I Start with a Bad Hand!

“Happy birthday!”

“Happy birthday, senior!”

Irene looked down at us holding a small cake tray. Her usually firm lips relaxed slightly as if she hadn’t expected it. However, she soon frowned and asked, 

“…It’s not my birthday today?”

Agnes, with her hair adorned with winter flowers from Heylem, placed a flower crown on Irene’s head. As I followed in, scattering flower petals, Irene welcomed us with a dazed expression.

“We heard from Klaus. Your birthday is just before the end of winter break, right?”

“It would be nice to celebrate on the day itself, but we didn’t think we’d all be able to gather then, so we’re celebrating early.”

“The reason we chose today is…”

With a playful sound, Agnes lifted the lid covering the cake. Irene’s green eyes shone with an indescribable light as she looked at the clumsily decorated cake.

“We found these wild strawberries today.”

“So we had to make the cake before they spoiled.”

Irene’s cheeks turned red as she received the cake. Holding the fork Agnes handed her, Irene poked at the syrup-coated strawberries absentmindedly.

“…How did you find strawberries in winter?”

Agnes and I exchanged tired glances at her question. That was precisely why we had to go hiking without Irene.

“Is this for real? Wild strawberries in winter?”

“Oh, the butler said it’s possible. If we don’t lose them to rabbits, winter mice, or reindeer, we have a chance.”

“What? Are you kidding? How many do we have to fight off?”

Klaus’s brief mention of Irene’s birthday had triggered a strange competitive spirit in Agnes and me.

“Her favorite is strawberry cake, but…her birthday is in winter, and I have a strawberry allergy, so we don’t have it often.”

“No strawberries in winter?”

“Yeah, because it’s cold. But even if you just commemorate her birthday…hey, where are you going, Dietrich?”

Why aren’t there strawberries in winter? My self, accustomed to strawberries harvested through industrial agriculture, had forgotten that this place didn’t have greenhouse farming methods. But there was always unexpected hope.

“Strawberries? If it’s wild strawberries, they sometimes grow in the mountains of Heylem, but regular strawberries…”

The butler’s absent-minded information became the reason Agnes and I combed the mountains, competing with rabbits, winter mice, and reindeer. Klaus, who had followed us without knowing the reason, wore a blank expression when he learned the truth.

“Wild strawberries? For my sister?”

“Yeah. But are you allergic to wild strawberries too?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll try my best to find some.”

With snow covering his shoulders and boots, Klaus smiled brightly, enough to make our eyes hurt. Maybe it was the combination of determination, madness, and diligence. Luckily, we found them under a bush before the day ended. It seemed that the thorny bush had kept the wild animals at bay.

“If you search hard enough, you eventually find them,” Agnes said, looking somewhat drained. As I moved the table, I casually asked Irene, “Is the room okay? It was originally mine, so it’s the warmest.”

“It’s nice. It gets plenty of sunlight,” Irene replied with a gentle expression, which made me feel an inevitable sense of guilt. I checked the time. 8:20.

“Senior, should we prepare some tea as well?” Agnes, who was moving a chair, peeked over and asked. At this, Irene said she would do it and brought the kettle over. Watching the kettle puffing out steam noisily, I glanced at the clock again.

‘The time is now… 8:25.’

Suppressing the growing anxiety, I spread the tablecloth over the table. “Shall we ventilate the room a bit?”

“In this cold?”

“Now is the warmest moment.”

“I’ll open it.”

And that moment came quickly. As Irene opened the window, she let out a sharp scream and threw the kettle on the table out the window.

“Aaaahhh-!”

A horrible scream echoed through the quiet castle. The sound made Agnes drop the plate she was holding, which shattered noisily.

“Senior…?”

“What did I just see?”

Irene, staring out the window, stepped back as Agnes and I, with shocked eyes, looked down below. The scream from outside the open window continued to pierce the air. It was a loud wail that was not drowned out by the sound of the blizzard.

