Chapter 2 – What Remains the Same and What Doesn’t (5)

“Hold on.”

Chloe glanced sideways at Demetrian and approached where her family was. Etienne, who had barely arrived before the grand banquet began, was recounting the day’s events to the Count Palatine and his wife.

“Father.”

“Yes, Loi.”

“I’d like to have a dance with you after such a long time, is that alright?”

“Hmm?”

The Count Palatine’s gaze moved to his wife and then to the young man who had always been his daughter’s partner.

“Ho ho, with this father of yours? What should I do…”

Despite his wandering eyes, the smile on his face showed that he was quite pleased, contrary to his words.

“Honey, is that alright with you?”

“What are you asking for? Then I’ll just stay with our son.”

The Countess Palatine said this as she linked arms with her son standing next to her. Etienne’s eyes wandered as if trying to convey his awkwardness to someone, but Chloe didn’t have the time to pay attention to that. She was too busy ignoring Demetrian’s bewildered face after being unexpectedly refused the first dance.

A mid-tempo waltz with a lyrical atmosphere began to play, typically danced by couples with special relationships. Chloe was lost in memories of practicing social dances with her father when she first learned as a child.

“Loi, I thought you’d find dancing with this father of yours boring now that you’ve debuted in society.”

“Father, really. What are you saying?”

“What wind blew today? I’m just happy to dance with my girl after so long.”

Chloe chuckled softly. Although something significant had happened, it wasn’t really a big deal. Having lived five more years, she thought of it as comforting her father, who would regret sending her to Scandar a few years later. But to her father, seeing twenty-year-old Chloe, it must have seemed like a simple whim.

‘The problem is that whim is because of Demi…’

Chloe deftly deflected her father’s teasing while searching for Demetrian with her eyes. Demetrian, who had briefly shown a bewildered expression when Chloe went to dance with the Count Palatine, was now surrounded by young men from society trying to strike up a conversation with the Young Duke.

“You have no idea how pleased I was that you came for the opening ceremony. I thought my Loi had matured enough to be ready for marriage.”

“Father, you keep saying that.”

Chloe looked up at her father, as if scolding him, but her eyes carried a somber undertone about the future she foresaw. A future the Count Palatine couldn’t even imagine.

“Are you already thinking of marrying me off? Are you secretly looking for a match for me?”

“How could I? My lifelong regret is not realizing how much your mother would find life in Gotiue stifling.”

The girl who grew up under the blazing sun by the sea met a fateful love in the capital when she came to study in Ridote. However, that love was with the heir of the Count Palatine’s family, who couldn’t leave the capital, making her the Countess of Palatine, who befriended homesickness in a city lacking sunlight and the sea. Because of this lifelong guilt, the Count Palatine had accepted even the extraordinary idea of hiring a nursemaid who was a former assassin.

“If someone you care for deeply enough to leave comes along, your mother and I would gladly bless it. Though it wouldn’t be easy for a Lacroix.”

The more radiant the love, the more so, the Count Palatine winked.

Looking at her father’s face, shining only with trust and love for her, Chloe recalled the somber face of her father at the dinner with the Emperor, which she remembered from that time.

‘Neither I nor Father needed to feel sorry for each other.’

Remembering the strained relationship she eventually had with her father, Chloe smiled bitterly. A smile the Count Palatine could never understand.

As Chloe laughed, her gaze once again fell on Demetrian. He was looking at her intently over the heads of those who had gathered around him, as if not wanting to miss her slightest movement.

Demetrian, surrounded by acquaintances from society who kindly worried about why he wasn’t dancing the first dance with the Lacroix lady, was… constantly watching Chloe.

‘Perhaps I was too hasty.’

Demetrian was thinking about the hand he had extended.

He thought he had acted as usual, though his hand had trembled a bit, he thought it hadn’t shown.

Apparently, something seemed different. If so, that sharp woman wouldn’t have been fooled.

Initially confused, then worried about being caught, now everything just felt overwhelming. But no matter how much he suppressed it, his uncharacteristic behavior must have aroused Chloe’s suspicions.

Until everything is ready…’

Cautiously, and with even more caution. It’s a hard-earned opportunity.

As soon as the dance ended, Demetrian nodded to excuse himself from those around him and approached Chloe.

Chloe was quite satisfied with having rejected his first dance. She knew it wasn’t something to be particularly proud of, but still, it felt that way.

