For Your Failed Unrequited Love

Colin approached Felix, who was speechless.

“I’ve been hanging out with Lucy, but I don’t know …. When did that happen?”

He asked with a sad look on his face. He seemed to feel a great sense of betrayal as he unwittingly realized that his best friend might have a lover.

“It’s noisy. Talk to someone else.”

Colin covered his ears coldly as Felix stretched out her hand with a grim expression on his face.

“What are you saying? I’m good at reading other people’s minds.”

This jerk.

Felix swallowed his words in his mind and tried to turn to the garden. But before that, Colin grabbed his shoulder and stepped out. There was a serious light that was rarely seen in his eyes.

“Felix-sunbae. Lucy is my friend and family. If she cries, I won’t leave you alone.”

His slender physique didn’t pose any threat at all, but Felix nodded silently. Then Colin went back into the room with a satisfied expression.

Felix grinned as he looked at the door where Colin had disappeared, and immediately turned around and went down the stairs. He headed to the garden to find Lucy, as Colin had told him.

The only thing that brightened the dark garden was the moonlight. Felix found Lucy sitting alone by a small pond in it.

“Lucy.”

When he called, Lucy, who had her cloak fastened up to her neck, looked back at him.

“Sunbae!”

A smile quickly appeared on her face.

“It’s cold, so why did you come out?”

Even though she looked colder, Lucy asked.

“So, what are you doing here alone?”

“Just thinking about the old days….”

Lucy sat looking at the pond again, blurring the end of her words. Felix also approached and settled down.

Fallen leaves from trees were floating on the pond. Occasionally, whenever the wind blew, the leaves swayed to and fro like ships moored in the harbor.

“What kind of old memories?”

When he asked, Lucy let out a faint smile.

“Just the memories of playing here when I was young, and this and that.”

“I wonder what you looked like when you were young.”

Felix said suddenly. It was a random word, but he was really curious.

What kind of child was Lucy Keenan when she was young? At that time, was she as meek and shy as she is now? Maybe she was already interested in herbal medicine back then.

“It’s not fair that only Colin Connor knows about your childhood. So let me know too. What kind of child were you when you were young?”

“Well…”

Lucy scratched her chin as if embarrassed by the sudden question. As she struggled with her answer, Felix asked a more specific question.

“Then, tell me something that Colin doesn’t know. So, it’s fair.”

Lucy pondered for a moment, and answered with a still puzzled face.

“…… But is there a side of me that Colin doesn’t know? When we were young, we lived together almost as if we were in the same house.”

Does your village do any co-parenting?

Felix, who barely endured what he wanted to say, remained patient and asked another question.

“Then tell me about your first love. You didn’t share your first love story with Colin, did you?”

“First love?”

Lucy frowned as if she had heard an absurd story.

“Yes, first love. There must have been at least one boy in the village that you liked.”

At the persistent question, Lucy fell into thought again. Then she hesitated and opened her lips.

“I don’t know if that was my first love…”

“You don’t know?”

“There was a boy I keep thinking of.”

Keep thinking?

Felix struggled to maintain a relaxed smile. However, he couldn’t stop his mouth from trembling as if he had a cramp.

“What kind of man is he?”

“It was just a kid I met by chance.”

“How did you meet?”

A cracked voice came out of Felix’s mouth as if it was ridiculous. So, Lucy was saying that the boy she met by chance was her first love.

“Tell me more. Is he handsome?”

“Yes.”

At Lucy’s unhesitating answer,  Felix felt like he had been hit with a single blow.

“Honestly, I was shocked to see such a handsome boy for the first time.”

“You don’t have to explain further.”

Felix leaned his back against the landscape stone and lost his words for a moment. It must have been a really handsome kid to the point where the girl who rarely expresses herself said that.

“Why did you stop talking?”

Felix made an unsatisfied sound.

“He wasn’t very nice. Besides, he says

said I smelled like horse dung.”

“Is he crazy?”

Felix couldn’t stand it and cursed. Then Lucy shrugged her shoulders and burst into laughter. She couldn’t stop laughing at what was so funny.

“Why are you laughing so much?”

“Just because. Anyway, if it’s my first love, I think he is my first love. It’s something I only realized recently.”

You realize it recently? So, even in my time with you, you were thinking about a kid you only met once a long time ago?

Lucy sat there, looking at the pond, like someone who was recalling her memories. Seeing the smile gently floating around her mouth, Felix was jealous without realizing it.

He seemed to have lost everything he wanted.

It was Colin Connor, not himself, who shared Lucy’s childhood memories. What’s more, her first love has a bad personality that she has only seen once.

I want to be the most special person to you.

