Chapter 3 – That’s too much, Captain! (Part 5)

She intentionally gave the crowd enough time to murmur. After a brief pause, she raised her voice slightly.

“It’s absurd. Not only did you cheat on your fiancée, but now that your mistress is pregnant, you’re trying to make it seem like I’m at fault?”

Even the thick-skinned Galverd faltered under her momentum.

The murmurs around them turned in her favor. Lena turned away without hesitation, as if she had no more business with him.

Dealing with such a man any longer would only exhaust her.

“The Countess Canabella will handle any further contact, so prepare to sign the annulment papers.”

“W-wait, Miss Leshuriel. Miss Leshuriel!”

Lena decisively cut him off and left the shop with Livri.

She pretended to be calm and apologized to the owner for causing a commotion.

Lena walked aimlessly until the shop was out of sight, then her legs gave way, and she collapsed around the corner.

“Lena! Are you okay?”

“Ha, thank you, Livri.”

“That scoundrel! I’ll tell my mother to annul the engagement immediately!”

Livri was furious as if it were her own matter. Lena gave her a faint smile, then finally lowered her head.

“Yes…”

“I didn’t know he was such a scoundrel! I’m so angry that my father funded his business! We must get the money back, Lena!”

“Ah, yes…”

“So, what should we do first? I really want him to regret this… What do you think, Lena?”

At times like this, she should join in cursing her fiancé, but all that came up were tears.

If she cried like a child here, Livri would blame herself for everything.

Lena forced herself to speak.

“Oh, I think we should think about that later… I need to get some documents I left in the office. Go home first!”

“Lena! What documents? You said you were taking a week off, Lena!”

Ignoring Livri’s desperate calls, she ran.

‘Ah, what do I do…’

Tears welled up and poured down like a broken dam. Her running left sporadic wet marks on the sandy ground.

***

“Hic, what do I huff, do!”

She came to the captain’s lounge, desperate for a drink.

She intended to drink just one bottle and forget about that scoundrel from tomorrow. But as the alcohol went in, her anger and sadness only grew like a snowball instead of being forgotten.

She repeatedly shouted alone and gulped down the bottle.

By the time the third bottle rolled on the once neat lounge floor, purple liquid leaked from the rolling bottle and soaked the floor.

“What do I… Ugh!”

She needed to clean the dirty floor, but her stomach, which had reached its limit, couldn’t hold out any longer and turned upside down.

Rushing to the bathroom attached to the lounge, Lena left a thick stench of vomit behind. It was almost a miracle that she didn’t vomit on the expensive carpet.

After flushing away the vomit with water, she sat on the bathroom floor, leaning her head against the wall.

She felt dizzy. The surroundings spun, and her stomach churned over and over.

“Ha, sob, sniff…”

She was ruined. Completely ruined!

She had talked about spreading her legs and her fiancé cheating in front of all those people. It was clear as day that her reputation had plummeted.

Of course, Lena wasn’t in such an important position that many would care, but a scandal was never good for a noble lady about to marry.

Should I go back to the countryside? 

The compensation for the broken engagement would cover the debt from her engagement, and she could pay off the increased interest with the salary and severance pay she had saved over the past three years.

But how could she repay her uncle’s business funds? Thinking of her uncle, who had funded the scoundrel’s business without knowing what kind of person he was, brought tears to her eyes.

“Sob! Father, I’m sorry! This unworthy daughter, sob, I’m sorry, Uncle! Sob, should I have just endured it? Sniff, I, I thought it would be okay, sob, hic-!”

Fine? What’s so fine about it!

Lena sobbed bitterly and collapsed from the rising nausea.

Her aching stomach couldn’t hold out any longer, and her mind started to fray.

Barely pulling her swaying body together, she lay down with her head resting on the bare floor. The cold chill of the bathroom seeped into her skin, freezing her flesh.

Nausea and trembling breaths came and went.

Beyond her faint consciousness, she had a feeling she shouldn’t fall asleep now, but her mind wouldn’t obey her.

Time passed mercilessly, but her hazy consciousness couldn’t find its place and wandered aimlessly. Before she knew it, the sun, which had risen high, slowly set.

“So, cold…”

Her lips, pale blue, trembled. Her teeth chattered, and she could only mutter a few words with difficulty.

Curling up like a ball, she had already reached her limit to withstand the cold.

“Cold…”

Somehow, it seemed like she had been shivering like this back then, too. Yes, it was the dead of winter back then.

It was a day when she had just come up to the capital as a snot-nosed kid.

That day, she had lost her companions and become a lost child, shivering just like now.

“Daddy, hic, Auntie…”

Her pitiful cries made passersby turn their heads one by one.

Terrified of the unfamiliar place, she pushed away the helping hands reaching out to her. She was so scared that she desperately ran away from them.

“Hey, kid!”

Someone called her urgently, but the child, covered in fear, plugged her ears and ran.

Scary! Daddy! Auntie! Livri! Help me, help me!

“Waah!”

“Ugh-!”

Running blindly, she eventually collided with someone.

Unable to withstand the firm body, she fell backward and landed on her bottom with a thud.

The knights guarding him drew their swords, and Lena screamed in fright.

“Stop, you’re scaring the child. It’s your fault for not guarding properly in the first place, so why take it out on the kid?”

“Sorry, young master.”

He extended his hand to the sniffling Lena. A boy with jet-black curly hair. The sunlight behind him pierced Lena’s eyes.

She couldn’t remember the boy’s face or the color of his eyes, obscured by the sunlight.

“Lena!”

A familiar voice called out from beyond her hazy consciousness.

“Are you okay?”

It was a much younger and thinner voice, but somehow it overlapped with the voice in her memory.

Compared to the boy, the man’s voice was deep and low. It resonated gently like an echo in a cave.

The man urgently hugged her and covered her with his coat.

“Lena, Lena! Snap out of it! Lena!”

‘I’m okay, Captain…’

She wanted to tell him she was okay and to reassure him, but no voice came out. The chandelier in the bathroom shone behind him, filling her eyes.

She couldn’t see his expression hidden by the chandelier’s light, but somehow she felt that his black hair was the same as the boy’s in her memory. 

Was it just my imagination?

Lena, smiling faintly at the thought, falling asleep in his arms.

She felt it was okay to sleep now. For the first time in a long while, she fell into a very deep sleep.