“…We did.”
Callios answered with a reluctant expression, pressing his lips tightly together. Regret, remorse, disappointment — emotions she rarely ever saw from him — swirled like a storm in his eyes.
“You must be happy, going back to the count’s estate?”
“Of course. I feel more at ease.”
Rosie tightened her grip on the bag containing the bloodstained handkerchief and looked up at the high, bright moon.
She felt as though the heavens were reminding her that she must never forget the day she died, even if she let her guard down for a moment.
‘I haven’t forgotten. Don’t worry.’
She returned, divorced him, and established an entirely different relationship with Callios.
Coming back in time hadn’t been all bad.
Well, to be honest, it had been extremely painful, but still.
He murmured as he watched the crowds spilling out of the theatre’s bright entrance.
“Your days must feel short lately. Because you’re happy.”
With an expression tight with pain, Callios replied.
“My days have become too long.”
“……”
“Because you’re not in them.”
Rosie looked at him quietly, as though she were seeing him for the first time.
His heart had been split open long ago, spilling everything, and she wondered how he had managed to keep anything inside until now.
Every time Callios saw her, he laid his emotions bare — unfiltered and unguarded — as if trying to shake off the unbearable weight of his guilt.
His sudden honesty felt unfamiliar.
And yet, she sensed something beneath it; perhaps Callios felt it, too.
Whatever it was.
Whatever tugged at him.
That same uneasy fear.
It pushed him to bring every hidden feeling to the surface, clinging to anything that might steady him.
Whether he was trying to reclaim his peace or grasping for something else entirely didn’t matter.
Rosie buried that unshakable truth deep within her heart, along with the bloodstained handkerchief tucked inside her bag.
‘I will leave you. In the cruelest way imaginable. The ending you long for will never come. Because I will not be there.’
At that moment, Callios suddenly asked her something. A vague, lingering guilt hovered on his face, something that never seemed to leave him.
“What about you, back at the duchy? Did your days feel long?”
It didn’t sound like a question meant to be answered. It was closer to him speaking to himself. Even so, Rosie quietly revisited those days.
“My days then were… nothing special. But…”
Callios had been right. Those days were long. Heavy. Dreary.
“I wished they would pass faster.”
So that tomorrow would come.
And the day after that.
So that he would return.
To her side.
A confession that had been buried deep within her nearly slipped out, and Rosie quickly shut her mouth.
There was no reason for Callios to know about her past regrets.
Yes. The past belonged where it was.
Revisiting them would achieve nothing; it would only confuse them both further.
As silence fell again, Rosie let out a quiet breath.
“If you have something to say, say it now.”
They walked deliberately along an empty stretch of road, wandering farther and farther from the oil lamps. The darkness thickened around them, shrouding her profile in night-time shadows.
Callios stared at her for a long moment, then pressed a hand to his forehead.
“There’s something else I need to apologize for. That’s why I asked to see you.”
“What is it?”
He hesitated, then stopped walking. Naturally, she stopped too. Callios avoided her gaze, instead staring at a dense cluster of trees.
“About the letters you sent to the Kingdom of Yones.”
Rosie remembered the many letters she had sent to her sister, who had married into a neighboring kingdom.
She eventually stopped writing, convinced that her sister had forgotten her.
But…
“I intercepted them all. And burned them.”
Rosie’s eyes flew wide in disbelief.
“How could you? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I had no idea. I thought….”
She had thought that even her sister had abandoned her.
That the last of her family had disappeared too.
Callios let out a dark, exhausted sigh in response to her reproach.
“If I hadn’t done that, I thought you would run away again.”
His sheer selfishness was staggering, stealing the breath from her lungs.
Suddenly, with painful clarity, she understood what Callios meant when he said he had put her first.
It wasn’t affection.
It wasn’t emotional closeness.
In fact, it wasn’t anything she would have called love.
If this was his idea of caring, then…
“What’s wrong with wanting only you?”
Rosie let out a faint, crooked smile.
Did he really want her?
Or did he just want to possess and cage her so that he could control her?
“You really went too far. Did you ever even consider how I might’ve felt?”
“That’s why I’m apologizing now.”
As always, he spat out the words roughly and carelessly, then seemed to realize this and turned sharply towards her.
But Rosie’s heart was already broken. She stared quietly at the ground, her expression calm.
Callios clenched the hand that had reached out to her, instinctively.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“…Is that all you wanted to say?”
“No. There’s more.”
As night fell, servants and coachmen from various noble households moved about, carrying small oil lanterns that cast soft circles of light across the darkness.
Callios observed the endless stretch of shadows and the flickering flames. Then he slowly parted his lips to speak.
