142. The Calm Before the Storm
“When you insisted on divorce even after hearing my confession, for a moment I wondered, did I do something wrong? Did you grow tired of me because of that?”
“That’s impossible. You did nothing wrong.”
Nikolai murmured with tear-filled eyes.
It pained him that he had made his wife think such thoughts.
“If it were possible to grow tired of you, it would have been easier to let you go. But I couldn’t do that. Because there wasn’t a single moment I didn’t love you.”
He cupped Katya’s face with both hands and gently wiped her wet cheeks with his thumbs as he spoke.
“I know. That you’re someone who doesn’t change.”
“People do change. Just as I who was so weak became this strong. I did, and I will continue to. But even then, my feelings for you will never change.”
“No. You were always strong.”
“……What?”
“I love who you were when you were young. I love all your past choices that made you who you are today, even the times you thought were your weakest.”
“……”
“After going through all that, you didn’t die but lived to meet me. You came into my life when I was going through my hardest time.”
Those words brought tears to Nikolai’s eyes again.
Katya reached out to wipe her husband’s tears.
“When my marriage to Ivan was decided, I thought my life of being true to myself was over. Every day at the villa was despair. Back then, I hated opening my eyes in the morning. Because waking up meant facing the terrible reality before me. I wished something would go wrong while I slept. I went to sleep praying I wouldn’t open my eyes again.”
“Tia……”
“But now, every morning when I open my eyes, I feel happy that I can safely wake up to greet another day. I’m looking forward to seeing you.”
“……”
“From when I wake until I fall asleep at night, I think only of you. When I find something interesting, I want to run to you right away to tell you about it, and when I eat something delicious, I want you to taste it too.”
Nikolai was the same.
When he opened his eyes, he looked for Katya first.
When he couldn’t see her right away in the morning due to work, his chest would feel tight.
Was there anyone else who got lovesick just from not seeing their wife for a few hours?
When work ended, he would immediately dash out of his seat and run toward the Summer Palace where she was.
Sometimes he took a carriage or horse, but when he felt too impatient to wait for the servants to bring them, he would just run recklessly.
When running in the middle of the day, he came to love every scenery that passed before his eyes.
It was because the path leading to her was joyful.
When he finished running, he loved her touch as she wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, asking why he ran in this weather.
He loved her troubled smile that seemed to say he was truly hopeless.
He loved this small body that would quietly nestle into his arms when he silently spread them open.
“When I see your smile directed at me, it feels like all the big and small worries that had been tormenting me get washed away from my mind. I always look for you. To the point where I can’t even imagine days without you now.”
He felt the same way.
To the point where he wondered how he had lived without Katya in the past.
She was no longer just a part of his daily life, but had become his entire life.
To the point where nothing remained in Nikolai’s life if you took her away.
“I’m afraid of death. I was when I drank the poisoned wine too. What if the dose was too small, what if something went wrong and the antidote didn’t work properly? What if I couldn’t see you again? What if I lost these happy daily moments?”
He finally seemed to understand what his wife was trying to say.
“I want you to live because of me. I want you to fear death no matter how difficult and burdensome things get.”
“……”
“I want you to live a life where you’re afraid death might come because you want to live just one more day, just today, just tomorrow.”
“Tia, I……”
“I want to make your world so happy that you can’t even close your eyes at the moment of death because you’re too happy.”
Nikolai embraced his wife just as she was.
How could he leave this world, leaving such a person behind?
Rather than throwing away their life to save the other, they both wanted to be together whether in death or life.
That was what Katya thought marriage should be.
“I’m already happy because I have you. It’s more than enough, overflowing even now.”
“……”
“I’m afraid of death too. I’ve been that way ever since I met you. If I disappear from this world, I can’t love you anymore.”
“Your Highness.”
“I realized the meaning of life because of you. You are my reason for living. If you hadn’t awakened, I would have followed you too.”
