An awkward silence filled the reception room. The designer and Ciello hurriedly spoke to break the tension.
“Did you forget because the dress is so beautiful? Who I am to you?”
“Hehe, it’s truly an honor to surprise the Duke.”
Estribal, who had been silent during the flattery, stood up from his seat.
“…I like everything you’ve shown me. I’ll buy them all, so please send the finished products to the Duke’s mansion. You can leave any ready-to-wear items. Then.”
“Du, Duke!”
Estribal moved quickly, not giving Ciello and the designer a chance to stop him.
As he stepped away from Ciello, the world in front of him lost its color one step at a time. It was as if the lights were going out. When he finally closed the door to his office, the world had become completely black and white.
“What a mistake…”
Estribal roughly took off his thick glasses, threw them on the desk, and approached the mirror. Black hair, gray eyes. A colorless man was staring at him.
A deep sigh flowed from his mouth. He had not seen it for so long that he had forgotten. What color he had.
He had lost all his senses since he devoted his power to Serpiente. He couldn’t distinguish colors, tastes, or scents.
But thanks to that, Estribal was able to be sure that Ciello, who was Cello then, was related to the spirit Serpiente.
The reason was very simple. The moment he stepped towards Cello, various colors flooded into the black and white world.
“Now I’ll be added to the list of fools who don’t even know the color of their own eyes.”
Estribal sat down in a chair, mumbling self-deprecatingly. Of course, he didn’t care about such a reputation. But Ciello. She was the problem.
He wanted to hide it from her. He had lost his senses and was bound to the spirit, a hideous soul, but with just that woman, he could see the colors of the world, the discordant sounds became music, and the wind brought fragrance, a vain hope.
Estribal von Trepe should not have clung to such a vain hope. His goal had to be to get the power of Serpiente. That’s the only way for this empire…
Estribal sighed, got up, and left the room. If he pretended not to know and covered it up, she wouldn’t dare to speak first.
When he returned to the reception room, only Ciello was there. Estribal stiffly raised his neck and asked as if nothing had happened.
“Did the designer go home?”
“Yes. He said he would deliver it on time.”
Ciello also nodded without showing any reaction. Fortunately, it seemed that Ciello had that much sense as he thought.
“He said to deliver the estimate to the Duke. But are you really buying all this? From my 600 million…”
Ciello handed him the estimate and watched his reaction. But Estribal took the estimate nonchalantly, didn’t read it, and put it in his pocket.
“Excuse me, Duke.”
“What is it?”
“Just a moment.”
Ciello reached out to him. He stepped back as if on guard, but Ciello’s hand was faster.
“…You have a bad habit.”
His bangs slid down. In Ciello’s hand was the pin that had made him look ridiculous.
“Well, it’s an occupational disease.”
Ciello shrugged her shoulders with a light laugh.
“There’s no one else now. Take it off.”
“…Is it that strange?”
“Yes. It’s really strange.”
Ciello nodded firmly. Although he had worked hard to look strange, when she said it looked really strange, he felt a little sad. He casually let down his hair that he had twisted back and changed the subject.
“Do you need anything else?”
“Um… I have a place I want to go with the Duke.”
At Ciello’s words, Estribal slightly raised his chin and nodded.
“What kind of Duke do you need?”
At his question, Ciello began to stutter.
“Ah, I haven’t thought that far, but if I had to choose, I like this face…”
Ciello grinned with a ‘it won’t work, right?’ expression. Estribal retorted gruffly.
“You’re asking for a lot. Don’t think about useless things.”
After saying that, he felt like he was talking to himself, but he tried hard to ignore the voice inside him. Instead, he put on the hat that was in the reception room, raised the collar of his coat to cover his face. Then a man was created who was neither Duke Trepe nor agent Estribal.
“Are you going out like that?”
“Yes, is that not okay?”
Ciello was wearing the ready-made clothes brought by the designer.
“It’s not that it’s not okay. It’s much better than your rag-like coat.”
He threw the words and turned his body.
“Tsk. Was that acting earlier? So affectionately…”
Ciello’s grumbling voice behind his back was faintly heard, but Estribal ignored her words and went outside and got on the carriage.
“Please go to 32 Raven Street, Charlotte Shoe Store.”
The carriage arrived at a ready-made shoe specialty store. It was not too cheap, and not too expensive.
“Do you want to buy shoes?”
Estribal asked somewhat curiously. It was a modest destination considering the expensive clothes they had just tried on. But Cielo didn’t answer and took a deep breath before opening the store door.
