To My First Love, With Regret - 64

—Eve hates me.

—Why?

It was a question asking why she would hate him, but the boy seemed lost in his own thoughts and gave another eccentric answer.

—She hasn’t been getting mad at me lately.

Normally, one would ask if that isn’t a good thing. But Ethan knew that woman all too well to say something so simple.

—She’s at her most terrifying when she isn’t angry.

—Anthony Sherwood!

Tony suddenly sat up, yelled his own name toward the sky, and then slithered back down into the tall grass.

—…It’s been quite a while since I heard that come out of her mouth.

—It’s not like you’ve suddenly stopped getting into trouble….

—Exactly.

Ethan let out a hollow laugh. A child who proudly admits to causing trouble. Though Ethan was usually the one inadvertently encouraging such behavior, for just a moment, he actually felt a flicker of pity for Eve.

—And yet, she doesn’t get mad; she just speaks to me calmly, and it’s scary. She doesn’t nag, and she doesn’t interfere with whatever I do. I think she’s finally fed up with me.

—So she’s finally given up on her rascal of a brother.

The boy flared up for a second, clenching his fists, but he didn’t retort or swing. Instead, he deflated like a punctured balloon.

—Exactly what did you do to cross the line of the ‘Merciful Lady Evelyn’?

The young boy stared at his own small fists and sighed like an old man before finally confessing.

—Something happened where Eve misunderstood me. She apologized to me, but I didn’t accept it. I said some mean things to her.

—Like what?

Tony didn’t want to share that part, so he pivoted.

—I only said it because I lost my temper….

But he couldn’t bring himself to lie and say he didn’t mean it.

Tony didn’t believe his father had married his mother out of love. It was obvious: he’d had a fling with a woman he wanted to toy with, a child had happened, and when the only heir died, he was forced to take them in. Eve had every reason to hate the woman who turned a family crisis into an opportunity to make her son a Duke. Therefore, she had to hate the son of that woman as well.

It wasn’t just a vague belief; he had proof. It was in Eve’s behavior, the way she had always been uncomfortable around him while living in the same house.

What Tony found harder to understand was the Eve of today. A few years ago, his sister had suddenly changed. She had closed the distance between them and started interfering in his life as if she had suddenly become his second mother.

That day at the beach, Eve said she didn’t hate him. It had sounded sincere. Or perhaps, because it was what he wanted to hear most, it simply felt sincere.

—Did I really cross the line that day? Or….

Tony turned his head to the side. The man next to him seemed to have lost interest because Tony wasn’t answering properly; he was just lying there with his arms tucked under his head, staring at the sky.

—Is she fed up with me because I keep playing with Ethan?

—What? After I’ve carved out my precious time to play with you, this is the thanks I get…?

Ethan pressed his index finger against the forehead of the cheeky brat and pushed him away. The boy let himself be pushed, his mind entirely occupied with how to regain his sister’s affection.

—If I stop playing with Ethan, do you think she’ll stop being mad?

—Now you’re making me want to keep playing with you.

—Actually, I want that too. So, Ethan, you should go make up with Eve.

—Make up? Don’t talk nonsense.

Ethan laughed in disbelief.

—Kid, you ‘make up’ when you’ve had a fight. We never fought. That woman just abandoned me.

—Ah, I knew it…. There’s no way Eve was the one who got dumped.

—You little….

Ethan swallowed a curse and pulled out a cigarette. But the wind, as if mocking his last bit of solace, blew out his lighter flame time and time again. Finally, Ethan threw the lighter away in frustration and stared up at the empty sky. Nothing here had changed with the passage of time.

Just like Evelyn Sherwood.

—Your sister is still the same. Exactly like the ‘damned version of her’ I fell in love with.

The words he spat out were fragments of the thoughts that had been torturing him lately. Once they broke loose, the next words were unstoppable.

—Which is why I’m still in love with her. Like a complete idiot….

How can I still love the traitor who sold me out?

Ethan clenched his fist, wanting to strike the most pathetic madman he had ever known—himself—at the exact moment the boy bolted upright. The face staring down at him with wide, circular eyes was, cursedly, the image of Evelyn Sherwood herself.

