The torn pieces of the divorce papers scattered at Iris’s feet. As always, Michael and Iris glared at each other like they wanted to kill until each vanished from the other’s sight.

They lived under one roof, but there was nothing good in Michael and Iris running into each other. Seeing each other’s faces was unpleasant, and talking spoiled their moods. The mood soured by their endless clashing never improved until bedtime.

Leaving the office, Iris decided to stroll through the garden to feel better somehow. With flowers starting to bloom in the already beautiful garden, walking among them would surely lift her spirits.

But Iris soon regretted coming out to the garden.

The garden was beautiful as expected. It was only the documents filling the blue sky that she disliked.

The moment Michael spotted Iris strolling in the garden, he threw a stack of documents out the window. They were the very documents Iris just left on his desk.

‘D*mn it, Michael Hagbris….’

As the documents landed in the garden one by one, Iris’s head throbbed more. She came out to the garden to ease her unpleasant mood, yet it only got worse.

Bang. Soon after, the sound of a window frame slamming rang loudly overhead.

She was insanely used to Michael’s spite by now. Without blinking, Iris began picking up the fallen documents at once.

Then suddenly, a hand entered her field of vision as she was picking up documents.

It was a man’s hand with thick knuckles, but definitely not Michael’s.

She had seen this hand helping her pick up documents once before. Swallowing a sigh, she whispered so low that only Joshua could hear.

“I can’t tell if you’re deliberately pretending not to hear or simply ignoring me. I believe this is the third time I’m telling you not to help me, Sir Joshua.”

“As a knight, how could I simply walk past a woman sitting in the dirt?”

“Everyone here does. So from now on, you should pretend not to see me and pass by too, Sir Joshua.”

Iris roughly snatched the documents Joshua held out and added,

“There’s no need to force yourself to be good. I used to live so kindly once, too, but in the end, nothing came back to me.”

“…Madam.”

“Thank you for helping. But I hope this never happens again.”

Because she sat in the dirt for so long, Iris’s legs wobbled. Even though she got up pretending nothing was wrong, the sweat running down her temple couldn’t be hidden.

Glancing sideways at Joshua’s pink hair, Iris moved away from him as fast as she could. But a lame woman walking fast couldn’t outpace a man with two sound legs.

“Madam!”

Joshua hurriedly called her. Reaching her in only a few seconds, he held out a sheet of paper before her.

“Madam, you left one behind.”

It was the divorce papers Michael threw along with the stack of documents.

On the divorce papers, Michael’s handwriting was resentfully neat and densely packed. The moment she saw them, Iris felt, for some reason, that her shameful weakness was exposed to this hopelessly nice knight in front of her.

Hot emotion surged from deep in her chest. After scrubbing her reddened eyes with her sleeve, Iris tore the divorce papers right before Joshua’s eyes.

A flustered groan slipped from between Joshua’s teeth as he watched the scraps of paper fall to the ground.

“Ah….”

A knight so nice he was a sucker, with not a speck of tact. Joshua Fate was sure to have a hard life.

It irritated Iris that even a knight this nice, in his heart, thought of her as a horrible criminal and followed Michael anyway. Suddenly Joshua’s pink hair became unpleasant to her, and she wanted to leave this place quickly.

Iris glared sharply at Joshua through the white hair covering her eyes. Then, tucking the documents under her arm, she quickly went inside the mansion.

She noticed Joshua’s persistent gaze that wouldn’t leave her, but she never once looked back.

The moment she returned to her office, Iris swallowed another long sigh. It was because of the new divorce papers sitting plainly in the middle of the desk and an enormous stack of documents.

Not satisfied with throwing out every document she processed before, Michael even left new work to be done. Iris sat down, hoping at least the documents she newly processed wouldn’t be thrown out the window too.

But as soon as the next day came, Iris realized painfully.

That Michael’s act of throwing documents out the window was nothing compared to what came next.

Michael Hagbris was crueler than Iris thought, and a man who wanted the divorce far more than she expected. If it meant divorce, he was willing to wreck and break Iris completely.

Until that morning, everything was the same as usual. Iris started her day an hour earlier than the others in the mansion, and as soon as she finished her morning walk, she entered her office.

But the moment she stepped inside, Iris’s brow twisted roughly.

‘…How strange.’

Michael Hagbris. What on earth is this man scheming now?

The office desk, where documents should have been piled in towers, was clean. Instead, a note sat plainly on it along with divorce papers.

Michael’s neat handwriting shone on the note.

I left the documents at the top of the west tower. I’d like you to bring them yourself.

Iris swallowed dry saliva, picked up the note, and turned it over. Like it was waiting for her to look, a sentence was written on the back too.

If you don’t want to, just obediently stamp the divorce papers.

The note was roughly crumpled in Iris’s grip.

Not one step climbed yet, her whole body already seemed to ache. Her breath caught on its own, and cold sweat began flowing down her nape.

With her face twisted to the extreme, Iris looked up at the tower outside the window. It wasn’t as tall as the imperial palace’s tower, but to Iris’s eyes, that tower looked tremendously terrifying. It was far too burdensome a height for a lame woman.

She bit her lower lip so hard that she tasted a metallic tang of blood in her mouth. Even if she asked the servants, they would never grant Iris’s request.

She desperately didn’t want to go. But if she didn’t, Michael Hagbris would surely torment her more cruelly later.

As she let out a trembling breath, Joshua Fate suddenly came to Iris’s mind. If she asked, the hopelessly nice Joshua would surely climb the tower in her place.

‘No. Get ahold of yourself, Iris Oppenheimer.’

Iris quickly shook her head to fend off the temptation. Even if she had to climb the tower as a cripple, she never wanted to ask for help from Michael’s man.

The morning air was chilly. The cherry blossoms were opening one by one, but to Iris now, even that didn’t feel beautiful.

***

Iris’s hand pushing the tower’s huge door trembled. The door revealed the tower’s interior with the chilling sound of a metal latch clanking.

Bright sunlight shone from the glass window at the top of the tower.

Looking up at the sunlight, Iris’s face instantly filled with despair.

‘Ah, I’m going insane….’

Seen from inside, the tower was even taller than she expected.

Regretting her mistake of not changing clothes, Iris placed her first step on the stairs. At the lower floors, the climb was still manageable, but the stairs grew steeper and steeper.

Her breathing, irregular from shortness of breath, slowly turned her vision pure white.

A thick bead of sweat slid down her limping temple. The dress was soaked with cold sweat since long before.

At the top she climbed with such difficulty was a tiny room. Thanks to the wooden door standing wide open, Iris could see inside without turning the doorknob.

“Michael Hagbris….”

The moment she spotted the documents neatly placed on the desk in front of the window, she muttered Michael’s name. It was a mutter full of rage.

Gathering the documents, Iris left the room with angry steps. But the moment she faced the stairs again, she sank into deep despair.

She completely forgot. The fact that going down was more of a problem than going up.

Iris stood at the top of the tower, where there was surely no one else. Yet without realizing it, she frantically looked around with tear-filled eyes. It was a desperate gesture like a beast caught in a trap.

The process of going down the stairs was dreadful.

Iris fell again and again. Her shoes came off, and her dress was mercilessly torn. By the time the blood from her knees turned her whole calves crimson, her entire body was covered in wounds.

Thud. The sound of Iris’s small body toppling echoed through the tower once more.