London, Canary Wharf.
Strange as the name sounded, this was in fact one of Britain's best-known financial and shopping districts, packed with towering office buildings and shopping centers.
In the afternoon, sunlight spilled over the bustling streets. Car horns rose and fell one after another, while winter's lingering chill still bit at every hurried passerby.
Except for one tall figure in a black hood.
He sat in a café across from the station. Through the glass window, his darkly handsome face looked as expressionless as an exquisite mannequin in a display case.
Only the occasional movement of his eyes reminded curious pedestrians that he was a living person.
The pretty waitress in the café had long since gotten used to him. She had been seeing this man on the street ever since last December.
Operating on the principle of better to make a move on a handsome man and be wrong than miss the chance entirely, she had once worked up the courage to talk to him, only to be met with that same indifferent face.
Now, in February, he seemed even more like a block of wood. He spoke so rarely it was almost absurd.
As the time gradually approached six o'clock, she reluctantly tore her eyes away from him. After a moment's thought, she hurried out with a fresh cup of coffee and a slice of her favorite cake.
"Your coffee and dessert."
Holding her breath, she felt more nervous than she had on her wedding day.
Marvolio's eyes shifted slightly to her. His somewhat dry lips parted slowly.
"I only ordered a coffee."
"This one's on the house!" the waitress blurted out at once, rattling off the line she had rehearsed in her head hundreds of times.
"This cake tastes amazing. You definitely won't hate it."
When she saw he still had no intention of accepting it, her naturally thin-skinned voice took on a pleading note.
Marvolio looked down at the delicate little cake, then at the waitress, who looked close to tears from anxiety, and gave the faintest nod.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome!"
The waitress instantly relaxed and left with light, quick steps.
"That lady likes you, doesn't she?"
The little girl at the table behind him suddenly leaned over the back of her chair, poking her small head forward so that her doll-like face abruptly filled Marvolio's view.
Marvolio silently turned his head away and went back to watching the pedestrians outside. Naturally, plenty of them could not help glancing back at him too.
"Sir, do you like that lady?" the little girl asked again, stubbornly.
"..."
The girl pouted in irritation, but she had no intention of giving up just like that.
"I'm guessing you don't, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have ignored her all this time. But honestly, that's a bit ungentlemanly!"
The little girl scolded him like a tiny adult. As for whether she was at all motivated by the fact that Marvolio had ignored her too, only she knew.
Marvolio sighed helplessly. At this rate, if he did not answer, this little girl would keep asking until the café closed.
But he did not know how to answer either...
"I don't understand what it means to like someone."
His voice was low, as though the words had stirred thoughts of his own situation.
In truth, he had been thinking about one question for a while now.
What kind of person was he, exactly?
As the product of a Love Potion, he could not understand love, or even any other kind of beautiful feeling.
So after leaving the wizarding world, he had come to the bustling streets of the Muggle world, trying to learn by observing...
Trying to learn what a normal life was supposed to look like...
But the more he observed, the more lost he became.
Whether in the wizarding world or the Muggle world, he seemed utterly out of place.
When lovers embraced, he could not see the emotion between them at all.
When relatives kissed each other on the cheek, all he saw was an empty formality.
Clearly...
He had a human body now, but his soul had lost its direction.
Before, he had simply followed Tver's lead, taking orders like a machine and carrying them out.
Ridiculous as it sounded, his desire to conquer the wizarding world, and even the whole world, had come entirely from the pleasure he found in killing.
Only then had he been able to feel that he existed in this world.
And now, without those violent, brutal thoughts, it seemed... there was no longer any reason for him to exist in this world at all...
Smack.
The little girl suddenly slapped his face with her small hand, producing a sharp, crisp sound.
His despondency instantly turned to surprise.
"I don't like the way you said that!" she glared at him, indignant, her tiny hand still pressed against his face.
"Like is like. What's so hard to understand about it?"
"Like how I like my mum, like how I like playing with everyone, like..." The girl scrunched up her face in thought. "Like how I like talking to you!"
"Even though Mum has to work and can only leave me here waiting for her to get off work. Even though nobody really likes being friends with me because my home is always moving around. Even though you didn't want to talk to me..."
"I still like it!"
Looking at the girl's sudden burst of spirit, Marvolio found he could not get angry at a child like that.
"You're just a child, and you stay here all the time? What about your father?"
The girl immediately fell dejected. She huffily withdrew her hand, rested her head on her arm, and stared blankly into the distance.
"It's because Dad keeps bullying Mum that Mum and I have to move all the time, and that she has to work so hard."
Then she turned to look at Marvolio.
"I don't know why, but when you're bored, you feel a lot like me. Just sitting there blankly, not knowing what to do, and not knowing what you want to do."
"But how can you not know what it means to like something?"
Marvolio was completely stumped. He opened his mouth, only to realize that he had actually been baffled by a child.
"Maybe... maybe it's because I've never seen my mum. No one ever played with me. And no one... no one was ever willing to chat with me for no reason."
That went beyond the little girl's understanding. She looked up at him in surprise.
"How could that be? But you're so handsome. Like that big sister. She really wanted to talk to you."
The child's thoughtless praise did brighten his mood a little. He curled his lips into a silent smile, the first smile he had shown in months.
"I'm starting to understand what liking means. Like right now, I really like talking to you."
The little girl immediately burst into bright, tinkling laughter. Her eyes curved into crescents, and her lively gaze sparkled as she blinked up at him.
"Then can I keep talking to you?" she asked in her babyish little voice.
"Of course..."
Marvolio answered with a smile.
But at that moment, the waitress came over again, her expression extremely complicated.
"This is illegal," she said through gritted teeth.