The Duke’s Obsession Leads to a Death Flag

Unlike me, who felt awkward, the child remained indifferent. Just a while ago, he had clung to me, crying about why I hadn’t come, yet now he was acting as if nothing had happened. Seeing his calm expression made a sudden sense of injustice rise within me.

“Why didn’t you speak when you could?”

Recalling all the frustrating moments caused by his silence, my voice came out a little harsher than intended. The child slowly fluttered his long eyelashes and responded in a flat tone.

“I just didn’t feel the need to.”

I was at a loss for words at such a confident answer. The only reason he hadn’t spoken until now was simply because he didn’t feel like it? What had he been thinking while watching me struggle with frustration?

‘He was probably laughing his ass off inside!’

Though I was angry, I held it in. Fine, it was only two weeks ago that he bristled with hostility and refused to let me get close. Now, he was the one approaching first and even speaking. That meant we had grown that much closer, right? I decided to think positively.

“Then, will you talk properly from now on?”

“…….”

“I asked if you’ll talk properly.”

“…….”

“Hey, why aren’t you answering again?”

After speaking just fine a moment ago, what was this sudden refusal to talk? I persistently tried asking a few more times, but in the end, I gave up. If he found it frustrating enough, he’d open his mouth again on his own.

Still, it was a relief that he could talk. I had assumed I would have to teach him how.

“Did you eat?”

The child, lips firmly shut, stealthily shifted his gaze to the side. Following his haughty glance, I noticed something I hadn’t realized was there before—a single empty metal bowl.

It looked like a dog’s food bowl, filled with soggy food waste and wriggling live maggots. At first, I thought it was just a trash bin, but there were clear signs that someone had eaten from it.

Not wanting to believe it, I looked at the child. He returned my gaze with an unmistakable look of affirmation. Only then did I realize what he had been surviving on all this time.

Reading it in narration hadn’t allowed me to grasp the full extent of it, but as I learned more about what the child had endured, I couldn’t help but understand. Without resentment, it would have been impossible to survive such a hell. The adults had simply received their rightful retribution.

“You must be really hungry.”

Suppressing my emotions, I spoke gently. The child honestly nodded in response. Right on cue, a loud growl echoed from his stomach.

“Wait here for a moment. I brought food.”

As I rummaged through my bag to take out rice cakes and snacks, the child, who had been rubbing his hungry stomach, smacked his lips. I pulled out the heavy stash of rice cakes and snacks one by one, placing them on the floor.

“There’s quite a lot today, huh?”

The child, staring at the piled-up food, lifted his head and gazed at me intently. His desperate eyes were silently asking for permission—could he eat these? He refused to talk when it suited him, but for things like this, he knew how to wait.

“You can eat.”

The moment he received permission, he hurriedly shoved a rice cake into his mouth. Even with both cheeks puffed full, he stuffed in another one as if afraid someone might take them away. I patted his back and reassured him that he could eat slowly.

“If there were a speed-eating contest, you’d win first place.”

But the child didn’t react to my pointless joke, too busy stuffing his mouth with food. In no time, he had devoured everything, even licking off the crumbs stuck to his hands. Then, he peeked into the empty bag.

His rolling eyes seemed to ask if there was any more food left. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought anything else.

“Sorry, I should’ve brought more.”

Unable to hide his disappointment, the child’s shoulders slumped. Unable to give up, he started licking the inside of the empty bag. I quickly snatched away the trash from him.

“You can’t eat that.”

“…….”

“I’ll bring more tomorrow. I’ll bring a lot more.”

Only then did the child quietly nod. Since Han Jae-hoon had given me plenty of snacks and rice cakes as a gift, I figured if I packed my bag full next time, there would be enough to satisfy him.

“But in return, let’s make a deal.”

At the word “deal,” the child’s previously softened expression stiffened. The wariness returned, walls of caution building up again. I pointed at the bowl in the distance with my fingertip.

“Don’t ever eat that again.”

“…Why?”

The child asked aloud, his voice filled with confusion. Did he truly believe that was real food? His unexpected reaction caught me off guard as well.

“That’s not food.”

“It is food.”

“No, it’s not.”

“But I’ve been eating it just fine until now.”