“Miss! What’s wrong, miss!”

“Sister, what happened?”

The sound of the butler knocking on the door made me pull my gaze away from the scene below the window. Agnes, still unable to tear her eyes away, frowned deeply. I calmly opened the door to find the butler and the Baron standing there with worried expressions. Klaus was there too, looking equally concerned.

“A person…,” I began, trying to steady my trembling voice. The actual scene was more horrific than I had imagined. “A person… fell from the window…”

The faces of the people outside the door turned pale at my words. Agnes still clung to the open window, seemingly oblivious to the raging snowstorm.

“I’m fine. I opened the window for ventilation, but someone was climbing up the wall…,” Irene said, her face unusually pale. She then collected herself and calmly straightened the slightly disheveled cake. Klaus, unable to take his eyes off the decorated strawberries, turned to me with a worried look.

“Are you… okay?”

“I’m fine. Senior poured hot tea on that person.”

“We barely even saw anything.”

The people outside the room still looked down through the window where screams could be heard. Below, someone lay clutching their leg, screaming in pain.

“Catch that person immediately,” Baron Degoph ordered, his face colder than I’d ever seen. The butler hurried outside, but it wasn’t necessary. The estate’s guards had already rushed out and were dragging the person who had fallen beneath the window.

As snow began to accumulate on the window sill, Agnes, her face full of confusion, asked me while rubbing her eyes to clear her blurred vision from the snowflakes.

“Isn’t that… Logan?”

Without turning back, I replied, “No way.”

***

“What on earth were you thinking?”

Later, August reported that the situation was extremely awkward. When he hurried outside, the face of the person who had fallen was very familiar. He didn’t acknowledge it at the time, but it was the son of a viscount who had connections with the young lady he served.

Logan, with his leg immobilized by a splint, couldn’t answer the question. He merely whimpered and sniffled for a long time. Held firmly by the estate’s knights, he glanced around nervously, gauging the reactions of the people surrounding him.

Even though I had expected such a scene, an inexplicable anger boiled within me. Despite having no reason to be disappointed anymore, Logan’s utter failure dragged my mood down to the depths. His only redeeming quality, his appearance, was now marred by scratches and burns from the tea Irene had poured on him, his face swollen and tear-streaked.

“What were you thinking, trying to sneak into the room where the Marquis’s daughter is staying?” Logan, sobbing heavily, remained silent. With a rare expression of cold anger, Klaus grabbed Logan by the collar and dragged him, sending him sprawling onto the couch with a thud.

“Speak clearly. Don’t even think about making excuses.”

Logan’s face was a mess of sweat, tears, and other fluids. The only fortunate thing was that his face was pressed into the snow, preventing the burns from the hot tea from worsening. Klaus’s fierce gaze bore into Logan, who, still crying, stammered out a response.

“I… I didn’t know,” he whimpered.

“What?” Klaus barked.

“I didn’t know that Lady Irene was in that room,” Logan sobbed.

A cold silence filled the room at his words. I watched the scene with detachment. It made sense; Logan would have thought that the room belonged to Dietrich.

‘So sending that letter before the break was worth it,’ I thought.

I had suggested switching rooms, arguing that the original room, with its warm sunlight, would be better suited as a guest room. I moved to a room closer to the study in the southwest wing. Although the Baron and Baroness Degoph were a bit disappointed, they had agreed to the switch.

“Do you call that an excuse? The very fact that you climbed the castle wall at night without an invitation,” Klaus began.

“If I had known Lady Irene was in that room, I wouldn’t have dared climb up there! I swear it!” Logan’s voice was half-pleading, half-shouting, making the atmosphere in the room even tenser. Amid Logan’s sniffles, Irene, who had been silent until now, spoke.

“Then who did you think was in that room?” she asked.

With his face covered in scratches and still crying, Logan answered, “Of course… Dietrich.”

Baron Degoph, who had been standing with a stern expression, turned to look at Logan. Complete silence fell over the room.