And to her, every ordinary day she could spend living with him was the greatest happiness of all.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-
The sound of chopping still rang through that familiar little kitchen from years past. The beautiful young lady who had danced so enchantingly onstage had changed into a simple cook's outfit. Those slender hands that danced gracefully over the piano keys had once again taken up the duties of the woman of the house upon returning to her simple home.
Her body was still so slender and frail, but she had already blossomed into a graceful young woman.
Her eyes were breathtakingly beautiful.
In fact, her striking beauty had already begun to show when she was barely in her teens. From then on, neighbors would come to their door every day bearing gifts, hoping to introduce her to someone she could someday marry, but she had driven every last one of them away.
And later.
After she first stepped onto the stage.
Her suitors became gentlemen from the higher social classes-dashing military officers and immensely wealthy business owners. But it was the same every time: she rejected their advances with an almost heartless coldness.
And so, little by little, rumors began to spread.
Little by little, people began to look at them differently.
Even though, for a long time, he had begun formally treating her as a "father," an "Older Brother," or a "guardian" would, no longer being as close to her as he had when she was little, she had never minded in the slightest.
Because...
She bent down beside the candlelit dining table, carefully administering drops into his eyes.
She still remembered how bitterly cold that day had been. That night, the windblown snow had turned into swirling ice crystals. When he braved the heavy