was a weapon.
   And weapons must not be damaged.

   Even a cold or a sprained ankle brought questioning first,
   and fear before anything else.
   Growing up that way, she had never learned she could be weak.

When she fell from the horse—
she felt everything had ended.

The sudden impact, the fall, the shock—it overturned her entire life.
From that moment, she felt nothing below her legs.

Some said, “At least you survived,” but Risa resented that.
Because surviving meant she had to face her family’s gaze longer, more often.

Perhaps it would have been better to die.

   She remembered.
   Her mother had ignored her silently,
   and her father, after a long silence, left only one word.

“Stop.”

That word was the seal of ‘discard’ stamped on Risa’s life.
Declaring she had no value, no hope.

   After that, she was sent to the villa.
   Under the guise of convalescence, effectively abandoned.
   The housemaids initially showed some courtesy, then lost interest.

Her meals delayed, medicine sometimes gone, bedding left unattended for days.
Neglect had become routine, wearing down even her emotions.

Then

, one day, a girl named Sicily arrived.

Her behavior was startlingly different.
Truly, strangely so.

With a clear face, she brought tissues, showing no attempt to hide her concern at the blood at Risa’s mouth.
She brought a whole stack and placed it in front of her.

“Milady? Do you need more tissues?”

Risa was stunned.
Looking at the pile before her, she realized: this girl had tried to see what was needed—properly.

“No… it’s fine.”

   She said shortly.
   She no longer wanted attention.
   Experience had taught her that care quickly turned to malice.

Yet Sicily did not back down.

“Use them. I’ll keep them ready until you do.”

The tone was unadorned, yet somehow sounded like a humorous threat,
as if she truly intended to wield tissues as a weapon.

Risa let out a small, amused breath, taking a tissue to clean her mouth.
The first experience of “forced kindness.”

   Then, she looked up.
   Sicily watched her with a pleased expression.
   Simple, worn clothes, yet strangely neat and upright.

Risa lowered her gaze again.
She avoided eye contact.

   Yet somehow, her chest tingled strangely.
   The sensation was uncomfortable.
   Unfamiliar.

Expectation was forbidden.
Risa, long ago, had learned she could lean on no one.

So she tried to ignore the tingling—
and silently wiped her lips, pretending to feel nothing.

   That inexplicable feeling stirring near her chest annoyed her.
   She couldn’t explain why.
   It felt as if the intruder had quietly disrupted her solitary order.

“……Leave.”

   The words were sharper and shorter than usual.
   Cold. Restrained, chilling even.
   A defensive language she had known for years.

That single word made most housemaids bow and retreat mechanically.
And before the door closed, leaving one final remark—

‘Useless cripple…’

   Or more blatant scorn,
   mockery sharper than words.
   Risa had seen it countless times.
   Even when they spoke, she could do nothing; the family ignored her.

Bound aristocrats were playthings for commoners.

She unconsciously expected the same this time.

But—

“Yes, call me if you need anything~”

A light, polite voice.
The girl bowed without a hint of embarrassment.

Risa narrowed her eyes.
This familiar pattern, today, was broken.

   She had snapped, shown coldness, yet the girl still smiled.
   No forced grin, no sneer,
   no monologue masked as venting.

She moved without question, cared without judgment, and seemed to leave no regrets—
quietly closing the door behind her.

The click of the closing door sounded unusually long.
The room fell silent again.

Everything returned to normal, yet her mind felt dizzy.

The trace of a strange presence had brushed past like a wind,
leaving her equilibrium unsettled.

“……Don’t expect anything.”

Risa muttered to the dark ceiling above the bed, softly, almost a whisper.

   That girl still did not know she was the abandoned daughter of the Drnold marquis family.
   Unable to move, to walk, powerless in this place—
   she had no idea yet.

She had only been cautious on her first day.
Soon, her gaze would change.

So—
it was best not to form unnecessary expectations.

   As it had always been, and as it would continue to be.
   No shoulder to lean on, no hands offering warmth.
   Expecting anything from others had ended long ago.

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