TWCMH 01

Chapter 01

All this misfortune began on my 18th birthday.

My father was a gravedigger who made his living by selling corpses.

The shabby graveyard on the outskirts had far more corpses of unknown origin than those whose identities could be verified.

Among them, the rotting or severely damaged bodies were burned, and the intact parts were cut off and sold as livestock feed.

Of course, it was illegal, but when farms urgently needed high-quality feed for their pigs, they would sometimes pay a hefty sum and take them.

It was a bad thing to do. Even though their identities were unknown, I thought it was something that should not be done.

But perhaps because the money that came in each time was substantial, he would do it whenever he got the chance.

My younger sibling and I handled the leftover pieces of the corpses. We carefully gathered and burned bone fragments, tattered pieces of skin, and the like, and buried the remaining ashes under the trees on the sunny side of the hill.

*’What a damn mess you’re making.’*

Father used to glare at us resentfully. Even though we were cleaning up after him, he would curse us without hesitation, as if something about us displeased him.

*’I feed you and house you with the money from selling corpses, and you can’t even be grateful, you just look at your father like he’s some kind of bug? You arrogant little shits. What are you staring at? Just tend to the graves quietly! If you cause any trouble, you’ll get the beating of your lives, you hear?’*

…His words that he fed us with the money from selling corpses were wrong.

My sibling and I were always hungry. We endured each winter in clothes with sleeves that had become too short, and in the summer, we held back our gag reflexes in the mud that still reeked of death, just barely surviving.

Still, that place was a kind of sanctuary for me.

My dark, smelly, cramped hometown. Our small and shabby little home.

Taking the place of our father, who was steeped in alcohol and neglected the graveyard, my sibling and I managed that wide, old graveyard, and we cleaned up after the bad things he did so they wouldn’t cause any harm.

Even when he would gamble away all the money we earned and come back to take his anger out on me and my sibling, I couldn’t leave that smelly, shabby wooden house.

No, I didn’t leave.

Inside, there was only one person who could harm me, but outside was different.

Because I was timid, I was cautious, and because I had nothing, I had no choice but to cherish what little I had.

The old house, my sibling, the work that, one way or another, put food on the table…

I hated this smelly, dark place, but I also loved it. Sometimes I longed for the outside, but still, I thought this was where I belonged.

Then, on my 18th birthday, “that incident” occurred.

The incident that, like being struck by lightning in my sleep, suddenly pushed me into a quagmire and snatched away the few pieces of life I had barely managed to hold onto.

Oh God.

Because of that day, I curse You.

“Here, take this, Sis.”

A small iron box dropped onto my lap as I was sewing.

I looked at Dietrich with a questioning face, and he scratched at his faded, ashy-blond hair, mussing it up, and said,

“It’s your birthday, remember? Today.”

His ears were red as if he was embarrassed to say it. I was so surprised I stared at my sibling with my mouth wide open.

“This… right now, this is a birthday present for me…?”

I had hardly ever received a proper gift in my entire life.

But a birthday present? A gift celebrating the fact that I was born?

“Yeah. A birthday present for you, Sis. You’re officially an adult starting today. Congratulations.”

I wondered what to call this feeling.

This surging, overwhelming warmth that boiled up from deep in my chest.

A feeling of gratitude, of being sorry, of disbelief, and a hope that this wasn’t a dream. Even a fear that it might be a dream.

But if I had to name the biggest feeling of all…

“Thank you… Thank you so much, Dietrich.”

It was, of course, joy.

So that’s what he was so diligently polishing under the moonlight last night with the window open.

I hugged my sibling, who was rubbing his nose, tightly. His soft chuckle echoed brightly through the old house.

When did he get so big?

Though there’s only a two-year age difference, my sibling, who used to be much smaller than me, had grown so much that we were now almost the same size.

I can still clearly picture the skinny little kid who was thrown before me, led by my father’s hand on a rainy night, but he had grown up so well that he was now earning money on his own.

I was proud and happy for him, but on the other hand, I felt a pang of pity for him, imagining how hard he must have worked to buy this.

“Why does your expression suddenly look like that?”

“I’m so happy. I’m really happy, but… still, I think I should return this. And if you use that money to buy something you need, I think I’d be satisfied with that.”

My words made Dietrich’s expression harden. He wrinkled his face and pouted his lips, grumbling,

“What do I need? You’ve been giving up everything for me all this time. I don’t need anything.”

“You could buy new shoes, or your clothes keep getting too small, so you could get new clothes…”

“Sis.”

