CHAPTER 46: THE DIRTY PLACE OR SAFEST HEAVEN?

Seraphina’s POV

I looked around, blinking slowly. The room was unfamiliar. It wasn’t mine. I had never been here before.

Was it a hotel?

But no... it didn’t feel like one. It was too cozy and warm. Everything looked expensive, but also too personal. It belonged to someone who cared about every detail.

Then my eyes landed on the giant photo frame near the wall.

I slightly turned my head to get a better look, and my heart skipped.

It was Brother Asher’s photo.

Wait... was I in his room?

That couldn’t be right. No one ever entered Asher’s room. Not even Melissa, his favorite little sister. Not even their mother dared to step in without permission.

So, how was I here?

"Calm down, Sera," Asher said in a soft voice, like he was afraid I’d freak out again. "I’m sorry if you feel uncomfortable or offended, but I didn’t know where else to take you... since your room..."

He paused for a moment, and I could see something shift in his eyes...like the calm mask he had just now was cracking, and anger was about to spill out.

"You... you went into my room?" My voice came out shocked and almost trembling.

That place... in my last life, no one ever entered that room. No one cared enough if it was my room or a storage space... I was just left to rot inside it.

And yet here he was now, saying he’d already seen it?

What the hell was going on?

"Do you even call that a room?" Asher snapped, his voice louder now as he sat down on the bed again, a little closer to me. "How could you live there like that?"

There was fire in his words, but not to burn me... it was the kind that burned Asher with guilt and worry.

His eyes, those angry, restless eyes, looked like they were screaming at themselves.

But wasn’t it he and his family who gave me that room in the first place?

How could he act shocked now?

"You could’ve just said something," he continued in a frustrated voice, like he was fighting with the thoughts in his own head. "And if not to us, why not tell Grandma?"

He looked at me, then looked away, with his jaw tight. "She wouldn’t have let that happen... and even I—"

He stopped as the words were caught in his throat and looked down.

"I’m sorry," he finally said. "I should’ve noticed it before. I should’ve cared for you. I should’ve done something so that you wouldn’t have suffered as much as you did!"

Something in my chest tightened. I had already suffered more than you could imagine.

I didn’t want to forgive him so easily. I didn’t want to just let it go. But the way he was sitting there... the way his voice shook just a little...

It made my anger feel lighter. Like he was slowly melting it away, little by little.

And for the first time in forever, it didn’t feel so cold around me.

If I really think about it... Maybe I was the only one who ever truly cherished that room.

It was small, yes. There was no sunlight, the walls were cold, and it smelled like old wood and dust sometimes... but it was mine.

It didn’t matter if others called it a storage space or if it was some forgotten corner of the house. To me, it was the first place that belonged only to me.

Back in the orphanage, I had nothing. Not even the clothes on my back felt like they were mine... everything was shared, taken, snatched, and lost again.

I was just another face, another name, another mouth to feed for them.

But that room...

That room, no matter how small or dark it was... it gave me a strange sense of comfort. Because I could shut the door and sit inside it without being told to move.

I could cry there, dream there, break down, or stay quiet and no one would ask why.

So, how could I not be happy to get that room?

Big or small... cold or cramped... it was mine.

And I held on to it like it was the only thing in the world that belonged to me.

"That room..." I whispered, my voice barely audible as I looked down. "...was the only thing that truly belonged to me in this giant, heartless world. A world where no one ever wanted to accept me, no one ever gave me a place to feel safe... But that room, even with its cracks and cold, it accepted me. It gave me a kind of warmth that I could never find in any person."

Asher’s POV

My whole chest felt tight the moment those words left her mouth. I was already angry at myself for being so blind and so ignorant.

I had always thought I had nothing to do with her, that she was just there, part of the family by name only.

But hearing her speak like that... with so much pain buried deep in those few words, I felt something inside me break.

That room... that cold, ugly, dust-filled room where even the lowest servant would refuse to step into...

She found warmth in it?

She called that her safe space?

God...

Just what kind of lonely life had she been living under our roof while we all turned our faces away?

How fucking pathetic of a brother was I to not even know?

I didn’t even deserve to be called brother by her after all this.

"Though... from time to time..." Seraphina muttered, her voice low and shaky, "the servants would barge into that room as if they were the house owners... some of them even tried to touch me in ways they shouldn’t have..."

She paused, lifting her eyes to meet mine... There was no hate or blame toward me, as if she wanted to say that it was not my fault.

But my blood was already boiling.