Chapter Text
You step out of the lab and the clock glares back at you.
past midnight. Overtime again
Workaholic? Maybe?
You flick the empty energy drink can toward the bin. It hits the rim with a hollow clink—and misses.
Figures.
You don't bother picking it up. Instead, you set down the third—no, fourth—coffee mug of the night.
Stains ring the rim. the porcelain is warm from too many refills. This is your life.
You work for a dark organization.
Not "used to." Not "accidentally tied to." No—work. Present tense. Ongoing.
And honestly? You don't mind.
They pay well. More than well. In this era, that alone is enough to silence most moral debates before they even begin. Survival has always been louder than conscience.
Before all this, you were a taekwondo master. Retired early—not because you couldn't fight anymore, but because you found something far more interesting than breaking bones.
Now, you break bodies in quieter ways.
Medicine became your obsession. Not the clean, ethical kind taught in universities—but the kind whispered about in back alleys and buried under legal codes. The kind that doesn't ask for permission.
Illegal.
Some people—if they knew—would call you a mad scientist.
You'd disagree.
You're not mad.
You're just... curious.
Curious enough to take a harmless plant and ask, how far can you push it? Curious enough to isolate a compound and wonder, what if this could stop a heart in one second?
And when it works—when something so simple becomes something so devastating—
God, it's beautiful.
You are the backbone of this organization. Every antidote, every toxin, every experimental drug circulating through their system traces back to your hands.
In return, they give you protection. Resources. Freedom.
You could live a normal life if you wanted to.
You just don't.
Maybe it's because you grew up with nothing—no family, no safety net, no reason to believe in anything soft or stable. Devotion came easier than attachment. Obsession felt safer than people.
fluorescent lights, humming machines, and the steady drip of one obsession.
Right.
You're not alone here.
Somewhere along the way, this place—this organization—gave you people. Not quite friends. Not quite strangers. Something in between.
Everyone knows better than to call it anything permanent. Bonds here are fragile—thin threads stretched over something sharp, ready to snap the moment it matters most.
And yet...
Gwen stayed.
She entered the same day you did. Same orientation, same silent understanding of what this place demanded. While others came and went, burned out or broken, she remained—
Kind, in a way that feels almost out of place here. Big sister energy, but not suffocating. She knows when to step in—and when to stop.
"You should really take care of your body," she adds, softer this time.
You let out a small laugh, brushing it off like it's nothing.
Nothing about this is nothing.
You haven't slept properly in days. Your meals have been reduced to whatever can be consumed between experiments—sometimes poured into glassware that was never meant for food.
Sustenance without living.
"Right... I should eat something later," you mumble, already knowing you won't.
Gwen's expression shifts—just slightly. That look.
The one that says she knows you're lying, but won't push hard enough to make you admit it.
So you beat her to it.
You search for an explanation, something clean, something easy—something she won't question too much.
You find one.
You feel the truth settle heavy in your bones—
—and the lie form just as easily on your tongue.
"Well, I'm heading home now," you say with a shrug, already reaching for your things. "So—thanks for the concern."
You can almost hear Gwen sighing, that soft, exasperated exhale that says she won't win this argument.
You shrug off your coat, peel your gloves away, and reach for your bag.
For a moment, everything feels... off.
The lab is too bright.
The ceiling lights burn overhead like miniature suns, harsh and unforgiving, pressing into your vision until it almost hurts to look at them.
Then—
A flutter.
It starts small, tucked beneath your ribs. A faint, irregular beat, like wings brushing against bone.
You pause.
"...huh?"
The sensation spikes.
Your heart slams hard against your chest—once, twice—then too fast to count. The rhythm slips, stutters, races.
Breath catches.
No—
Breathing becomes work.
Air feels thin, like you're trying to pull it through a straw. The edges of your vision begin to blur, the world collapsing inward until all that's left is a sharp, blinding pinprick of light.
Someone's voice—muffled, distant—
Gwen.
It has to be Gwen.
You try to answer, but your tongue feels heavy, uncooperative. Your head throbs, pain blooming hot and relentless behind your eyes.
"Gwen...?"
Your own voice sounds wrong—warped, dragged from somewhere far away, like it doesn't belong to you anymore.
Ah... am I dying?
Your lips twitch, almost a laugh—almost.
Of all things.
Not a failed experiment. Not an enemy. Not even a calculated risk.
