The tedious explanation continued. How to divide the assets, how much compensation, how to announce it to the press given their public status, and the responsibility if any defamation occurs….. 

 After a long discussion, the lawyer put down the thick stack of documents and stood up. 

 “Everything we just discussed is in here. Though I explained it grandly, your secretary probably knows most of this content. Please review it, and feel free to contact me if there’s anything you don’t understand.” 

 “Thank you.” 

 The lawyer bowed politely and disappeared. While the sound of measured footsteps faded away, Izer sat motionless, staring at the mountain of papers. 

 “……” 

 His right arm, moving unconsciously, stopped abruptly. The splint seemed slightly tilted. It would be better to wait quietly for Doctor Owen rather than clumsily touching it himself. It was almost time for his examination anyway. 

 Knock knock. 

 “Duke.” 

 “Tell them to come in.” 

 This one would never be a gentleman. He was getting up to greet someone who wasn’t quite welcome but not quite an enemy either, someone he should start with either a quarrel or nagging. The visitor was quiet. 

 Izer’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked up. 

 “An unexpected guest.” 

 “What is that?” 

 No matter how good Celian’s eyesight was, she couldn’t make out the word ‘divorce’ from this distance. Izer easily understood what she was referring to. 

 It was too late to hide it. He silently pointed to his right arm. Below the elbow, wrapped thickly in bandages, his protruding fingers were blackened and dead. 

 “As you can see, I’ve become a cripple again.” 

 There had been a rockslide on the ground weakened by heavy rain. The boulder that crushed the carriage roof had struck the passenger’s arm. His entire body was torn and bruised from smaller rocks, but fortunately, except for his right arm, his bones were intact. 

 For an ordinary person, it would have been an injury that could heal with time, but this didn’t apply to Izer.

Izer continued speaking impassively.

“Doctor Caleb came when he heard about the accident. He said recovery won’t be easy this time. He scolded me, asking how could I ruin it again after all the trouble he went through to save it.” 

 When he woke up after surgery and saw the bandages soaked with blood, he thought he was being punished. Punished for coveting an unsuitable woman, for clipping her wings and caging her. 

 “An incurable disability is grounds for divorce. My pride is still intact enough that I wanted to make the first move before you divorced me.” 

 He must have been right about being punished. She barged in without giving him time to prepare mentally or practice. Izer reached out with his free left arm toward the stack of papers on the low table. He hoped she wouldn’t notice his trembling fingertips. 

 “Good timing, read these while you’re here. As the Marquis of Berienne, you should be capable of finding your own lawyer.” 

 “You bastard.” 

 “The compensation……. What?” 

 Izer’s brow furrowed as he tried to speak composedly. Pain shot through his right arm that had unconsciously pressed against the desk. Seeing his expression, Celian burst into tears. 

 “Who said you could break up? First you marry as you please, and now you want to divorce as you please too?” 

 “Rian?” 

 His mind started calculating. Since Celian was kind, she must be pitying his current state…… Understood. This woman was feeling sorry for him right now. Though he was grateful, he couldn’t just happily accept it when he had finally made up his mind to let her go….. 

 “Shut up. I’m not finished. You want to break up after completely destroying your arm when I’d barely trust you to live well? You bastard, you’re the worst in the world……” 

 Now Celian sat down hard on the floor and began wailing. The open door closed. Thanks to the secretary’s quick thinking, deciding it wouldn’t do any good for anyone to see the Marquis crying so unsightly. 

 Her scream echoed through the spacious study. 

 “I heard you tried to kill yourself!” 

 Owen had told her about the scene with a calm face.

‘He was unconscious with his head submerged in water. Even after pulling him out, he was bedridden for two days straight because of the sleeping pills.’ 

 ‘That crazy……” 

 ‘It’s fortunate that you’re aware your husband is crazy. Anyway, I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise to you.’ 

 ‘Did the doctor agree too?’ 

 ‘Of course. But more than that…… I thought you might kill me if your husband died. Seeing your reaction now, I think that intuition was correct.’ 

 She was dumbfounded. Her fists pounded against Izer’s chest repeatedly. 

 “I heard you tried to die after leaving Beth checks for living expenses that would last years because you didn’t know how long it would take for the will to be executed. You still thought about Beth even then? You really……” 

 A thousand pounds—too much for pocket money for a teenager, but too little to leave as Chesterfield’s inheritance. 

 She had seen a similar case before. A friend who had been delighted about suddenly receiving a large allowance from her uncle appeared in mourning clothes a few days later. 

 At the funeral, Celian remembered Doctor Caleb’s bitter face, who had reportedly pronounced death at the time. And beside him, a young Owen who couldn’t hide his boredom. 

 If Owen hadn’t attended that funeral, if he hadn’t known what a noble’s sudden gift of money meant, Izer would have…… Celian hiccupped. 

