He was gawking at me with a flabbergasted expression on his face.
Ah, it’s too hard for him to understand. This guy.
“What kind of crazy talk are you saying?”
Oh, come on.
This kind of development wasn’t crazy at all. Just look at how we look right now.
“Are you telling me to believe that?”
No, but please believe me. I shouted my prayers internally with sincerity as I spoke.
“If I don’t love you, why do you think I’m doing all these crazy things?”
“Why me?”
“…”
This time, I was the one who’s speechless. I mean, how exactly did people answer that kind of question?
“That… I’m…”
Well, uh, he was looking at me too expectantly.
“You’re my husband and…”
“That’s the reason you love me?”
“…It just happened, Amoide.”
I know it’s like I’m reciting lines like a third-rate actress right now, but let’s not focus on that for now.
Wasn’t life one whole play without a script on the stage anyway?
“How can love be predicted? It’s just that love had sprung from me, and that love was for you.”
’Bleurgh.’
I felt like I could throw up my own heart at this rate.
“Since when?”
“Since the first—”
“If you say it was at first sight, I’ll twist your neck.”
“…”
Oh, my dear husband. How brutal of you.
I can’t believe you just said something as gruesome as that when we’re talking about something as soft as love.
…I really was going to say that though. Love at first sight.
It was the same day we had our first official night together, the moment you looked up from the bed and stared at me, I fell in love, but all this time I’ve been shy to tell you about it.
I was going to say that, yet Amoide had intercepted me, so I was left speechless.
“That, well, you…”
My brain was hard at work again, but I knew that his patience was running thin.
‘Ahhh, think faster, please.’
Was there any good excuse out there? I wracked my brains to death.
Since when? I don’t knooow.
What would be the most convincing date for this? I thought hard.
Then, from the sky, a rope—no, a snake—fell down.
“…From when you caught the snake.”
The snake! Why didn’t I think of that first?!
“The snake?”
“Yeah, um, the green snake from the garden.”
The timing for it was perfect. When people face a crisis, they tend to develop more intimate feelings for the other person they experience it with.
“You fell in love because I caught a snake?”
Well, I guess.
I almost answered that way.
“That’s what love is all about, Amoide.”
Since I already have my momentum going, I decided to wrap it up as neatly as I could.
“Suddenly. Like an accident.”
“…”
Amoide’s expression was quite the sight to see while I was reciting those lines.
“I’ve felt it ever since you caught that snake for me…”
I grabbed his hand from the wall gently.
“…My true love for you only grew from then on.”
The hand that was on the wall shifted with a slight rustle and fell down.
Is it working?
I looked at Amoide’s drooping hand and looked into his eyes.
“…”
What else should I say?
The emotions that flickered through his eyes couldn’t be defined by just one word.
Shock, relief, delight, contempt. It seemed impossible for these emotions to exist simultaneously, but they were all in his eyes right now.
“Amoide?”
I called his name carefully, but there was no response.
Reflected against his unfocused eyes was my own face.
“Um, Amoide.”
I called his name once more.
“Are you alright?”
Then, a flash of recognition finally returned to Amoide’s disoriented eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
I asked carefully again, but there was still no answer.
Instead…
“Get out.”
“Huh?”
“Get out.”
I was expecting the usual iciness behind his voice, but right now… it was the voice of a person who’s lost his senses.
Did you lose your mind just by one confession?
Hwick—
He pulled my body off the wall.
“Stop. Just go.”
From his voice was an excruciatingly obvious hint of painful embarrassment.
‘Why are you doing this?’
Now I wanted to ask what he kept asking me.
“Oh… Okay. I’ll go, so… Yeah, I’ll go.”
I scuttled out of the room, clutching the books that I hurriedly picked up from the floor.
* * *
“Did His Grace help you?” Rona asked as I came back with the heavy books in my arms.
“I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Huh?”
I placed the books down on the table without saying a word.
“If anyone asks, my name’s not Seleana. It’s Bellena. Or Vellena.”
Rona gave me a curious look as I shook my head from side to side.
Everything I said came crashing down at me.
“Milady, your face is red. Are you feeling hot?”
“No.”
My answer was clipped. I’ve already run out of words.
Somehow, my face was burning up only now. My body was reacting late.
‘Crazy. Crazyyy.’
The more I thought about it, the more it made me realize how mortifying it all was.
[ Because I love you. ]
How could I say that like it was nothing. Huh? Gosh! Crazy, crazyyyyy.
I know it was a crisis, but why that!!
“Argh! Ack!”
I bumped my head on the table while clutching my hair.
Confession, confession!
Regret belatedly swung like a bat over the back of my head.
“M-Milady what’s wrong?!”
Rona quickly put her hand under my head to prevent it from banging on the hard table once more.
“Please stop!”
“Haaaaaaa.”
I raised my face and sighed deeply.
“Rona. Go find a dictionary at the library.”
“A dictionary?”
“Yes. The Ludes dictionary.”
“Y-Yes, alright. Please don’t bang your head, okay?”
“Sure.”
After a while, there was now a book three times the size of the cookbook next to it.
“Will you really read all by yourself, Milady?”
“Yep.”
“It’s going to take a long time.”
“That’s better.”
It would take longer because it’s complicated, troublesome work—harder even than trying to decipher the accounting books. I’m doing that now.
I poured my heart into reading the cookbook, searching for each word in the Ludes dictionary one by one.
As I confronted more unfamiliar words, grammar patterns and homonyms, I felt impatient and frustrated at times, but I was grateful for it all.
[ Because I love you. ]
…If only I could get rid of the words that played like a loop in my head.
Now, I just needed something else to occupy my mind. I could even interpret ancient texts. As much as I want.
“Um… Milady…”
“Huh?”
“Emma’s here…”
“Really? Let her in.”
What’s she doing here?
In Emma’s hands was a thin book.
It seemed to be the cooking book that I left earlier.
“You left this behind.”
“Oh, thanks.”
I hurriedly took the book from her.
“It seems… you’ve been studying.”
Emma looked pointedly at the pen in my hand.
“Huh? Ah, yeah.”
Why was Emma interested in what I was doing? She was looking at me with a contemplative look on her face, but she soon bowed and turned away.
“What’s wrong with Emma?” Rona asked inquisitively.
“Well…”
I was confused as well, but I couldn’t think about it deeply because my head was still swirling with many other things.
“I’m not sure.”
I put it all on the back of my mind and charged forward with all my might in my endeavor to translate cookbooks.
* * *
A few days had passed since that absurd confession.
The day after the confession, I was still plagued with thoughts about it, but as more days passed, I felt less mortified.
And soon, I felt nothing anymore.
I’d finally put it behind me. As expected, humans were creatures of resiliency.
I thought I’d feel terribly awkward or embarrassed when I saw him again.
But nope, I was brazen once more.
“Amoide, isn’t it a lovely day today?”
I picked up a flower and inhaled deeply to appreciate its scent.
“Do you want to smell it?”
On the other hand, he was very contemplative.
Was the confession still on his mind?
It was a bit difficult to ask that, but anyway, let’s just forget about it. It should be a tacit agreement since neither of us said anything about that day.
This was a really good thing for me.
However, of course there was still a subtle awkwardness that couldn’t be completely erased.
Was there a better way to act more naturally? I inadvertently lowered my gaze and looked down at the hands that were still bandaged.
‘Hmm.’
Maybe I could take them off soon.
‘I’ll stop tricking you with it now.’
I couldn’t continue doing it anymore because of the guilt I was feeling every time he looked at my hand as though he was someone who had sinned greatly.
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