Chapter 5 05

"Who am I?" she asked.

"Yeah. I may not remember all of my past but I'm sure you are not my sister from the same mother and father. So who are you? Who are you to him? And looking closely at you, you don't really look like my father..."

I waited for her answer but all I got was her muttering "I'm..." with a little frown.

So I explained;

"I don't plan to draw an edge between us so we could be enemies but the opposite, I wanna know if we could live peacefully together."

Arin looked at me, as if trying to see through my real intentions then after a while she confessed;

"I'm not his daughter."

"As expected, you are too beautiful to be his daughter. So how was your life?" I asked as I sat down on my bed and patted the place next to me for her to sit down as well.

"How do you think I can live in this kind of dark atmosphere?" She asked back as she came and sat next to me.

"Hahaha." I laughed softly at the way she grumbled but she looked at me sideways with a frown so I explained "I'm not laughing at you but it's just that the way you said it was cute. Anyway, I don't really plan to really live here..."

"What?" She asked in surprise

What? Were my words that shocking? Perhaps she thought I had been longing to live with my father and in such a luxurious place.

But all this doesn't matter to me.

The place fell into silence before she asked;

"If you don't want to stay here , where would you stay?"

"I can submit to live in the dorm and after graduating from high school I will choose a university that is in a very far city and I will stay there forever~"

I honestly told her my plan.

"You are naive..." Said Arin with a frown

And I understood what she meant by me being naive, because my dear father brought me back home for some reason and it will be hard to act as I want.

But I will surely find a way, I can't stay here... this is what I had decided the moment I recognized he was the same man who abandoned me and my mother when I was still a child.

So I just smiled silently at Arin's words.

***

It was the second day after I returned. Unable to bear the thought of losing my sister forever, I waited until that man left for his business trip and quietly entered the house.

The servants, as usual when the master was away, did only the bare minimum. Though the young lady of the house remained, they all left promptly at 6:30 p.m., leaving the prepared dinner on the table to grow cold.

Seeing that sight filled me with anger. My sister, the true lady of this house, was forced to eat cold food alone.

I had come on impulse, unsure how I would even face her. All I knew was that I needed to see her alive and healthy.

The house was eerily quiet. Not a single sound reached my ears. A terrible feeling gripped me. Arin had to be home, she was the only one staying behind. I hurried up the stairs, pushing open every bedroom door on the second floor until I reached one that stood slightly ajar.

Through the narrow gap, I saw a young girl collapsed on the floor.

My breath caught in my throat. No... please, no...

I rushed inside. It was Arin. A knife lay nearby, and blood stained her wrist.

She had tried to take her own life.

Why?

There was no time for questions. I carried her to the hospital as quickly as I could, and by Allah's mercy (God's mercy), the doctors saved her in time.

When she finally woke, Arin was still fragile, shaken, frightened, and lost. The doctor explained that she had suffered a severe mental breakdown, leading to thoughts of self-harm that she had tragically acted upon.

I wanted desperately to understand what had driven her to this point, but I could not bear to force her to relive the pain. Instead, I gently revealed the truth: that I was her twin sister, separated from her long ago, and that I had come back to protect her. I told her about our real parents and the life we should have shared.

At first, Arin's mind seemed clouded, as though years of manipulation had convinced her she was worthless without that family. Her confidence had been crushed.

Day by day, I worked patiently to help her see the truth about that man and the harm he had caused. Slowly, she began to heal and break free from the hold he had over her. Still, I could not bring myself to send her back, not when she looked at me one day with darkened eyes and whispered that the "real daughter" would soon return.

***

If I had arrived even a few minutes later, would I have lost my sister forever?

I wondered whether I should tell Aria the full truth. She clearly wanted nothing more than to be free of that man and his family.

For now, I decided to take the risk.

"There's something I need to tell you," I said quietly. "I... I'm not Arin."

***

Arin's words struck me like lightning.

She is not Arin?

My heart stopped. What had I done?

I stood up abruptly, panic rising. If she wasn't Arin then who could she be... then everything I had confessed, about that man, my thoughts about him and my future plan... she now knew it all.

All my father showed me was an old picture of the Arin so I assumed she was the girl in front of me. My father never introduced her to me face to face and even the maids referred to her as 'My Lady' when talking.

So if she isn't Arin, and Arin was somewhere else and the girl in front of me was perhaps a cousin or a guest here... would she go run to him and tell him everything I had told her now?

Why had I spoken so freely without confirming who she really was? Regret flooded me.

What could I do now? Claim it was all a joke? No one would believe that. not even I would.

My mind raced for any possible excuse.

Before I could speak, Arin added quickly.