Deep affection showed in his eyes as he carefully stroked the white bird. The white bird also rubbed its face against his fingers, seemingly understanding his feelings. It was a heartwarming sight just to watch.

“Even though you can’t communicate with words, the bird must know you’re a warm person, Sir Schwein.”

“You think so?”

Schwein smiled faintly while looking at the white bird. Pretty dimples bloomed on his cheeks.

“Come to think of it, this seems to be the first time I’ve properly talked with you like this, Lady Clea.”

Like he said, unlike before, I didn’t feel nervous or have my body move on its own like it was broken. My mind was peaceful, and rather than worrying about how I looked in front of him, I focused on what he was saying.

“Lady Clea…?”

“Oh, yes?”

“Your expression suddenly darkened…”

“I just… find it fascinating how people’s hearts work.”

At my words, Schwein looked at me with curiosity.

“I never thought I’d be able to talk this peacefully with you, Sir Schwein. I used to get so nervous… and other things distracted me.”

“So you’re saying it’s not like that now.”

The blue eyes gazing at me curved beautifully. Even looking at that didn’t stir any particular feelings in me. Just two months ago, I would have wished for him to smile that pretty smile in front of me.

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“Whenever I see you, Lady Clea, I always think of my friend.”

“Your friend, Sir Schwein?”

“A really strange person. Oh, I don’t mean you’re strange, Lady Clea, so please don’t misunderstand.”

I laughed at how he hurriedly added that with a surprised expression.

“Alright, I won’t.”

“It was like that from the first time we met. We’d never even spoken a word to each other, but this person suddenly came up to me and told me to decide whether to be friends or die by their hand.”

My eyes widened at the outrageous statement that exceeded expectations. Who would say something so menacing to someone they wanted to be friends with?

“Just hearing about it, that person sounds really strange.”

“Right? But I didn’t dislike it. I envied and found fascinating that honesty and boldness.”

Schwein laughed softly, seemingly recalling his friend.

“A friend who’s truly honest and confident in everything, but can’t be honest in front of just one person.”

Now I was completely absorbed in Schwein’s story. If someone was honest enough to be rude even to people they just met, I’d think they’d always be the same. Curiosity rose about who they couldn’t be that way in front of.

“What kind of person is it?”

“The person they love. And for a very long time.”

“…That’s unexpected.”

“Right?” Schwein said quietly. Then he looked at me and added, “So I wanted to properly talk at least once with that person who makes my friend, who acts fearlessly, into a different being. I was just curious.”

“…So did you talk to them?”

“Yes. I didn’t know before, but once I actually talked to them, the two really were alike. How could they be so identical? And everyone else knows, but only they don’t. How they think about each other.”

His face looked somewhat amused. I stared blankly at Schwein, not knowing what to say. Then he smiled and said to me, “In that sense, please take good care of my friend, Lady Clea. Usually fine, but very occasionally makes stupid, foolish mistakes.”

“What?”

My mind grew complicated at words that reminded me of someone I knew. Could the friend Schwein was talking about possibly be Thadeus? 

But with that kind of rudeness and boldness, it couldn’t be anyone but Thadeus.

While I hesitated to ask, worried it might be a stupid question, Schwein flinched. 

It was because if he held on any longer, he might face a life-threatening situation from his friend, like he’d mentioned earlier. 

He disappeared at a fast pace, saying he had to go, without giving me a chance to hold him back.

“I haven’t even asked properly yet…”

I walked alone in the rose garden for a bit before returning to the ballroom. Thadeus had gone somewhere and wasn’t visible. The young ladies who’d been following him were the same. 

Feeling frustrated, I was about to drink another glass of wine when some unfamiliar man approached me.

“This will taste better.”

He was an exotic-looking man with bronze skin and thick eyebrows. His speech also had an unfamiliar accent mixed in. What he offered was different from ordinary wine somehow. 

A mysterious purple, sparkling liquid was contained in the glass. I didn’t care what it was as long as it could soothe my insides right away.

“Thank you.”

Just as I was about to accept and drink it, someone rushed over. When I turned my gaze, it was Thadeus. 

The surprise was brief—he snatched the glass I was holding and poured it straight onto the face of the man in front of me.

“Drink this garbage yourself.”

Purple liquid dripped down his hair onto the floor. The man let out small scoffs. I felt flustered by Thadeus’s sudden appearance and the increasingly hostile atmosphere.

“What are you doing all of a sudden?”

“What about you?”

“What…?”

“You know what’s in there and you fearlessly accept it?”

At those words, the man smiled broadly. Then he sneered in a voice full of regret.

“She was a lady I quite liked. Turns out she has a guard dog?”

Thadeus’s face turned fierce in an instant. He glared at the person in front of him with the momentum to bite them immediately. Suppressed anger burst out in his words.

“You will regret this day until the moment you die.”

I couldn’t understand what situation this was. Looking at Thadeus’s reaction, something strange seemed to have been in the wine glass I was holding. Thadeus grabbed my wrist and went outside while the man laughed like he found it amusing.

We walked quite far from the ballroom. Thadeus still strode forward at a fast pace without any explanation. This situation of being dragged along without reason didn’t feel pleasant.

“Let go of this hand! Just where are you trying to go?”

The place he stopped was a quiet forest where people didn’t pass by. Darkness had descended around us, and only the full moon floating in the night sky illuminated the world.

He turned to look at me, then roughly pulled the back of my head. And kissed me. It was a violent yet simultaneously desperate kiss. He forced his way past my tightly closed lips and moved persistently, seemingly to imprint his existence.

‘Why is he suddenly doing this…!’

I tried pushing Thadeus and hitting him with my fists, but he didn’t budge. 

