Present

"Who are you?"

I clenched my fists under the table and cursed inwardly. 'Amnesia.'

If Xes was in her human form, she would probably kick me in the shin. I even have a feeling that if she could, she'd probably stitch my lips together to prevent me from making any more slip-ups. I could feel her silently seething inside me.

'Did I get busted? Ts.' My heart started drumming hard against my chest. "W-what do you mean?"

Everything that has been happening since I woke up kept on making me regret some of my decisions in the past. I really should have taken those acting lessons with Zee when her dad offered us a buy one get one acting lessons package deal when we were kids. I refused because that was back when I still felt awkward accepting anything from him after my dad married his ex-wife.

I was still so young then. If only I had known better.

Rachelle slowly closed her book and leaned over the table with the same relaxed smile which was now starting to worry me. "My brother would never pick up a book like this even if I were to put a gun against his head. He believes that reading anything apart from academic books is a complete waste of time. But what? You think you've read this before?"

[Xes: I also said that I may have heard of it. Don't just arbitrarily ignore that and jump to conclusions.]

It was the first time that Xes spoke again with a chilly tone in my head and I found myself repeating her words with a dry laugh. "I also said that I may have heard of it. Did you just filter that out?"

"Yeah, right." She scoffed derisively. "From whom would you hear it? You don't have friends."

A lump of air left my lips in shock. "I don't have friends?"

"Yes, you don't." The corner of her lips lifted and the words which she said next left me speechless. "Unless you consider them your friends, those girls whom you have slept with during the parties. That's probably why everyone was convinced that you tried taking your own life right before the wedding. Because you'd rather die than get tied down by Big Sis."

"Rachelle!" Lynda covered her lips in horror and my father froze in the middle of lifting his wine glass before slowly turning his head to my sister.

'Girls I've slept with?' I've heard the same things from Zeanne before but I didn't really think much of it. She said something about people thinking that Arthur committed suicide to avoid marrying her. But she never told me that it was because he didn't want to stop sleeping with other girls.

[Xes: Yeah, Arthur lived a very… 'liberated' life compared to yours. His motto has always been 'Live each and every single day as if you're going to die tomorrow'.]

"What?! I'm just stating a fact!" Rachelle lifted her chin and raised her voice defensively then she turned to me with a narrowed gaze. "For all we know, he's just pretending to have lost his memory so that he could call off the wedding and continue living his pathetic life."

"Since when did sleeping with girls, or the lack of it, become a basis of the value of a man's life? As long as I'm happy with how I lived my life, that's all that matters." With a frown, I said the words out loud but they were mostly directed to Xes who seemed to enjoy teasing me about… my lack of experience.

And she knew it.

[Xes: Sure. Sure. If you say so.]

That's what she said but I could hear her snicker inside my head.

Rachelle, on the other hand, didn't even try to conceal her disgust after taking my words in the wrong way. "Don't you think that you sound a little too proud about your way of living for someone who could not even remember his own family. Not that you've really treated us like family in the first place."

"Rachelle, that's enough." Lynda's voice sounded grim which finally made her daughter clamp her mouth shut. She then turned to me with an apologetic smile. "Don't mind her words too much, darling. She's in her rebellious stage, that's all."

But before I could say that I didn't really mind her voicing out her thoughts, my father cleared his throat which caught my attention. Then he gave me a serious look that I knew too well. It's the same look that MY dad used to give to me whenever he was unhappy about something that I did. "What your sister said is true. You have not been the nicest brother to her nor a better son to your mother. That's why you must take this chance given to you to repent and make up for your shortcomings."

'Arthur's relationship with Rachelle was not that good even before? And it's not just with his sister but also with his mother?'

My brows twitched and it somehow irked me that Xes, who knew the answers to my unspoken questions, remained silent again.

'You're pleading the fifth again, Xes? Not that I'm forcing you to answer.'

With my Shadow refusing to answer whenever I start asking anything crucial, I decided to just go with the flow and stopped thinking about the whys.

I remembered that Xes told me to just be myself and that there's no need for me to keep on digging around Arthur's past. She said that it's none of my business anyway, since I have no plans of staying here after our contract is completed.

That's right.

The less I know about his relationships, the better. That way I would be able to avoid getting entangled in his personal affairs. Not to mention that the more I learn about how Arthur had been living, the more I realize how different we were.

I gave my father a firm smile and nodded. "Don't worry. I'll try to be a better son and brother."

'...As long as I'm here.'