“…ise.”
“……”
“Darling.”
“……”
“Eloise.”
“Oh, were you calling me?”
Early the next morning.
I was mechanically going about my business in the dining hall when I snapped out of it and looked up.
Ian, sitting across from me, was gazing at me with a serious expression.
Why did he have to look at me like that with such a handsome face?
Even in my unsettled state, Ian’s radiance felt especially unfair.
Unbothered—or perhaps unaware—of my irritated gaze, Ian asked in a concerned tone,
“Did you not sleep well again last night?”
“Huh? Why do you ask…”
To be fair, I had been restless, tossing and turning until dawn.
Before I could finish my thought, he gestured with his chin.
“You’ve been eating your soup with a fork.”
“…What?”
Finally lowering my wandering gaze to my plate, I realized he was right. I was stirring clear soup with a fork instead of a spoon.
…No wonder nothing had been reaching my mouth.
Flustered, I cleared my throat, quickly put down the fork, and picked up the spoon.
“Sorry, I was just lost in thought.”
Of course, that didn’t stop Ian’s persistent gaze.
He tilted his head slightly and asked in a low voice,
“Is something on your mind?”
“Well, no…”
How could I possibly explain that I’d been thinking about the news of Diana, the woman you loved dearly in the original story, graduating early and returning to the capital?
I ended up shaking my head, brushing it off.
“It’s really nothing. Just…”
“Just to be sure,” he interrupted, his azure eyes fixed on me,
“Is this about Lady Lawrence?”
Clatter.
This time, I didn’t even manage to catch the falling spoon—it simply slipped out of my hand.
In that moment, the noble composure I had worked so hard to maintain shattered completely.
Oddly enough, neither of us seemed to care.
I froze in place, staring at Ian, then stammered,
“H-How do you know…”
Ian, his expression unreadable, put down his utensils and picked up his water glass.
“The gazette arrived this morning.”
“Oh.”
An absent-minded exclamation escaped me.
Now that I thought about it, Ian subscribed to the Aria Gazette, didn’t he?
Since he hadn’t mentioned it before, I assumed he’d canceled the subscription, but it seemed he’d been reading it all along.
Not to mention, the comments section under Diana’s article today was updating even faster than the front-page scandal about Count Hegel’s affair.
Ian must’ve realized it long ago.
The situation became clear immediately, and I quickly shook my head.
“Well, no. Not exactly. It’s just… um…”
As I tried to come up with something to deny it, my hesitation only grew, with nothing but vague sounds escaping my lips.
I’m doomed.
I was utterly terrible at lying.
Sensing that the misunderstanding might deepen if this continued, I scrambled for an excuse. But Ian beat me to it.
“That won’t happen.”
“What?”
Startled, I looked up to meet Ian’s gaze, which had been locked on me intently since earlier.
He had even set down his utensils and was calmly staring at me with an unusually upright posture.
“Whatever you’re worried about, you don’t need to be,” he said.
I blinked, taken aback.
“How could you know what I’m thinking?”
Ian responded with his usual calm demeanor, his voice gentle and unwavering.
“As I’ve said before, I’m not as oblivious as you think.”
“……”
“Didn’t you ask me something similar back when I stayed at the detached palace?”
“Well, I figured someone as well-connected as you might know someone there.”
“I did know one person. But we never crossed paths, nor did I plan to meet them.”
“…Why not? You knew them, didn’t you? They might’ve reached out to you.”
“They weren’t someone I had that kind of relationship with.”
…So he remembered something I thought he’d dismissed casually back then.
To be fair, the situation was a bit different then than it is now, but…
The fact that I couldn’t even explain that made it all the more embarrassing.
“Let me assure you,” Ian continued, “there’s really no need to feel uneasy about it.”
“Well, Ian. It’s not that I’m really worried…”
I started to speak but slowly closed my mouth instead.
In truth, I had been so swept up in the fact that we had confessed our feelings to each other that I’d forgotten.
Forgotten that, no matter how much had gone off course, the foundation of this world was still built for Ian and Diana’s happiness.
‘Because those two are the protagonists.’
My mouth felt dry despite not having eaten anything.
