Chapter 1 – I Woke Up and It Was 5 Years Ago (2)

Beyond this door is Demetrian.

Just the thought of it made Chloe feel like she was suffocating.

Whether she was trying to buy time or catch her breath, Chloe stood for a long time in front of the small drawing room, not knowing her own purpose. The intricately carved doorknob decorations and the reliefs engraved on the door were unchanged, failing to draw her attention. She had to focus on such things to calm her chaotic mind.

If this is a dream, then it’s fine as a dream.

But perhaps because of this bizarre vividness that had been confusing her all along, she couldn’t help but feel tense at the thought that perhaps this moment was reality.

Swallowing hard, Chloe cautiously opened the door to the drawing room. So quietly that even the sound of the doorknob turning was inaudible.

The early morning sunlight settled between the heavy winter curtains, revealing the scenery of the small drawing room. Although it was a space where she had spent time with many acquaintances from the social circles, memories of this early hour were rare for Chloe.

And in that scene, there was the back of a man standing by the window, looking out at the garden.

His neatly cropped black hair that didn’t reach his collar. Even during this holiday, he was wearing the Imperial Academy’s uniform. The gold epaulets indicated he was a senior student.

…As if to prove that it was indeed early spring of Imperial Year 913, five years ago.

Demetrian, lost in thought and gazing out the window, didn’t notice the presence behind him and remained motionless.

His tall stature, which Chloe always had to look up to, and his shoulders that were neither too broad nor too narrow… Just seeing these details, exactly as she remembered, made her heart race to the point of breathlessness.

Even if it was a dream, even if she wasn’t desperate, how could she not tremble when he was someone she liked in every moment she remembered?

Chloe gathered her courage and squeezed out her voice, hoping it wouldn’t sound strange and strained.

“Demi?”

As soon as her trembling voice, contrary to her wishes, echoed in the space, Demetrian’s shoulders flinched. Slowly, his head turned, his feet moved, and his shoulders shifted.

To Chloe, it felt like an eternity. She wanted to confirm his face quickly, yet she also wished he would never turn around.

Perhaps because of anticipation, or fear?

If he seemed hesitant as well, was it because her feelings were projected onto him?

Finally, as he stood sideways, the sunlight flowed over his smooth nose and firm jawline.

“…Loi.”

So she couldn’t clearly see his face, shadowed as it was. She couldn’t tell what emotions were rising on his face or what his eyes held.

But his voice, like Chloe’s, trembled as if choked.

Perhaps he had a sad expression, perhaps something sparkled at the corner of his eye, but one thing was certain.

“Have you been well?”

“Yeah, have you been busy too, Demi? …All this time?”

Chloe observed Demetrian’s face, sitting across the table, through the Lacroix teacup she held for the first time in a long while.

His face wasn’t much different from what she remembered.

‘This must be Demi when he was twenty-three… The last time I saw him, he was twenty-five.’

She wondered if there had ever been a time when she hadn’t seen Demetrian for so long. Chloe examined the familiar face across from her, imagining his twenty-eight-year-old self, perhaps a bit rougher, his eyes deeper, his jawline more pronounced. A face of him she had never seen.

I missed you.

The words she almost uttered the very moment she first met Demetrian, Chloe rolled them around in her mouth once more.

If this is a dream, shouldn’t I say everything I want, the words I swallowed in my heart? …Or should I be cautious just in case?

‘It’s so vivid, is it really a dream…’

As she pondered over her words, the things that had been stirring in her heart turned out to be things she didn’t need to say. As always.

Silence flowed again.

Demetrian, too, couldn’t take his eyes off Chloe. Whenever they had tea together, he would always savor the freshly brewed tea immediately, but his hands remained still on his crossed knees long after Chloe had served the tea with trembling hands.

Was he acting unlike himself because it was a dream, too?

‘When I first saw him… he was unfamiliar.’

As she chewed over the belated awkwardness that arose, Chloe sipped from her teacup.

Only then did Demetrian seem to realize the presence of the refreshments, as he slowly reached out to grasp the teacup. His straight, firm fingers lightly held the handle. Yet, his gaze never left Chloe.

When Chloe entered the drawing room.

Even after turning around, Demetrian stood by the window for quite some time.

Still shrouded in shadow, his eyes meticulously examining Chloe felt somehow warm. Chloe, however, didn’t notice as she was busy calming her own surging emotions.

As if deciding something, Demetrian strode over quickly and raised his hand, hesitated as if lowering it, and then froze. The hand that seemed about to reach out hovered near Chloe’s face and shoulder, and his lips, which had stiffened, moved as if to speak but remained silent.

The unfamiliar expression emanating from his close face. She wondered if he had ever been so cautious about anything. He was someone who always seemed so relaxed, almost to the point of arrogance.

‘Is it because it’s a dream?’

Chloe, who knew how to keep the waves of her turbulent heart from showing, was a noble lady, and Demetrian gazed at her as if measuring something. His persistent gaze that always returned to Chloe, even when pretending otherwise, surely had some intention, but Chloe was too busy hiding her confusion to guess what it was.

