To You Who Despise Me - ✿ dusk blossoms ✿

But in a way, perhaps he was adopted. Learning that Reynes blood flowed in him after 17 years, entering a splendid house he would never have been able to set foot in otherwise.

It was like luck that came only after rolling everything that had been important to him in the mud.

And that luck also brought back before his eyes the woman he thought he had lost in that mud.

“Why did you leave without saying anything back then? I waited for you. In front of the cathedral, continuously.”

Rihanel spoke casually, as if tossing out something trivial. Trying his best not to show the deep lingering attachment and resentment.

“Nel, no, Rihanel, I mean……”

Janet tried to say something but stopped. After trying to choose her words several times, she ultimately couldn’t say anything.

“Right, that’s possible. I thought it might be nothing to a young lady like you.”

“Nothing…? I, I……”

Janet Wilton even stammered for some reason. At the time, Rihanel just thought she was flustered. After all, she had abandoned him during his most difficult time.

“So that’s why you went on a trip. The fire at the cathedral, you knew about it too, right?”

“……”

Janet didn’t answer. She just stared at Rihanel. All her attention was focused on him.

She seemed to be watching his reactions, or perhaps observing him.

“Hey, stop pushing!”

The game started. As people’s cheers rang out, the crowd surged forward again.

Rihanel wrapped his arms around the swaying Janet.

He did it to prevent her from being swept away and falling, but somehow he ended up holding her in his arms. When he realized this fact, Rihanel’s heart sank.

The woman he met after so long still made his heart race. But at the same time, childish feelings toward her welled up.

Had she always been this small?

This fragile?

Were they still here as the noble young lady and the lowly boy?

No, they weren’t.

So Rihanel whispered to Janet,

“You seem to need help… because of your status.”

Janet flinched. Rihanel pulled away and looked down at her, standing close to him.

“Wow!”

Team Volta had already scored a goal, and the venue was filled with cheers. People jumped in place and pushed each other.

And amid all this, Rihanel spoke steadily, but with a pleasant voice,

“You’re a commoner.”

Rihanel smiled slightly. Though the sound wasn’t clear, the shape of his lips indicated his words all too clearly.

At that moment of reunion, Janet just stared intently at Rihanel. Even now, he couldn’t tell what she had been thinking.

And the Rihanel of that time was feeling elated at the reversal of their positions.

Because he wanted to see Janet, who had abandoned him, receiving his help.

“……How do you plan to help me?”

Janet Wilton, without any unnecessary sense of pride, neither refused nor played hard to get when offered help.

“You were looking for someone to marry. How about me?”

In fact, this wasn’t Rihanel’s first reunion with Janet Wilton there. He had first spotted her by chance with another man.

Though it was obvious she wasn’t enjoying herself, she dutifully drank tea and even went for a walk with that guy.

It didn’t take long to learn that she was looking for someone to marry her because of the Noble Special Law.

Marrying Janet Wilton.

It was something he had never even dreamed of. The fact that this special young lady would eventually become another man’s wife had haunted Rihanel like a nightmare countless times.

But when it came right before his eyes, the disgust he felt was on a completely different level from before.

‘Damn it.’

Even if she was a woman who had abandoned him, marrying just any man without proper verification? If that was the case, rather than that, with me…

The moment his thoughts reached there, a possibility raised its head in Rihanel’s mind.

‘If it’s for obtaining noble status, wouldn’t I do?’

The one thing Nel Siphren couldn’t have, but Rihanel Reynes had. Rihanel decided to seek her out with that.

On sleepless nights, he had constantly imagined the moment of reunion with her. He thought and thought about when and at what timing they would meet.

But appearing before her at the soccer stadium wasn’t planned.

He didn’t know she would be there. It was funny how her love for soccer hadn’t changed at all in three years.

And that stimulated deeply buried memories and evoked nostalgia. That’s why he approached her without even realizing it.

“……Alright. Let’s get married.”

Janet nodded. Watching that gesture of acceptance, Rihanel felt an unfamiliar sense of elation.

