Spinning my eyes around in confusion on my own, Silvie quietly came to my side and tapped my shoulder.

“Miss, that is enough. I am starting to feel sorry for that man too.”

I snapped back to my senses. I was confused because of the original story, but the other person had no way of knowing that. From his perspective, it might look like I was interrogating him for ulterior motives after receiving a confession.

So I quickly bowed my head slightly to clear up any misunderstanding.

“First of all, I am sorry for speaking as though I kept doubting your feelings. It is not that I do not believe you. I genuinely cannot remember us ever meeting……”

Even granting a hundred times over that he had fallen for me at first sight, would you not at least need to have come face to face and exchanged a greeting before falling for someone? But Karl Drian and I had never once crossed paths before the day of the annulment. The Drian family was one that kept almost entirely to themselves, and I had been far too busy running around on family business.

‘The only thing I can think of is briefly attending a Drian family party when I was young.’

That party where I had happened to meet Nanari Drian.

But even then I had only run into Nanari Drian by chance in the garden. I had not seen any of the other Drians.

‘Could he have been watching me from a distance?’

And fallen for me at first sight?

It still did not make sense. I furrowed my brow and looked at Karl. His expressionless face met mine. My reflection appeared in his gleaming silver-grey eyes.

Right then, a brief flash of light showed in those eyes I had only ever thought of as impassive. It was a clear, unmistakable ripple of emotion.

From his lips came a long sentence, unlike anything he would normally say.

“The way blue and red mix to create an entirely different purple, the moment I faced you was brief, but it was more than enough for a new feeling to bloom inside me. It may have been an unremarkable day to you, but to me it was a special one.”

It was a sweeter thing than anyone would believe could come from the mouth of a man I had thought was a boulder. Flustered, I blinked and pressed my lips firmly together.

“The reason I am saying this is because I want you to believe that I mean it.”

Saying that, Karl Drian reached into his chest and slid a small rectangular box across the table toward me. What was inside did not need to be opened to know.

‘A ring.’

Roco’s confession, in which he had revealed his identity as foreign royalty, had carried weight, but Karl Drian’s confession, complete with a ring, was no less heavy. Before I could push it away, Karl rose from his seat.

“I will go in first.”

He walked down the corridor connecting the shop and the living quarters. Until his shadow disappeared completely, I had been holding myself upright with stiff posture, but then I let out a long sigh and slumped back against the chair.

“Haah.”

A proposal! And of all things, a proposal from Karl Drian!

‘I came all the way here from the capital to get away from that man, so why has it come to this?’

Was this not a proposal meant for Georgiana that got delivered to the wrong address? No, more than that……

‘So if I refuse this proposal, does this town become a sea of fire?’

Picturing the worst-case scenario made my mind go completely blank. No matter how I thought about it, there was no answer. I pulled at my hair and slumped face-down on the table.

“How did things end up like this.”

No matter how I thought about it, something was wrong.

“……Could it be that Karl Drian got the wrong person for his proposal?”

I muttered that in a very small voice. Silvie, who heard it while clearing away a cup, looked down at me with undisguised contempt.

“You are the worst.”

Look at this! You don’t even know what kind of man Karl Drian is!

More than that, weren’t you the one hoping things would work out between me and Roco? Now you’re criticizing me for not taking this confession seriously?

“Why am I the worst! When were you cheering me on to accept Roco’s proposal, and now you’re criticizing me for not accepting Karl’s!”

“That is exactly why I told you not to go wandering around alone. Going out for nothing and receiving a proposal.”

Silvie clicked her tongue and cleared away the teacup. I let out a sigh and answered:

“He would have proposed even if you had been with me. He did not seem to notice whether I was holding trash or a bouquet.”

‘His hands were even trembling.’

His expressionless face had made him look composed, but I had seen it clearly. The fist he had been holding closed, shaking at intervals.

Having seen even that, denying reality any further would be rude.

“It is not that I genuinely doubted his sincerity……”

At my murmur, Silvie narrowed her eyes again and poured out her criticism:

“Anyone listening would say it was doubt.”

“It was just that something seemed off! No matter how I think about it, there was no real point of connection between us.”

“Some feelings spark up like a flame from the most trivial of triggers. You know that too, Miss.”

I don’t. I don’t know. How would I know?

‘I have never experienced that kind of love.’

I had just been chasing after work and ended up here.

As I grumbled to myself face-down on the table, Silvie sat down in the seat Karl Drian had just vacated. Then she opened the box I had not been able to bring myself to touch.

Inside, a ring set with a pink gemstone the size of a thumbnail blazed with brilliant light.

‘Is that a pink diamond?’

The radiance was unlike anything ordinary. The moment I saw it, an instinct told me it was something exceptional. As I stared with my mouth open and a blank expression, Silvie clicked her tongue and closed the box again.

“Above all, proposing with a ring this obviously meant as a family heirloom, and you still doubted his sincerity. That is truly too much.”

“Ugh.”

Silvie was right. I admitted it. He was sincere. He had not gotten the wrong person, and he was not confused about his feelings.

The person he had taken into his heart was entirely me.

‘How did it come to this?’

I had only just gotten used to becoming close with someone I had been trying to avoid, and on top of that, I had also received the proposal that should have gone to the heroine.

‘And there is the other proposal too. That one is also a dragon’s heir.’

Was I some kind of specialist in identifying runaway time bombs? Why were two beings who could potentially go berserk as dragons both lingering around me?

‘Did I live my life wrong……’

My body was one, and I had to refuse someone’s proposal, so no matter what I did, a sea-of-fire ending awaited. Faced with a bleak future, I slumped face-down on the table again.

“Ugh, my head hurts. I went out to get some air and came back carrying one more thing to worry about.”

Silvie, who had been looking down at me quietly, abruptly asked:

“Do you feel nothing at all, and it is simply a headache?”

“Hmm?”

“Prince Roco’s proposal, and Sir Karl Drian’s proposal. Did both leave you with no feelings whatsoever?”

My feelings?

“Of course it was not like that, but……”

More precisely, I had not gotten as far as examining my own feelings. All I had been thinking about was the flow of the original story, the divergences, my current position, and so on.

When I looked at her with a face full of question marks, Silvie let out a long sigh as though she had expected as much. Then she rose from her seat and said:

“It seems like the answer will only become clear once you know what that feeling is. Think it over carefully.”

‘My heart.’

What had I felt when I received the confessions?

‘I am not sure.’

The price of having been too busy chasing work to pay attention to my own heart.

Leaving me to my groaning, Silvie went inside first. I tapped the ring box with my index finger and sank into thought.

Naturally, the world gave me no time to think things over carefully.