6

“……Oh.”

“Not that you’ll ever need to open it yourself from now on, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Creak.

The hinges of the old window groaned. It sounded like the low beat of a drum, or like the black-painted wallpaper peeling away in strips.

Letting his words drift past her, Yul drank in the sunlight pouring through.

‘Ah. Good.’

She gulped down the smell of the sun and breathed it in, and thought that if she could, she would strip bare and roll around in this light. She wanted to savor this freedom with no restraints, nothing but pure instinct. Only that would be enough.

“You’re crying.”

“……?”

“Your face is soaked. Kind of cute, actually.”

The man tapped her cheek with one finger.

She knew this wasn’t the hospital, but that brief touch still made her flinch. She shuddered and glared at him, and he brought the hand with her tears on it to his mouth and licked it.

“Salty.”

“……You crazy bastard.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

Even so, his easy banter was what kept her from falling apart.

Her legs were still shaking, a dull ache pulled at her lower abdomen, she felt like clawing something sharp into her chest, she felt like throwing herself out the window…… all of it compressed and broke through as nothing but tears.

She cried for a long time without even realizing it, then scrubbed roughly at her eyes. Her touch was so harsh it could have scraped the skin raw.

Revenge.

Those two beautiful words drove themselves into her mind with ferocious force. No, it felt more like fireworks going off.

“I’m going to get my revenge.”

“Yes. A rightful revenge.”

“The Cretus family and the Vergeus family.”

Yul knew exactly who she needed to destroy. She knew it wouldn’t be easy. She also knew that strapping an oil canister to her back and setting herself on fire would accomplish nothing. She would be stopped before she ever got that far. Getting caught this time meant prison, and she would never see daylight again.

Taking down those two families required something more covert, more cunning. She would have to hide her claws and build her plan step by careful step.

And for that, she needed this man.

She stared openly at his handsome face, and he looked back down at her with the same entertained expression.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and fed first. I can’t very well claim I fell for you when you look this pathetic, can I?”

“……Yes.”

“Surprisingly cooperative.”

“Because I need you if I’m going to get my revenge.”

The bathroom was over there, wasn’t it.

After soaking in the sunlight for a while longer, Yul moved unsteadily toward it. Her steps were so faint she looked ready to collapse at any moment, but the man made no move to help her. Yul hadn’t wanted him to anyway.

Nothing more, nothing less. Strictly a contract arrangement. No need to look after each other when no one was watching.

Strangely enough, that attitude of his was actually reassuring to Yul, guarded as she was right now.

***

The bathroom had hot running water.

Washing her hair with soap and quietly turning things over in her mind, Yul noticed that the bathroom’s furnishings looked rather expensive. Even the faucet had decorative details, and the bathtub was smooth porcelain without a single flaw.

‘Traveling with that man means staying only in expensive, quality places.’

She liked that.

Yul never wanted to sleep in a cage-like space again. It seemed obvious that her death waited at the end of this revenge, so before that came, she wanted only the most expensive things, the finest food, the rarest luxuries that few could easily obtain.

After everything she had endured, wasn’t that the least she deserved.

“Eat.”

She came out wrapped in a robe, her body still warm, and found a small table set with food.

Toweling her hair dry, Yul narrowed her eyes.

“I just got out of the bath. I don’t like the smell of food mixing with the scent of washing.”

“Is that so? I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

The man shrugged without much concern and offered her the soup.

Yul eyed it with suspicion, then picked up the spoon and stirred it once. She didn’t want to do this, but she had no idea what might be inside, so caution came first.

“Forgotten your table manners? Ah, I’m not mocking you, I’m genuinely asking. If you have, I’ll need to hire an etiquette tutor.”

“I know them. I was checking for pebbles or glass shards.”

She shot back sharply, then carefully scooped up a piece of the filling. It didn’t look like there was anything inedible in it, but someone could have hidden insects inside. She didn’t particularly want to eat insects. Not because they disgusted her, but because they tasted bitter.

