“Ugh!”
The moment I moved with an indifferent expression to avoid his gaze, I bumped into the person who was coming from the side without checking. When I lost my balance and stumbled, a hard hand grabbed my shoulder from the side.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t see properly.”
Judging by the hand holding my shoulder or the firm embrace of their arm, the person seemed to be a nobleman. I didn’t want to stand out any more than now, so I raised my head with an apologetic expression as much as possible.
I said looking at the man’s face.
The man just looked down at me without responding to my words.
“… Well.”
I’d rather say it’s fine as a courtesy, or I’d rather get angry. He’s still hugging me by the shoulders.
I tapped the back of his hand above my shoulder with his fingertip. Then the man’s eyebrows wriggled and he made a sullen expression.
What is that expression?
I wish I could get this hand away soon. I reached out and pushed the man’s chest away.
‘Damn it, move!’
I looked up at him, bewildered by the firmer body than I had expected. The man’s black eyes stared at me like a piercing one. Burdensome.
But somehow the man’s face seemed familiar. Where did I see him?
“Hey, sorry. I couldn’t see ahead.”
Black eyes contrasting with fine silver hair. His red lips stood out even more for nothing because his skin felt pale and not white. The man, who seemed to have only his lips colored, even felt sensational at first glance.
Without realizing it, I keep staring at the pale red lips. Feeling my gaze, he licked his lips. In an instant, his hand gripped his shoulder.
“… You.”
“Yes?”
“Who?”
A man’s eyelids blinking slowly, and a low voice echoing in his ear as if he had loosened it languidly. A man with a light smile with his eyes folded thinly.
The first thing I thought of the moment I heard his voice.
“Why are you speaking informally all of a sudden?”
Oh, crazy. I was mesmerized and looked at his face, so I unconsciously uttered what I had thought inside. Handsome is handsome, and informal speech is informal. The problem was that this was a banquet, so I was going to move on as well as possible.
‘I’m doomed!’
The smiling man’s eyes grew slightly larger.
“Oh, sorry, it’s a habit.
“You speak informally, too.”
The man didn’t seem to want to change his tone. Rather, he even patted me on the shoulder, telling me to speak informally.
“No, I don’t want to…”
“Why?”
As if to build self-esteem for nothing, I added the letter ‘Yo’ belatedly.* Then the man looked at me with his head tilted to the right.
*TN: Adding yo at the end of a speech means its formal speech in Korean
Ugh, a handsome man looks handsome no matter what he looks like. I realized it anew. But the more I look at it, the more familiar it is.
“I don’t speak informally unless I’m a close friend.”
“Really? Then we can be friends from now on.”
“I’m sorry, but I…”
I was going to say firmly that I didn’t intend to be close to you.
That I had to listen to my grandmother in my previous life to watch out for people approaching me without any reason. But the man’s voice was faster than mine.
“Damian, it’s my name. Say it comfortably.”
‘… What?’
“I’ll see you next time, then. Amelia.”
Damian whispered in my ear and moved away. The hand that held my shoulder as if he had been hugging it all along disappeared.
“Damian.”
I murmured the man’s name and stared blankly at his back.
The guy just now was Damian Detroitil.
Damian Detroitil.
He has been a social figure since two years ago. His exact birth was unknown, but there was a rumor that he was an illegitimate child of an aristocrat. However, there was no one who looked like Damian or who he was particularly close to, so it had no credibility.
“I can’t believe it.”
It’s my first time seeing him in person, too. I didn’t usually attend a banquet.
Damian Detroitil, who I had only heard in rumors, had a reason why his face was especially familiar. He was none other than a candidate for my (contract) husband.
“This is absolutely ridiculous.”
But it was a little different from the face I saw in the picture. No, if I had to say it, it didn’t look much different, but the atmosphere was very different from the picture.
Damian Detroitil in the picture was a man with an expressionless face with a well-held muscular body. In fact, he said that he was a mercenary, so his muscular body would not be false. Moreover, in the picture, the button on the shirt was about to burst!
“More than anything, how can a person change that much with just the atmosphere?””