Just your own body, finally cashing in all the neglect you've so carelessly stacked against it
"...ah, fuck it."
The words leave you in a breath—resigned, almost amused.
Then the world tilts.
Your balance gives out, legs folding before you can even think to catch yourself. The floor rushes up—or maybe you're falling sideways, you can't tell anymore.
The last thing you see are the ceiling tiles—
Blinding.
Too close.
Absurdly sharp in their detail.
—and then—
Nothing.
That was how your life as ----, workaholic pharmacologist in the underground world, came to an end.
And now—here you are. Memories of your past life still intact, clear as day, branded into you like a curse.
You had lived and breathed formulas, drugs, and research... only to wake up as Lady Hiyori Arden, the daughter of a count, a blonde with red eyes, surreal enough to be in a world of fiction.
A child of a respected noble family in Clarines, known throughout the kingdom for their loyal service to the royal family.
Their lands are fertile and wealthy, famous for supplying herbs, trade goods, and harvests to the capital. And somewhere in the back of your mind, that name—Clarines—rings far too familiar.
You've read it somewhere. Maybe? A book? A manga? A fantasy where titles and royalty exist?
Well whatever, its clear I'm in some fantasy novel anyways.
And then, as if following some tired, predictable script—
Your mother died.
A year after you were born.
An illness, they said. The kind people stop naming after a while, as if forgetting the word might soften the loss.
To you, she isn't even a memory.
Just an outline. A concept.
A woman you're supposed to miss.
But don't.
And that, more than anything, is what unsettles you.
Still...
Despite everything—There is something.
Not love. Not quite.
But not nothing, either.
It lingers in the quiet dinners where no one speaks too much, yet no one leaves early.
In the way your father sometimes looks at you—like he's trying to remember something he's forgotten. Like care is a language he once knew fluently, and now has to relearn, piece by careful piece.
In the subtle, unspoken adjustments.
Space made for you.
Consideration, even when it feels uncertain.
You had a brother.
Technically, you still do.
But closeness was never part of the equation. The age gap alone carved a space between you, wide enough to swallow any attempt at something resembling sibling warmth. And even if it hadn't—
You wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway.
In your past life, you were an orphan.
No family. No shared blood. No one to teach you how to belong to someone, or how to let someone belong to you.
So when this life handed you a father, a brother, a home—
It felt less like a blessing...
And more like being cast into a role you never auditioned for.
You can't force yourself to accept a family you don't understand.
You can mimic it, maybe. Observe. Learn the patterns.
But feeling it?
That's different.
"How stupid," you mutter, narrowing your eyes at the pitiful rose in front of you.
The thought is absurd, but the truth is undeniable
your reflection in the polished glass shows the round face of a five year old girl.
A Five year old whose soul is twenty eight years old.
"Well, guess what," you muttered dryly, resting your chin in your small hands.
"Someone decided to stick the soul of a burned out adult into a child's body. What exactly were they expecting?"
People whisper about you.
They always have.
Some say you're sick. Too quiet. Too composed. There's something off about a child who doesn't fidget, doesn't cry, doesn't reach for comfort the way others do.
Others choose a kinder word.
Prodigy.
It sounds better. Softer. Easier to accept than the truth they can't quite name.
You let them believe whatever helps them sleep.
And also just for the context, You don't hate them. You don't particularly like them, either.
There's no grand emotion tying you together. No dramatic bond waiting to be realized.
Your father—Count Deruth Arden—buried himself in work after losing his wife.
He provided everything that could be measured. Food. Shelter. Education. A name that carried weight.
But affection?
That was a language long forgotten within these walls.
And you didn't mind.
If anything, it made things easier for you.
No expectations meant no disappointments.
So you adapted.
You learned how to fill silence with thought, how to stretch emptiness into something almost comfortable. Loneliness became something you managed, not something you feared—softened by books that didn't belong to this world, stories that only you could remember, knowledge that no one here could trace.
Five years.
You've lived in this world for five years now.
Your consciousness had awakened early—far too early for a child. You remember the blur of infancy not as instinct, but as awareness trapped in something too small, too fragile.
At first, you tried to understand.
Then, slowly—quietly—
You accepted it.
There was no point resisting a life you couldn't undo.
So you lived it.
Now—
You stand by the estate garden, staring at a single flower.
You wonder, absently, what kind of compound could be extracted from it. Whether its beauty hides anything lethal beneath the surface.
Old habits don't disappear.