If, someday, I truly had to return to my original world, disappearing just as the grimoire foretold, then the one left by Ian’s side would inevitably be Diana.
‘This is all Roger’s fault. If he hadn’t said all those unsettling things, I wouldn’t be overthinking like this.’
My frustration redirected itself toward Roger. But soon, I shook my head, forcibly cutting off my train of thought.
“Eloise?”
“Sorry,” I said with a practiced smile, though it probably wasn’t as natural as I’d hoped. “I think I’ve just been overthinking things.”
“…You’re right, Ian. After all, the one sitting in front of you right now is me. I guess I just felt strange after seeing the gazette this morning.”
“……”
“The soup’s getting cold. Let’s finish eating.”
I picked up my spoon again.
Ian’s gaze, warm and piercing, felt heavier than ever against my cheek.
❖ ❖ ❖
“…Haah.”
Lying face down with my chin on the desk in the study, I let out a deep, heavy sigh.
“Seriously, ‘the one sitting in front of you is me’? Why would you say something like that, you idiot?”
I muttered irritably, stomping my foot against the floor.
Because of the utterly disastrous atmosphere I had created, breakfast had ended awkwardly. I hadn’t even finished my dessert before fleeing back to my study.
“And why did you run away? Idiot!”
If I could, I would’ve knocked myself over the head.
“No, but… it’s understandable, isn’t it?”
After all, it hadn’t even been a month since I’d met with Duke Roger and found Eloise’s grimoire, only to now hear the news of Diana’s return.
My lips, which had been slightly parted, pressed shut like a clam.
“Ian said there was no chance of that happening, but…”
To be honest, there was no guarantee that Ian wouldn’t be drawn to Diana.
Naturally, my thoughts drifted to several months ago—the day Ian confessed to me at the bottom of the grand staircase in the manor’s main hall.
Back then, I’d repeated to myself over and over that Ian was simply mistaken. That this was all temporary.
That once Diana returned, everything would fall back into place.
At the time, it was more of a self-soothing mantra to quell my confusion. But now, that belief weighed heavily on my shoulders, crushing my chest like an unbearable burden.
“……”
I raised my head slightly, gazing blankly at the desk.
In one corner of the desk sat the grimoire bound in dark leather.
“…Only five months left now.”
If what was written in the grimoire was true, I had just under half a year remaining.
And in that time, I had to personally bring this situation to a conclusion.
“Bringing it to a conclusion… probably means going back to where I came from.”
Thinking about it, the strange child I met in Marisen had said the same thing: “Don’t you need to return?”
The old woman I encountered in the alley, Roger—they’d all said similar things. It wasn’t baseless speculation.
Just the thought alone made my chest ache, as though needles were pricking my heart.
“……”
To be fair, I didn’t dislike my original life.
It wasn’t as if I had lived a particularly tragic or miserable existence.
I’d been an ordinary person raised by ordinary parents, living a mundane, uneventful life.
Yet, for some reason, the mere possibility of returning to that life made it hard to breathe.
And at the end of that thought, as always, Ian’s face surfaced in my mind.
“Ugh, this is driving me crazy.”
Am I really feeling like this because I don’t want to leave Ian?
When did he become such an important part of my life that all my thoughts now seemed to revolve around him? It felt so strange.
“You were planning to give him back to Diana, weren’t you? Even make him into a keychain to hand over!”
I harshly chastised my past self, but of course, there was no response.
“…Haah.”
Letting out a long sigh, I froze.
A sudden thought had flitted through my mind.
“What if, really, what if…”
…What if I were to disappear without warning?
What if this time ended without me saying even a single word to Ian?
The mere idea of it sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
Who knows how long I sat there, frozen in place. My gaze eventually landed on one corner of the desk.
“……”
There, tucked away, was the proposal I had once handed Ian—a near-threat under the guise of a plan to reform him.
“Really? Of all things, why does this have to catch my eye now?”
It felt like karmic retribution.
Letting out a dry laugh, I picked up the papers slowly.
Something fluttered down between the sheets.
My eyes widened slightly.
“This is…”
It was the divorce papers I had prepared long ago, just in case.
• • •
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