Unlike the face in the picture, which looks cold, Damien Detroitil had a wild smile in person and a strong sense of languor. The perspective that touched the other person’s eyes and the voice that whispered secretly feel as if it is seducing the other person.
It was the first time that a handsome muscular mercenary with a languid decadent beauty made it hard for me to recognize them due to their atmosphere alone.
He was handsome, but…
“That can’t be.”
Damian Detronil was completely different from the picture. He didn’t fit my candidate. Because.
“Your eyes are not normal.”
I thought of the hazy eyes as if drunk on something. At least I didn’t want to have a relationship with an alcoholic. Besides, my instincts were telling me to avoid that man. He’s crazy.
“How else do you know my name?”
“Why are you muttering like that to yourself?”
As I spit out my complaints, someone approached me. Perhaps because of the large physique of the man next to me, the place where I was standing had its light blocked.
Damian, whom I had met a while ago, made my head turn, wondering if he had returned.
“… You.”
It wasn’t Damian Detronil, but more than that, the face she didn’t want to see was smiling with a smirk.
“Long time no see? Amelia.”
Luke Randy.
He was another childhood friend of Hector and I, who ran a loan business under the guise of finance, the source of the Count’s enormous debt.
By the way, this guy is also a nominee.
As a last resort.
Landis Bank
One of the three largest banks of the Empire.
Luke, the man in front of me, staring sarcastically, was the grandson of Rupert Randy, the owner of Landis Bank. And he’s a persistent bad relationship that I’ve had since childhood.
“… Luke.”
As soon as I checked his face, I frowned involuntarily.
“What’s with that look on your face?”
Luke Randy lifted one of his lips and came closer to me, “I think it’s nice to see you, Amelia.”
“Yeah. I didn’t expect to see you here. You look so happy.”
“I’m glad, then. Someone has been avoiding me, so it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. Right?”
Luke didn’t feel bad even though he responded with an uncomfortable expression. On the contrary, as my expression worsened, his smile grew even deeper.
Luke Randy. As the only heir to the Randy family, it was a relationship that was different from the original novel.
‘I should have been a little more patient!’
In the novel, Luke was only referred to as a ‘bad boy who tormented Amelia as a child’. A supporting role that appeared a couple of times in past memories of Hector protecting Amelia from the boy.
However, for me, what happened at the time was not a fictional narrative, but a reality. As a child, even though my father had the title of a ‘Count’, his debts were increasing day by day. Luke Randy knew the situation and used it to torment me.
Maybe it’s pure malice committed by boys of that age without thinking. He was helped by Hector, but the bullying didn’t end there. It was a time when his patience was showing the limit of Luke’s persistent and persistent touch.
What I said was.
“Hey, do you like me?”
While Hector was away for a while, I kicked Luke, who was tormenting me as usual. My patience had been broken and I couldn’t even think about the future.
“Crazy! What are you doing? You idiot!”
“Who is it that keeps calling me such an ugly person?”
“You know who I am…!”
My shoes pressed against Luke’s chest as he tried to get up from the dirt floor. Then he couldn’t get up and just looked up at me.
Maybe he didn’t think he’d be pushed by a girl, but in an instant, young Luke’s face turned bright red. The luckiest thing for Luke was that there was no one else around besides us.
I still had the mind to do it in a place where there were no children.
If I had been humiliated in front of a lot of people, I didn’t know how I would get revenge. Moreover, as it turns out, intimidation has to be done secretly.
“Luke Randy. The only grandson of President Landis Bank. You.”
“You mean you’re still doing this? I’ll tell Grandpa!”
“Tell him. Yes, your grandfather is great, there’s nothing you can’t do, right?”
“Wh-what?”
“In the end, all you can do is run to the great grown-ups and say, “He did it!”
“You, you, Amelia Hazel!”
In the end, Luke mumbled as if he couldn’t refute my words that he was just an incompetent child. His face was already burning like it’s about to explode.
Wow!
I moved the foot that was pressing on his chest. Luke’s face.
I bent my knees and sat on top of Luke, crouching down. Like a rogue gangster.