Lost in their respective thoughts, barely sipping their tea, some time passed.

“…It’s time to enter the palace.”

Demetrian murmured, carefully placing down the teacup he had barely touched. A somewhat somber expression lingered on his face. Glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner of the parlor, Chloe recalled the time her brother used to leave for work.

“It’s already that time, huh.”

“No need to see me off.”

Demetrian gestured with his hand to decline Chloe’s attempt to stand and see him off. The confusion on his face hadn’t entirely disappeared.

For Chloe, who was just as confused despite her joy ast seeing him, it was somewhat a relief that he was leaving early.

“See you next time.”

“…Yes, next time.”

If there is a next time, that is.

Watching his retreating figure disappear down the hallway, Chloe thought so.

* * *

Chloe holed up in her room. Mirabelle, who was excited to go to the city, came to the room, but for young people who had just started to enjoy drinking legally, a hangover was a very useful excuse.

“Instead, you have to stop by Marcone on the way back tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes, yes. Sorry, Rabi.”

Though she was tempted to play with Mirabelle, with her troubled heart, she felt she couldn’t do anything properly.

If she were sure this was a dream, she would spend time with Mirabelle as if playing in the nostalgic times even in a dream… But the situation was so vivid that she couldn’t just think of it as a dream, so she couldn’t comfortably enjoy it.

‘Let’s try to get out of this first.’

More than wanting to wake up from the dream, she wanted to confirm it. She wanted to know the reason behind this situation that had helplessly dragged her back to the naive emotions of five years ago. The only thing she could do was try to fall asleep again.

After tossing and turning under the covers for about 30 minutes, she failed. Perhaps because it hadn’t been long since she woke up, she filled her stomach with the tomato soup the maids brought and then pulled the covers over herself again.

And she really seemed to have fallen asleep for a few dozen minutes, but even when she opened her eyes, Chloe was still in her room in the townhouse of Gotiyu.

Ah, really…

Chloe brightened at the sight of the girl pushing in a trolley with lunch.

“Just how much did you drink yesterday? You seemed fine when you came in.”

Chloe’s dedicated maid, Pompom. Though she saw her in the morning, seeing her properly again was a delight.

Chloe had parted ways with Pompom, who had been with her since she entered her teens, when she left for Scandar. Not only Pompom, but she couldn’t take any of the other maids to the far northern country, so she sometimes missed the girls she had grown up with.

“You seem to be in a daze all day today.”

Her face subtly inquiring, concern for her lady was evident in her expression.

‘It’s just because everything is so familiar after a long time… I can’t say that, though.’

The tea accompanying the simple tea food meal had a nostalgic aroma. It was the same tea served when she was with Demetrian in the morning, but she hadn’t been able to enjoy it properly then, as she was busy calming her fluttering heart. This mid-grade Silkyway, which she drank daily during this period thanks to her husband who wished for his consort to enjoy only the best, she hadn’t tasted for the past three years.

And Pompom’s touch, checking on her well-being.

Everything was both unfamiliar because it had been so long and familiar because it was her home, bringing a feeling of warmth. Chloe’s lips curved into a soft smile.

“Yes, my head feels a bit heavy.”

“Oh dear, it’s the festival week, and you can’t even go out to see the sights.”

“You go ahead. I won’t call for you.”

“Oh, my lady, you know I didn’t mean it that way…”

Even as she said that, Pompom’s bright face, smiling broadly, made Chloe smile, telling her she could go. The sound of Pompom’s footsteps running to find the head maid was a lively noise she hadn’t heard in a while.

The superior maids of Scandar not only avoided stepping on the shadows of those they served but also never spoke first. And as she remembered, the Lacroix servants were all like this. The air of the place where she was born and raised, felt after such a long time…

‘Yes, everything is just as I remember.’

Perhaps that’s why there hadn’t been a single moment where she thought, ‘Ah, it really is a dream.’ The only thing different from her memory was that instead of going to the city with Mirabelle, she was holed up in her room on this day and time.

‘…No, Demetrian was different too.’

At this time, Demetrian, having completed the academy early and with a year left until graduation, was entering the palace daily as an aide to his father, Duke Crevelle. The same was true during the festival week holiday. For someone raised as an heir all his life, leisure wasn’t in his vocabulary.

Yet, Demetrian had come at such an early hour, without any notice, and seemed to have no particular purpose, sipping a bit of tea before leaving.

She wondered if there had ever been such a long silence between them.

The only memories she had with him in the drawing room were during their private reading sessions, discussing books they read together. During those times, Demetrian often wore a leisurely smile, saying things like, ‘You could think about it that way,’ ‘It’s a good idea in terms of originality.’

So the tense face of Demetrian she encountered this morning was incredibly unfamiliar. That anxious expression, as if he was about to speak but hesitated.

…Thinking about it made Chloe feel like this really was a dream.

‘I need to wake up soon. Before I get more attached. To do that, first…’