They just... wait.
Your expression tightens, just slightly.
Because lately—
Your father has been acting strange.
Not dangerous. Not threatening.
Just... unfamiliar.
It started recently. A shift so subtle most wouldn't notice. But you did. You always do.
It's as if something finally clicked for him.
As if, after years of distance, he's only now realizing just how much of your childhood he let slip through his fingers.
Guilt, perhaps. And now—he tries.
In small, awkward ways that don't quite fit him.
"Hiyori, daughter... how about tea in the—"
"Father... you don't have to. I'm fine."
You turn to him with a smile— The kind of smile you've practiced enough times that it comes naturally now.
I understand but please stop trying
The words remain unspoken.
They don't need to be.
Your father stills.Just for a moment.
But it's enough.
You see it—the way his expression falters, the way something in his eyes tightens almost imperceptibly.
That smile... It doesn't belong to a child.
It's too composed. Too distant.
And perhaps—That's what hurts him the most.
And ever since that day—
He tried. Too much. Too suddenly.
Breakfasts together that stretched into uncomfortable silences. Walks through the garden where neither of you knew what to say. Gifts—carefully chosen, no doubt—but always just a little off. Too childish. Or too formal. Never quite you.
Even the maids noticed.
You could hear them sometimes, their voices lowered but not enough—whispers threading through the halls like drafts.
"The Count is trying so hard lately..."
"It's a good thing, isn't it?"
"...it feels a bit sad, doesn't it?"
Sad.
That was one word for it.
To you, it felt... suffocating.
The entire estate had taken on this strange, cloying warmth—like a performance no one quite believed in, but everyone was forced to play along with anyway.
You stand in the garden again, gaze settling on the same flowers.
Irritating.
For a fleeting moment, the thought crosses your mind—
It would be easy to burn them.
Reduce all of it—the forced gentleness, the artificial care, the fragile attempts at something that should have existed years ago—into ash.
Your fingers twitch, just slightly.
Then you exhale.
'It would have been better if he stopped...'
A soft sigh escapes you anyway.
Because the truth is—
You don't know what to do with this version of him.
Neglect was simple.
This... isn't.
And then, one morning, he insisted you accompany him to the royal castle.
You almost wanted to die right then and there.
But refusal wasn't an option, so here you were—standing beside him in the grand entrance hall, the marble floor polished enough to reflect your small, unwilling figure.
"Ah, Count Arden—you've arrived. And it seems our young lady has come as well," came a smooth, warm voice.
You turned to find a tall, striking man approaching. His every step carried an easy grace, the kind that demanded attention.
For a split second, you forgot to breathe.
Handsome was an understatement. You almost drooled.
But you forced your composure, recalling the etiquette drilled into you since arriving in this world. After all, the man before you was none other than His Majesty, King Kain Wistaria of Clarines.
Gathering your skirts, you lowered your head in a practiced curtsey.
"It is an honor to be in your presence, Your Majesty. I am Hiyori Arden."
The king's deep chuckle rolled through the hall, warm and unthreatening.
"Please, be at ease, Lady Hiyori," he said kindly, then shifted his gaze toward your father.
"You've been hiding such a charming daughter all this time, Count. How envious I am—I often wish I had a daughter of my own."
His tone carried a teasing lilt, and though it was meant lightly, you caught the faint sigh from your father beside you. Count Arden's lips curved into a restrained smile as he bowed his head.
"Your Majesty jests too much," he replied with careful courtesy. "It is this humble servant's honor that my daughter may stand before you today."
You stayed silent, keeping your head bowed just slightly as etiquette dictated, though the grown up voice inside your seven year old body was practically screaming.
Was that... a joke? From the king? Am I supposed to laugh? Nod? Do nobles even laugh at court?
King Kain's eyes softened as he looked back at you. "Clarines will one day depend on bright young ones such as yourself. I trust you will continue to grow into a fine lady, Lady Hiyori."
A blessing from the king himself.
"I... will do my utmost not to disappoint, Your Majesty,"
The king's smile deepened. "Good. Then, Count Arden, allow me to show you to the council chambers."
Your father glanced at you, giving the faintest nod of permission.
"I'll be waiting for you in the garden, Father," you replied with a polite bow, your voice carrying the practiced refinement expected of a noble's daughter.
And so you found yourself wandering down the stone corridor, your small slippers tapping softly against the floor, until the air grew fresher and the weight of the castle lifted.