Hearing him say he had been eating that filth without issue nearly made me curse out loud. I took a deep breath to suppress my anger and began explaining to the oblivious child, carefully and patiently.

“Look over there. The bowl itself isn’t even clean, and there are bugs crawling in it. The food inside is in such bad condition that you can’t even tell when it was made. If you eat something like that, you can easily get food poisoning.”

“What’s food poisoning?”

“Food poisoning is, well… when you eat something bad, your stomach hurts a lot and stuff. You could even die.”

I deliberately added the part about dying to scare him, but the child remained indifferent. He still didn’t seem to understand why he shouldn’t eat that. What a difficult little brat.

“Anyway, just don’t eat it. That’s not real food.”

The child neither agreed nor disagreed. His downcast eyes blankly stared at the floor. It was his way of showing he didn’t want to listen to me.

As I pondered how to convince a child who didn’t even grasp the problem, a brilliant idea struck me.

“If you keep eating that, I won’t bring your favorite round rice cakes ever again.”

“!!”

The child, who had been acting so indifferent until now, looked absolutely devastated, as if he had lost the world itself. His uneasy, trembling eyes and lips, opening and closing without knowing what to say, made his feelings clear.

As expected, childish tactics work best.

“If you promise not to eat that anymore, I’ll bring lots of round rice cakes tomorrow.”

“…….”

“But if you don’t agree, then you can keep eating—”

“I won’t eat it!”

The child quickly backed down. He was so desperate that he even jumped to his feet, anxiously stomping.

After letting the moment linger, I extended my pinky finger toward him.

“Then, it’s a promise.”

The child looked at my wiggling pinky, then hesitantly held out his own, mimicking me. As his finger cautiously approached mine, I hooked it with my own and gave it a gentle shake.

“This means we’ve made a promise.”

“…Ah.”

His red eyes sparkled as he learned something new. Even after our pinkies separated, he kept staring at his curled finger for a long time.

He didn’t know how to open a bottle cap, didn’t know how to button up his clothes, had no sense of table manners, and had only just learned the meaning of a pinky promise.

Watching him, completely lost in his discovery, I reached out and gently brushed the dust from his tangled red hair.

Perhaps he had lowered his guard more than before—unlike in the past, when he would flinch and pull away the moment I touched him, he remained still. Instead, he tilted his head toward me, as if asking for more.

The thin strands of his hair slipped through my fingers, catching the sunlight streaming in through the small window and shimmering brightly.

Like a tiny flickering flame, glowing softly.

‘Most of the bruises are gone now.’

As time passed, the bruises that had once stained his small, pale face had faded, finally revealing his untouched features.

Fiery red hair, skin so pale it was almost translucent, a sharply defined nose, and lips like delicate flower petals. Not a single thing was imperfect, not a single thing lacked beauty.

That’s why it felt even more heartbreaking.

“I think I should get going now.”

As I lowered my hand from his head, unease flickered across his once-quiet red eyes. It was a stark contrast to before when he hadn’t cared whether I came or went.

The week he had spent alone here in the rain must have become a deep trauma for him. That relentless fear of the dark, the inability to sleep without light—so this was when it had first taken root.

Perhaps it was the fear of soon being left alone, but cold sweat began forming on his pale forehead. I wanted to stay by his side a little longer, especially since he couldn’t even bring himself to say “don’t go,” but the sunlight outside had already tilted significantly.

When I slung my bag over my shoulder and stood up, the child sprang to his feet as if to stop me—but hesitated. His wavering hand couldn’t quite reach me and withdrew instead.

“Here.”

Since I couldn’t hold his hand, I placed the flashlight that had been illuminating the storage room into his grasp instead. His wide eyes blinked up at me, and I crouched down to his eye level, carefully explaining how to use it.

“See this switch? If you press it, the light turns on. Press it again, and it turns off. The battery isn’t very full, but it should last a few more hours.”

“…….”

“It’s still bright now, so keep it off for now. When it gets dark, turn it on, okay?”

The child slowly nodded. I patted his head in praise and hurried to leave.

Just before I closed the storage room door, I heard the clinking of metal chains behind me and turned around.

The child was standing there, hugging the flashlight to his chest, staring at me. He had stepped as close as his ankle chain would allow.

I smiled, as always, and said, “I’ll come again tomorrow.”

For the first time, the child nodded.