I still remember when the twins arrived at the manor and completely shifted the dynamic of the house. When I first met Rudeus, I saw nothing more than a clumsy, sloppy boy who didn't show me an ounce of respect. When I hit him, he hit me back, so I ended up finishing him off.
But then, I noticed his brother hadn't even flinched at my outburst. Back then, I thought he was just a "cold-hearted bastard." He dodged my every attack without a single expression on his face, making me dance around him like a puppet on a string.
Yes, from that day on, I was fascinated… though I have to admit, I felt a flicker of fear too. That stillness of his—it was unsettling.
I actually started to think he was "defective" or something. What kind of child doesn't scream? What kind of child doesn't cry or get angry when people curse at him? It wasn't normal. It was as if he were hollow inside, or perhaps filled with something I simply couldn't understand.
After the kidnapping incident, he offered to look after me. The maids told me something then that made me doubt my "broken" theory. They said that on the night we were brought back, he had gone to my room. He didn't go in. He just stood by the door, listening to the sound of my breathing—making sure I was okay, that I was safe—before finally going to sleep.
A month later, I found him staring at the sky from atop the manor walls.
"What are you doing up there?! Get down, you runt!" I barked from below, crossing my arms.
He turned. For a split second, I saw a shadow of surprise in his eyes, as if I'd jolted him awake from a dream.
"I'm just looking at the stars," he replied.
"The stars? They're just bright dots!" I huffed. "Get down before you fall and Grandfather blames me!"
He didn't budge.
"Don't you ever feel like you belong among them, Young Eris?" he asked suddenly.
I went quiet, confused.
"Belong…? What are you talking about? I belong to the House of Boreas."
"Think about it," he continued. "We were all dust once. In the end, we return to the sky. Like a transformation… or an escape to the great beyond. No pain, no regrets."
I just stared up at him.
"We can feel big, Young Eris. We can believe we're powerful down here, shouting and fighting. But the truth is, we are nothing in the face of the vast universe."
He was always like that—saying strange, philosophical things, as if he were speaking a language only he understood. At the time, I didn't give it much thought. I figured he was just trying to sound interesting or confuse me.
"Hmpf!" I kicked the dirt. "Ghislaine says you need to rest. She asked me to tell you."
He finally looked down at me.
"All right. If Ghislaine says so."
He leaped from the wall, landing silently by my side.
"Thanks for coming to get me, Young Eris."
"I didn't come to get you! I was just delivering a message!" I yelled, spinning around so he wouldn't see my cheeks flushing.
Daiki was always an enigma to me.
For months, I watched him. I saw him train until his hands bled. I saw him endure Ghislaine's scoldings without blinking and correct Rudeus without ever raising his voice.
To me, he was ice.
But it took a year… a full year leading up to my tenth birthday, to realize just how wrong I was.
It was in the little things.
The way he'd cover for Rudeus whenever he did something stupid, taking the blame without a word. The way he'd leave the best portion of the food for Ghislaine when he thought no one was looking. Or how, every time I got frustrated and wanted to break everything because I couldn't grasp a lesson, he would just sit beside me. He never said "you're stupid" or "this is easy." He just waited... until I was ready to try again.
And then I understood.
Beneath my assumptions, beneath that layer of ice he showed the world, lay the truth: Daiki wasn't cold because he felt nothing. He was cold because he held too much inside.
On the outside, he seemed incapable of being ruffled—like a statue that doesn't react to the wind or the rain. But inside… inside, a massive heat was smoldering. A fire that he only let slip in flashes, when he thought no one was paying attention.
From that moment on, I stopped trying to break his calm with my fists.
Well, to be honest, I also stopped because hitting him was impossible. Seriously, I tried everything: ambushes, surprise attacks, low kicks, throwing things… nothing worked. He always moved before my fist could land, or he'd deflect my attacks so effortlessly that I'd end up face-first on the floor or hugging a pillar.
"Idiot…" I whispered that night, staring at my bedroom ceiling. "One day, I'll be fast enough to land that hit. And that day, you're going to have to look at me for real."
Then, as his tenth birthday approached, it finally hit me.
I had fallen in love with him.
And the worst part is that it didn't happen just then. It wasn't "yesterday." It had happened much earlier—exactly two years ago, during my own tenth birthday party.
After that dance, I stayed in my room, unable to sleep. I tossed and turned, getting tangled in the sheets, but every time I closed my eyes, the image returned: the two of us, suspended in the air… and him.
Especially him.