—Whoa. So you really did come back because you haven’t forgotten her.

I told you, no. I came to kill you all.

Ethan had to put the discarded cigarette back in his mouth.

—Don’t you dare tell your sister. Though, she looks like she’s already figured it out.

The boy nodded with a grim determination, looking for all the world like an intelligence operative entrusted with a top-secret mission. Then, he had the audacity to demand a price for his silence.

—In exchange, don’t tell Eve we played together today.

—Good grief. Fine.

Ethan let out a laugh of disbelief. They were like comrades forming a secret society. Originally, they were supposed to be allies united against a common enemy, Evelyn Sherwood. Yet, somehow, they had become a ridiculous alliance of two men, each secretly pining for the same woman in his own way.

He exhaled a bitter sigh, overworking his poor lighter.

—Evelyn Sherwood is quite the femme fatale. But why do you crave your sister’s attention so much more than your own mother’s?

—Doesn’t everyone in the world want Eve’s attention more than my mother’s?

—Fair point.

—And….

The boy pulled his small knees to his chest and cast his gaze toward the horizon. His eyes were as cloudy as the distant sea. For a long time, only the sound of the waves filled the silence between them. Finally, the boy spoke in a small voice, as if pulling the words from a depth deeper than the ocean itself.

—My mom is bad. She’s really bad.

—What’s that supposed to mean?

In truth, Ethan could guess. Rumors had long since spread that the nurse had forged the dying Duke’s signature to secure the marriage. The boy had simply grown enough to overhear the dirty secrets of adults. Tony clutched his kite and stood up, as if trying to avoid the obvious answer.

—The wind has died down.

It wasn’t just an excuse to run away. As if signaling that their heavy conversation was over, the fierce wind finally subsided. In that newfound stillness, Ethan finally lit his cigarette and watched the boy walk away.

The drill seemed to have ended; the roaring anti-aircraft guns had been silent for some time. Ethan was soon forced to pay the price for trusting that deceptive silence and not stopping the boy.

The kite soared high in an instant, becoming a tiny speck in the distance. He could see the stubbornness in the boy’s eyes, as if he intended to reach the very edge of the sky. Ethan was watching him quietly when…..

BOOM!

A bone-shattering roar erupted, and a pitch-black explosion burst into red flames directly above the kite. It was a direct hit from an anti-aircraft gun that had mistaken the kite for a training target dummy.

—Tony, get down!

Before his brain could even process it, Ethan had thrown his cigarette aside and was sprinting toward Tony. He tackled the boy’s small, frozen frame, shielding him with his own body as they hit the ground.

Beneath him, he could hear the boy’s terrified, shallow breathing. Ethan’s heart began to race out of control. Was it the fear of shrapnel falling on his back? No—even when he was caught in a shootout with a rival gang and death had whistled past his ear, his heart had never hammered this violently.

After a moment, the world fell silent again. Neither Tony nor Ethan had been hit by shrapnel, though a piece of jagged iron the size of a fist was buried in the ground right where the boy had been standing. A string of curses poured from Ethan’s mouth along with a sigh of relief.

—Have those bastards finally gone mad? Did they run out of shells and start using their eyeballs for target practice? They know there are houses here, and they fire over a child’s head without checking?

Perhaps they were blinded by the clouds of war gathering by the second. As they walked toward the mansion, Ethan gave the boy a stern warning.

—Stay inside with your sister for a while. Don’t go wandering around out here.

—O-okay….

—And it’s a secret that I told you this.

The reason he told the boy to keep it a secret was that the higher-ups were currently screaming about Strict Confidentiality like a bunch of drugged-up parrots.

Of course, it was because of screw-ups like him who failed to keep their mouths shut.

Are they insane? Telling us to stay quiet about a potential naval infiltration? Ethan didn’t know whose head this gamble had come from, but countless lives were hanging on that one uncertain prediction. He couldn’t understand the military’s behavior—failing to evacuate civilians or even issue a warning. He wasn’t sure if they were just pathologically incompetent or if they had moved toward a cruel policy where a few civilian lives were an acceptable sacrifice. Whatever the reason, it made him sick.