The more I rejected him, the more the sweet kisses that followed, the melting touches, and that warm embrace I could perhaps only long for in dreams made me feel like crying.

This was too cruel for me. I couldn’t push Thadeus away anymore. No matter how much he pitied me. Even if he dismissed me as a toy good for playing with. I couldn’t do anything anymore.

At least in this moment, I wanted him too. Without avoiding the onslaught of kisses, I clung to Thadeus’s neck. Hot breaths mingled as we craved and explored each other more. 

A thirst arose that seemed insufficient even if I tasted everything and endlessly indulged in him.

Finally, the moment that seemed like it would never end arrived. The pressed lips slowly separated. Moonlight that had been covered by clouds descended on his face. 

Thadeus’s eyes looking at me rippled more than ever.

“I like you.”

“What…?”

“I… like you, Clea.”

The voice that followed trembled miserably. His expression speaking of love looked sweet like he was dreaming, yet also pitiful like he was seized by fear.

Unfamiliar. No, it wasn’t unfamiliar. I already knew that face. Those crumbled eyes directed at me, those emotions he couldn’t quite hide—they occasionally flowed out and shook my heart.

“Not for a single moment have I not loved you.”

The surroundings were quiet. Like only the two of us remained in this world. Thadeus’s voice echoed very slowly in my head, like the flow of time had tangled.

“But…! Then what about your fiancée?”

“Fiancée?”

“Yes. That woman you promised to marry!”

A voice of incomprehension followed.

“What are you talking about? If you’re going to know, you should know properly. That woman is you, Clea.”

“I’m your fiancée, Thadeus? I’ve never heard anything like that…?”

“Because you said your heart wasn’t ready. You asked me to wait until then.”

‘No way…!’

Only then did I understand why our parents hadn’t found it strange seeing me with Thadeus. 

The letter I’d secretly seen also had content asking them to wait a little longer since he would explain to the person involved.

But that alone wasn’t enough. In noble society, marriage wasn’t done only for love. It could easily be done for promises between families or for mutual benefit.

“You… don’t love me.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Can you be certain that emotion you feel is love?”

“More than anything. I can be certain.”

“If this is also because you pity me…”

Thadeus’s face looking at me twisted miserably.

“Why would I pity you?”

“Because… you did back then too.”

He let out a quiet sigh and squeezed his eyes shut. Soon a low, sunken voice flowed out.

“That was a misunderstanding.”

“What’s a misunderstanding?”

“Back then… I didn’t have courage. I was a pathetic brat who found it hard to say I liked you as I was. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

When I narrowed my eyes and glared at him in disbelief, Thadeus roughly ran his hand through his hair. Then he pressed both eyes with his hands before looking at me with a gaze full of pleading.

“For the past month. During that hellish time, I searched places you might go like a madman. Dessert shops and downtown, couples’ dating spots, and even balls I don’t like like this one.”

Then his voice stopped. Desperate-looking black eyes captured my image. His face was stained with pain, telling of the time that had passed.

“If I went to the estate, I felt like you’d hate me more than now. I wanted to see your face even just in passing from afar. I spent time like a lunatic… If this isn’t love, then what the h*ll is it?”

My heart ached at his earnest words. But even so, distrust still didn’t disappear. Among the things Thadeus had done, there were still things I couldn’t understand.

“Then what about Schwein’s preferences you told me about?”

“That was…”

“What was that?”

After hesitating for a long time, Thadeus answered in an endlessly small voice.

“In case you… abandoned me and met another guy. I wanted you to become a body that couldn’t do without me…”

Even though visibility was dim because it was nighttime, his reddened face was vividly clear. While I felt moved by Thadeus’s embarrassed appearance, anger suddenly rose.

‘He did those things for such an absurd reason?’

During the month with him, I’d come to deeply know about the promiscuous nightlife culture I hadn’t wanted to know about. 

It wasn’t once or twice that I felt self-loathing, thinking I’d become such a vulgar person that I could never return to my previous life.

Of course, I also moaned in new pleasure when the magic side effects came or when I was actually in that situation, but that was that and this was this. 

How much did he make me tremble with shame and wickedly torment me during that time? 

Resentment burst out from deep in my heart.

“Pervert! S*xual deviant! You… wicked beast!”

Unable to hold back, I hit his shoulder with my fist. Thadeus silently accepted my touch with an unbothered expression.

“Right. I’m the bad one. I was a cowardly b*stard who wasn’t honest.”

Thadeus took out a pretty ring from his pocket. A large diamond was set in the center, and small jewels were crafted and spread around it in a flower petal shape. As I stopped breathing and stared quietly at it, Thadeus knelt on one knee and held out the ring to me.

“I’ll repay you many times over for what I did wrong from now on. Don’t do something like an engagement—marry me first.”

I was too flustered. Is this what they call a proposal? I never dreamed I’d receive a proposal so suddenly. And while receiving a pretty ring I really liked at that.

Honestly, I wanted to put that brilliant ring on my finger right away. So I could announce to the world that I was the owner of this ring.

But the difficult past passed through my mind. I shouldn’t accept it all at once like this. Rather, it would spoil him. Besides, I wanted Thadeus to pine more than I’d worried.

“I’ll think about it.”

“What…?”

“I’ll think about it very slowly until I feel like it.”

I glanced at his face that had frozen stiffly. His eyes shook ceaselessly like someone facing an unbelievable, shocking fact.

“Wait obediently until then.”

I almost laughed at his expression changing moment by moment. Thadeus asked me repeatedly whether this was some newly popular joke in the empire. 

Each time, I firmly answered no. I secretly smiled at Thadeus like that.

‘I’ll tease him plenty before answering much, much later.’