Chapter 1

Yellow mood lighting lit the room where the bathroom light had been switched off. It was a relief that at least the lighting cast a gentle glow. The tense breath spilling from the small head beneath his chin tickled the open space of his chest.

“I know this marriage is not one you welcome. But I also know that you are sensible and clever enough to understand what marriage is.”

Kyle reached out very slowly. The chin she had turned aside was caught in his hand with absurd ease. Even the gray eyes that had been trying to avoid him were forced to face him, filled with sharp light.

Time moves only forward. In that sense, Kyle resembled time. The past, which could not be revisited, was useless, and he was a man whose path had been decided regardless of his own will.

He had not been that way from the beginning. He had merely, like so many in this city, grown accustomed to being helplessly swept away by the wave called time.

He had never thought that was wrong. If charging forward while looking only ahead was a sin, then half the upper class of Holdland would already have fallen into h*ll.

Therefore, he was not ashamed of himself. It was the same even today, the first day of his marriage.

Her head lowered again.

“Mm……”

The head buried in her full br*asts moved up and down. The organ that had slipped out from beneath the robe was pressed against her s*x. As Kyle took a n*pple into his mouth and rubbed against her with a quiet, piston-like rhythm, the friction between their lower bodies gradually turned slicker.

Kyle’s lips twisted. Hazel was more cooperative than he had expected. Rather, the one who was not cooperative was Kyle’s own desire.

The one who wanted to skip over the middle steps, things like caresses, was not Hazel, but him.

To drive his own desire into the untouched place below, to make the woman cry out and then bend her over, and pound into her until his l*st was satisfied.

He had not known he was capable of feeling this way. He had been the sort who let his friends’ talk of going to meet women go in one ear and out the other, making a show of trying to understand. So it surprised him. That a day would come when he would welcome l*st so gladly, that he too was the same kind of creature as other men.

Kyle let out a short laugh and asked,

“How is it, do you think you can manage it?”

“Just…… do it. You’re going to do it anyway. If you’re going to do it, then why……”

The amusement vanished from Kyle’s face. The way she said it, drained of all strength, scratched strangely at his nerves.

“…….”

Red blossoms bloomed all over the slack, n*ked body. Not only were her n*pples swollen from being sucked so much, but even the cl*toris hidden in her pubic hair was puffed up.

And yet the words that came from such a heat-stirring body were cold. Was that why I wanted to have you.

Kyle parted his lips.

“Yes. I’m going to do it. Since I’m going to do it anyway.”

Thud. Hazel opened her eyes at the sound of the robe falling. Before her hazy gaze, a vein-marked p*nis was thrust toward her.

Startled, Hazel’s lips parted. When she lifted her eyes, Kyle’s face was hard to make out, hidden in shadow.

“What are you doing now……”

“Since I’m going to do it anyway, I thought I’d do it completely my way.”

“…….”

“Suck it. Your husband’s c*ck.”

“…….”

When her mind cleared, she could see Kyle’s expression a little better. His face was cold to the point of indifference, yet his eyes alone glistened, full of desire in proportion to the state of his arousal.

She slowly wrapped one hand around his p*nis. The moment her hand touched it, it seemed to grow even heavier in her grasp.

“I hate you, Kyle Strauss.”

If she had meant to express her opinion, then she had succeeded. But if she had meant to wound him, she had failed.

Kyle cupped the back of Hazel’s head and answered,

“Looks like we found something in common. I hate ‘Strauss’ too.”

That was the end of unnecessary conversation. Before she could say anything more, Kyle tightened his grip and blocked his wife’s mouth with his c*ck.

* * *

Hazel Bennett’s cursed…… no, her misfortune fell from a tree with a thud.

She was ten at the time. As girls that age often did, she was holding a small tea party beneath a tree with her friends. Instead of the black tea adults drank, they had milk, and instead of porcelain teacups supposedly made a hundred years ago, they had chipped cups bought in a bundle from the neighborhood shop.

Among her friends, there was only one noble girl. That girl, the daughter of an Earl’s family, was named Alice Nett. Alice, who got along easily with her commoner friends, did not fuss over strict etiquette, and so their tea party proceeded in a rather odd fashion.

For example.

“Miss Bennett, aren’t you steeping the tea for far too long?”

“That is how we do it in our territory, Miss Nett.”

