Crash!!

The window shattered with a sharp, piercing sound.

“Wh, what’s happening?”

“Who’s there?!”

Irena surveyed the chaos she had made with her own hands with satisfaction. Outside the window, voices buzzed in commotion, the scene was a wreck, and the Crown Prince, with his expression of utter shock, was alive.

‘This should be enough……’

The moment she smiled with satisfaction, nausea surged up from her stomach.

“Cough. Ugh. Co, cough.”

An enormous amount of blood poured from her mouth and nose. The composed expression she had maintained throughout stiffened, as if to say this was a disaster.

‘Wow, this…… is actually quite dangerous, isn’t it?’

The instant her instincts registered the crisis, her vision began to spin.

Eeeee–

With a ringing in her ears, Irena’s body toppled backward like a severed doll.

“……! ……Right now……!”

The moment a firm hand seized her firmly by the waist, Irena sensed the end within her fading consciousness.

‘Ah, no. I still have something left to say.’

Her thin hand flailed through the air and caught onto something. When she pulled it along, a large body followed helplessly.

“I, I also……”

“Stop! ……Say, ……Irena!”

“I also, don’t want to, marry, cough, someone like you.”

It was an act of defiance born from the thought that she might truly die this time.

* * *

A dark room.

How long had he been in it. Ikart, dissolved into the darkness, was gazing at the sleeping woman.

“……”

Having kept vigil for two full days, her face had become quite familiar to him by now, yet every time he looked at her, it felt strange.

It was because of the memories returning to him, little by little.

‘Irena. Irena Walterburg, is it……’

There was a gap in Ikart’s memory.

A girl whose face and name he could not remember.

Though she clearly seemed like someone important, no matter how hard he tried to recall her, his memory cut off abruptly at that part. The scenes he managed to dredge up were at best nothing more than a smeared blur above the neck.

As though someone had forcibly erased it.

And yet.

Even so, feeling that suffocating emptiness, not even knowing he had lost something, he had wandered in search of it.

“……”

In truth, this moment felt unreal to him. It was because he had recovered quite a few memories over the course of the previous night.

As though a lock had been undone, one by one.

The fact that her two rosy cheeks had been adorably plump, and that the corners of her eyes, which curved halfway when she smiled, had been so enchanting they stole his gaze every single time.

And the fact that, despite being oblivious, she had been quite a headstrong little thing.

<If you can’t marry anyone, I’ll take you in. So don’t worry.>

A smile escaped him as the voice that used to murmur those pleasant words rang in his ears.

<And after saying something like that, what?>

Ikart’s gaze drifted. It landed directly on her pale lips without a moment’s pause.

<I also don’t want to marry someone like you.>

The resolve with which she had insisted on saying only that, even in such a wretched state, was something else entirely.

Ikart narrowed his eyes. It seemed he was the only one who remembered the past.

“Liar.”

Ikart uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. Despite his imposing frame, the hand he extended was nothing but careful.

Did she know? How much he had wandered in search of her, a girl whose face and voice he could not even remember.

It did not matter if she did not. The sole truth was that they had found each other again.

“Irena.”

A scarred hand cupped her cheek. The warmth of the touch was cool.

Around the time he had shared a lukewarm warmth with her, Ikart tilted his head.

“I know you’re awake.”

He spoke softly, concealing a smile, and the eyelids that had seemed as though they would never open slowly rolled up.

As though she had never been asleep at all, the eyes that held a shade of green were clear.

“……”

Blink, blink. The green eyes, busy taking in the situation, disappeared behind their lids and reappeared repeatedly.

The moment the hazy green was filled entirely with him.

“Did you sleep well?”

Ikart Asteion smiled like a statue breathed to life.

* * *

What would be the appropriate greeting for a man one woke up facing while lying in bed. Irena pondered this with considerable seriousness.

‘Saying hello seems……’

He did not look well at all.

‘Good morning……?’

He did not look good, nor did it appear to be morning, and it even seemed as though mornings had never once been good for him.

‘……Have you been watching me this whole time?’

This one carried enough sincerity that it sounded like an accusation.

‘He must have been nursing me…… right? He can’t be a pervert with a hobby of watching people sleep.’

He had better not be. The pervert quota in her daily life was already full.

Ikart, who had watched Irena’s thoughts scatter in every direction, opened his mouth.

