Chapter 1 – An Unwelcome Reunion

“Ha! What rotten luck!”

Judith pushed up her sweat-drenched body.

It was a nightmare she had been having over and over for a long time. A dream in which someone hurled *buse at her fifteen-year-old self, crouching in the bushes with both ears covered. A dream in which she screamed as she watched Johannes growing farther and farther away. Whenever she had this dream, the day went badly. In particular, the whole day would be ruined by something unpleasant related to the opposite s*x.

Judith wrapped the blanket around herself. She did not feel well. It would be better to cancel all of today’s plans. Her trembling heart foretold unease.

For the sake of calming herself down, Judith picked up the bundle of papers strewn across the bed. It was the schedule for the restoration work of a dancing figure painting she had been commissioned to handle not long ago.

“The Kingdom of Alkairo……”

Judith lay on the bed on her stomach and opened the thick book she had tossed beside the pillow, checking the table of contents.

“Alkairo. Alkairo. Here it is.”

There was nothing better than work for cooling down a tangled mind. And there was nothing as exciting as restoring old objects or researching materials.

Moving her eyes along the text, Judith read and regretted not having been able to visit the ruins where the dancing figure painting had been discovered. Why did it have to be just when she had been appointed as a homeroom professor, and when it also overlapped with the period for student counseling? There were not many professors in Bayer who had majored in archaeology, but she had not expected them to put forward Judith, who was still young, as a homeroom professor. Research suited her constitution better than teaching. If it had not been for the sake of showing something to her grandmother, she would never have become a professor of archaeology in the first place. Judith was even to the point of envying the assistant who shut themself in the lab and rifled through materials without a thought. If she stayed shut up in the lab, there would be no need to meet people, and no need to get swept up in troublesome worldly matters.

Knock. Knock.

While she was deeply absorbed in the book, an uninvited guest appeared. Judith only rolled her eyes and shot a glare at the door. It could not be her assistant, who was mad about work. Then the person behind the door would be either her grandmother or her nanny. Should she just pretend to be asleep? Feeling as though she would get dragged into something bothersome, Judith turned the idea over in her head.

Click.

Without permission, the door opened. Her nanny, wearing a white apron, invaded the room. For a woman past middle age, she carried herself with impressive force.

“If you’re awake, I told you to open the curtains and the window first.”

“I’m not awake yet.”

“If your eyes are open, that means you’re awake.”

Judith’s nanny strode briskly through the room and opened the curtains and window in an instant. Then she swept up the books and papers scattered on the floor all at once and neatly stacked them on the desk.

“No. I’ll do it. I told you not to touch them carelessly like that.”

“I know that you do not bring things from the basement into your room, Miss. So the books and stacks of papers strewn about here must not be important, right? If you dislike me touching your things, then you should tidy them up as they appear.”

“Ha. Fine. Stop nagging, my head is pounding. I already feel bad as it is. I’m not going to eat breakfast. So could you leave now?”

Her nanny wiped the desk with the rag she had brought and widened her eyes.

“Breakfast aside, surely you haven’t forgotten what day it is today?”

“?”

Judith stared at her nanny with round eyes. Did something happen today? She reached a hand out from beneath the blanket and picked up the calendar on the bedside table. Among the tiny schedule notes, she saw a red circle.

“Ah. This is driving me crazy.”

Of all days, the day she dreamed that nightmare about Johannes had to be Elijah’s engagement ceremony. If it was an engagement ceremony, there would be a lot of people gathered there. 

Naturally, gentlemen would be there too, right? Dangerous. I don’t want to go. I desperately want to stay home.

Judith shook her head while looking over her schedule. She grabbed at her hair with both hands and kicked away the blanket.

“Should I say I’m sick? Yes, let’s say I came down with something.”

“Miss Elijah even left a mask for you. Saying that you should attend even if you were sick.”

Her nanny pulled out the mask Elijah had left behind from the second drawer of the desk and waved it.

“Then…… right. Tell them that something suddenly came up and I had to leave on a business trip.”

“I heard quite clearly that Miss Elijah said she had people stationed near the house.”

“Ha. I really can’t go out today. I’m uneasy. I feel like something is going to happen.”

“If something is going to happen at your friend’s engagement ceremony, then perhaps it means a connection is about to come to you, Miss.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I. Since Miss Elijah has found her match, now you truly are the only one left. Whatever should we do about this. Madam will soon learn about Miss Elijah’s engagement ceremony as well. And if she finds out that you hid the invitation and nearly failed to attend, then the unease that will break out inside this house seems far greater than whatever unease might happen outside.”

“……”

There was nothing wrong with what her nanny had said. Judith was about to argue, then stopped, got out of bed, and headed for the bathroom. She must not disappoint a dear friend because of some shapeless anxiety. And with her nerves as unsettled as they are now, she did not have the mental strength to humbly endure her grandmother’s nagging. As her nanny said, it would be better to escape outside for the time being.

* * *

Traitor.

Judith Loewe let out a sigh as she stood among the guests. As the orchestra began to play, a pair of future spouses appeared on the red carpet. Judith sat with one leg crossed crookedly over the other and glared at her friend. Whether she knew Judith’s feelings or not, the bride-to-be, dressed in a pure white mini dress, pressed herself tightly against a sturdy man. As if she were dying of happiness.

She was a fool for believing Elijah, who said there were no men left in her life after being betrayed by the man she had devoted herself to for eight years. She regretted her past self who felt reassured that even if there were no men for the rest of my life, at least she would not be lonely thanks to a close friend. Judith was so resentful she could die over Elijah, who had changed her mind as easily as turning over the palm of her hand. Human hearts changed and moved that easily after all.

“Haa……”

Judith lowered her gaze and looked down at her chest. Why was it that only this heart remained trapped in one place and refused to move? Was it because of the wolf’s blood passed down through her family line, as her late grandfather had said? Her heart was far too unwavering to dismiss it as absurd nonsense.

Why did she care so much about a boy who disappeared without even accepting a single confession?

Recalling the unpleasant dream, Judith dug her nails into her palm until it hurt. If she could, she wanted to scrape away the memory of Johannes lodged in her head with her nails.

That bastard gave her trauma about confession. Maybe it was only an excuse, but Judith had not properly met anyone of the opposite s*x since her fifteenth birthday. Not only had she never met a man who stirred her heart as much as Johannes had, she was afraid of men who approached her. Afraid that she might once again interpret the other person’s feelings however she pleased. Afraid that she might make some foolish judgment and misunderstand. More than anything, she was afraid she would endlessly doubt and try to confirm the other person’s heart. It was better not to begin such a relationship at all. Who would understand if she said she had become unable to trust others because of the trauma of being rejected by her first love? So in the end, she simply gave up on romance and marriage from the start.

That was only Judith’s own thinking. Judith’s grandmother, worried that her twenty-eight-year-old granddaughter had not even properly dated once, pushed her into social gatherings whose purpose was obvious. In other words, she was telling her to meet men somehow.

Even in the social club called “Bauer,” which she had joined out of necessity, Judith completely cut herself off from the opposite s*x. She did so until all the members of the social group had found partners and left. She had managed to hold out with the one remaining male member, but her friend of ten years, Elijah, snatched up the last remaining member, causing the “Bauer” to disband.