 “Who said you could die…… Did you think that would make me happy? You should be grateful I’m not slapping you—do you still not know me at all?” 

 Not knowing the other person went both ways for Celian and him. 

 She still couldn’t understand why it had to be her, why he couldn’t break free from her. 

 Celian stared at him with tearful, pitiful eyes while sobbing loudly. 

 That puppy-like expression floating above his helpless demeanor must have been the result of intense thinking. He now knew too well that she wasn’t good or naive enough to reject his “love” that came seeking her on its own right after he had decided to let her go. 

 An endlessly selfish and wicked man. Celian sobbed. 

 “Owen spilled everything!” 

 “……” 

 Izer’s brow furrowed slightly as he diligently wiped her tears with a handkerchief. It was such a subtle movement that Celian’s blurry eyes couldn’t catch it. 

 “You need to apologize to Owen. Owen……” 

 His lips finally lost patience and twisted. A doctor ignoring his patient to flirt with a married woman? From what he heard, it seemed they had quite a long conversation. 

 “Loose-lipped bastard.” 

 “Shut up, I heard it from Beth……” 

 A mistake. Izer quickly corrected himself. 

 “Children can have loose lips.” 

 “You’re a bastard, you wicked man who only learned bad things, you crazy bastard who can’t think normally……” 

 He must really be crazy. His lips were curling up even while hearing what were clearly insults. 

 The young lady in her mud-splattered dress, a mess of tears and snot on the carpet, looked more beautiful than ever, and he wanted to kiss his crushed arm that had caused this situation—he must be crazy. 

 Above all, he became crazy the moment Celian called him crazy. 

 The crazy man pressed the handkerchief against her cheeks to wipe away her tears and casually asked,

 “Then, shall we burn all those documents?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “Should we cancel the contract with the lawyer too? We might have to pay a penalty fee.” 

 “Cancel it.” 

 “……Then, should we sell that house again?” 

 “No.” 

 Not working. As Izer got up with a sour expression, his clothes were grabbed. Celian was glaring at him. 

 “I’ll use it as a place to go whenever we fight. Call your secretary and put it in my name. So you can’t talk about selling it carelessly.” 

 “If that’s the purpose, then we should definitely sell……” 

 “Shut up and transfer it.” 

 “Yes, Rian.” 

 He was too strange for someone as beautiful as her to understand. Nevertheless, Celian returned to him at the final moment. She ran to him like a reward for his resolve to let her go. 

 He felt like he might get drunk on overwhelming happiness. Izer held out his arms to his wife. Celian, who was getting up with her hand on his arm while sniffling, turned her face to the side. 

 He didn’t like that she was avoiding his gaze. Izer pulled his wife’s face, which was looking at the window, and kissed her. 

 Celian struggled. The shower of kisses left her breathless. No, perhaps she was struggling to breathe because of the emotions she had been afraid to face and had put off. 

 She pushed away his frantic kissing and met his eyes. His red eyes were completely filled with her. 

 A brief resentment appeared on his face. 

 “Why are you pushing me away?” 

 That small hatred pleased her so much that she pulled him back. As if he had been waiting, red love pushed through between her parted lips. 

 Celian clung to his neck. 

 The reason God endured his believers’ resentment was not out of generosity. He chose to save the arrogant creation that cursed him rather than feed them to the wolves, not out of mere leniency.

It was only natural for the Absolute Being whose duty was to ‘love’ all creation. 

 The strange laughter escaping between her parted lips was suddenly swallowed by her partner. 

 Celian would not be able to understand Izer for quite a long time, or perhaps for her entire life. Izer didn’t want Celian to understand him either. He was content just having her by his side and having her eyes on him alone. Because that was his love. 

 Izer would never be an easy lover for Celian. His blind affection came with pathological obsession, and jealousy knew no bounds of time, place, or target. His love, so desperate that even a child of his own blood would not be spared from keeping him apart from their mother, stands on the very opposite side of beauty.

 But even that aspect was part of the man she loved. 

 Tears came with the rushing pleasure. The man, feeling her wet cheeks, was startled and hastily pulled away. 

 “Why, why are you crying again……” 

 “I love you, Izer Chesterfield.” 

 “……!” 

 “I’m sorry I told you so late.” 

 It was too late a response to the sincerity he had expressed hundreds of times. It was too small an answer as well. 

 But that was okay. There would be many chances to tell him in the future. She wanted to say let’s put all the difficult past behind us and walk toward the future together…… but his confessions came rushing in without pause. 

 “I love you, I love you, Rian, I love you……” 

 The man she loved was quite unfair. To warn her this way that she could never win against him in terms of quantity of love. 

 A childish bet of who loved whom more began. 

 Marsha, passing under their room with a laundry basket, stretched her back. 

 There was a rainbow in the sky. 

 〈The End of The House of the Man Who Hates Me〉