As Felix stared at her side profile with an unfair gaze, Lucy, who had been immersed in her thoughts, turned her gaze to look at him.

“Why do you look like that?”

“… I want to be something too.”

The best childhood friend and the first love seats were taken away by other guys.

So, he wants to get the rest of the seats.

“What…”

Before Lucy could finish her words, Felix grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly. Then he gently placed the back of her hand on his chest.

Feeling Felix’s beating heartbeat, Lucy let out her shallow breath. In her Felix, her eyes staring at her like that, there was a spark that was hotter than ever.

“…… I want to be more special than your childhood friend, more than your first love….”

Felix looked into Lucy’s eyes and slowly let out his words. Although he was nervous, he still spoke with sincerity in every word.

“…to you”

Upon hearing this, Lucy looked at him without a word. Felix became nervous when she didn’t say anything.

But the next moment, Lucy slowly closed her eyes. At the sign, Felix, who took a trembling breath, put his lips right into Lucy’s mouth.

Lucy, who was wearing a cape in the cold of late autumn, also had cold lips. Felix kissed her passionately, as if to convey all his warmth.

Felix’s mind became hazy at the tingling feeling he felt for the first time. He pulled Lucy, unaware that he was being rougher than he thought.

Lucy’s cape slipped off and fell back. She grabbed Felix’s hem in a hurry. But Felix has been pulling Lucy’s neck tighter and sticking their body together.

“W, wait a minute… !”

When Lucy’s body was leaning towards the pond, she stuttered as if spitting her breath. But Felix couldn’t hear her, so Felix leaned more heavily on Lucy.

“Ugh, Su, sunbae… at this rate..!”

Lucy’s words, ‘we’ll fall in the pond!’ were unfinished.

At Lucy’s urgent grasp of his arm, Felix suddenly came to his senses. Sensing that something was going wrong, he quickly supported Lucy’s back with one hand and reached out his other hand to the landscape stone that came into view.

But in an instant, they leaned over and fell into the pond before Felix could even grab the stone.

The coldness wrapped around their body, awakening their dazed mind. Felix quickly grabbed Lucy and lifted her up onto the pond.

Fortunately, the water level of the pond was only about the knee of Felix. But their clothes, which had already been soaked, were dripping wet.

“… … Lucy! Are you okay?”

Felix asked, pulling her hair off her face like seaweed. Lucy looked at him and shook her chin.

“I, I…told, we’re going to fall….”

“I’m sorry!”

He hugged her, who had turned white in the cold water. It wasn’t until he felt her frozen body that he realized what he had just done.

He was sure to convey his sincerity with nice and serious words.

Felix’s face heated up in an instant at the fact that he had lost control and rushed.

“Y, you’re going to catch a cold, let’s go in.”

Picking up the cloak that had fallen on the ground, he hurriedly put it over Lucy, and he took her to her mansion.

As soon as the two entered the hall, a light appeared on the dark stairs. It was a maid with a lamp.

“Oh my! What’s going on?”

When Felix announced that they had fallen into the pond, maid quickly disappeared into the hallway to get a towel. As if she heard the maid’s footsteps, Madan Triana appeared in a hurry in her pajamas.

She opened her mouth in amazement at the sight of Lucy and Felix, who were soaked.

“Oh my, Lucy! Prince Felix! What is this?”

She rushed up and took them upstairs.

“Your body is so cold! You’re going to catch a cold.”

The Madam hastily called the maids and ordered them to bring them new clothes. The maids disappeared in a hurry.

When Felix returned to his room, the maids brought him new clothes. As he got dressed, he saw Madam Triana and Colin sitting in the drawing room. When he thought that the people in the mansion had woken up because of him, he felt awkward.

She did not see Lucy as she was still changing clothes. 

“Sorry for causing a fuss. My foot slipped and fell into the pond.”

At his apology, Madam Triana waved her hand.

“I should have guessed in advance that Lucy was going into the garden. I forgot to turn on the lights in the garden beforehand.”

“What have you done to fall into a pond?”

Colin intervened with a sinister smile. Then Felix glared at Colin, accepting the robe that Madam Triana handed him.

“Anyway, Lucy loves gardens.”

The Madam murmured, expressing that she couldn’t stop her.

“Ah, come to think of it, I remember that she liked the garden of the Marquis Everen the most during her trip to the capital.”

“I remember her talking about flowers in the garden all day long.”

“But it is worth it. The garden of the Marquis of Everen is famous for its beauty in all seasons, right?”

Madam Triana looked at Felix as if asking him to agree with her. But Felix stopped putting on the robe, stood still, and asked.

“Lucy came to the Marquis Everen’s Garden?”