In truth, the Bennett family had no territory at all, let alone an estate, and was only a tiny household with a few tenant farmers under them. And the “tea” they spoke of was no more than leaves floating uselessly in water. They would exchange conversation with great pretended dignity like that, and then the moment their eyes met, they would burst into giggles without needing to say who started first.

Hazel picked an oak leaf out of the milk. It had fallen too early because the wind had hit it wrong, even though it was still young.

“Alice, there’ll be boys too when we go to school, right?”

“Just thinking about it annoys me. Does it make any sense that we have to spend half the day with monkeys whose daily routine is pulling hair and teasing people?”

“-Even monkeys have eyes, Nett.”

The voice came from above their heads. The two girls sitting in the tree’s shade lifted their faces. A boy who had been sitting in the big tree with a book in hand leaped lightly down.

Hazel had never seen him before. As she could not take her eyes off the unfamiliar platinum hair, Alice introduced the boy, frowning deeply as though the two of them were on especially bad terms.

“Hazel, this is Kyle Strauss. He moved into Woodenbury Manor, across the stream, last month. Strauss, this is Hazel Bennett. She’s my very best friend, so don’t even think about messing with her.”

“……Hello.”

Hazel gave her greeting in a tiny, shrinking voice.

And no wonder. The platinum-haired boy was even taller than Hazel’s older brother. He looked at least five years older than them, so it was astonishing that Alice spoke to him so casually.

But Alice looked utterly dumbfounded.

“Hazel, I know why you’re looking at him like that, but Strauss is only twelve. He’s even younger than Brother Colin. There’s no need for you to tremble like some little lamb.”

“Nett, isn’t it a bit much to tell people my age without permission?”

“I don’t talk to monkeys.”

“Hey!”

Whether the two of them bickered or not, Hazel was far too busy trying to read the mood of the boy she had never seen before.

Anyone living in this town knew Woodenbury Manor. Shortly after Hazel had been born, the noble family who had originally lived there moved away, and it had stood empty ever since. Secretly envious of the great mansion, Hazel had run to her brother Colin, who was seven years older than her, when she was five and asked,

“If no one lives there anyway, can’t we just go live there?”

“Hazel, we don’t have enough money to buy that house.”

“But it’s such a waste. It’s strange for no one to live in a perfectly good house.”

“That’s how money works. You’ll understand when you’re a little older.”

Though the present Hazel was still younger than Colin had been then, she had at least realized that no ordinary rich person could live in Woodenbury Manor. Which meant that the boy standing before her was rich.

Hazel lowered her gaze and looked over the clothes she was wearing. The hem of her navy short-sleeved dress was torn about an inch. The last time it had torn, her mother had scolded her, and now it seemed it had snagged somewhere and torn again.

In contrast, the two people before her were both shining.

Today Alice had her bright yellow-blonde hair braided into two plaits with green ribbons tied on them. Her pure white dress had not so much as a tear in it, let alone a patch. Her brown patent shoes gleamed, shoes so fine Hazel doubted one should even run across grass in them. Hazel’s mother would have said shoes like those should only ever be worn to church.

The tall boy’s clothes were no less neat, though he looked down at Alice lazily no matter how much she snapped at him. Even if his shirt had wrinkled a little from lying in the tree, it still held a faint sheen, and the crease of his trousers was sharp and straight.

Alice, who had been bickering, suddenly turned toward Hazel.

“Sorry, Hazel. I shouldn’t have wasted time entertaining an ugly monkey. Let’s go somewhere else.”

Alice kept calling the boy ugly. Hazel began to suspect Alice’s standards of beauty were very different from her own.

Though he was tall, he was still a child too, and every time Alice called him ugly, the faintest crease formed between his brows. The way he kept glancing at Hazel somehow made it seem as though he wanted her to take his side.

The truth slipped out of her before she could stop it.

“……He’s not that ugly.”

“Hm? I didn’t hear you.”

Even the courage she had managed to gather was wasted, because Alice had not heard her. Hazel muttered in a deflated voice.

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re no fun. Come on, Hazel.”

Following after Alice, who beckoned to her, Hazel lightly brushed against the boy’s arm. She had not meant to hit him, and she was just hurrying to open her mouth and apologize.

Eyes the color of bluish green, carrying a trace of laughter, turned toward her. Hazel could not bring herself to say anything and left.

Yet the shape of the boy’s mouth that day stayed with her for years like an afterimage, tormenting her thoughts.

Thank you.

You’re pretty too.