Chapter 1

「1819」

"Kid! Hurry! Wake up!"

There is a painful sensation of heat, lashing the side of my leg, like holding a hand too close to the flame of a candle.

"Hot…"

"Of course it's hot! I can't simply carry you away, stop mumbling in your sleep and get up!"

"…"

"Aish, you must be a log if you manage to doze away with your leg nigh cooked in the flame."

My body feels incredibly heavy, I must've fallen unconscious because I can hear inherent speaking from possibly more than one person.

This scenario faintly reminded me of my childhood, a lost memory that brought about an indescribable feeling. Shh, let him sleep.

I feel one of my arms pull away from the heat, then the sound of muffled fabric scuffing a bare surface… Am I being dragged?

I retrieve enough consciousness to process other sounds, a grunt, and the subtle thud of a clunky mass colliding with the same surface.

"Hm?" I feel my hair drape past my ear, and the back of my neck is inconspicuously grazed.

"That's mine!" A young man with short blonde hair stumbles over my leg, nearly falling onto the ground as he proceeds to draw further away from me.

His pupils were encompassed by a color that bore the resemblance of a rain cloud, inclining him to appear far less pitiful than he would have looked if the specific trait were less striking.

Taupe threads of hair were stitched uniformly above the eyelashes which were light enough to be gold, but thick enough to be discerned from a mediocre distance.

"Heaven's kid! I wasn't stealing it, I was trying to help you before you were caught in flames," The young lad tugs at a white scarf that shrouded roughly his entire neck. It was an odd presentation.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" I say, using my bent leg to scoot farther from where he stood.

"Why am I here? This is my house! I should be asking you that question," he folds his arms behind his back and turns in the other direction,

… except I won't because it doesn't matter."

His house? Who would stay in a place like… this…

"You appear to have become frigid all of a sudden, is there something wrong?"

My mind is ridden with puzzlement. What could anyone say as they looked around a room that loomed with possessions, visibly anew? When merely minutes before there was nothing. Only soot, and walls that were softening.

"Sir?"

The stairs were in much the same structure, but quality-wise everything was different. This was the same room. My eyes discerningly fall below the staircase.

A dark mahogany wooden door with quaint designs inscribed in the middle of two rectangular shapes that swelled outwards instead of inwards like most doors.

Most notable about this door though was the narrow crack between the hinges and frame.

The young man stood in front of the knob, but I could detect from the other side that this door was slightly ajar.

"Have you finally woken up? . . . Have you gone insensible, or could it be you remember?"

"Remember what?" I spare him a response, intently staring at the walls shrouding him.

"Ah, You're speaking! I assume you are curious about my dwelling if you've come all this way to break in." The young lad's accent is British, entailing obvious indications of Welsh.

"What? No–I mean, I was looking for something earlier, but the manor was less…" I look around the grand room, detaching once again.

If I were to seek a method of explaining how this room had been in a state of regression before I presumably slumped onto the floor, I would have undoubtedly received a humbling response.

"Less rotten?"

I swiftly look in his direction. The young man's posture seemed to lean forward a bit when I finally improved my features and glanced up at him.

"What is going on?" I ask, raising my eyebrows so that they hide further behind my bangs.

"I know just about as much as you do. Except that I am supposed to give some kid in a brown raincoat a watch," his eyes surveyed me as he hummed curiously.

"I would say you fit the description enough. What's your name by the way, if you don't mind me asking?" He fiddled with a button on his burnished vest, remaining in the same spot near the door.

"Hoku," I answer bluntly.

"Hoku? That's an unusual name indeed, I quite expected something else…"

"What do you mean, what did you assume my name was?" I ask, vaguely furrowing my eyebrows to convey the suspicion seeping through my demeanor.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"There is no need to be skeptical, I just could never perceive a name like yours. Suppose I should leave my home more, I hardly recognize how to properly interact with strangers," One side of his mouth curls up, and his eyes have yet to peer somewhere else.

It is nearly daunting, but then I recall that I am sitting on the floor of his manor.

I hurriedly stood up from my pitiful placement on the ground.

"Haha, I was wondering when you were going to stand up, I suppose you were still faint in the head."

"What is your name then?" I reckoned it would be impolite to not return the question before seeing myself out of this wildering place.

"You may refer to me as Polaris—"

"Like the star?" I unthinkingly interrupt him,

"...sorry, poor habit."

Polaris clears his throat, prudently raising and lowering his head.

"Uhm, no worries, but I'm not exactly sure where my name comes from, neither I nor my parents have had acceptable occasions for those sorts of conversations."

"I understand," I reply, bowing my head apologetically.

"Then I should get going—ah, right I believe you had something to give me! If now is an acceptable occasion, I wouldn't mind catching a glimpse."

"It nearly slipped my memory as well, though I can assure you needn't worry—we both have an abundance of time."

The wooden door's hinges below the curvy staircase creaked bitterly. Polaris led us down a smaller set of steps that looked like thick wooden planks.

"I fancy your boots by the way. I've never seen footwear with quite so many… strings," Polaris says, sliding his hand further down the cedar-colored metal stair railing.

"Shoelaces?" I affirm as we trickle to the bottom of the steps.

"That's what those are called, interesting."

I don't quite understand this man. Whether he is joking or being serious—which would be odd, but perhaps not unusual judging by how he lives alone in a transcendent manor.