“Welcome, miss. Are you looking for something?”
At the store owner’s question, Ciello pointed to the blue shoes on display and said,
“I want to try these on.”
“Yes. I’ll bring out a new pair. Please wait a moment.”
A moment later, the shoes the owner brought fit perfectly on Ciello’s feet, and they looked pretty good to Estribal. But Ciello hesitated for a moment, then took off the shoes and put them down neatly.
“Um…I’ll come back next time.”
“Please come again anytime, miss.”
The two left the store, leaving behind the owner’s polite farewell.
“Why didn’t you buy them? Didn’t you like them when you tried them on?”
“No, they were prettier when I wore them, and they were comfortable even though they weren’t custom-made.”
Estribal frowned, unable to understand. Ciello muttered softly.
“I just…wanted to be someone who doesn’t buy those shoes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Poor people can’t go into a store like that and not buy anything. They get scolded if they thought they could.”
Ciello smiled faintly and looked back at the store. The store owner spotted them through the window and bowed his head in farewell again.
“Now, even if I just try them on and leave, he treats me like that. In the end, I didn’t buy anything…It’s strange, isn’t it?”
“…It’s difficult.”
“This is my flower garden.”
At Ciello’s words, Estribal’s steps stopped. Ciello continued to speak.
“Thank you for granting my request. This time I did as I pleased, but I wanted to show you that I don’t misunderstand the Duke’s method.”
Ciello stretched with a giggle, trying to change the mood.
“Well, you probably don’t care, right?”
“…I know well.”
Despite the content of his words, Estribal’s voice was trembling slightly. Perhaps Ciello felt this tremor. But Estribal was too busy pretending to be calm to judge what was beneath Ciello’s smile.
“So those shoes…I’ll buy them when the Duke’s last mission is over.”
Ciello took a deep breath and cautiously opened her mouth.
“Can’t you come with me then?”
Ciello looked up at him. The moment their eyes met, a hollow laugh escaped Estribal’s lips. Because Ciello’s gray eyes were full of determination to read his heart.
“…I’ll think about it.”
“Hey, you’re actually going to come with me, right? I know. Wearing those shoes, and also to the flower garden…No? Really no?”
Ciello spoke brazenly with her mouth, but she was subtly watching his reaction and whining. It was funny and cute.
He knew. The future that Ciello was talking about could not come.
****
A few days later, rumors spread wildly that Duke Trepe had fallen for a maid of unknown origin.
“Why are you making such a fuss? He’s just playing around because he has no reputation or wife.”
“No, he’s really going to get married.”
“Oh my, oh my, oh my. How masculine…”
The whole capital was turned upside down.
There were even talks about whether the royal family should intervene at a royal level to stop his behavior that tarnishes the honor of the ducal family, which is a relative of the royal family, but the royal family remained silent.
It might seem like they couldn’t care about such things not long after the bloody succession to the throne ended, but the royal family has always been surprisingly generous to the Duke Trepe Mansion. Thanks to this, only those who produced gossip magazines were happy with the sales volume.
“Wow. It doesn’t look like me at all…”
Ciello sat in a restaurant, holding a large piece of bread in one hand and a gossip magazine in the other, and stuck out her tongue.
The gossip magazine, which she had asked a servant to get, was full of pages with illustrations of a ridiculous-looking nobleman and a red-haired beauty clinging to him. In another newspaper, there was a picture of Ciello, the size of a fingernail, that was so small, it was impossible to tell how they took it.
“You’re looking at something useless.”
Estribal, who had approached behind Ciello, snatched the gossip magazine and checked it, then clicked his tongue.
“Don’t blame me too much. It’s the method you chose.”
He put down the gossip magazine on the table as if throwing it. But Ciello scratched her cheek awkwardly.
“No, I’m not really hurt by this. But isn’t it too beautified?”
Ciello was quite pretty in real life, but the maid drawn in the gossip magazine had exaggeratedly met the conditions of a beauty that ordinary people would think of.
Estribal threw out his words.
“That’s right. There’s no resemblance.”
“I said that, but I don’t want to hear it from someone else’s mouth, okay?”
Ciello grumbled with a sullen face while chewing on the bread. Estribal crossed his arms and made a chin gesture.
“Look. Your eyes are wider than this picture. The vertical length is similar to the picture, but you don’t have double eyelids. Hmm, looking again, the direction of the parting is also wrong. And also.”
(TL: parting-A crack created by splitting the hair from the forehead to the top of the head on both sides.)
“…Duke?”
Ciello’s eyes, full of questions, stared at Estribal.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