Chapter 1:  I Decided Not to Love You

“Is that… really true?”

“Yes. I’m certain.”

Her attending physician, Delman, smiled broadly and nodded.

Marian placed both hands over her heart. Thump, thump. Her regular heartbeat resounded powerfully like the beating of a drum. Marian simply could not believe the distinct pounding transmitted through her palms.

Marian Winrose died.

Her breath that had been growing labored. The sensation of the blood throughout her body rapidly growing cold. Her limbs going limp no matter how hard she tried.

Marian clearly remembered the moment when she was being swallowed by death.

But when she opened her eyes again, she was lying perfectly fine in her own room, in her own bed.

Without knowing what had happened, Marian faced Delman, who had come for her regular examination. What she heard from Delman amid her confusion was astonishing.

Delman lightly pressed Marian’s wrist with three fingers and said,

“Your pulse is good as well. The sound of your heart is clear, and your condition has definitely improved. It would not be unreasonable to consider you completely cured.”

“Ah……”

“Of course, we’ll have to observe your condition for a few more days. Still, you’re in remarkably good condition. This is the first time in my career as a doctor that I’ve seen such a rapid recovery.”

Delman, who was usually quiet, excitedly poured out his words like rapid fire. The doctor, having found hope in a patient who had suffered from heart disease for a long time, had joy written all over his face.

Suddenly, at the sound of birds coming from outside the window, Marian turned her head. Marian’s eyes widened.

The blue sky where fluffy clouds drifted by and a bluebird preening its feathers with its beak were clearly visible.

What had happened to Marian felt like a dream.

“How strange. To have my illness cured overnight and even the symptoms of poisoning disappear completely.”

“Pardon?”

“Until yesterday, the entire world was yellow. But today, I can see the blue sky very clearly.”

Delman, who had been putting the stethoscope hanging around his neck into his bag, tilted his head.

“You had xanthopsia? Since when?”

“It must have been over a month. I’m certain you diagnosed it, Doctor. You said it was a symptom caused by taking too much heart medication……”

“That can’t be.”

Delman spoke in a puzzled tone. Marian was just as bewildered that the doctor could not remember a symptom he himself had diagnosed.

“I didn’t prescribe you any medicine for two weeks in order to adjust your medication. And when I came a week ago, you didn’t have any such symptoms.”

“What do you mean…… Ugh……”

Suddenly, her head throbbed and her memories became tangled in confusion. It felt as though the past, present, and future were flowing into her head all at once, like someone traveling through time. Her stomach churned, and she gagged.

Startled, Delman hurriedly pulled out the stethoscope he had been putting into his bag.

“Young Madam! What’s wrong!”

“I-I’m…… fine……”

Marian barely managed to calm her chest, which was heaving roughly.

At that moment, a notebook on the bedside table entered her sight. It was the dark olive-colored notebook in which Marian had been writing a novel.

‘You must have time to spare, enough to waste it on something useless.’

The words she had heard when she showed her husband the novel written in this notebook, and his sharp gaze, were as vivid as yesterday.

Marian barely managed to reach out and pick up the notebook. When she opened the cover, the date she had first used the notebook was written on the very first page. May 20, Year 17 of Armand. It was a habit of hers whenever she began using a new notebook.

Marian’s eyes widened as she turned another page. The hand turning the pages grew faster and faster. The notebook, which she had certainly almost filled, was as clean as a new one.

There was only a single line written in the notebook.

[I decided not to love you.]

It was the sentence she had written on the day she first decided to divorce her husband.

Her husband, Cedric Hartmann.

During their three years of marriage, Cedric had never once accepted her as his wife. Even so, Marian loved her husband with all her heart, believing that someday Cedric would open his heart to her.

‘You don’t need to try to love me.’

But Cedric never loved her.

Marian recalled the indifferent eyes that had looked down at her. Perhaps because he did not want to see his wife withering away helplessly, the worse Marian’s illness became, the less frequently Cedric came to see her.

Even at the moment when the light of her life was fading, Cedric was not by her side.

“……Cedric.”

Marian quietly murmured her husband’s name. Just saying his name made her chest ache sharply, as though pierced by thorns. It felt as though her cured heart disease might return.

Her grip tightened around the notebook. The doctor who said she had never suffered from xanthopsia. The pure white pages without a single pencil mark after that one sentence. The answer they pointed to was clear.

She had returned to the past from the threshold of death.

A second life obtained by a miracle, and a heart beating healthily. Marian resolved to go see the sea she had longed for so desperately.

