“No, no. Nothing happened.”
When Kisa reflexively shook her head, Seyard quickly accepted it.
“I see. Perhaps it was my imagination. You just seemed somewhat uncomfortable.”
“No way. I’m just feeling great because I’m finally breaking off the engagement. I feel so refreshed and satisfied……”
“Kisa?”
She couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to lie to someone who was genuinely concerned about her. “Actually…” Kisa began weakly.
“Actually, I’m not feeling very good. Though nothing special happened! We just broke off the engagement as you know, but somehow I feel depressed.”
Her anxious hands fidgeted with the teacup handle.
“Why am I like this? I don’t even understand my own feelings. Could it be, could it be……”
Do I still have lingering feelings for Daniel? She couldn’t voice that question. It wasn’t something she could say to someone who had actively helped her break off the engagement.
Still, this intelligent man surely understood what words she had swallowed. Kisa stared intently at the innocent table.
Before him, she was a sinner, and the pink tinge coloring her cheeks was like a brand. Even if Seyard were to reproach her now for showing weakness, she would have nothing to say.
“Raise your head, Kisa.”
However, the voice that penetrated her eardrums was as gentle as ever. When she lifted her head, his face showed no sign of reproach.
“If you’re willing, could you tell me specifically what has happened to you, and when this melancholy began? Unfortunately, I find it difficult to understand your feelings just from what you said earlier.”
“Is it really okay?”
“Obviously, you can decline if you don’t want to. Forcing someone to talk would be wrong.”
“No! That’s not the issue – I’m just worried about troubling you too much.”
“That kind of trouble is perfectly fine. After all, we’re going to be husband and wife soon.”
“What?”
“Even though it’s a contract, if we’re going to be together for a certain period, wouldn’t it be better to know each other well?”
Ah, so that’s what he meant. She had overreacted to the word “husband and wife.”
“Since we’ve spent so little time together, we should have plenty of conversations from now on.”
In contrast to the casual Seyard, Kisa, whose throat felt strangely dry, took a sip of the slightly cooled tea. Though her face was still burning, perhaps because of the warmth that went down her throat, she felt somewhat more stable.
‘No, is it because of him?’
He had a strange power that made her want to open up. What was the reason? His seemingly trustworthy nature? His kind heart? His intelligence that seemed capable of providing any answer? All were correct answers, yet all were insufficient.
“So please, Kisa.”
He made Kisa speak with one unique characteristic in addition to all of those.
“Tell me.”
This pressure. It was clearly a force that made others follow his will. It was so subtle that only Kisa, who had become sensitive to pressure due to her father’s method of discipline, could detect it.
When she had felt a similar sensation before, she hadn’t known why, but now that she knew his identity, it made sense. It was a characteristic he possessed as a member of the proud Hillan ducal family.
“A few days ago… Daniel came to visit.”
That pressure pushed her forward, so Kisa willingly unlocked the padlock on her mouth.
“The day we sent the engagement cancellation notice to Lowens. I met Daniel in the reception room. I wanted to see his face in person and give him a piece of my mind.”
Taking occasional sips of tea to moisten her throat, she revealed everything that had happened that day in as much detail as possible. Perhaps because of this, by the time she finished her story, she felt somewhat relieved.
“So that’s what happened.”
Seyard, who had listened without interrupting Kisa’s words once, spoke in a thoughtful tone.
“Haven’t you been pushing yourself too hard?”
“Pushing myself?”
“Yes, it’s not unusual for someone who has been running while looking at only one goal to feel empty after achieving that goal.”
“Goal……”
“In Kisa’s case, breaking off the engagement was the goal.”
Indeed, as he said, she had been entirely focused on breaking off the engagement for the past few days.
“Moreover, you had emotional issues with your former fiancé. This is just my speculation, but it seems you haven’t taken proper care of your feelings while pursuing the goal of breaking off the engagement.”
“……”
She thought he might be right. Kisa reflected on her past self. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been hurt by Daniel’s betrayal.
However, the moment she decided to break off the engagement, she deliberately pushed aside anything that wasn’t necessary for achieving her goal. Until now, she thought she had overcome the pain of heartbreak by doing so, but was that really true?
No, it wasn’t overcoming but avoidance. She had buried the pain of losing Daniel, harbored only resentment in her heart, and devoted herself to breaking off the engagement.
