Chapter 54
Nadelli sobbed sobbingly.
“Stop crying.”
“But, Leslie, hey.”
Leslie nervously wiped Nadelli’s tears away. Nadelli shuddered.
“Hah, do I have to go to Halbern, to apologize?”
“You won’t have to do that, think about it. It was only a tea party. Not even a formal tea party.”
It wasn’t like she was going to lash out at her for saying the wrong thing in the first place.
“Well, still.”
Nadelli was still frightened.
Leslie pursed her lips.
“You know, the one who’s always in the corner and can’t say anything…”
“Why would I?”
The words stung Leslie, who stepped in to intervene.
“Because you’ve been keeping quiet the whole time, Lady Leslie, and you’d better keep quiet this time.”
Her eyelashes fluttered as she remembered the indifference in those rose-stone eyes.
For a brief moment, she was overwhelmed.
Sheo never been conscious of it before, but she’d assumed she’d have the upper hand, and she’d been so overwhelmed by Arellin’s nonchalant tilt of her head that she hadn’t said anything.
It left a huge wound in Leslie’s pride.
‘She looked at me like I was no match for her!’
The thought of being belittled by what was to become Albrecht’s noblest woman was unbearable.
“You can be mad at me for ignoring you afterwards.”
“Hmph. What if she gets mad at you, over a subject she doesn’t even know who her mum is?”
It’s not like it’s Halbern.
The Marquis de Belfort had a long and illustrious history.
“Oh, stop crying!”
Nadelli hiccupped at Leslie’s irritation. Another girl, Cornelia, who had been watching them, said.
“Why don’t we do this then?”
Nadelli and Leslie’s eyes sparkled at the sound of her voice.
***
“This is the elixir to drink today!”
The color of the potion Pession held out was suspicious.
“Why is it getting blacker?”
Surely it was green at first.
“I put a lot of good stuff in it!”
“…”
Something is happening to this special request from the Crown Prince.
She shakily accepts the potion.
She feels a sickening sensation.
“Are you sure I have to drink it?”
“I’ve had to work hard to get it…”
“…”
Pession’s eyes drooped, a sad expression on his face. Ugh. She cringed involuntarily at his abandoned puppy dog eyes.
“Drink it.”
She lost.
She drank it with her eyes squeezed shut like it was some kind of medicine, and thunderous applause erupted from all directions.
Is this real?
“Arel, I want to ask you something.”
“What is it?”
She was rolling the candy Yuni handed me around in my mouth to get rid of the potion taste.
“What happened at the tea party?”
Pession asked, meeting her eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, I was wondering if anything unpleasant happened.”
What a perceptive guy.
He could be so grumpy and expect her to not know.
“It’s fine.”
“Arell…”
“Pession.”
“Huh?”
“If you care, it’ll make it harder for me, so just pretend you don’t know.”
“I don’t know how to pretend. You’re driving me crazy.”
Pession muttered impatiently, his brow furrowed.
“That’s what you’re being mean to me about, isn’t it?”
Pession, who seemed to have noticed that I was pursing my lips but unable to speak, concluded.
“It’s because of me, after all.”
“That…”
It’s complicated.
Even if it was because of Pession, how could it be your fault?
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“You’re…”
Why are you so consistent.
Sometimes she felt like Pession was more mature than she was with her memories of her previous life.
She wonder if this kindness and gentleness is innate.
“Are you not going to come to the meeting again?”
“I think about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know why you’re sorry.”
“Because it feels like my fault.”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to apologize for this. Don’t apologize so easily.”
Pession was a man in a position where forgiveness was more appropriate than apology.
She wondered what could possibly be wrong with a girl who had nothing.
‘I’m not good enough for him, I hurt him all the time, I’m sick, I can’t play sports.’
But there was a part of her that wanted to live up to this.
Strange and clumsy.
“Pession.”
“Huh?”
“You’re the first.”
Pession blinked.
“What?”
“A friend.”
The first real friend the loner had ever had in all her lives, past and present, the one who was always stuck in the corner and no one would play with her, the one who played her violin because she liked being alone.
“You’re the first friend I’ve ever had.”
He blushed.
“Pession?”
“Wait.”
“Wait,” Pession muttered, hiding his bright red face.
“…I feel like I’m dying because I love it.”
She was just as embarrassed as he was. She didn’t say anything, but she wondered why he liked it so much.
She didn’t say anything, but why does he like her so much?
She doesn’t want to say this, but she can’t help but wonder if his feelings are real.
Because you have a heroine.
“What if you end up liking someone else later?”
Pession immediately retorted, caught off guard.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“How can you be so sure? It could happen.”
“No. It can’t happen.”
“So, what if…”
Pession looked hurt as he watched me squirm.
“Arellin doesn’t trust me that much?”
“…”
In her head, she knows.
She knows she should answer that she does.
‘But…’
She already knows.
That this is a Novel Romance Fantasy world.
The question ended with an ambiguous silence.
Pession, who she liked so much, looked at her longingly with hurt eyes, but didn’t ask more.
She never did find out why until the end.
***
She thought to herself as she languished in the exercise purgatory that punishes anyone who doesn’t walk at least two thousand steps a day.
‘That’s strange.’
Surely she started going to collection meetings to escape this hell, so why does she feel like she is digging her own grave?
Last time, and again this time, she was working out in an uncomfortable atmosphere, and she didn’t even get a chance to say a word.
She was the one who was suffering and dying because of it.
‘I’m tired, I’m dying.’
She thought, “I’m going to pass out.” She couldn’t even see it.
“What are you doing, working out?”
An unfamiliar bass voice said.
Hmmm.
Her breath hitched.
She wonders if this is what it feels like to have your hair stand on end. A chill runs down her spine. The nape of her neck prickled.
‘I must have misheard.’
She tried to ignore it.
“What? Aren’t you working out?”
The voice that followed made that impossible.
That’s when she first realized.
When humans are too surprised, they can’t even scream.
‘Ignore it?’
She thought, gritting her teeth and using her brain to pretend it didn’t exist…
“Are you ignoring me?”
Nope. She can’t.
She barely moved her inaudible head. A strange, familiar man loomed over the shrubbery that the gardener had so passionately tended.
‘This is the man from the other day at the Sharit mansion.’
The man looked down at her with a languid smile, as if he had found an interesting toy.
His golden eyes with vertical pupils bored into her like nails.
“Why…”
A muffled voice barely managed to form words.
“Why are you here…”
“Huh?”
The man laughed.
It was the kind of smile that made me want to run away, like a hungry beast, even though it didn’t seem to have any intention of doing anything to her at the moment.
“Of course I came looking for you.”
What’s natural about that?
“How…”
The man shrugged, his gaze landing on the back of her left hand.
“Huh?”
The symbol of a falling star, which had glowed for days and then faded to nothing, was glowing faintly again on the back of her hand.
‘Was that a locator?’
So she can’t run away?
‘I’m stuck.’
She’d been thinking that if she’d been caught, She’d been caught in the wrong place.
Suddenly, suspicion crept in.
“Are you okay?”
This is the Halbern estate.
This man was an intruder, not a legitimate visitor.
Halbern Manor has a labyrinthine garden and 101 security spells to ward off intruders. How is he okay?
“Hmm? Ah. So this is Halbern. You’re Halbern, aren’t you? You’ve become a nuisance. Took me a while to find that pesky blood, somehow.”
The man muttered nonchalantly.
“Don’t be so scared, they don’t eat you.”
“So, you mean, they do eat them?”
“Well.”
The man’s golden eyes deepened.
“What do you think?”