"They are just leather Moccasin toes." I glance down at my boot and press my toe against the top, a small crease forming along the vamp.

"I haven't a clue what you said past leather," answered Polaris confusedly.

Polaris slid a hand into his pocket as he stood in front of the stairs. He pulled a silver key from his pocket and pushed it into the empty keyhole of another door.

This one was different, the wood was dingy with greenish-blue blemishes sprawling from the bottom to the middle hinges.

This door's condition didn't quite complement the room upstairs, however, the cluttered room beyond the door did.

"I thought you were leading me into a wine chamber…" I say, raising my chin to peek over his shoulder.

"A wine chamber? More like a neglected study," Polaris responds. He moves to the side pushing the rest of the door open with his back.

"After you~"

Exactly how long has it been since someone had even set foot in this room? The entire room smelled of rust and… cigarette smoke.

"Do you smoke?"

I turned to glance at Polaris who had already closed the door. He was on the opposite side of the room near a wall of bookcases.

Perhaps the only thing that was passably neat were the books sorted by size with the tallest to the wall and the shortest in the middle.

Otherwise, it is coated with heaps of dust.

"Do I impart such an impression to you?" Polaris raised his eyebrows, though the stillness remaining in the rest of his features revealed sarcasm in his riposte.

Fluster creeps into my cheeks, and I frantically wave my hands in front of my face.

"None taken." Polaris chuckles, framing his hand over the curve on his lips.

"Though for clarity, I do not smoke. The last owner, however…"

He hesitates, caressing the space on the shelf with his other hand.

"Never mind, I will stow that conversation for another time."

"Ah—alright then." I am not normally this polite to people, though it is likely I am upholding a humble attitude to avoid reminding him of the appropriate response to a break-in.

He must have a few screws loose… poor man. Residing in the same place for so long… might cause any man to mislay his sense of reasoning.

"Now… where did I place that box," Polaris sunk below the fancy desk I was standing behind. The placement was quite unusual, normally desks are placed in the corner or back of a room, not the center.

"Hoku, I apologize, but do you mind assisting me with a favor?"

I glance in the direction of the voice and walk to the side so that I can see him.

"What is it?"

"Wooden box, I am looking for a wooden box, small, obscurely plain, evidently made without the guidance of a craftsman."

'Craftsman?'

"Would it be in this room?" I ask, slipping my finger between the gaps of carved wood pillars that framed the desk's side.

"I would like to think so… but now I'm somewhat unsure, I thought I hid the watch behind these books. Could you look through the drawers in that Bureau and check the shelves behind you?"

Polaris stood up and swiftly ran his palm over the wrinkles on his pants.

"This?" I push the tip of my finger onto the furniture I was admiring, a shade of crimson bleeding under my fingernail.

Polaris hummed part of his reply as he walked toward the door, "I will ensure that I didn't leave it anywhere upstairs."

I simply nodded, before facing the wall adjacent to him.

"Lastly, I know everything that belongs to this room including, the number of books, so don't pocket anything~"

He was out of the room before I could counter his presumptuous remark.

"Says you," I mumble, grasping the broken locket through my shirt. The cold metal grazes my skin beneath the cotton fabric.

This is something important, but why, who gave it to me? Sentimental jewelry suggests a mother, but why would I deafly act out of constraint for an item that came from a woman I never even formed a memory of?

There is so much clutter in the room, stacks of books laid out against the walls with high shelves.

Empty glasses with remains of ink were tipped onto their sides, and a collection of potentially six to eight hundred journals were bestrewn upon most of the floor.

There were even crumbled papers thrown into a corner and noticeably kicked around.

I curled my fingers around the rigid knobs framing the Bureau and crouched in front of the drawers.

Each one I pulled on stayed closed, clicking into place when I tugged on the handle too hard.

Key holes? What kind of 'desk' drawers need a key?!

Raising my head above the surface, I helplessly peered through the slots, remaining near-standing on the floor.

A thin, rigid object was veiled with a long red tarp.

Somehow this broad rectangular structure cloaked with an elegantly colored fabric slipped through my perusal last.

Could this be what I originally—

I stood on my feet and approached the object leaning against a broken easel. Upon reaching for it, my fingers sunk into the folds of the tarp.

The tarp slipped from one of the sharp corners creating a sound similar to when my coat scuffed the floor upstairs.

Though it merely fell enough to shorten the length of red hanging on the other side.

Damn—it's stuck on something.

"I found it! You can come, upstairs kid, it seems I left it in the master!"

"Was it? Okay… I'm coming up then."

I press my lips into a line, allowing my fingers to slide down the tarp. I will just ask about it.

The space between the walls that secured the stair railing was narrow and poorly painted.

It was walking into the past, everything below the house was grotty, like a homestead left out in the cold after a snowstorm provoked ugly interior damage.

I kept my eyes on the steps, light poured in from the doorway filling greater portions of the plank-like steps.

Nearing the top of the staircase I hesitated seeing an ill-defined silhouette split the light into separate shafts that gleamed from both sides of me.

"Huh?" I squint forward.

A spindly black cat. With sharp green eyes, perched atop the crest of the stairs.

My foot remains placed on one of the steps behind me, as I quietly gaze at the feeble creature beyond where I stand.

"...Cheshire?"