Chapter 27

The Prince put force into every phrase, every word. The more he did, the paler Hazel’s face became.

The Prince’s thick palm covered the hand resting on the table. Hazel’s gaze could not leave the hotel key.

“I’m sorry for being so sudden. But I heard your surroundings are overflowing with suitors.”

“……”

His insinuating tone wrapped itself around Hazel.

“In truth, I also owe you an apology.”

“……”

“The Captain was a capable soldier. A hero.”

What?

Hazel’s lips parted. She had been about to tell him to get lost that instant. Her alcohol-clouded mind whispered that she could.

“Get out……”

But just as she was about to say it, another voice whispered. It was Mr. Bennett’s voice.

‘No, you mustn’t, Ag.’

Her father’s voice calmed Hazel. Hazel steadied her breath. If she behaved here in a way that disrespected the royal family, her family in Sainsbury and Marquis Fitzroy would be put in danger. That kind of ending absolutely must not happen.

Hazel held tightly to her consciousness, which felt as if it might collapse at any moment. But it was not easy. Her judgment, blurred by alcohol, kept urging her to tell the Prince to get lo…… no, to reconsider.

‘Think, Hazel. Think carefully.’

Her vision kept darkening and brightening again. It felt as though she were fainting and waking up every few seconds.

If she said something wrong in this state, then it would truly be beyond repair.

Hazel screamed inwardly.

‘Think, quickly!’

At that moment, cutting through the faces of family circling in her mind, someone’s figure suddenly rose before her. Nor was it only something happening in her head.

A man appeared among the frozen people. The way he looked around as though urgently searching for someone was busier than suited him.

As ripples spread around a stone cast onto the surface of water, only around the newly appeared man was the silence broken.

Following the man’s steps, a path opened from the entrance to the stage, between the low sofas and the glass tables wet with spilled liquor. It was as if, while time had stopped, only he alone moved, waking people one by one.

The Prince muttered,

“A friend I’m rather fond of. He looks like he could be an actor.”

“……”

If his first appearance had brought to mind a stone dropped into water, then now he resembled a huge wave rolling toward a beach. Not especially hurried, not impatient, and yet in the end certain to crash over the sand.

The man stopped exactly between Hazel and Edward.

“Hazel.”

Hazel looked up at Kyle with blurred eyes.

In the dim lighting, the man shone alone. His pale face, the platinum-blond hair Hazel had once longed for, and the sea-green eyes giving off dazzling light, all of it did.

Edward acknowledged Kyle.

“Strauss, fancy seeing you here. Is it natural to see a Strauss at ‘Strauss’? Hahaha!”

“……”

Hazel did not know what Kyle answered. At most, it must have been something like, Good evening, Your Highness. Although the Prince briefly wore an irritated expression, it could only have been over something very minor. Kyle Strauss was absolutely not the sort of man to behave in a way that would make an enemy of the royal family.

A man like that, and yet, why.

“Good evening, Your Highness. It seems you’re having a pleasant time.”

Hazel knew this tone of Kyle’s. She had heard it many times back in Sainsbury.

That insolent way of speaking usually appeared around Christmas or Hazel’s birthday. Had he not scolded her, when she showed up carrying a heavy bag stuffed with foreign souvenirs, hand-carved wooden figures, and thick novels, for bringing back such things and calling them gifts, and told her she needed to develop better judgment?

“You seem to have had quite a lot to drink.”

Kyle’s gaze moved, sweeping in turn over the disorderly glasses scattered across the table, and the arm bracing her upper body as though it refused to let her fall. The final stop of his gaze was the key the Prince had set down boldly, as if he had no intention of hiding it.

Under that gaze, narrowed as though looking at something thoroughly filthy, Hazel bit her lips hard to keep from crying.

Then the Prince’s voice came.

“We were on a date. Strauss, what brings you here?”

“Ah, me?”

Kyle never revealed with his own mouth why he had come. He meant for her to decide. He had laid the board, but he was leaving the final decision to Hazel.

Hazel’s chair slid back softly. A trace of a smile flickered across the face she lifted with powerless gray eyes.

“……”

Kyle merely stared fixedly at the sight of her rising unsteadily. Even that was so thoroughly Kyle Strauss-like that she felt she might cry.

I hate you, terribly.

I despise you, enough to make my teeth tremble.

I am sick of you. I cannot bear even the sight of you. I wish you would never enter my life again.

And yet, you know, I suppose I was too naive.

Hazel lowered her head.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

“Hazel?”

Just as there is a basement beneath the floor and hell beneath that.

What one thinks is the worst is in fact only the second worst.

To think there could be an even deeper abyss beneath it.

Hazel smiled faintly and tugged at the man’s collar. She lightly ignored the brief surprise in his eyes at the woman pulling him toward her so directly.

“The truth is, I am seeing Mr. Strauss.”

Hazel closed her eyes. Was that the signal. Kyle let out a short breath that could have been buried beneath the music, then lifted Hazel’s chin with one hand. His other arm circled her waist.

Their lips met. Hazel clenched his soft hair and eagerly parted her lips. She tilted her head so Kyle could kiss her more deeply.

With her head slanted, the upper lip overlapping hers was drawn in. Before she even had time to tremble at the unfamiliar sensation, his soft tongue slipped between her front teeth and entered. When Hazel scraped his tongue with her teeth, Kyle bit it in return as if for revenge and pulled it strongly into his own mouth.

Heat wrapped around her body. Drunk on the atmosphere, she followed him and brushed against Kyle’s front teeth. Kyle laughed low in his throat, then, as though returning the favor, swept deeply across the roof of Hazel’s mouth.

A sound escaped from the back of her throat.

“Hng……”

Her pelvis brushed against his thigh. At that secret friction, Hazel drew in a breath.

She was suffocating. She wanted to retreat. The kiss, and the inexplicable aching heat, were both firsts. It must be because I’m drunk, Hazel thought in her dazed state and opened her mouth further.

As though she did not care if she were swallowed whole.

The tongue that had charged in as if to s*ck the very depth of her throat dry was now content merely to toy with hers. It swept the tender flesh inside her cheek, savored the even line of her teeth, and with its subtle, caressing movements Hazel too felt a yearning whose cause she could not know.

Strength entered Hazel’s arms, which had been draped awkwardly around Kyle’s back. It was an unconscious movement, wanting to be closer to him. She did not even realize that her br*asts were being pressed flat against Kyle’s chest.

Now she was panting. She wanted him to fill the breath she lacked. She forgot that people were watching, and only wanted to lean on him and forget every worry.

It is because I’m drunk, Hazel repeated to herself once again. The reason I feel that I want to be closer to this man is because I drank too much.

Then the force that had been tightening around her ribcage loosened.

Hazel opened her eyes slightly. Kyle gently, so very gently, set Hazel—who had been nearly completely leaning into him—back upright in her place.

Even their joined lips parted slowly. Hazel looked at the man with tear-bright eyes.

Only then did her mind return.

“……”

Her first kiss did not ring bells like in novels, nor did fireworks burst in showers. Flashing lights tormented her eyelids, while the lounge music and the Prince’s shouting battered Hazel’s ears.

In the middle of that complete mess, she closed her eyes again and pulled Kyle toward her. At the same time she felt the still-awkward hand cradling the back of her head and the heat covering her lips again. The musky scent she had thought came from the man’s clothes was on his neck, on his jaw, on his lips, everywhere.

Would smoke rise where his hot lips and her tears heavy with alcohol met. 

I wish everything would simply burn away and I could wake from this dream.

Under that futile thought, Hazel greeted the reality before her eyes.

Hello, my unhappiness.

My ruined first love.