He had thought about pretending to extend a hand to her, then abandoning her when she felt his necessity most keenly. Just as Janet Wilton had done to Nel Siphren three years ago.

Or… if Janet Wilton really wanted it, if she clung to him, he might reluctantly agree to marry her.

Looking back now, it was wrong.

He shouldn’t have done that.

And then a few months later, it was revealed that Janet Wilton was the arsonist who set fire to the cathedral.

***

Rihanel opened his eyes. Janet in front of him kept her eyes downcast.

Unlike usual, she had her hair down, which made her overlap with the Janet who had been looking at him from the edge of his memory.

Rihanel swallowed dryly.

His mouth felt rough. An unidentifiable ripple stirred within him.

Maybe it was because he saw Janet from that time when they met without knowing anything. Or perhaps because he had to pretend to be lovers with this woman today.

After wiping away the blood, Rihanel pressed a new handkerchief firmly against the wound. She narrowed her brow as if it stung.

In that moment.

He felt an impulse to kiss that furrowed brow and tilted his head slightly.

The action didn’t continue. Janet raised her head, sensing his movement.

Rihanel gazed steadily into her eyes. Those eyes he hated, yet at the same time had made him fall for her… eyes that shone with unwavering pride.

“Janet.”

“Yes.”

“How did you feel when you met me five years ago?”

Rihanel broke the quiet tension with his question. After thinking for a moment, Janet opened her mouth.

“I was glad. Because I thought I would never see you again.”

“Yes. I see.”

“……What about you, Rihanel?”

“Well. Two thoughts came to me simultaneously. One was… how strange it was that I could only see you in that crowd.”

“……And the other?”

“The desire to break you.”

This was the first time they had talked about their thoughts from that time. Until it was revealed that Janet was an arsonist, he had hidden such feelings and pretended.

“Did you know? That I proposed marriage to you intending to abandon you.”

Such talk would make Janet feel betrayed.

That was how it should be. That was the purpose of his words.

But once again, Janet spoke calmly.

“I knew. Even then.”

“You knew? What?”

“That you weren’t really proposing marriage because you liked me, like before.”

“How could you know that?”

“I told you. You can’t lie.”

“……I didn’t know I was showing it even then.”

She knew.

And yet they still ended up married—it was suddenly bewildering how things had flowed to this point.

The fact that he was still facing this woman who emitted such a warm scent suddenly felt surreal.

A subtle fog filled his throat, making it hard to breathe. Once again, a maddening impulse and thirst arose.

“……!”

Unable to resist it, Rihanel pulled Janet into his arms.

Her slender body was trapped. Janet stiffened and froze.

Feeling her body through the thin nightgown, Rihanel felt a tightness below.

He thought embracing her would quench this thirst, but it didn’t. The fog grew thicker. It became even harder to breathe.

Even his thoughts became hazy. Rihanel kissed her slender neck.

Janet trembled slightly and relaxed her rigid body a little. At that moment.

As if a flash had passed through him, Rihanel pulled away.

“A mistake.”

He left immediately.

“……”

And Janet, left behind, quietly raised her hand to press her left chest.

It hurt as if her heart had been stabbed with a knife. With each breath, it felt like something rusty was creaking.

The mark indicating wrongness had been drawn on her arm, but strangely, her heart hurt more than that spot.

The moment she was embraced by Rihanel, an intoxicating soap scent enveloped her. A dizzying fragrance infused with deep woody notes. She felt like she might become intoxicated by that thorny scent.

A large, uncontrollable wave crashed over Janet and quickly disappeared.

Like a dream.

But even though the dream had ended, her wet heart remained. The wind blowing through the empty space was painfully cold.

It was threatening and dangerous.

She sensed it.

That this fierce and cruel torrent would come again and again.

The waves couldn’t be stopped. Each time, Janet would have no choice but to be swept away helplessly.

She needed something, some method.

***

“Can you believe it, Carsha? How could such a ridiculous thing happen!”

Panianna’s fan-waving speed increased. It was early June, starting to get hot, and the current conversation was making her heated.

One of her people had recently attended the emperor’s dinner. And they had relayed the emperor’s reaction to Rihanel and Janet.