Please Let Me Live a Lazy Life!

Chapter 10: I Just Want to Sleep (1)

Author's Note:

Editor-chan finally finished this chapter after hours of combing through it. She told me she was frustrated by the ambiguity and well ╮(╯▽╰)╭. Like everyone else, she'll have to wait for clarification in the future chapters. Just to warn you guys, I will neither confirm nor deny anything lol.

Anyway, the fluff chapter I promised you guys! Well, it's 70% fluff and 30% something else. The next few chapters should be a lot fluffier! This is only the beginning, let me tell you!

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Edward remembered the first couple of years when Thomas was brought into their household. The younger child was a quiet little thing and thinner than his sister. Even after he was cleaned and washed, the curly-haired boy still looked sickly. The clothes, Edward's old clothes, they gave him at the last minute hung off his frame, and at the time, being so young and partly naive to the cruelty of nobility and the world in general, Edward hadn't wondered why they couldn't request a tailor to create more fitting clothes.

Katherine, his younger sister by only a year, took one look at the frail boy and ignored him promptly. Edward knew she was just pouting because she had wanted a sister to play with and not another brother who wouldn't be interested in fashion or makeup talk. His mother was always upset whenever Thomas was even in the same room-- in fact, she never looked the same since the day Father had brought him back. Not since the time he saw that strange and malicious woman at their gates trying to reach for them as if she wanted to use her red, long nails to claw their faces into ribbons.

It took a while for Edward to realize that Thomas looked a lot like her; the eldest could see it after the youngest's cheeks finally filled out and his dark eyes became less hollowed.

Her appearances weren't the only thing he inherited from her as well.

"Keep your disgusting hands off me, you homewrecker!"

There was a loud slapping sound and Edward could feel the sting on his hand as Thomas tore away from him as if he was infected with some kind of deadly disease, the younger boy's face twisted into an expression similar to the one the woman at the gates had given his family.

The entire situation escalated too quickly for Edward to comprehend at the moment. He just happened to have seen the youngest exit out from their father's study, obviously in a bad mood with a pale face and red eyes.

The younger boy was swaying as he walked towards the west wing, where Father had placed his room, and Edward only wanted to make sure he wouldn't fall, but once he had touched Thomas' shoulder, the other rejected him with a revulsion that shocked the eldest. He couldn't recall having done anything to earn such hostility, especially since they hadn't really talked.

Both he and Katherine were preoccupied with their studies to truly interact with the youngest Rosetta and while they would often see their younger brother for breakfast, their meals together was always tense and brief due to their parent's cold attitude to each other, and as children who were unaware of the complexity of the situation, all they could have done was bear it.

Thomas, at the time, had often been shadowing their father as well, sometimes looking at the man with eyes of reverence and adoration. Though Father had once told him to consider Thomas, their newest addition, as family and that this frail and skinny boy would be his younger brother to look after and care for, the older man's own attitude did not reflect his words.

His father would be completely cold when it came to the youngest, so cold that it felt like a complete rejection of everything that was Thomas. In the beginning, he would always ignore the other as if he couldn't see the small child following him like a second shadow. His father would even avoid him, shutting himself in his study more often than he used to, and had never looked at the young boy in the eye or even brushed his gaze over the child's face.