The Little Sister in the Devastating Novel Wants to Live

Edited

Episode 14

“Now, please let me down. I can find the lounge on my own.”

“Are you planning to stand on the floor barefoot?”

“It won’t be visible, hidden by the hem of the dress.”

“A free-spirited lady of wit, I see.”

“Whatever it is, it’s better than wandering around the palace embraced in your arms.”

With a prompt response, the Crown Prince let me down, contrary to my expectation that he wouldn’t. He looked at me with an embarrassed expression.

“Until we meet again, please take good care of my shoes.”

Bowing with a nod, I added a farewell. While it was beneath the Crown Prince’s dignity to handle it, if he suddenly started showing manners after being rude all this time, it would be even more pathetic.

“Don’t worry.”

Similarly, the Crown Prince smiled and greeted me with a dignified posture as he returned to the terrace.

Until the moment he closed the door, he gazed at me with a strange look in the darkness.

An animalistic gaze.

Meeting his eyes, I frowned.

A dangerous person.

While I didn’t want to meet him again, given his high status and being the Empress’s son who could kill me,

“It’s not like that’s up to me.”

I sighed and raised my head.

I felt the coldness of the chilly stone floor beneath my bare feet.

I walked slowly through the corridors of the palace, feeling the coldness below my feet.

Returning to the lounge and waiting for Liam to bring new shoes, I lay down on the sofa for a long time.

I was tired and exhausted.

My mind was completely blank, but thanks to the Crown Prince, the worries caused by Igon and Unis seemed somewhat alleviated.

Tiredness overwhelmed me, and I blinked and dozed off.

When I opened my eyes again, a pair of shoes was placed under the rug below the sofa.

The shoes were heel-less, as if prepared by Igon for me.

I put on the shoes and stood up, not going out but waking up my numb mind and organizing my thoughts.

It had been an unusually long day.

The party, which was filled with pretense all day, was stifling.

It was shocking in many ways.

The thought of wanting to go back crossed my mind. While the thought of returning to an uncomfortable place like the palace or the imperial residence was not pleasant, naturally thinking of the palace as the place to go back to, I realized that it was the place familiar to me.

Since I heard that Igon had left it empty, I thought there would be no one to find except Liam.

But upon further thought, it meant that if Igon permitted, for example…

Before I could finalize my thoughts, the door opened with a short knock.

Igon.

It wasn’t unexpected, but I didn’t know I would face him right away like this.

I grabbed the armrest of the sofa and tried to get up, but Igon slowly approached and pressed his fingers against my forehead.

Unable to resist that force, I laid back on the sofa.

“You didn’t come even though I waited.”

Igon said with a cheerful smile.

I couldn’t help but stare at Igon without smiling or distorting my expression.

“What were you doing to be late?”

“I guess I fell asleep for a moment…”

“Well, considering the constant struggles, it’s not surprising you’d be tired.”

Igon rested one leg on the armrest.

I turned my head away as I looked at the long leg stretching next to my face on the sofa.

Igon slowly played with my hair, twirling it around with his fingers.

I didn’t know when he had taken off his gloves; it was his bare hands.

His fingers slowly descended, touching my cheek.

The slightly chilled shoulder with a lower temperature than mine slightly tensed.

I sighed as I admired his perfectly sculpted face, like a work of art.

I remembered his interest in Eunice Durant.

In an instant, the scene in front of me turned gray, like a sudden cloudiness.

“Let’s go back now.”

At the end of that voice saying so, I felt a sense of fatigue.

I looked up at his face, somehow hearing fatigue somewhere in it, making me gaze at Igon intently.

It was unfamiliar that he, too, could feel tired.

He always surprised me in different ways.

It was hard to define him with the right words.

“Let’s go back.”

I hesitated, then placed my hand on the hand he extended.

Without realizing it, I unconsciously bent my fingers in the cold temperature and covered his hand with mine.

Igon looked at my hand, then at me, and let out an ambiguous laugh.

Rising with his help, I put on the shoes prepared by Liam.

The maids brought by Igon came in and tidied up my hair and clothes.

We left the lounge like that.

Even after coming out, it would take at least an hour or two to greet the Emperor and empress and board the carriage.

Nobles.

People crowded around me as I descended the stairs with Igon’s escort.

More precisely, it was toward ‘Igon.’

People who knew he was about to leave the party seemed anxious and approached Igon with a fierce attitude.