“Then I must stay alive, if only for you.”
“Just being alive isn’t enough. You need to be healthy. You’ve lost too much weight.”
“Now I have more homework since I need to be healthy too.”
Both husband and wife burst out laughing at those words.
Katya whispered as she rested her cheek against his chest.
“I won’t act so arbitrarily again. I won’t hide anything from you either.”
“I’ll do the same. I won’t keep secrets from you. Now I understand how it feels.”
Nikolai muttered with a slight hint of resentment.
Now he understood well how Katya must have felt when she heard about her husband’s original plan from someone else’s lips.
Since husband and wife were one body, they should do everything together.
“Let me share whatever burdens trouble you from now on. Just as you carried my burdens.”
“You might run away finding it too difficult.”
“Would you let me run away?”
“Of course not. It’s too late now. You’ll regret saying those words today. I’m a darker and more obsessive man than you think.”
“Even if I regret it, I want to do so by your side.”
“I can never win against you with words.”
“A strong man and a strong woman became husband and wife, so now we have no match.”
“Is that how it works?”
He smiled slightly while resting his chin on his wife’s head.
“Let’s trust each other no matter what happens from now on.”
“Why do those words make me anxious? Is there something else?”
“I suppose there is.”
“My heart won’t survive this.”
Nikolai muttered like a sigh.
***
From the moment she heard the Grand Duchess had awakened, Oksana grew anxious.
As Katya recovered quickly, the royal marriage would proceed as planned.
Mikhail, who had been avoiding his mother since what happened to his sister-in-law, visited Oksana’s quarters after a long time.
“You asked what I wanted as a wedding gift? Please persuade Her Highness Oksana. If you truly love your brother too.”
It was to keep his promise to Katya.
He thought surely she wouldn’t try to interfere with the royal marriage while under suspicion for that incident, but he was wrong.
When he flung open the door without knocking, Oksana was having some intense discussion with Duke Oblonsky.
“What rudeness is this?”
“What’s so urgent at this hour? Someone might think you two are the ones getting married tomorrow.”
“Then I shall take my leave with that understanding, Your Highness.”
Duke Oblonsky bowed and walked past the Prince out the door.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Mikhail let out a hollow laugh.
“I was foolish to have believed in you even a little, Mother.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“There’s no use pretending. Don’t you know what people are saying, yet you still can’t let go?”
“Mikhail, why would I……”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it? I needlessly came into this world and gave you useless desires. I should never have been born.”
“Is that what you say to the mother who gave birth to you?”
“My feelings haven’t changed. I have no right to be Grand Duke, nor any intention to take the position from Brother. That seat is his.”
After hearing Katya’s request, he had agonized over and over.
How to stop his mother,
And whether he should commit something worthy of being expelled from the Grand Duke’s family and permanently stripped of his Prince status.
Would that end all of this?
“Mother, you’ve crossed the line. How could you even think of harming Sister? Just how far will you go!”
“Are you venting your anger at your mother now because I tried to kill Klavdia?”
“Of course—”
“Or is it because the one who drank poison and collapsed was Smirnov’s daughter?”
For a moment, Mikhail was struck speechless.
Previously when Katya caught him making advances to her at the jeu de paume court, she had scolded him saying he should control his attraction to women, then brushed it off as if it were nothing.
But Oksana knew too.
That her son truly loved his brother’s wife.
“Your mother failed to look into your heart to see what you wanted. You should get something too.”
“What are you saying right now?”
“If you become Grand Duke, I’ll let you make Katarina Smirnov, that girl, your Grand Duchess. Long ago in Hersen, there was a system where if an elder brother died and the younger brother inherited the family, he could take his sister-in-law. When Nikolai dies, you can formally make that girl your wife.”
“……What did you say?”
“Do you feel more inclined to become Grand Duke now?”
Oksana smiled sinisterly as she flickered her snake-like tongue.
As expected, her son’s eyes were wavering.