Hiek. Ciello instinctively covered her head and crouched down at the sight of the gun.
“How ridiculous. You cower even though you know I can’t kill you.”
Ciello looked up at him, trembling. His face was as expressionless as if he had wiped away all emotion.
“So if it soothes your anger, do as you please. In a long life, even pain is welcome.”
“No, no, that’s not it. I wasn’t trying to…”
But Estribal was no longer listening to Ciello. He grabbed Ciello’s wrist and pulled her up over her clothes.
“How can I make you listen to me? Should I slap you with this hand?”
Ciello staggered back. Her shoulder hit the bedroom wall. The duke lifted the corner of his mouth.
“I’ll give you a more definite answer.”
The duke put the gun he was holding into Ciello’s hand. Ciello’s eyes widened at the feel of the heavy metal. The duke gave a short command.
“Pull.”
“Huh?”
Ciello’s pupils trembled.
‘Is he telling me to kill myself because he can’t kill me?’
Ciello, holding the gun, hesitated.
“Can’t you understand?”
Estribal twisted the barrel of the gun and pointed it at himself. Ciello looked up at him with a face full of horror.
“What? Why…!”
“Why? Weren’t you eager to defy me?”
Estribal bowed his head towards Ciello. His forehead touched the muzzle of the gun.
“To the extent that you went to find the people who kidnapped you.”
Ciello shook her head, her face full of tears.
“No, I really didn’t mean to…!”
“I won’t say it three times.”
Estribal cut off Ciello’s words.
“Pull the trigger. Right now.”
“I don’t want to!”
Ciello, terrified, tried to throw the gun away, but Estribal was faster. He grabbed Ciello’s hand tightly.
“Ah!”
Estribal pressed hard on Ciello’s index finger. The deafening sound and Ciello’s scream echoed in the room at the same time. Ciello slumped down, sliding down the wall.
“Huff, huff…”
Ciello, her face wet with tears, buried her face in her knees and took deep breaths. Her vision was spinning. No matter how tough a life she had lived, it was her first time killing someone. And not just anyone, but once…
Then something clattered next to Ciello. Ciello opened her eyes thinly.
“This…this is…”
A flattened bullet rolled and hit Ciello’s toes. No way.
Ciello raised her head, trembling. There stood Estribal, as if nothing had happened.
“How…what I did…the gun…I definitely…”
Words fell apart from Ciello’s mouth.
“Do you understand the situation now? If I can’t kill you, it means you can’t either.”
Estribal lifted the corner of his mouth.
“And as long as I’m alive, you can’t leave me.”
After finishing his words, Estribal picked up the gun and put it back in his pocket, and neatly placed the shoes that had been rolling on the floor next to Ciello.
“Let’s meet at dinner. It’s been a while since we had a proper meal.”
Estribal turned around and left the room.
The flattened bullet, the crumpled gift box. And still beautiful shoes next to them. Ciello stared at them for a very long time.
When it was about dinner time, a servant came in and changed Ciello’s clothes. Ciello, who had no strength to resist, sat in front of the mirror for a long time after they left.
“Miss Cielo. You have to come out now.”
At the sound of a knock, as if clocking in, Ciello staggered up from her seat. Then, slowly, she moved her steps and looked at the mirror in the room. Ciello, dressed in a dress that alternated between blue and green, looked quite grown up. Only, not like a person, but like a doll.
“It’s not pretty at all…”
Tears welled up in Ciello’s eyes. Ciello, who was full of excitement and anticipation when she first tried on this dress, was now too far away. So far away that there was no hope to be found.
Of course, Ciello had the dragon scales that could allow her to escape to the Peregrine Liberation Group’s hideout, but she couldn’t use them recklessly. If she suddenly disappeared now, it was clear as day that Estribal would suspect the Liberation Group.
Ciello pressed her eyes tightly and turned her head. Next to the mirror were the blue slippers he had left behind. The bright blue color stirred her heart.
Many people denied it, but Ciello had always felt it. The special emotion that emanated from his gaze when he looked at her. The excitement that only they knew.
And what shook Ciello’s heart in this crazy situation was not his harsh words.
[But you’re already thinking of leaving me.]
The moment he said those words, his wounded face flashed across her mind and wouldn’t leave.
“Ha…”
Ciello took a deep breath and put her feet into the slippers. The soft slippers wrapped around Ciello’s feet as if they were custom-made.
Then, as if they had been waiting, the door opened. A servant with their eyes covered appeared and stood next to Ciello.
“The Duke is in the dining room. Let’s go.”
Ciello followed the servant through the hallway and into the dining room. Estribal was sitting at the end of the table.
“Huh…”
The moment she saw him, Estribal’s cold voice came to mind. The dull recoil of the trigger and the piercingly sharp gunshot. She wanted to run away from that terrible memory right away, but she couldn’t.