After divorcing the husband who did not love her.

As expected, Cedric readily accepted Marian’s demand for a divorce. That very day, Marian left the Hartmann estate without any lingering attachment.

And two years passed.

Ring, ring—

“The train to Novaren is departing!”

A man in a navy-blue uniform shouted loudly as he rang a bell. People who had arrived late at the platform hurriedly ran into the train. A moment later, the enormous steam locomotive roared as it sped along the tracks.

Once the train departed, the commotion died down somewhat. Chelsea Station bustled with passengers waiting for the next train and porters busily carrying trunks.

“Papa!”

“Henry!”

A young boy came running from afar and threw himself into the arms of a man wearing a fedora. The child wrapped his arms around his father’s neck and burst into bright laughter.

“Welcome home, darling.”

A woman who approached behind him wiped away her tears with a handkerchief and took the man’s hand. Perhaps embarrassed by the reddened tip of her nose, the woman covered her face with the handkerchief and smiled shyly. The man’s eyes overflowed with affection as he looked at her.

‘How beautiful.’

Marian stopped walking and looked at them. Seeing the harmonious family warmed her heart.

Without realizing it, Marian thought of a man.

“……Honestly, me.”

A bitter smile spread across Marian’s lips.

Blue eyes resembling the rippling sea. Neatly arranged black hair. Large hands that were always holding documents.

Whenever she saw him standing like a statue beneath the pouring sunlight, Marian had to hold her breath to calm her heart, which pounded noisily.

But he had never once held her hand with such an affectionate expression. Since she had never seen it, she could not easily imagine it either.

A stinging pain spread through her chest. Marian pressed firmly against her chest with her right hand.

She would never return to those nights she had spent in tears because of that man. Marian closed her eyes and emptied out every last trace of him that had been curled up inside her heart, without leaving even a single fragment behind.

“Mm! Good.”

Marian opened her eyes with a bright smile. Her emerald eyes sparkled beneath the sunlight. The clear summer sky seemed to bless the days that would unfold before Marian.

Marian briefly set her heavy luggage down on the ground and took off her hat to cool the sweat from her head.

“It’s been two years.”

My homeland.

On a bright summer day, Marian returned to the Parthia Empire after a long journey. A cool breeze gently blew, welcoming her. Her long brown hair fluttered like silk.

Marian looked around the roadside to hail a carriage. Chelsea Station was unusually crowded today, making it difficult to find an empty carriage.

But the moment she turned her gaze toward the fountain, Marian’s eyes met those of someone looking at her through the crowd. A man with a somehow familiar figure. Marian narrowed her eyes to make out his face.

The stream of water shooting toward the sky fell in an arc. The splashing droplets met the sunlight and formed a rainbow.

Ah. Marian let out a short exclamation.

Cedric Hartmann, whom she had divorced two years ago, was standing there.

Cedric’s blue gaze touching her skin was intense. Marian had the illusion that he had been watching her until their eyes met.

Cedric approached Marian with leisurely steps.

“It’s been a long time.”

Marian deliberately looked straight into his eyes as she spoke. Cedric lightly nodded in place of a greeting. His ice-cold, expressionless face was no different from two years ago.

“You must be here to meet someone.”

“I am.”

Cedric gently raised the corners of his lips into a smile and held out his hand to Marian.

“I missed you.”

“……What?”

“Come with me.”

Marian could not hide her shock. From the moment Cedric’s expressionless face softly melted like snow, Marian had fallen into confusion.

Cedric was absolutely not someone who spoke sweet words in such a gentle voice.

The Cedric Marian remembered had a voice cold enough to chill and a sharp manner of speaking. So much so that no flower or tree could maintain its fresh green color beside him.

“I waited for you.”

“……”

“For two years. All this time.”

At the cruel lie, Marian’s heart pounded. His deception sent chills down her spine.

Marian stared at Cedric with eyes full of suspicion. His expression, his manner of speaking, his actions. There was not a single thing she could understand. He was not the Cedric Hartmann she had known.

“We’re already over.”

“We were.”

“Then why are you acting like this now?”

A deep crease formed between Marian’s brows. Marian resented Cedric for coming to find her so casually even though he knew it was over.

Still smiling, Cedric took one step closer to Marian. He paid no heed to Marian’s stiffening expression.

His stride was as long as his legs, so in an instant, the distance between the two of them became considerably smaller. Startled, Marian faltered backward.

“But you’re still Mrs. Hartmann.”

“What? I clearly gave you the divorce papers……”

“I’ve kept those safely tucked away in my drawer.”