"M- Maximus?! What the hell are you doing here?! What’s going on?"

I couldn’t believe what was happening. The boy who I had left tucked in his bed, in a county now hundreds of miles away, is standing right in front of me. My anger dissolved into bewilderment.

I stole a glance at Octavia. Unlike my dumbfounded self, she remained calm; bemused even. As if she had anticipated this entire act to play out.

“Via…” I said weakly. “Did you know it was him?” I thought about how she had protected him earlier. Octavia was grim and continued facing Max.

"I recognized the young lord when he cowered behind me," Octavia answered. "His mischievous eyes and spineless character are unmistakable. I'm surprised you didn't, Kallius."

“H- hey!” protested Max in a teary voice. “What do you mean by that, Via? I’m not cowardly…! A- anymore, I mean...”

Ignoring Max completely, I slowly nod in agreement with Octavia.

That’s right. Max has a habit of hiding like a coward when someone’s displeased with him. But it still seemed like Octavia knew more than what she had let on. I raised an eyebrow at her in a questioning manner. Octavia, still avoiding eye contact with me, merely walked over to the cabin’s bed, and daintily sat on it.

“How about we ask the culprit himself, hm?”

Octavia smiled cunningly as she patted the bed, gesturing at us to sit as well.

“That’s right!” cried Max with fervour. “I’ll prove to you guys that my cowardice is no more!”

For some strange reason, I think he missed the point entirely…

I watched as Max immediately skipped off to the farthest end of the bed, leaving me with the other end. I begrudgingly sat down as well.

Creak—

The three of us sat in a triangle. Max nervously alternated his gaze between me and Via. The discordance between Octavia's bright demeanour and my visible impatience likely unnerved him.

“Speak.”

Max stood up on his knees and raised his hands with determination. He inhaled deeply and began his side of the story.

“Brother. Though I understand that my actions may have been rash, I just want you to listen to my side in all this as well! When you left home without even a proper goodbye… I found it selfish! Yeah… so selfish, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read your letter! You didn’t even think about all this from my perspective! From father’s perspective! After your accident, our father has never lived a single peaceful day. It was so hard to understand your estrangement, especially since we didn’t even know what happened to you! And we still don’t! You never felt ready enough to tell us…”

With glistening eyes, Max looked at me intently, as if he was giving me the chance to explain before he badgered me some more. But I merely averted my eyes. Even if I wanted to tell him about that day, I couldn’t. I was just as clueless about what Kallius had gone through as Max was.

Max chuckled at my silence; his voice laced with sadness.

“So, when you started smiling again… I was incredibly happy. So was father. We thought our efforts over the past two years had finally paid off! But… that obviously wasn’t the case. You had planned to leave us…!”

Max turned away briefly to wipe a tear from his eye. Octavia quickly pulled out a handkerchief from her set of dozens and offered it to him. He accepted and wiped his eyes, smearing the black makeup he had on to mimic my eyebags. Via, noticing Max was starting to resemble a woman who had been crying after a party, immediately pulled out another and moved closer to him. I watched sullenly as she helped him wipe his eyes clean.

Tch…

For some reason, I felt strangely irritated by how her eyes were overflowing with concern for the brat… She was looking at me the same way when I was sick just yesterday…! Why do I feel annoyed by this?

My stream of thoughts broke when Max finally nudged away from her and faced me again.

“Were… we not good enough?” he croaked. “If… if only you had told us that we were doing something wrong, we would have tried something else! Father was so desperate to ensure you continued being open with him, he was ready to let you do anything you wanted! And he did! Though it broke him again. Do you… do you have any idea what he went through after you coerced him into letting you leave?!”

“Coerced is a little much, no?” I mumbled, but Max ignored my complaint.

“He has not been eating or sleeping! He just spent the entire time after you left standing in front of mom’s grave! Muttering about how he failed to take care of you! I was… horrified to see him like this again. He blamed himself for your accident, and now he blames himself for chasing you away! And Devon… She had every servant of the estate on their toes! She loves Father the most you know! Probably even more than you and I combined! Don’t you remember how she got back at you for his first break?!”

Max’s voice was going hoarse, and his eyebrows were furrowed furiously. I, on the other hand, sat still. Baffled.

He was now completely off the original topic. Max was just supposed to explain how he got here, and now I have found myself being lectured by a fifteen-year-old boy…

I didn’t think my leaving was that big of a problem. Devon didn’t seem to care much about what I did. Count Alistair was worried, sure, so that’s why I agreed to let him assign a maid to me. As for Max, I left him an apology letter for when he woke up. So… what exactly did I do wrong? Is there no way to leave Alistair County without disrupting the peace?! Am I just destined to stay trapped in the north as the fragile second son of the count?!

Max began to continue, but I felt irritated the moment he did and decided to end his emotional rant early.

“Maximus!”