“……I didn’t realize hospitals served glass shards as meals.”

“That one did.”

“Right. Well, what’s in there isn’t glass, it’s mushrooms, so eat without worry.”

Saying so didn’t make her trust someone overnight.

Yul trusted the man. More precisely, she trusted that she had something to offer him, and that he needed her. So he wouldn’t harm her.

But the kitchen staff who had made this food were a different matter. They might have prepared his portion perfectly while doing something to what went into her mouth.

“Hmm. Look here.”

When she still couldn’t bring herself to eat, the man reached over and took the spoon from her hand. He scooped up some soup and put it in his own mouth first.

“Nothing wrong with it. It’s just soup. Tastes decent enough.”

“……Yes.”

“Here.”

He handed the spoon back. Yul still hesitated, but this time the reason was simple.

It wasn’t that she minded reusing a spoon he had put his mouth on. At Moshre, sharing spoons with other patients’ saliva on them had been common.

‘It’s just, so……’

What did mushroom cream soup taste like again?

It felt like a civilization she had forgotten was rushing back toward her all at once.

‘What did freshly baked warm bread taste like? How do you even eat something like this.’

Am I…… allowed to have something like this?

What she needed to do was simple. Put the spoon in the bowl, scoop, bring it to her mouth, swallow. She knew that, and yet every single motion suddenly felt impossible.

She had been treated like livestock for so long that being treated like a person felt deeply wrong.

“My, what a high-maintenance wife.”

After watching her sit frozen for a long stretch, the man clicked his tongue in mock exasperation. Then he pulled the bowl that had been meant for her across to his side of the table.

Yul just sat still even as her food was taken away.

Starving was something she was used to. Nothing to be done about it.

That was what she was thinking.

“Come here.”

“Why?”

“You can’t even eat on your own. I’ll feed you. You’re my beloved wife, after all.”

An adult ought to be capable. Even in a situation like this, she should be able to manage on her own.

But Yul’s case was a little different.

She had spent every last bit of herself just fighting to survive, which meant she had not grown emotionally in any way that matched her age. If anything, she had regressed.

So her mind processed this situation as: convenient.

Someone was going to feed her without her having to do it herself. That meant decent food would end up in her mouth. Chewing and swallowing, at least, she could manage.

“Cute. Just taking whatever’s given. That’s a novelty.”

Whatever the man said, Yul ate with focus. When he tore bread along its grain and dipped it in the soup before holding it out, she took it in both hands and ate it in big bites. For the soup, she pushed him along with her eyes, demanding more, faster.

She hadn’t even realized she was hungry at first, but the hunger was overwhelming. She finished everything on the table and it still wasn’t enough.

She would have chewed the table whole if she could.

Yul didn’t know where this hunger was coming from. She was just hungry. So terribly, terribly hungry.

“Stop. If you put any more into a body that isn’t used to eating, you’ll make yourself sick.”

The man was the one who stopped her.

He told her firmly to quit. She would have loved to lick the bowl clean, but that was not how a noble behaved. Recognizing that, Yul replied with a disgruntled sound.

“……Yes.”

“Good. Now that you’ve come back to your senses, let’s talk through the contract properly.”

He was wiping her mouth carefully with a napkin while saying this, which made it slightly absurd, but Yul’s lips didn’t curve upward.

Instead, she rested her head against his firm chest and tilted her face up toward him. The pale green eyes that met his gleamed with a tenacious, wild-animal intensity.

“The Cretus family and the Vergeus family.”

“Right, I know. Those two houses. Do you know what the Vergeus family does?”

“No.”

She was shameless and unapologetic about it.

“I’ve forgotten things about my own family too. Explain it to me. My head is a mess and I remember almost nothing.”

Listening to her, Zayed let out a helpless laugh, wondering what on earth he was going to do with this hopeless woman. Her obsession and burning desire for revenge were admirable enough, but she ought to at least know something about the people she wanted to destroy.