“Miss Irena. Your eyes are very busy.”

He folded the corners of his eyes ever so slightly. His was a face that already knew how to make use of its own good looks.

“You must be confused, but I will answer whatever you wish to know, so take your time.”

As if in earnest, Ikart leaned back against the chair.

“……”

It was a desolate room. It was furnished with uniformly luxurious pieces, yet the stark, barren feeling could not be concealed.

‘There are no worn, well-used items. The fact that all the furniture is newly acquired means either the room has not had an owner for long……’

Or that someone had returned not long ago.

Irena’s gaze was drawn to the man. He smiled lightly, as though he already knew what she was thinking.

‘He’s smiling?’

That smile twisted something in Irena’s disposition.

She could not claim to have ever been particularly upright or honest herself, but right now she was especially twisted up inside.

‘A duke’s daughter spending the night at her fiancé’s home could be overlooked given that they were a betrothed pair, but if it happened to be the Crown Prince’s room, that was an entirely different matter.’

What reason could someone who clearly understood that have for nursing her in his own room, in his own bed.

Just thinking about it gave her a headache, yet the man remained entirely at ease throughout, as though there were no issue whatsoever.

‘He was clearly acting as though he knew me earlier.’

The warmth of the man’s hand still lingered on Irena’s cheek. Along with the soft voice that had called her name.

This relationship was tilted. On the scales of the relationship, Irena, who knew less, would be the one at a disadvantage.

In that case, there was only one way to wrest back the flow from a situation she was being dragged along in.

“We know each other, don’t we.”

Flip the board. To do so, Irena scattered the man’s hand.

Ikart raised an eyebrow, as though he had not expected her to ask something like that.

“What do you think.”

“You said you would answer everything I asked. Was that a lie?”

“My, my……”

Ikart’s eyes twisted.

It was the face of a handsome man wearing a troubled expression, but Irena’s aesthetic sensibility had long since been beaten into submission and stripped of its right to speak.

‘Handsome ones always live up to their looks in the worst way.’

What had always saved her from crises was not reason, but instinct.

“It is not difficult to tell you what sort of relationship we have. However……”

“However?”

“Miss Irena is so suspicious by nature that I doubt she would believe me. I feel as though I would only end up being branded the world’s greatest swindler for nothing.”

“Why would you think that?”

What do you know. The corners of Irena’s eyes rose sharply.

Ikart whispered in a small voice, as though deliberating.

“You were looking at me like I was a pervert. At the person who gave up his bed and nursed you.”

Her mouth snapped shut.

“And the fact that your first instinct upon getting tangled up in a troublesome situation was to think about making your escape.”

Irena’s eyes wavered. Even now, if given the chance, she wanted nothing more than to put distance between herself and this man who reeked so thoroughly of trouble.

“Ah, come to think of it……”

Why, what now. Irena watched the man drag out his words, as if inviting her to listen, with unease.

“Don’t you think my lips look swollen?”

“Ah, ahem.”

Irena cleared her throat for no particular reason.

Glancing over, she saw that a scab had formed on Ikart’s handsome lips.

With well-timed flair, he gave his hand a little wave. The white bandages wound around all ten fingers also came into view, as if to make a point.

Irena’s gaze wandered off toward some distant horizon.

“You said to ask. If you don’t want to tell me, you could just say so. How petty.”

While she grumbled, unbeknownst to her, Ikart’s face contorted as he struggled to hold back his laughter.

Ahem, he cleared his throat quietly.

“Miss Irena, do you really want to know?”

“……”

The moment his low voice resonated dangerously, carrying a secret within it, Irena felt a strange premonition.

A falling sensation, as though hearing the answer now would make it impossible to turn back forever. And yet, an exhilarating feeling of being on the verge of crossing a line regardless.

‘Just…… why?’

They say curiosity killed the cat.

Regrettably, Irena, a creature of boundless curiosity, found herself nodding as though under a spell.

Ikart curled the corners of his lips sharply upward. An arrogant satisfaction swelled within the languid, half-lidded gaze of a well-fed feline.

Scrape. The chair dragged across the floor.

His destination was the side of her face. The voice that spoke the secret was low enough to make one’s chest flutter.

“Why, it’s the kind that’s clingy, deep, and intense.”