It was a sight that others would be fed up with, but Igon always dealt with them with his perfect face.

He ignored difficult or useless questions as if he hadn’t heard them.

It was a natural and flowing attitude like water.

“Wouldn’t Her Majesty the Empress find it impolite?”

I whispered as I raised my greetings to the Emperor and turned around.

In response to my question, Igon smiled slyly.

“Those who find it impolite are not the ones to judge.”

Anyway, rudeness is rudeness, isn’t it?

Since I left the party venue before the emperor, there will be rumors.

I closed and opened my eyes tightly.

Let’s not think about it, it’s fine.

I don’t know.

I’m tired.

Normally, I would have postponed the headaches that would make me worry and fret.

I got on the carriage escorted by Igon.

I leaned back on the soft backrest.

There was a tingling sensation in my fingertips due to tension-related fatigue.

My head wasn’t rolling properly.

I closed my eyes because I had too many thoughts.

Maybe because I’m too tired.

Or maybe because something bigger happened to me.

Or maybe it’s because I met the crown prince.

Any of these could be a reason.

Ignoring the fact that my headpiece was getting messed up, I rested my head on the carriage window.

“Close your eyes a bit….”

Igon’s voice reached me.

He probably meant to take a short nap.

As the carriage started with a jolt, I fell into a deep sleep.

Falling into a deep sleep was prohibited for me, so I woke up abruptly, inhaling quietly.

“Ha!!”

I jumped up, gripping whatever was in front of me with both hands, shaking my entire body.

I opened my eyes too wide, and it hurt.

The muscles in my neck stiffened, and tension surged through.

My breath didn’t return for a moment.

A quickly approaching hand pressed the back of my head.

The warmth of a person and a familiar scent rushed in.

I hastily rode up on that arm and embraced the beautiful hair with both arms.

My hands, like claws, sifted through the his disheveled hair and the hem of his clothes.

It was a gesture trying to confine something that couldn’t be confined with human hands.

I felt the emptiness slipping through the fingers.

I couldn’t breathe.

Eyes in the void were visible.

The warmth of the bloodline and the coldness of both feet.

Was this a memory or reality?

Is this a novel I’m reading?

Or is it a past that has already passed?

Is it the present I’m living in?

“…He’s gone…”

I grabbed the boy from that summer who used to throw comforting words at me when I didn’t know how to feed myself.

There was no response coming back.

Could he really not hear me?

I separated from the girl and looked into her eyes.

The cold pupils were colder than the moon in the winter night sky.

But I didn’t care.

“Someone killed him. I know.”

To whisper the rest, I randomly pulled the girl away.

I whispered in her ear, pressing my lips against her ear.

“I saw… I saw it.”

Igon silently looked down at me.

He didn’t say a word.

I kept talking without stopping.

I saw it.

People said so.

Even that beautiful mare.

In the world.

Even that noble mare.

Like cutting grass, like breaking branches for firewood.

If a person’s life disappears in an instant like that.

If he left like that, Igon.

Igon.

What about me?

What on earth will become of me?

Even as I spoke, I thought I had finally gone crazy.

I couldn’t figure out what state of mind I was in.

I wasn’t in my right mind.

Perhaps it was an extension of drunkenness.

Igon flattened out the fear and shattered me in terror.

He was skillful at that.

Calling my name, kissing my long hair, he revived me, put me back.

Embraced in his arms, shedding tears like yesterday, I thought of Eunice.

Two people who fit together like a painting, and I thought about Igon, who showed interest in that girl.

It twisted inside.

The feeling of nausea didn’t stop, as if sitting on a seesaw.

“You will never be like that. I will never let you be like that.”

Igon whispered.

The sweet whispering was tarnished, knowing my fate, it tasted very bitter.

I cried my heart out.

There was no way to stop the bursting tears.

Even though she was cruel, why did these emotions come up every time I remembered her?

I don’t know.

Is this leftover longing for her? Is it fear of my own death? Or is it sympathy for Igon?

I wailed until dawn.

Igon wasn’t there, just like that night that never happened.

The arrival of the princess’s invitation came three days after the party ended.

Her temper is also in a hurry.

Thinking of the crown prince, I dared to grumble inwardly.

I picked up the envelope that looked like his face, staring at it as if it were his face.

The contents of the torn note were simple.

The princess invites me as a member of her reading club, not just a simple palace invitation.