However, having changed his mind at the last moment, he abruptly turned away.
“There was more, but… forget it.”
“Yes. That sounds wise.”
Rosie replied coldly and followed him back toward the theater.
But then his voice, unsteady and faint, made her stop again.
“When you ran away… saying you were going to your sister’s country. If I hadn’t caught you—”
“……”
“Would you have been happier?”
His regret-laden question was not an unfamiliar one.
She had asked herself the same question for a very long time, too.
Callios had finally allowed his thoughts to take him back there.
Whenever he delved into the past and confronted the man he used to be, Rosie felt an unsettling sensation wash over her.
She understood now: the more you look back, the stronger the past becomes.
Once strengthened, the past could blur the present — or even overtake it.
Indeed, the past could drag the present around and reshape the future as it wished.
Just as she was still standing there with him, even after their divorce.
‘Why is everything so tangled?’
Rosie’s lips curved into an uncertain smile, her expression wavering between tears and composure.
“I don’t know.”
She stepped closer, meeting his gaze, his eyes trembling as though he feared the answer.
“If I said… I think I would have been happier… would that hurt you more?”
The man who had always exuded confidence now looked completely cornered.
But there was nothing satisfying about it.
Instead, she felt an unpleasant, tight twisting sensation deep in her chest.
She let out a fragile laugh, bit her lip and suppressed her feelings.
“You said you would wait. But, Your Grace… you should stop holding on. Let go of what needs to be let go.”
Callios shook his head violently and took a step towards her, his shadow engulfing her small figure in the moonlight.
“Let go of what? I’m not letting go of anything.”
“If the only thing you’ll gain from waiting is peace of mind, don’t you already have enough of that?”
“……”
“I know you feel sorry for what happened to me, but forget it.”
It would be better for him.
“I’ll think of it as an accident, one caused by misfortune piling on misfortune. That would be easier for me too.”
As she turned away, Callios grabbed her hand. His black eyes flashed sharply, filled with nothing but her.
“You told me once. To keep my promises.”
“What…?”
Rosie frowned, and then remembered.
Their agreement.
Their bet.
His promise to grant her a divorce once he had restored the duchy’s finances — a promise she had reminded him of repeatedly during their arguments.
Callios was bringing that up again now.
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingertips.
When he raised his eyes, they burned — not with surrender, but with lethal resolve.
“You should keep your promise.”
“……”
“Stop saying pointless things.”
He intended to wait.
All the way until she regained the calm and space she had once lost.
***
Rosie sat by the window, hugging a flowerpot, plucking the white petals of a moonflower one by one.
‘What am I even trying to do?’
One petal for Callios.
Two petals for Callios Benedict.
Three petals for Callios Benedict, Duke — and former husband.
‘I’m deceiving him using my own death as bait.’
Watching Callios being so painfully sincere only confused her further.
If this continued, she might actually fall for it.
As if he truly cherished her! As if it came from the heart!
They had been engaged for nearly ten years.
He was a man who always spoke harshly, wounding her with his sharp tongue, and acted rough and thoughtless — yet he had always been extremely responsible.
Or so she had believed.
Had it all been one-sided?
Had she been the only one in love?
She could no longer understand what was happening or how things had turned out this way.
But one thing was clear: whatever his true intentions were, she was exhausted.
Truly, deeply exhausted.
Even thinking about it all made her body ache.
She could feel a fever creeping over her.
When Jenny entered the room and saw her, she stopped in surprise.
“Ma’am, what are you doing?”
“…Just trying to straighten out my thoughts.”
Rosie, limp with fatigue, pushed the flowerpot aside and asked.
“By the way, are you really not going to tell me? Who it is?”
The fortune saying premarital pregnancy had only made her more curious.
The moment she brought it up, Jenny backed away with a fed-up look. Rosie quickly grabbed her and started scolding.
“What if something happens to me later? Someone has to be there to take care of you.”
“You’ll be with me, ma’am. Why do you keep saying strange things…?”
As they bickered, it happened again.
A familiar, searing pain rose sharply in her throat, and Rosie hurried to find her handkerchief.
Cough—!
Ever since the last time Marquis Midas had seen it, she had made sure to carry a black handkerchief.
She pulled it away to check, and, as she had expected, blood stained the cloth.
The color seemed lighter than before, but she had often coughed up blood like this since that day.
Translator
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Ellarosalita
Thank you for the translation! I wonder if he’ll find out about her sickness before she dies in this timeline. Maybe she does die again and the 3rd life they’ll get together will be the good one? Idk but I’m so intrigued!