54. Craziguez

 Daphne frowned and stared at the person who appeared suddenly.

“Romeo, my god. Can you see the goosebumps on my arms?”

“No.”

“Please stop imitating Psyche. Do you think that tone suits your voice?”

It was Romeo Rodriguez who appeared with the twinkling light bulbs behind him.

He seemed to have slipped out during the reception, approaching Daphne while giving off a slight smell of wine.

“Your expression doesn’t look good.”

“I have some things to think about.”

“Hmm.”

Daphne created a walnut with her chin and held her breath, increasingly disgusted by the smell of cigarettes and alcohol coming from Romeo.

“I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“Who was it that lived once more?”

She narrowed her brows and pretended not to hear, turning toward the sea.

“You know the legend that if you die here, you live once more. Don’t you remember?”

“Do you know where this place is when you say that?”

“The sea where you can see all the small islands. The place Aunt Rose talked about.”

She added this as a small uninhabited island with lush green forest came into view.

“You’re talking nonsense.”

Since she had heard the aunt’s oral folklore story when she was with Romeo, he couldn’t not know it. Embarrassed, Daphne needlessly stared intently at the unfamiliar island.

Romeo sat down next to her without further comment. Daphne stopped his hand as he took out a cigarette case.

“Don’t smoke.”

“Why?”

“If you smoke there, the smoke will blow into my face.”

“I suppose so.”

“And sister is in a particularly bad mood today. How about going back to your wife?”

Daphne belatedly looked back at the path where he had appeared, wondering if he might have come together with someone. Not even an ant could be seen.

“Did you leave the child alone?”

“My wife isn’t a child.”

“She looks like a child to me. Will be forever.”

“Ah, did you give birth to my wife?”

It was quite unpleasant to see a blood relative he’d seen enough of snickering right in front of him. Daphne and Romeo were close enough to spit in each other’s smiling faces.

Moreover, Romeo had now escaped the marriage market. Along with Psyche. These two would soon have a child and after that……

‘Ah, what a headache.’

She couldn’t even gauge what kind of crazy nagging would pierce her ears now.

While Daphne was seriously narrowing her brows for a while, Romeo kept his smile hitched up to his ears as if in a good mood.

“Romeo, you’re drunk.”

“Maybe so. It is my wedding after all.”

Daphne finally relaxed her expression and smiled.

“Congratulations on your marriage.”

“……”

“You’ve worked hard until now. You’ll have to work even harder from now on. When you become king, don’t pretend not to know me.”

Her cousin, who was already half out of his mind, had been even more out of it these past few years, pickled in love.

However, the ‘Crown Prince’ who had to act according to his position always maintained proper form and etiquette. He was in a position where he absolutely had to hide his irritable heart and various thoughts behind a noble mask.

Even in front of the woman he loved.

‘Nicely put, it’s maintaining proper form, but badly put, it’s just putting on airs.’

So Psyche would have been the only one who could often see him this relaxed.

Daphne didn’t entirely hate seeing him properly relaxed and snickering in front of her.

“Why are you so relaxed today? Did you find some new source of confidence?”

At Daphne’s casual question, Romeo stared at her intently.

“What are you looking at?”

Romeo, who had paused briefly, laughed with a deflating sound. His golden eyes wandered toward the sea for a moment.

“Are you copying my brother?”

Romeo tilted his head. His gaze returned to Daphne.

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes you and my brother show similar behaviors. Like speaking.”

“Oh~ we’re super close. We sleep together every day.”

This time, a suspicious look came back.

“Watch your eyes.”

“Oh, looks like our dear sister is really having a romance.”

Daphne quietly raised her middle finger.

“Someone who knows that prevented us from entering together?”

“It was outside my authority. Is that why you’re protesting here like this? It’s unlike you.”

Romeo’s guesses were all wrong, but he had certainly quickly caught her unsettled mood.

“This wedding actually……”

“Actually?”

‘The thought that it could have been Celestian’s wedding is terrifying.’

Daphne deliberately cleared her throat, finding the thought that just occurred to her too wretched. She shook her head and gave a different answer.

“I’m sad thinking about who will play with me now. Would you understand the heart of a woman who lost her best friend?”

“Ah, right.”

