Chapter 92
Since that day, Agnes’s body recovered at a very slow pace.
It was evident just by looking at her leaning against the bed, scooping up porridge to eat.
However, the number of times the spoon entered her mouth was few enough to be counted on one hand.
Swallowing it just as it was, without even being able to chew a few times, was all Agnes could do.
Even so, Agnes had no choice but to continue her meal.
Because Lionel’s gaze, as he sat beside the bed, was directed toward her the entire time.
Agnes, with her head lowered, forced one more spoonful into her mouth.
The sensation of it passing down her throat was dull, and she could not taste anything either.
Watching Agnes like that, Lionel unconsciously pressed the space between his brows.
Thick wrinkles furrowed deeply.
Inside Lionel, the same impulse raised its head hundreds of times a day.
Did you even know what kind of feelings I had while you were kidnapped by Rebelt.
Why did you put yourself in danger in that manner.
He wanted to grab and shake Agnes’s fragile shoulders right this moment, taking her to task to never do such a dangerous thing again.
But every time, Lionel shut his lips tightly.
He did not have the right to do such a thing.
Even if he did have the right, it was something he must not do. Because it was an utterly cowardly act to push Agnes once again just because he could not handle his own anxiety.
Even so, he could not erase the desire to extract an answer of understanding from Agnes.
He never wanted to experience losing Agnes ever again.
In the end, Lionel could not do it.
The Agnes before his eyes was somehow different from before.
Even though she was clearly breathing and eating food, it felt as though she did not exist beside him.
“……I want to stop eating, it is enough.”
At Agnes’s voice, which felt as if it would crumble away, Lionel’s thoughts were cut off.
He instinctively looked down at the bowl.
The soup had barely decreased.
“Did you not hear the doctor’s words that you must eat well for the sake of recovery?”
Lionel dismissed the servant who was about to clear the bowl, then personally scooped the soup and brought it to Agnes’s lips.
Agnes reflexively drew her head back slightly, but soon stopped.
She accepted the spoon approaching before her lips just as it was.
“Are there any uncomfortable servants.”
“……There are none.”
It was a lie.
The suddenly changed servants were merely uncomfortable to Agnes.
Under the gaze that stuck by her side all day long and watched her as if monitoring, she could not even swallow water comfortably.
“If the servants attached to you right now are not to your liking, speak up. Or it is fine even if there is someone else you want separately. I will attach new ones for you.”
But Agnes merely nodded her head at Lionel’s words.
Since whoever came anyway, the fact that it was uncomfortable would not change.
Even if it were not for that, this kind of attention from Lionel merely felt unfamiliar to Agnes.
She had done nothing. Was it alright for her to just receive.
‘I will have to pay the price.’
A sense of debt weighed heavily upon Agnes so that she could not rest comfortably for even a moment.
Because it had always been that way.
Had not every action between Agnes and Lionel been part of a transaction. Receiving a corresponding price once the value was fulfilled.
Therefore, the current attention could not possibly be something granted free of charge either.
Only, Agnes could not form a judgment as to what kind of thing she should pay the price with.
Agnes’s gaze stopped upon Lionel’s red lips.
“Then think of it as the price for a kiss.”
“Ah.”
All of a sudden, Agnes’s lips parted slightly, and a short exclamation of realization leaked out.
Right. There was that.
‘Could this be that kind of type as well.’
Even though she had been staying here for several days, Lionel showed no sign of abandoning her, nor any inkling of demanding something.
So Agnes came to a conclusion on her own.
That perhaps this was the reason Lionel was allocating time to her.
Still, since one never knows, it would be better to check.
Agnes carefully raised her head.
“Why are you treating me well? Do you by any chance have something you desire?”
“……I do not think I am particularly treating you well though.”
It was an unsuitable answer to the words asking for a reason.
Agnes hesitated for a moment, then calmly pulled Lionel’s collar slightly.
The entire series of actions was close to a learned, familiar sequence.
In the past days, having been repeated countless times and becoming ingrained in her body.
Agnes leaned her body slightly and lightly kissed Lionel’s lips.
*Smooch.*
Exactly like Lionel had done once. A light and cheerful sound blossomed between the lips of the two people.
Agnes raised her eyes, which she had cast down slightly.
In any case, the reaction Lionel would show was obvious. He would be looking down at her arrogantly with a indifferent and cynical face.
However, it was different from Agnes’s expectation.
*Clink—.* The spoon that fell from Lionel’s hand collided with the tray.
Lionel looked exactly as if he were startled.
Seeing that reaction, Agnes tilted her head slightly.