Dietrich grasped my shoulder firmly, but gently. His beautiful, dark brown eyes stared straight at me.

“This is money I earned with my own strength. It’s money I earned by working really hard because I wanted to buy you a birthday present.”

“So, because it’s even more precious money like that, you should use it for yourself…!”

“What’s so precious about it? You earn your money by sewing all through the early mornings and doing laundry in ice-cold water. Isn’t that money precious? And you spent it on me?”

His words made my heart ache.

Of course it was precious. It was precious, very precious money, earned through hardship.

That’s why it felt like I was crying blood whenever Father took it away. I had saved it up to buy at least a piece of meat for Dietrich, who was still growing…

But now, with the same expression I used to have, Dietrich said,

“I earned this for you. By my own will, working really hard. For this day.”

“…So just be happy about it, please? Is that really too much to ask…?”

His shoulders, which had been puffed up with pride just moments ago, slumped down.

Panicked, I looked back and forth between the music box in my hand and my sibling’s drooping shoulders.

Was it really okay to just be happy? Could I accept something so precious without any guilt?

Truthfully… I just wanted to be happy. Despite my embarrassment, a part of me wanted to grab this first gift I’d ever received and jump for joy.

I was just afraid that if I held onto something so precious, bought with money Dietrich had worked so hard to earn, God would punish me by shoving misfortune my way.

I was so cowed by the world that I couldn’t enjoy happiness as pure happiness.

But Dietrich was right. What was so wrong with just being happy?

There couldn’t be a more unhappy and miserable life than this one, so what was so wrong with being happy over a gift?

I changed my mind, hugged the music box I’d received with trembling hands tightly to my chest, and smiled brightly.

“You’re right, Dietrich. I love it. I’m so, so happy! Thank you so much.”

I hugged my sibling again, messing up his fluffy hair as I stroked it.

Only then did he relax his shoulders and laugh, letting himself be pulled around by my hands.

Laughter, for once, filled the dark, old house, thick with the musty smell.

My nose stung, and as I rubbed it with the back of my hand, Dietrich took the chance to tease me.

“What, are you crying? Crying over something like this? When I get bigger, I’ll buy you plenty more. I’ll buy you a brand new one next time.”

“Don’t bother. This is more than enough. Sheesh.”

“Open it. We have to see if it plays well.”

“Should I?”

Not even the precious jewels said to be stored in the royal palace, nor the holy relics of the temple, could compare to this gift from my sibling.

With careful hands, I opened the music box.

Then, like honey, a sweet melody flowed out, and a tiny fairy inside the box spun around in a dance.

“…Wow, it’s so beautiful.”

My trembling voice was absorbed into the music box’s melody.

The soft music, like the sound of quiet rain hitting the wooden walls, stirred my very soul. My heart pounded and swelled with overwhelming emotion.

Intoxicated by the feeling of my soul expanding, of the world widening around me, at that moment…

“…Ugh.”

I suddenly felt my body grow strange.

An unfamiliar heat rising from deep in my belly.

A strange ecstasy that crept in, tickling my very flesh, secretly invading me.

“Sis…?”

Dietrich seemed to feel the strangeness I was feeling too, looking down at me with startled eyes.

“Dietrich, I feel strange… strang…e”

“Sis! Sis! What’s wrong? What’s happening? Are you okay?”

Gasping for breath, I slumped to the ground.

A chill ran down the back of my neck, a premonition that something that shouldn’t be happening was happening.

At that very moment.

“……!”

A strange scent began to spread through the small shack behind the corpse processing area, which was always steeped in the stench of blood and gore.

A clear, pure fragrance, as if chasing away the lifelong smell of blood.

Startled, I looked at my sibling, and Dietrich, also flustered, stared back at me with a pale, shocked face.

“Di, Dietrich… Th-this, what is this? Can you feel it too?”

“Is this, by any chance… is it coming from you right now, Sis?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know, Dietrich.”

Trembling and confused, I shook my head, and Dietrich, two years younger than me, pulled me into his arms and began to comfort me.

Like the scent of lilies on a rainy day, a somehow damp and unsettling fragrance that made one uneasy.

My body released the scent at its own will, following my racing heart.

Dietrich’s face, which had been soothing me, saying it wasn’t so, it was probably nothing, turned pale in an instant. I knew without him saying a word. That Dietrich and I had both thought the same thing.

A human who emits a scent. A saint or a witch who, with that scent that changes according to their emotions, can twist and captivate the hearts of others.

A product of blessing and curse, said to be chosen by the Goddess.

“…Flona.”

My 18th birthday.

“No way…”

I had become a living flower.