The collapse of a perfect world happens unexpectedly in an instant. On her eighteenth birthday, Shailo quietly watched the chaos unfolding before her eyes—her family drenched in tears, and the maids and servants sobbing uncontrollably.
“Where have you been? Do you know how worried we were?”
“Claire! Your face is so pale! This mother never doubted for a second that our daughter, our precious daughter, was still alive.”
“Neither did I, your brother! I always believed you would come back one day.”
One by one, her family clung to the girl, pouring out their longing in tears. Just moments ago, they had been celebrating Shailo’s birthday with affectionate kisses, but now they surrounded the uninvited guest without a second glance back at her.
“Mother… Father… Brother…”
She called out in a voice that barely came out, but they were already lost in their own world. It felt as though an invisible wall had been erected. Her throat tightened.
Shailo’s lips moved soundlessly, like a goldfish trapped in a bowl. The words that failed to escape her lips quietly dissipated like bubbles.
The final blow came with the desperate cries that followed.
“If we had known you were alive! If we had known you would return like this, we would never have brought in a stand-in from the orphanage!”
“We never forgot you! She was just a stand-in!”
That was it. On her eighteenth birthday, the woman who walked through the gates of the Ducal household in rags was Claire Defonds—the ‘real’ princess who had lived as Shailo’s stand-in.
In other words, it was time for Shailo, the ‘fake’ princess, to return to where she belonged.
Back to the gutter where she was born and raised.
*** *** *** *** ***
Claire Defonds—or rather, the one who had now returned to being ‘Shailo’—remembered her childhood in a dirty, cramped room.
Her mother was a nameless bar singer. Though talented, one day she became pregnant with a regular customer’s child, quit her job, and gave birth to her. Raising a child alone, her mother soon fell ill and became bedridden.
“Shailo… my daughter… will you promise me one thing?”
“Mama… Mama…”
Nine-year-old Shailo burst into tears, trembling with fear and loneliness at the thought of being left alone. Her mother reached out with her skeletal hand and stroked Shailo’s cheek.
“My daughter, you must be happy.”
“……”
“You must desperately fight for your happiness… more than anyone else. No matter the cost.”
Whatever hidden strength lay in those bony fingers gripping her small arm made Shailo scream in pain despite her fear and sadness. In their thin-walled shack, normally such screams would have brought curses from next door but today was strangely quiet.
“Promise… me…”
Her mother demanded an answer through labored breaths, ignoring the screams. Blood vessels had burst in her intense eyes, turning the whites completely red. Terrified by this demon-like appearance, Shailo forgot her sadness and nodded frantically in fear.
“Good… that’s enough then.”
Her mother, seemingly relieved, let her grip slip away. She never opened her eyes again.
Until the magistrate and orphanage director arrived the next morning after receiving reports, Shailo held her mother’s cold, stiff body in the shanty where the wind cut through like knives.
Keeping that dying wish—to desperately seek happiness—deep in her heart.
What followed was the predetermined path for all slum orphans.
Shailo entered an orphanage that collected street urchins and orphans. Her appearance—filthy clothes, visibly malnourished with a small frame—and face streaked with grime made even fellow orphans keep their distance.
“Beggar! Beggar girl!”
“They say she survived by eating sewer rats! Disgusting!”
“I heard she stayed alive by eating her mother’s corpse!”
“Ugh! Stay away! We’ll catch something!”
Though the lice and fleas disappeared after the obsessively clean orphanage director scrubbed her raw with ice-cold water in the dead of winter, the powerful, horrific first impression remained stubbornly etched in people’s minds.
“Shailo! I heard you stole Anton’s bread again? I told you not to do that! Even if you grew up starving!”
Even in harsh conditions, humans always find ways to entertain themselves. The orphanage children, as pure as they were cruel, targeted Shailo, who was extremely quiet and always alone. Being falsely accused was commonplace, and sometimes she was punished by going without food for an entire day. From the start, the supervising teacher saw Shailo, with her beggar-like appearance, as a thorn in her side.