“Ah…… it seems this was not it. I thought I had to pay the price.”
“To pay…… a price.”
Lionel’s jaw muscles swelled firmly.
The sensation that had tickled the inside of his heart after brushing past for a very brief moment had long since cooled down deathly cold.
Instead, a pain as if that heart were being pierced by countless needles was inflicted at random.
“You said so before. To think of the things I receive as the price for a kiss. So I did as I always used to do, but it seems it was not the correct answer.”
“I—,”
Lionel could not bring himself to continue his words and clenched his teeth.
It was so.
His damned self had blurted it out just as it came back then.
The price of moving his mouth lightly was cruel.
Every time Agnes treated herself like a priced commodity, his vision blinked. Like a lightbulb whose fuse went out.
Anger welled up, but he could not know upon whom he should pour that anger.
Agnes merely asked back calmly toward such a Lionel.
“If so, how should I pay the price for the things you are doing for me right now? Please tell me the method for me to fulfill my value.”
Lionel’s head throbbed.
The foreign body sensation that was always inside his throat struck upward like nausea for the first time.
“……There is no need to pay a price.”
Lionel barely started his words.
“In the past, right now, and in the future. Whatever I do, it is because I am doing it as I please, so there is nothing you have to burden.”
“……Why is that?”
Within Agnes’s gaze, a light of being unable to understand was still contained.
The moment he faced those eyes, Lionel realized.
That the words he was handing over right now were being accepted not as an apology, consideration, or goodwill, but as yet another condition.
To Agnes, every action was still a transaction.
Something that must be returned with a corresponding value if received.
It must not go on in this state.
In order to make her understand, he had to correct it from that beginning first.
What he had been believing.
And how wrong that belief had been.
How he had wounded Agnes because of it.
He had to speak of that.
Suppressing the urge to cover his mouth right this moment at the welling nausea, Lionel squeezed out his voice.
“……I heard it all from Adrian Bardo. That all the rumors related to you were false.”
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Agnes’s long eyelashes fluttered quietly.
So that was it.
You heard about the truth of the rumors about me.
It was a moment she had longed for so much.
How much had she looked forward to the day Lionel would clear his misunderstanding and see her properly.
Yet strangely, joy did not come.
Surprisingly, her mind was quiet.
No heat could be felt, like the ashes left behind after expectation was extinguished.
Merely, a rational judgment was formed, thinking, ‘So that is why.’
The reason Lionel was treating her well right now also made sense finally.
But what did that fact change.
Just because Agnes Bardo, who was said to be vicious and luxurious, had vanished, it did not mean that she who remained in that place became a useful existence to Lionel.
The current attitude Lionel showed was close to compensation.
Identical to a belated settlement for the time he had been believing a wrong fact.
Because Lionel was that kind of person, after all. One whose rewards and punishments were clear.
But after Lionel repaid all the apologetic feelings he harbored toward her, what then?
‘This tenderness will also be temporary.’
Nothing changes.
The fact that she was still an existence holding him back does not change.
Someday, Lionel will cast her out.
‘I did not want to live while merely waiting for the day I would be abandoned without promise…….’
But if she cannot even do that at her own will, what should she do.
The corners of Agnes’s lips rose powerlessly.
No matter what she did anyway, Lionel does not love her.
This was merely a pity of the moment.
‘Let us not harbor useless expectations anymore.’
Agnes forced herself to swallow the residual cough that broke out.
Her body and her mind were too exhausted.
Now, she had no strength remaining to cling to even a single small hope.
It was a state where only the amount of strength necessary to merely breathe, open her eyes, and pass the day remained.
If she were to be hurt further here, she felt that she would truly be unable to endure any longer.
Because in truth, rather than saying she was enduring even now, she was merely letting the day flow by for the sole reason that she had opened her eyes.
Now, there was only one thing Agnes wanted.
Please, rather, let Lionel not drag it out too long and quickly abandon her instead…… cast her out.
At that moment, Lionel’s voice was heard again.
“I…… misunderstood you and gave you wounds. ……I am sorry, Agnes.”
Agnes blinked her eyes for a moment.
As if trying to think about what those words meant to her.
However, she answered very shortly soon after.
“Yes.”
Since she did not expect, everything became simple.
Since Lionel made an apology for his mistake, it was finished for her to accept that apology.
However, rather, Lionel’s face contorted more and more.
Why is he being like that. Did she put forth a wrong answer again?
But what kind of meaning would there be even if she spoke the correct answer.
Agnes, swallowing her exhausted breath, buried her back a little deeper into the plush pillow.
‘I do not know. I do not want to think…….’
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