Dominic’s eyes sank further after hearing May’s words.

What he had told her was a lie, but that didn’t mean the underlying thought was also a lie. It truly meant that he felt Walter’s actions were avoidance and denial.

Yet the woman before him says that her grandfather’s actions would have been more like confrontation.

“…Even if that’s the case, isn’t it a past that has already gone by?”

Dominic spoke indifferently, but even so, he suddenly found himself looking back at everything that made up this place.

The hill path leading to this mansion. The sea visible from there was the backdrop that most decorated Walter and Chloe’s childhood, he had heard.

This mansion, built like a painting, was their nest that the woman had drawn since she was young, and the flowers the man tended every year around this time were symbols of waiting, which the woman who prayed for his safe return at sea would always hand to him when he returned.

He had thought that Walter embracing all of those things was avoidance and denial, like he’s pretending the woman was still by his side….

But thinking about it, May’s words had a point.

Could a man who voluntarily surrounded himself with everything that reminded him of Chloe, obsessively preserving the past, truly have turned a blind eye to the woman’s death?

‘…He would have felt the emptiness even more.’

When Dominic finally acknowledged this, May, who had already turned her gaze to the garden, said.

“But sometimes… I thought it was a thing of the past, but there are times when it’s still ongoing….”

“……”

“After all, the past accumulates to form the present.”

Her tone was quite bitter. Because of this, Dominic set aside his acknowledgment of May’s words and said.

“…I don’t deny that the past accumulates to create the present, but it doesn’t seem to include the past of someone whose face you don’t even know.”

While he sympathized with May’s words, he still didn’t think she needed to empathize with their story and share in their sorrow.

“I mean that Mr. Prieto’s past is not yours, Miss May. Deliberately ruminating and feeling sad about it is just a meaningless waste of emotion. Just satisfy your curiosity and forget about it, that’s all.”

May smiled brightly once more at his cold words. Despite the coldness, she showed no signs of being hurt. Rather, her eyes curved more gently than before as she looked at Dominic.

“Those words mean you hope I won’t be sad…?”

“……”

The woman who trembled with a shaking voice over trivial things sometimes caught him off guard like this. As he momentarily fell silent and simply stared at her, she wiggled her feet and added.

“When we first met, you didn’t tell me such stories and pretended not to know for that reason too, I suppose.”

Well…. It’s true that he thought there was no need to inform May about the past at that time, but it was also a choice he made out of annoyance.

In other words, it was a choice he made more for himself than out of concern for the other person. Dominic quite honestly admitted this fact.

“It was just bothersome. I didn’t think I needed to tell you everything that you hadn’t asked about.”

“Hmm… even so, I don’t think what I feel will change.”

“……”

“I mean that your actions and words feel like kindness meant for me. Back then… your advice to me, telling me to contact you if I needed consultation… all of it.”

“Excessive positivity isn’t good.”

“Even now.”

May’s voice was full of laughter.

“You always say something for my sake…. In the end, you even came here in person to tell me what you didn’t tell me back then because it was bothersome. If it was truly annoying, you could have just ignored me completely…. You don’t know how happy I was when I received your reply saying you would come here.”

“……”

“I don’t know how to explain that as anything other than kindness…. Do you perhaps know?”

Her face, asking somewhat playfully, was bright and innocent.

Her black eyes, which had lately been more often immersed in pleasure or hazy, were shining with unprecedented clarity. It was a transparent light that made her sincerity completely palpable.

As they conversed, the sun rose higher, brightly illuminating her eyes. Dominic couldn’t take his gaze away from May’s curved black eyes under the sunlight.

“Actually, from when my parents passed away and I was left alone until recently, I was very lonely….”

…No, he couldn’t take his eyes off not just her pupils, but everything about the woman.

“These days, I’ve completely forgotten about that, you know?”

Her slightly parted lips chattering away, her round nose tip and flushed cheeks… and even her slender neck that had given him a strange trauma.

Dominic slowly scanned all of these things and let out a hollow laugh. The reason he was captivated by her was all too obvious.

He was no longer at an age where he could pretend not to know or truly not recognize the identity of that emotion that suddenly revealed its presence.

It wasn’t intense enough to be called a passionate emotion, but the weight that pressed down silently was quite heavy. Heavy enough to cause a sudden tightness around his neck…. Moreover, he was someone who rarely felt emotional about others. That made the realization even more certain.

He had developed feelings beyond responsibility for this woman before him.

Dominic gazed at May without denying this fact.

“It feels like I’m being compensated for all my loneliness. Because suddenly there are such good people around me….”

“……”

Compensated.

Her situation was too dire to use such a positive word. But instead of denying it, Dominic spoke, following his emotions rather than thinking about the situation or reality as he usually would.

“…Then I’ll stay until you want me to.”

At his words, May opened her eyes wide. Her face showed that she didn’t understand what he meant.

“I was actually going to ask how long you would be staying…. What do you mean by until I want you to?”

In response to her careful question that followed, Dominic conveyed his intention more clearly.

“I’m saying that you should decide how long I stay in this mansion.”

“…What?”

“I’ll stay until your loneliness completely disappears.”

It was an uncharacteristically vague statement from him. But Dominic promised as he looked at the woman’s dumbfounded face.

“…Allow me to stay here until then. If you want me to, I won’t leave.”

That was a promise that would remain valid even after May’s body returned to normal.

And May, who had blinked momentarily at his characteristically authoritative tone, smiled again. Dominic also let out a small laugh at her voice confidently stating that the lawyer was indeed kind.

It was a moment when the mansion’s atmosphere, which had felt like walking on thin ice, flipped once again. Dominic realized that the scent that used to come from the scent pouch was now coming from her as well.

Naturally, he raised his hand to stroke her hair, and she closed her eyes and savored it. She made that face when she was younger too.

The difference from then was that now he wanted to kiss that face. The desire to become her family like back then arose, but the title he wanted to be called had also changed.

‘…How amusing.’

And when his hand fell away, May, who couldn’t hide her slight disappointment, casually asked,

“Ah, by the way, did my grandfather perhaps tend to something in the mansion garden? It seemed a bit strange that there was nothing in the garden when I first arrived….”

So that’s what she was curious about after staring at the garden all this time.

Dominic answered without much thought.

“Flowers.”

“Flowers?”

Seeing her face brighten, he nodded.

“Yes, I heard that Mr. Prieto planted flowers every year.”

“Ah… I see. So it was flowers….”

May’s face was flushed with excitement. It was puzzling why she was so happy about learning just that. He was exasperated that after telling her to forget the past, she was instead digging into it more.

But even while thinking this, his lips naturally spoke words for her sake.

“If you want, I’ll find out what flowers he planted.”

“Can you find that out?”

Her eyes, widened in surprise, were mixed with expectation and joy. Dominic affirmed gruffly as he looked at her.

“My father would know. He saw them firsthand.”