I set the tray I was carrying down on the prep counter and was about to leave when a man stopped me.
Amid the hustle and bustle of the kitchen staff, the sound of approaching footsteps echoed toward me.
“You, open your mouth and say, ‘Ah.’”
“Excuse me?”
“Not ‘excuse me.’ Say, ‘Ah.’”
Before I could grasp what was happening, a hand suddenly shot out, grabbed my mouth, and pried it open.
“Mmph!”
“I told you to open up!”
“Mmmph!”
What on earth was going on?
I twisted away with all my might, trying to shove the man off,
but his grip was so ironclad that I couldn't even break free.
“…Strange. Someone definitely stole the food.”
After thoroughly inspecting the inside of my mouth, the man muttered in disbelief and withdrew his hand.
I spat out the salty taste clinging to my tongue, my face twisting in disgust.
Ptooey, ptooey! Seriously?!
“If not you, why are the dishes so spotless?”
Ignoring my reaction, he immediately hurled an accusation at me without warning.
“Confess! You stole the young master's meal and ate it on the sly, didn't you?”
What kind of nonsense was this man spouting?
“If you had eyes, you'd know! The young master never touched his food—it always came back completely untouched! But today, every plate is wiped clean!”
At his words, I reached out and ran my fingers over the dishes I had just brought down.
The plates I had retrieved from Callius's room were indeed empty, thoroughly cleared.
Truth be told, ever since I started working at the ducal manor, I had never once seen him touch his meals.
He practically starved himself through every meal, and only when his hunger grew unbearable would he nibble on an apple or a crust of bread just to stay alive.
‘Still, is that any reason to go around accusing people like this? Maybe he was simply hungry today and decided to eat!’
I scowled, ready to voice my outrage, but another servant nearby called out and cut in.
“Hey, Harrison! It's pointless interrogating that maid. She's blind.”
“Blind?”
The man echoed the word in surprise.
Then I felt a stir of air in front of my face.
He waved his hand back and forth before my eyes, then spoke.
“She really is. Damn it all.”
He dusted off his hands and continued.
“So she didn't steal it; she must have tripped and spilled the entire meal.”
The man named Harrison jumped to his own conclusion and left with the clattering dishes, acting as though speaking to me wasn't worth another second of his time.
"…"
The saddest part was how tiresomely familiar this sort of treatment had become.
In this world, a disability was seen as ‘divine punishment’ or ‘penance for sin.’
No matter how fiercely I demanded fairness, it usually turned back on me, leaving me subject to finger-pointing or landing me in even deeper trouble.
Ptooey.
I spat out the foul, lingering residue once more and turned around.
It seemed I needed to go brush my teeth immediately.
“Ugh… utterly repulsive…”
After scrubbing my teeth until my gums were raw, I headed back upstairs to Callius's room.
Yet before I could reach the door, a sudden sound froze me in my tracks.
Crash!
A familiar noise, yet one capable of chilling the blood in anyone's veins.
‘Don't tell me… Why now, of all times…’
With a heavy heart fraught with dread, I hastily flung the door open.
“Get out! I told you to get out!”
Callius's roar rang out, instantly followed by the sound of something shattering into pieces.
“My Lord, please!”
Another man was desperately trying to calm him down, a voice I had never heard before.
I rushed inside.
“My Lord, please calm down!”
I couldn't make sense of anything.
Callius, who had been composed to the point of biting sarcasm just moments ago, was suddenly flying into a frenzy.
Suddenly, a heavy thud resounded, accompanied by a sharp yelp of pain.
Without a doubt, the man trying to restrain him had been struck by a flying projectile.
Stumbling footsteps began hurrying toward the doorway where I stood.
He grovelled along the wall searching for an exit, bumping clumsily against the furniture until he reached me.
Before I could step aside, he collided with me and tumbled to the floor.
“Wh-who's there?”
he stammered in panic.
“I am the young master's maid. What on earth happened? Please tell me you didn't open the curtains.”
I pressed him urgently.
He replied in a fluster.
“Th-the curtains? No! I'm just a servant who came to deliver the contents of a letter addressed to the young master.”
A letter?
“And what kind of letter could provoke him this much? He was completely fine just a while ago!”
“The thing is…”
he gasped for breath.
“It's a notice from the young master's academy. If he remains absent any longer, he will be permanently expelled…”
The academy? Expulsion?
The moment I heard those words, a detail from the original novel surfaced in my mind.
‘Right… Callius was forced to leave the Imperial Academy because of his photophobia.’
And he was never able to return.
To nobles, the Imperial Academy held paramount importance.
Graduation served as an essential rite of passage before claiming one's title, and the ties formed there solidified into crucial political alliances among the nobility.
Because of this, once the condition worsened, the Duke of Rivannion tried for some time to stave off his son's expulsion, refusing to admit his only heir had been struck by such a blight.
He had harbored hope that his son would recover and return to his former self.
Yet even after half a year, the affliction showed no improvement—it only deteriorated.
Only then was the Duke forced to acknowledge the grim reality.
That his son's disease might never heal, and that he needed to begin seeking a replacement heir without delay.
‘And in that process, Callius was steadily cast aside from the Duke's favor.’
Which meant this letter was nothing short of an indirect proclamation that the Duke was abandoning all treatment for his son.
“I don't want anything! All of you, get out!”
His shrieks raged on in the darkness as objects hurtled in every direction.
The sounds of crashing and splintering echoed through the air.
Callius was drowning in a despair unlike anything I had witnessed from him before.
A harsh, unbearable reality for a young master whose future had once seemed so blindingly bright.
“My Lord!”
I crept toward him, dodging the objects being hurled across my path.
“My Lord, please calm down!”
“Stay back!”
he snarled savagely, but I paid him no mind, feeling my way toward his sleeve and gripping it tightly.
I braced myself for him to shove me away in fury, but he didn't.
He froze in place, then slowly collapsed onto the floor, as if he had surrendered to everything.
“It's over… It's all over…”
he murmured, his voice utterly hollow.
“…I'll never go outside again… Not a single step…”
After muttering like an empty shell of a man, silence descended.
A cold dread washed over me.
“My Lord?”
I shook his shoulder and called to him, but no response came.
“My Lord! My Lord!”
I shouted toward the servant sitting slumped outside the doorway.
“Fetch a physician, quickly!”
There was once a time when the world was full of vibrant color before my eyes.
In my life before reincarnation.
The high blue sky, the earth blanketed in lush green or white snow, the faces of my family and friends.
All of it had been an ordinary part of my daily life.
Until I lost my vision completely in a sudden accident when I turned twenty.
That accident upended my world entirely.
Why did this have to happen to me? What will become of me now?
Despair crashed over me like a relentless wave, to the point where I couldn't step out of the house for more than half a year.
‘Are you going to keep starving yourself like this? Would you like me to make you something?’
‘I have no appetite.’
My entire disposition transformed in an instant.
‘You need to eat, even if you have to force it down.’
‘I'm not hungry.’