“Really, you’re beyond reformation! How could the director bring in a child from such a filthy shanty under a bridge!”
“……”
“Look at how she keeps her mouth shut so offensively! Are you being defiant? Spend the whole day in the punishment room!”
How could she desperately pursue happiness as her mother had wished? Shailo pondered this question over and over in the dark, cold isolation room. But no matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t reach a conclusion.
Would she find happiness by acting like those children who ostracized her, falsely accused her, and sometimes secretly pinched her? Or should she live like that teacher who judged everything by first impressions without hearing the details, persecuting her?
When they crushed her spirit, their faces showed a momentary flash of joy, but it was fleeting. Above all, she didn’t want to find happiness by hurting others in that way. No matter how low she fell, she didn’t want to sink to that level.
“There’s no one in here.”
Unexpectedly, she found her answer about a year after entering the orphanage. On the second day of being starved in isolation, falsely accused of breaking a peer’s toy, someone visited the orphanage.
Shailo was curled up on the cold stone floor, too weak to even sit up. She heard the director’s voice from the corridor outside.
“But there’s a room here too.”
The responding voice was elegantly soft, unlike any she’d ever heard. Shailo’s ears perked up, and she crawled to the door to listen.
“Th-that’s just where we temporarily confine children who steal or hit others, to help them realize and repent their mistakes. And we don’t have such children in our orphanage.”
The flustered director was quickly making excuses.
“Is that so?”
The lady drew out her response with a thoughtful ‘hmm,’ and the sound of her turning to leave could be heard.
“Then let’s look elsewhere.”
“cough“
Before the footsteps could fade away, a dry cough echoed through the bare corridor. The startled lady’s heels could be heard approaching. Shailo deliberately made her coughing sound more pitiful.
“Good heavens!”
When the lady finally reached the door and discovered her lying behind the bars, Shailo felt a brilliant radiance shining down upon her.
“Duchess… this is…”
“Open this door immediately!”
The Duchess, trembling with shock and anger, commanded coldly. As soon as the director, wearing a guilty expression, opened the heavy iron door, the Duchess willingly embraced the collapsed Shailo. Without a moment’s hesitation, she held that dirty, smelly, rag-covered body. Shailo’s eyes wavered.
“Child, are you alright?”
The Duchess, her eyes brimming with tears, had blonde hair and blue eyes as radiant as an angel descended from heaven. As if this moment were a dream, Shailo unconsciously reached out her hand. The Duchess didn’t pull away, allowing Shailo to touch her cheek. Feeling the warm temperature, Shailo felt deeply relieved.
“You’re not… an angel.”
“I’m a living person, dear.”
The Duchess shook her head with tearful eyes and stroked Shailo’s hair. Though it wasn’t visible under the soot and dust, upon closer inspection, she had the same blonde hair as the Duchess—with an unusual pink tinge. That appearance stirred a vague memory of someone.
“You have such a pretty voice.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the Duchess confessed in a voice only Shailo could hear.
“I had a daughter… your age. Until recently.”
Simultaneously, disappointment spread like poison deep in Shailo’s heart. Though this wasn’t someone she should dare to hope for anything from, shameless tears of despair flowed.
“Child!”
“I had a mother too.”
Not one as beautiful, elegant, and gentle as this. Her mother had been tough, mostly concerned with earning money, and there were many days when Shailo came second to work. But still, she was her mother. Someone she thought of with both closed and open eyes. Her only family and closest person.
“If I’m born again… I want to be born as your daughter.”
With a faint smile, Shailo slowly closed her eyes.
And when she opened them again, she had become the young lady of House Defonds. Secretly replacing the missing Claire Defonds.
Though her actions that day weren’t calculated, in the end, Shailo had desperately seized the opportunity before her and found happiness.
Until eight years later, when the ‘real’ Claire Defonds returned.
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