Chapter 5
‘Do not beat….’
Her heart was pounding wildly. As always, Viviana clenched her teeth hard at the heart that was racing madly, as if insisting that person was hers.
That was not hers. It had never once been hers.
‘Get a hold of yourself! Are you going to be shaken again?’
With her teeth tightly clenched inside her mouth, she seized the throat of her own fluttering heart, stirred by Skyler’s gaze fixed on her.
With both hands she squeezed hard, whispering for it not to bloom and to hurry and die instead.
‘I do not want to be thrown into that hell again.’
No matter how she struggled, in the future there would come someone he would fall for at first sight. She did not want to become miserable once more. That was not why she had chosen to continue this life.
‘I will never love again.’
She did not want to be the only one growing desperate, clinging, begging, and then being abandoned and left in despair all over again.
So Viviana murdered her own love with her own hands and buried it deep within her heart.
Even if it came back to life, she buried it in a deep mire from which it would never be able to escape, then looked down at that place and whispered.
‘Even in death, I will not love.’
Her eyes, darkened and dead from exhaustion, disappeared behind her closed eyelids.
* * *
To be mixed in among the children she was meeting for the first time and having to play along with them was far too difficult for Viviana, who was already tired of life.
Perhaps because Skyler was such a bright beauty, there were children who envied Viviana, whose appearance seemed plain by comparison, saying she did not suit him.
With sharp eyes they glared at Viviana, whispering something among the friends they had gathered around themselves.
From what she could hear, it was roughly things like that Viviana did not suit him, or that she did not know her place.
‘Do not know my place, they say.’
Viviana let out a short laugh because the words were absurd.
It was funny enough that children only about ten years old were talking about knowing one’s place, as if they had learned such things from somewhere, but Viviana was the daughter of a Marquis.
Even if she truly acted without knowing her place, there were only a few people in this banquet hall who could criticize her for it.
Unless they were Imperial Family, or below them Dukes, or another Marquis household equal to hers, it would be hard for them to call her impudent.
It was not her own power, but the power of her family, the Marquis household, was tremendous. Even among the Emperor’s faction nobles, they were counted among the foremost.
The power of a wealthy and influential house was practically the same as the power of her, that household’s cherished daughter, so Viviana could have taught a lesson to the group that was slandering her, acting as if they themselves did not know their place as they said, but she simply ignored them.
‘How tiresome.’
It was bothersome to squabble pointlessly with shrill little voices.
She had only one goal. To live quietly, as though she were barely there at all, and when Skyler’s true love appeared, to be quietly cast aside from the engagement, go down to the territory, and live alone.
Viviana? Ah, yes, there was such a young lady. In order to live so faintly that everyone would have only about that much impression of her, it was best not to attract attention.
And yet, though she ignored them, it seemed the other side thought they had been insulted by Viviana. The girl’s face quickly flushed bright red, and she came rushing over and shoved Viviana hard in the shoulder.
“Hey!”
Viviana, who had momentarily forgotten how impulsive and cruel children could be, staggered from the force of the child pushing her hard and struck her body against a table.
“Ugh!”
She barely had time to frown at the pain from hitting the blunt edge of the table.
At the clinking sound of glasses striking together, she looked up at the tabletop and saw that of all things, it was the table with the celebratory champagne tower on it.
A flash of panic crossed the eyes of the child who had pushed her as well.
Because of the impact of Viviana hitting it, the tower made of glasses wobbled, then came crashing down toward her.
Among the falling glasses, she reflexively curled in on herself and covered her face, and then someone wrapped an arm around her shoulders. When the sharp clattering and shattering of glasses hitting the floor finally ceased, Viviana lifted her head and saw silver hair gleaming brilliantly even in the shadow as it swayed, and blue eyes as cold as a winter lake.
Their owner was Skyler, the very person she had so desperately not wanted to face.
“Are you alright?”
Transparent golden champagne dripped down from Skyler’s hair in drops as he shook off the cloak he had used to cover her body and shoulders.
As the hair he had neatly swept back became wet with champagne and fell loose, the artificial air of maturity he had put on peeled away slightly.
Thanks to the way he had stepped in at just the right moment and taken the champagne in her place, Viviana ended up with only the hem of her dress a little wet.
“It is dangerous, Young Lady. Please come this way.”
Viviana stared blankly at Skyler as he held out his hand to her. Even soaked in liquor, he was not pitiful but radiant. It had always been like this. He had always been the sort of person who seemed like the protagonist.
As if it were only natural, he was loved by everyone, and he always shone at the center. For a moment she was intoxicated by that unchanged figure from the past, then came back to herself at Skyler’s voice, calling to her in puzzlement.
‘How awful.’
Even after making such a vow, her gaze had been stolen so easily. Gathering herself once more, she tried to ignore his hand and leave this chaos, but by then she could not because of the gazes gathering late after hearing the commotion.
She had seen him for the first time today, but he was her fiancé, and in the broad sense, he was her superior.
Rejecting the hand of someone like him would be a great discourtesy, so she had no choice but to lightly take it.
When she hesitated and showed signs of trying to refuse, Skyler, who had grown dejected, brightened at once when Viviana lightly touched his hand with her fingertips.
“Carefully, please come this way.”
Skyler pushed aside the shattered pieces of glass scattered across the floor with his own shoes to make a path, then led the way out. As he did, the Emperor, who had been speaking with nobles some distance away, appeared and his face hardened.
