Chapter 5

Not long after Derek left with Hannah, Ethan walked in.

The family had been busy with Hannah's celebration banquet these past few days, and the servants, reading the room, hadn't come to clean my room for several days.

His gaze swept around my room, his eyes full of impatience.

"Hannah won the championship this time, and Mom, Dad, and Derek all gave her lots of haute couture dresses. Her closet is completely full now."

Ethan strode to the door connecting to my bedroom and pointed at the small study next door that originally belonged to me.

"Clear out all that junk in your study and make room for Hannah to use it as a fitting room."

Hearing this, my hands, which had been folding clothes, suddenly froze.

In that small study were music scores I had spent countless days and nights over the past year hunched over my desk writing, stroke by stroke.

I still remembered when I first returned to the Lynn family. Ethan saw me crouched at the coffee table in my bedroom struggling to write compositions, and with reddened eyes, he touched my head and promised me.

"Aria, it's my fault as your brother for letting you suffer so much outside. From now on, this room will be your dedicated music room. I'll have the best music desk custom-made for you so you never have to compromise yourself again."

But now, the music room he had personally promised me was being casually taken back just because Hannah's dresses wouldn't fit elsewhere.

Seeing me standing there silently, Ethan's face immediately darkened.

"You're not willing?"

He walked to the desk, casually flipped through a stack of scores I had placed on top, then threw them back on the desk with a face full of mockery. The papers scattered all over the floor.

"That hand of yours is already ruined. You can't even hold a water glass steady. So what's the point of keeping this waste paper? To look at it every day and feel sorry for yourself? Or to remind everyone how much you've suffered?"

"Aria, hurry up and clear the space for Hannah. Don't force me to call the servants in to throw things out for you!"

Every word was like a rusty, dull knife, cutting the last remnants of my family affection into bloody pieces.

"Fine, I'll clear it now."

I looked at him calmly, my voice showing no trace of emotion.

Anyway, I was about to leave for Vienna soon. I didn't need to take a single one of these scores with me.

Ethan clearly hadn't expected me to agree so readily.

He looked me up and down suspiciously, as if trying to determine what scheme I was playing this time.

But he was too busy to investigate further.

"Good that you know your place. It must be cleared by dark."

After dropping this cold warning, he turned and strode away, rushing to arrange the evening celebration banquet schedule for Hannah.

After he left, I found some garbage bags.

I swept the music scores from the study into the trash can, handful by handful.

There were also those ill-fitting dresses that Ethan had casually bought for me as compensation when we first reunited.

And on the vanity, the only family photo I had carefully printed out, which they disliked because my expression was too wooden.

For two solid hours, I cleared away every trace of my existence until it was spotless.

Looking at the corner piled with garbage bags and the room that seemed as if no one had ever lived there.

My heart collapsed along with everything else.

After clearing everything, I walked to the desk and pulled open the bottom drawer.

A document lay quietly inside.

It was the share transfer agreement that the Lynn parents had publicly signed on my first day back home to demonstrate their compensation to me.

I took out the document and spread it flat on the desk.

In the section for renouncing inheritance rights, I signed my name.

After signing, I took out a blank sheet of A4 paper and carefully wrote out a "Declaration of Severance of Family Relations."

"I, Aria Lynn, voluntarily renounce all property and status in the Lynn family. From this day forward, I sever all blood and family relations with Ethan Lynn and all members of the Lynn family. In life and death, we shall never meet again."

I carefully folded these two signed documents.

Then, from my backpack, I took out the medical diagnosis from yesterday.

"Right hand permanently disabled, irreparable."

I put these three sheets of paper together in a manila envelope.

After sealing it, I placed the envelope squarely in the center of the desk.

After finishing all this, I glanced at the time on my phone.

There were still twenty-four hours until tomorrow night's celebration banquet, until I completely left this city.