Daphne brightened up as Romeo raised his upper body as if about to leave.

“You were a woman too.”

But he was just shifting to sit more comfortably.

“Do you want to be drowned on this good day……”

Daphne gave up trying to push away the childish Romeo and crossed her legs to sit. Romeo clicked his silver case a few times before placing it on the chair.

“Did you say congratulations?”

“I did earlier.”

“Didn’t hear it.”

Daphne sighed but still smiled.

“Are you perhaps speaking of contract termination? I gave many congratulations. I even bought myself a gift. I hope His Highness the Crown Prince will keep all his promises to me.”

Her bizarre contract with Romeo ended today.

But this contract’s purpose was ‘to keep at least Daphne and Celestian alive.’ She thought it seemed unnecessary to bind such a thing with a contract in the first place.

“Hmm, my sister said promises are meant to be broken.”

Romeo added playfully. Daphne looked at him with eyes full of indescribable curses.

He smiled with the corner of his mouth raised, seemingly getting the reaction he wanted.

Daphne didn’t react further and fell back into thought.

It was because she remembered Celestian trying to put his hands on her neck in that narrow corridor. He might have been trying to strangle her in anger.

‘Well, without Psyche, we couldn’t have come this far.’

If it wasn’t the angry ‘Romeo,’ ‘Celestian’ might have fed her to the crocodiles.

Daphne closed her eyes briefly, clasping her hands tightly together as if sending infinite thanks to Psyche who had come this far with her.

“Crocodile.”

“What?”

Daphne visibly flinched. Romeo pointed below the railing with his chin without answering.

Several creatures with bumpy backs were swimming leisurely beside the anchored ship’s hull, neither on land nor in shallow water.

“Aren’t those dolphins?”

“Don’t you want to go down and see for yourself? You liked reptiles.”

“I only like snakes. I’ve never seen a crocodile and they’re scary.”

“So you do have things you’re afraid of.”

“Why wouldn’t I? Your face would be scary at night too. Psyche is the surprising one. She’s unexpectedly brave, you know?”

Daphne snickered and shook her head.

‘Oh.’

Romeo’s expression returned to normal. That face that smiled with a deep dimple in one cheek, impossible to read what’s inside his head.

Daphne hesitantly backed away a little to the side, feeling needlessly creepy. However, Romeo just remained still like a smiling doll.

‘Am I being paranoid?’

Thanks to this, Daphne could once again think about where Celestian might be and what he might be doing now.

‘Could he be locked up in some underground prison?’

Though she had looked at the ship’s blueprints several times, such a place didn’t even exist.

However, the guy sitting next to Daphne now was an extraordinary person who always broke expectations, and a crazy one at that.

He was even an idiot who had to have things when they interested him and throw them away when they became boring.

‘Though I’m similar.’

Daphne scratched her cheek, suddenly feeling that cursing Romeo was similar to spitting on her own face. When she suddenly looked to the side, he was staring intently at her.

“What now.”

“I thought for a moment, Daphne.”

There was little inflection felt in his voice. Daphne’s spine tingled.

“We need to stop thinking a bit.”

“Is there any need when the contract is over?”

Romeo was narrowing his eyes thinly while rubbing his thumb across his lips. Daphne deliberately didn’t ask ‘About what?’

“About you, who saved a man who is my wife’s archenemy and a traitor?”

Because he would surely tell her personally like this.

Daphne jumped up from her seat with a bright smile.

This area was dangerous because it was deserted. His level of joking had long crossed the line, and while she had been safe being bound by contract for 2 years, that wasn’t the case now.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince, enjoy your honeymoon.”

She pretended to curtsy by slightly lifting both sides of her dress. Though internally, she was imagining spitting in his face more than a thousand times.

“Daphne Beaucater.”

Daphne’s thin wrist was caught by a cold, large hand. And in one breath, she was turned forward as if being arrested. Romeo briefly examined the bruises on her wrist and shoulder before smirking.

Her vision swayed this way and that under Romeo’s strong force.

“Romeo!”

When she came to her senses, Daphne’s lower back was against the railing, her upper body pushed outward.

Her hair blazed bright red, exposed directly to the sunset light. Romeo just smiled, his golden eyes twinkling.

“Aren’t you curious why there are crocodiles here?”