“Have you been waiting long?”
Ciello tried hard to hide her trembling voice and bowed her head. But his reaction was quite different from what she expected.
“…Ciello.”
His eyes stopped as if they were mesmerized. It was the same as when she first fitted a dress. He looked at Ciello with the kind of look that would make any woman’s heart flutter, wondering ‘maybe?’
“Beautiful. Why did you make such a fuss?”
“…Are you serious?”
Ciello looked at him, choked up.
Her expression was disrespectful and impudent enough to be scolded coming from a commoner to a duke. But Estribal answered with a smile.
“You’re asking the obvious.”
Between his laughter and the muzzle, she couldn’t figure out his sincerity.
Ciello didn’t want to show her expression, so she lowered her head deeply and sat at the far end of the long table. Then Estribal tapped the seat next to him with his finger.
“Your dish is here.”
“…Are you asking me to knife you next now?”
But again, Estribal didn’t get angry and spoke calmly.
“I’m not scolding you. Again, if you want, you can behave more freely. I just…”
Ciello clenched her mouth shut. Estribal sighed long and gestured to the servant. Then the servant moved the dish that was right next to Estribal to in front of Ciello.
“I heard you like poultry, so I asked them to serve duck confit. And this is…”
Estribal’s considerate voice was bizarrely contrasted with what had just happened between them. Ciello cut off his words.
“Duke.”
Their eyes met. Ciello asked with a face that looked like she was about to cry.
“Can’t you just stop?”
Estribal answered with a faint smile, as if he had been waiting for that question.
“Now you understand. You can’t handle me as I am now.”
Ciello stared blankly at the plate for a moment before opening her mouth.
“…Maybe I can’t.”
Estribal quietly lifted the corner of his mouth. He was smiling, but his face looked as if he had been hurt.
“That’s right. Now there’s one more person who might want to kill me as I am now.”
Estribal opened his mouth with a rather bitter face.
“Unfortunately, I only feel alive now. If you’re observant, you’ll know why.”
Ciello didn’t answer. Estribal silently put down his fork and knife.
“My color is only you. I can only taste, smell, and feel when I’m with you.”
Ciello’s heart sank.
The doubt, or expectation, became a clear fact from his mouth. A man who didn’t even know the color of his own eyes. A man who couldn’t discern the taste and collapsed helplessly at her touch. A man whose all senses were attached to her existence.
“So that’s how you could find me at first? When I tried to run away.”
“Yes.”
Estribal nodded calmly.
“Even if you cover your whole body, your surroundings shine in colors, and there’s nothing more enjoyable for me than finding you.”
His words were neither romantic metaphors nor confessions. His words were threats, exactly as they were.
“You don’t know the black and white world. Any food is worse than chewing a stone, and all music is discordant. But…”
Estribal laughed again. It was chilling.
“You came to me.”
Ciello asked blankly.
“So are you satisfied now?”
Estribal gently lifted the corner of his mouth.
“To some extent. I would be more satisfied if you sat by my side now.”
She was wrong. She couldn’t persuade him at all. Ciello looked down at the food plate. The plate was full of delicacies that Ciello couldn’t even imagine.
“If the food doesn’t suit your taste, you don’t have to force yourself to eat it. Or…”
“Duke. I…”
Ciello licked her lips weakly. But he seemed to just want to sit her down here, not listening to her words.
“You just have to cooperate with my plan. Say anything. 600 million is nothing. Reposa, shall I make that magician your maid? If you don’t like the existence of Duke Trepe, I’ll get rid of him completely. Or…”
Estribal persuaded Ciello. But all his words also bounced off Ciello’s ears and stabbed her heart.
“What I want is not that kind of thing!”
Ciello shouted, slamming down the fork.
“I, I Duke…”
Tears fell from Ciello’s eyes. The sentence that she couldn’t finish was aimed at the center of his heart.
Estribal, who was staring blankly at the tears flowing drop by drop, rubbed his face as if he was in a difficult situation.
“You…still, me now.”
No way. No way. Estribal muttered lowly several times, brushing back his falling hair.
He couldn’t believe it, but on the other hand, he wanted to believe it. That Ciello’s heart was directed at him, not money or anything else.
But Estribal shook his head. How could he ask to drink poison knowing that what he held in his hand was poison?
If he was a little more evil, if he was a human who could prioritize his desires, he would have swallowed the poison himself without hesitation and poured it into Ciello’s lips.
But he was ultimately a person who couldn’t do that. As he chose the path to turn everything around, enduring humiliation alone under the emperor’s booze, not breaking the emperor’s booze and running away.
“That’s right…Now I understand what you’re saying.”
So he once again, gently broke Ciello’s heart.
“Shall we get married, Ciello?”