“What happened here!”
Seeing his son drenched, the Emperor roughly grasped the situation and flew into a rage, demanding how they had set up the champagne tower so that such a mishap could befall the Crown Prince.
“Who was responsible for managing this!”
“I-it was I, Your Majesty.”
One attendant prostrated himself flat before the Emperor.
Viviana turned her eyes, looking for the child who had pushed her earlier.
But there was no one standing in the place where that child had been before.
The young ladies who seemed to be that child’s friends had all run off somewhere as well.
The one who should bear responsibility had run away, and now an innocent person was about to be blamed, so Viviana hesitated.
‘Should I pretend to be frightened by the atmosphere like a child would be?’
Or should I step forward here? Viviana thought it over. The former would be far more natural and less noticeable, but seeing the attendant, who was about to suffer for no reason, trembling in fear and shedding tears at the sight of the enraged Emperor, she did not feel at ease.
“Please, have mercy….”
“What are you all doing? Take this man away at once.”
The Emperor was not a tyrant.
It was simply that his judgment had been clouded because his young son and Viviana, who would become his daughter-in-law, had nearly been hurt.
At the Emperor’s order, just as the knights guarding the banquet hall stepped toward the attendant, Viviana took one step forward.
“Huh?”
The Crown Prince let out a puzzled sound at the sight of her letting go of his hand and stepping forward, but Viviana did not care.
For a moment the Emperor’s eyes gleamed at the sight of her walking forward with her back straight and her bearing proud.
“That attendant is not at fault.”
“What?”
“The reason His Highness the Crown Prince’s clothing was soaked is because of me, so if anyone is to be punished, please punish me.”
At the sight of her bowing her waist and head respectfully as she spoke, the Emperor’s lips curled slightly upward. His own son was very mature for his age as well, but not to her extent. He smiled with satisfaction at the sight of her acting with such composure. He liked it.
‘It is the first time I have seen Skyler act that way.’
The Emperor laughed softly when he saw his son, who looked dissatisfied and was about to say something at her words, only to shut his mouth firmly instead.
Skyler was kind, but also quietly sharp, and he was not the sort to completely let others close, so it was almost fascinating to see him shielding Viviana, whom he had met for the first time today, whether he had fallen for her at first sight or whatever it might be.
“Because of you, Young Lady?”
“Yes, I lost my footing and struck the table, so the tower set upon it collapsed, and while shielding me, His Highness was soaked.”
“Young Lady? But….”
Behind Viviana, who was saying that therefore it was her own fault, Skyler opened his mouth, then firmly closed it again.
Judging by the situation, it seemed there was something more to it, but the Emperor pretended not to notice.
She had asked for punishment before the Emperor, and if that were a lie, it could become a matter of deceiving him.
Skyler knew that as well, which was why he had started to say something, only to fall silent.
Looking down at the crown of Viviana’s head as she bowed and asked to bear the blame before him, the Emperor smiled. Among the Ducal houses of the Empire, with the exception of one, there were no daughters, and among the other Marquis houses aside from Orhan, even when they did have daughters, none were the right age for Skyler.
Coincidentally, as if someone had arranged it all in advance, the only house that had a child of the opposite s*x and the proper age was Orhan.
Among the Grand Ducal household, his own cousin’s family, there was one young girl, but the Emperor, wanting to become more closely tied with Orhan, who formed one pillar of the Emperor’s faction, had pushed hard for the engagement with Orhan.
Even so, he had not paid much attention to Viviana herself.
He had only assumed she would be some ordinary child of that age, or at least that because Marquis Orhan had educated her, she would be a little better than the others.
‘This is not merely a little better….’
She stood out distinctly. She was precocious in a way unlike a child, but because of that, grace flowed through her every gesture.
It was admirable that she stepped forward when someone beneath her was about to suffer unfairly, and the more he looked at her, the more pleased he was even with her heart.
The Emperor, feeling satisfied that he had chosen well for his son’s match, smiled and said,
“I see. Then this man is not at fault.”
He had the attendant who had been prostrating himself rise.
The attendant, pulled back from hell, stood with a bewildered face for a moment in a daze, then bowed his head deeply.
“Very well, since you suffered hardship for a crime that was never committed, you may withdraw and rest now.”
He did not apologize.
The Emperor had to remain dignified, so he simply patted the man’s shoulder and ordered him to rest.
The face that had been full of terror just moments ago flushed red with grateful emotion.
That warped sight made Viviana feel a little chilled.
Though she had lived more lives in places where status was strict than in places like Korea in her previous life, where status had been free, perhaps because her last memory was of Korea, things like this felt strange and rather awkward to her.
After sending away the deeply moved attendant, who kept bowing his head, the Emperor turned back and looked down at her, and once more Viviana bowed her head.
“Very well, then what punishment should be given to you who committed the offense,Young Lady?”
At the deliberately cold tone of his voice, Marquis Orhan, who had been watching from a little distance away, was about to step forward, but he paused at the sight of the Emperor giving a slight shake of his head and a wink with one eye.
Viviana, with her head bowed, did not see that, and simply answered that she would obey whatever he commanded.
Deep inside, she was hoping that perhaps she might at least have the engagement broken off under the pretext that she had been careless because of this incident.
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Ummmm I have a theory. It might be that ‘he’ is actually and has always been the main male lead and every lifetime is like every novel made? She being a side character in every story as well.