The boy who almost never smiled. The one who was incapable of making silly jokes like Rudeus. The boy who always seemed to be calculating his next move had smiled at me with a warmth I had never seen before.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
"Why…?" I murmured into the darkness. "Why did you smile at me like that?"
I had always thought Daiki was unreachable, someone living in his own world of thoughts and strength. But that night, while he held me, he didn't feel distant. He felt... present. He felt mine.
And that smile… that damn smile was proof that, maybe, I meant something to him too. That I wasn't just a task, or a noisy nuisance he had to train.
"Idiot... Huge idiot. Now I'll never be able to forget it."
With only a few days left until his birthday, I was still beating my head against a wall trying to figure out what the hell to give him.
What do you give someone like him? He didn't care about expensive toys. He only wore fine clothes because he was forced to.
Then I remembered the dance. I remembered how he held me. I remembered that he saw me as a partner.
"I don't want to give him a thing," I told myself, looking out the window at the manor's rooftops. "I want to give him… results."
I wanted to prove to him that my balance was perfect. That I could move on any terrain, even the most dangerous ones, without him having to catch me. I wanted him to look at me and think, "She doesn't need help."
It had rained that afternoon. To any normal person, climbing up there would be madness. But I am Eris Boreas Greyrat. Fear is for the weak.
I slipped out through the third-floor window and climbed onto the main roof.
"Okay," I muttered, standing on the ridge of the roof. "Keep your center of gravity low. Firm steps..."
I moved forward. One step. Two steps.
"Ha! This is easy!" I barked confidently, and decided to try a practice thrust right there on the edge.
Fatal mistake.
As I pivoted my foot to lunge, I stepped on a loose tile.
"Huh?"
There was no time to scream. My feet flew toward the sky and my back slammed against the hard clay. I started to slide. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact, for the pain.
But the end never came.
Instead, I felt a brutal jerk on my wrist, followed by a powerful arm wrapping around my waist with the strength of a steel vice.
"I've got you!" he grunted. With one swift motion, he hauled me upward, dragging me away from the edge to a safer, flatter section of the roof.
He didn't let go once we were safe. He pulled me tight against him. I could hear his heart. It was racing a mile a minute. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Just like mine.
"Are you stupid? Are you absolutely, remarkably stupid, Young Eris?"
I pulled back slightly to look at him. I wanted to yell at him not to insult me, I wanted to tell him I had it under control (a lie), but the moment I saw his face, the words died in my throat.
He wasn't angry at my clumsiness. He was terrified. He was terrified of having lost me.
"I… I wanted to train," I stammered, feeling small for the first time in a long while. "I wanted to improve my balance… to surprise you....."
Daiki closed his eyes and let out a shaky sigh, resting his forehead against my shoulder.
"You nearly gave me a heart attack… ."
I stood still, my hands hovering in the air.
"I'm sorry…" I whispered.
"Don't ever do that again. If you want to train your balance, we'll do it together. With me by your side. Understood?"
I nodded. "Yes. Understood."
"Good. Now let's get down before we both get killed."
I didn't need to be perfect for him. I just needed to be alive. And he would always be there to make sure of it.
Daiki stood before me, arms crossed.
"Young Eris," he said.
"I told you to stop calling me that," I snapped, shifting my gaze to the carpet. "Just call me Eris."
"I'll call you Eris when you beat me," he replied with his usual calm, reminding me of the promise he'd made. "And today… today you almost got beaten by a wet roof."
I felt my ears burning with shame. I wanted to scream at him, but I knew he was right.
"Do you know what your mistake was?" he asked.
"I slipped. The tiles were wet," I replied defensively.
"No. Your mistake wasn't slipping. Your mistake was using too much force in a place that couldn't support it."
"Young Eris, you are a cannon," he said. For a second, I thought it was a compliment, until he kept talking. "You have power. You have fire. But if you fire a cannon from a paper boat, you'll sink."
"You have to adapt your strength to the terrain. On the firm floor of the ballroom, you can step hard. On a wet roof, you have to be a feather. You can't attack the world with the same intensity every time, because sometimes the world is fragile, and you'll break right along with it."
He patted my head, as if I were a dog.
"Train that. Control. Adaptability. When you understand that... then you'll stop being a cannon that sinks itself."
"And Eris..." He said my name without the "Young," and something struck me deep inside, catching me off guard. "Thanks for wanting to surprise me. But I'd rather have you alive than impressive."
He walked out and closed the door.
Fine, Daiki. I get it. I'm going to learn how to be light. I'm going to learn how not to sink. And the day I pull it off…