‘It feels like I’ve won something… Demi keeps confusing me in a strange way.’

Taking Demetrian’s hand as he asked for a dance, they moved to the center of the floor. It wasn’t anything special for twenty-year-old Chloe. The gaze of society acquaintances, who viewed their relationship as nothing more than deep friendship, followed them as usual.

Yet it was something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. As she reluctantly took Demetrian’s hand again, Chloe realized her hand was trembling just like his had earlier.

Since she had practiced social dances with Demetrian from the time she first started learning as a child, Chloe was confident she could dance any dance with him as if it were second nature. Even though the music playing was faster than the first dance they always danced, it was the same.

Only his face was something she couldn’t get used to.

His gaze was fixed on Chloe, not moving an inch. His lips, pressed into a straight line, formed a faint curve, and his eyes looking at her were nothing but gentle.

This was a face she had only seen when they were alone. A look that was only possible inside the carriage returning from a social event attended together, heading back to the Count Palatine Lacroix’s residence.

It was a look that shouldn’t be shown in a place where anyone could see.

And the words he let out like a sigh…

“You can’t even imagine how overwhelmed I am right now.”

His eyes shone with an unprecedented light as he said that.

For a moment, Chloe couldn’t tear her gaze away.

The unfamiliar expression from the person she thought she knew. Something she had avoided because she didn’t know how to deal with it.

His eyes and mouth curved deeper as if to say the words he uttered were sincere, and Chloe watched in a daze.

The only thing different from what she remembered. And it had changed in a direction she had once so desperately wished for.

If living this time again is to show me a glimpse of a different life.

Or, if it’s to give me a chance to choose…

* * *

“Did you have a pleasant day today?”

On days when he was too busy to join for dinner, the young King of Scandar would personally visit the quarters of his beloved second queen late at night.

“I’m sorry for making you dine alone.”

“I know better than anyone how busy Your Majesty is.”

At her words, her husband slowly lowered his head and smiled. His hair, like melted moonlight, flowed over his shoulders. In the long nights of Scandar’s secluded palace, when that bright golden hair draped over her sight, Chloe often thought it felt like daylight had come.

“I wish I could help.”

At such times, Chloe would always say what she held in her heart, knowing what answer would come.

“No matter how I think about it, it pains me for you to bear any hardship in my country.”

As expected…

His fingertips hovered near her ear. The hand that had once carefully tucked her hair behind her ear now brushed her eyes and cheek without hesitation, as if accustomed to it.

His thumb gently brushed her lower lip.

“Enjoy only the beautiful things. They are all yours.”

Before she knew it, the room was filled with colorful jewels and all kinds of silk.

Ah, was it a dream?

It had been over ten days since she returned to being twenty.

She was getting used to the familiar ceiling beams catching the morning light, and now, as she fell asleep, she began to worry whether she would wake up back in Shevik’s secluded palace. As she grew accustomed to staying at twenty, the sense of duty to return to being twenty-five was fading…

The grand banquet ended up being enjoyable.

For a moment, she was anxious about seeing those she would eventually part with, those she had lost contact with and felt disappointed by.

In reality, their kindness, always being friendly to the Young Lady of Lacroix and not misunderstanding her relationship with Young Duke Crevelle, melted her heart.

The friends she had studied with at Ridote, the ladies she had met at tea parties, and the young men she had danced with at balls were all like that.

[Thank you for the invitation, but I regret that I won’t be able to attend.]

‘How many decline responses have I written now?’

Knowing how that friendship would end, she didn’t feel inclined to put her all into socializing with them like before.

‘It’s the same with Demi…’

Every time her heart fluttered at his unfamiliar expression, it would eventually settle down.

If the future unfolded as she knew it, she would one day become the mistress of Shevik’s palace again, even if she didn’t want to. Just as she had suddenly turned back five years, she could suddenly be sent back again.

So all Chloe, living her twenties again, could do was live each day to the fullest. So she wouldn’t regret it, even if she ‘returned’ tomorrow morning. And so she wouldn’t regret not having fully enjoyed Gotiue if she found herself in Shevik’s palace again in two years.

In Shevik, she had been too accustomed to the luxury to realize it, but spending time with the people of Lacroix and the acquaintances from Gotiue society, Chloe realized she had been lonely.