She didn’t want to admit the fact that she was suffering from the loss of a man who had called her stupid. Therefore, once the goal was achieved and her desire to get back at Daniel was somewhat satisfied, it was inevitable that the buried pain would resurface.
After all, Daniel had occupied an important part of Kisa’s life for more than ten years.
Cutting him out was no different from cutting out a significant portion of her life.
Perhaps what troubled Kisa more than losing Daniel was the fact that the time and memories associated with him had turned to dust and scattered.
She thought of Sam the Bear. It was simply a teddy bear that Daniel had given her, but at the same time, it had been a friend responsible for young Kisa’s every night.
When Sam was trampled under merciless feet, it had also disturbed the grave in her heart. The pain had been freed.
“I think you’re right. No, you are right.”
Kisa met Seyard’s gaze with eyes full of conviction.
“Thanks to you, I truly feel lighter now.”
Strangely enough, she felt comfortable once she acknowledged the truth that she couldn’t simply be happy about the broken engagement. It seemed that the inward disappointment was also one of the culprits that had been troubling Kisa lately.
To think she only realized this now. For many years, emotions had been something she had to endlessly suppress, cut, and control, rather than accept as the voice of her heart.
That’s how the Count had taught her, and his teachings were everything to Kisa, but Seyard brought a fresh breeze. It was already the third fresh breeze.
First, he had told her that she wasn’t unintelligent; second, he had helped her achieve the broken engagement; and finally, he had given her a great realization.
“It’s nothing. I’m glad I could help.”
Yet Seyard responded humbly, and Kisa, amazed by this, showered him with more praise.
“How did you gain such insight?”
“It’s not really worthy of being called insight.”
“Come on, you read my heart perfectly.”
“I just read books endlessly at the monastery instead of doing the prayers I was supposed to do, so I became well-versed in miscellaneous knowledge. You could call me a sage of the reading room, perhaps.”
Even the nickname he used to humble himself sounded like an impressive title to Kisa’s ears.
“Then at that place……”
She closed her mouth just as she was about to ask about his monastery life without thinking.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, I was curious about what kinds of books you read there.”
“Ah, I read quite a lot, whatever I could get my hands on, without discriminating by type.”
He mentioned several book titles that Kisa might know, but she was too busy swallowing a sigh of relief to fully concentrate on his words.
‘I guess talking about the monastery would be a bit…’
Though he spent half his life there, strictly speaking, wasn’t he driven out by his family?
It was quite common for a lord’s sons other than the heir to devote themselves to religion, but usually, they left the family by their own choice when they were fully grown.
Unfortunately, in the Sorbi Kingdom, there had long been a custom of considering the younger of twins to be ominous.
A certain legend that had been passed down in this land even before the kingdom was established was the fundamental cause of this long-standing evil practice.
According to the legend, the younger of twins was said to be a demon. It was quite a creepy story about how a demon enters a pregnant woman’s womb to mimic the fetus identically in order to bring humans to ruin.
The demon born this way lives ordinarily until one day revealing its true nature and driving the humans who were until recently its family into a pit of misfortune. Then it laughs watching their misery before returning to the demon world.
Anyway, because of this unpleasant legend, twins born and raised in the regions where the legend was passed down, including Sorbi, had suffered severe persecution.
Long ago, there were even terrible incidents of killing newborn babies, but fortunately, these days, such barbaric events were rare due to advances in medical technology and people’s general level of knowledge being higher.
Still, once rooted, perceptions are frightening things, and there were still views that didn’t look favorably upon twins.
In particular, the tradition-minded Hillan ducal family had sent away the twin brother of their long-awaited heir to a monastery before he could even come of age. That was Seyard Hillan, soon to be Kisa’s new fiancé.
‘I feel indignant just thinking about it. It wasn’t Seyard’s fault that he was born a twin.’
While Kisa was looking at Seyard sitting across from her with such thoughts.
“Kisa.”
He suddenly grabbed her wrist. Truly startled by this sudden, probably first physical contact with him, Kisa tried to pull her wrist away, but his entwined hand wouldn’t let her go.
“You haven’t been listening to me for a while, have you?”
“I-I was listening!”
“You’re lying.”
His well-shaped lips curved crookedly.
“Your pulse has quickened.”
