* * *
Visiting Artie’s room several times a day was a long-standing habit of Terni’s.
He didn’t need a reason. When he was bored, he went to see Artie.
“Artie!”
Terni, who had thrown the door open with vigor, grumbled to himself the moment he realized no one was in the bedroom.
“I’m dying of boredom—where did she go?”
He popped one of the cookies on the table into his mouth and flopped down on the bed.
“Kiya. As expected, Artie’s bed is soft and nice.”
As he rolled around lying down, something caught Terni’s eye.
Something sticking out from under the bed.
‘……A bag?’
“What’s this.”
Terni pulled the wide-open bag out from under the bed.
Inside were all sorts of clothes and miscellaneous items. All of them were Artie’s things.
Terni’s mind spun quickly. He easily arrived at a single hypothesis.
‘Artie. Bag.’
“Running away?!”
Terni looked around the room and realized that the items in the bag were all of Artie’s belongings.
Terni fell into a panic.
‘Now that Essen has returned, is my little sister really going to bolt?’
“No!!”
Terni screamed and threw the door open, rushing out.
‘Once a little sister, always a little sister!’
He had absolutely no intention of letting Artie go quietly.
The place the confused Terni arrived at was Poinsettia Palace. Terni immediately stormed into Adrian’s office.
“Adrian!”
“What? If you’re going to be a nuisance, get out.”
Adrian glanced at Terni once, then turned his gaze back to his documents.
“Hey, Adrian! This is a really serious problem!”
Right now, Terni’s existence was a serious problem for Adrian.
He gestured with his eyes to Diano, who stood beside him. And gave the order with his eyes.
‘Throw him out.’
“Yes!”
Diano, showing off his presence, slowly approached Terni.
Terni, looking disgusted, dodged this way and that and eventually reached Adrian.
“What?”
Adrian glared at Terni somewhat aggressively. Terni paid no mind at all and slammed both hands down on the office desk with a bang!
“Artie is…….”
Artie? Adrian’s expression changed.
“Why? Is she sick?”
“Artie is trying to run away!”
Adrian’s brow furrowed slightly. Because Terni’s words did not immediately register.
Bang! Terni slammed the desk once more.
“I said Artie is trying to leave!”
“……What?”
Only then did the words register with their surface meaning: ‘trying to leave.’
Adrian’s feelings tangled and scattered mercilessly like a knotted thread. His mind went cold, and the expression gradually drained from his face.
‘Trying to leave?’
He had made a promise. That if Essen returned, he would let her go as she wished.
On some days, he had even had impulsive thoughts of simply not looking for Essen.
Apart from that conflict, Essen had returned.
Adrian did not want to keep the promise he had made with Artie. So he had deliberately feigned ignorance and merely postponed the date.
There was also the fact that Artie had said nothing in particular, as if she had forgotten the promise between them, which had put him at ease.
‘……Just a little longer.’
That was what he had desperately hoped for.
“Artie was packing her things. She was almost done—it looked like she could leave at any moment!”
She had been secretly preparing to leave.
Somehow he felt betrayed, and he gritted his teeth. Artie was simply trying to leave as promised, so it wasn’t a betrayal, and yet.
‘Ha. Is being with me that hateful?’
Adrian stormed out of the office just like that. His steps headed toward Lily Palace.
The servants who spotted Adrian walking down the corridor with a murderous expression turned pale and bowed their heads.
“I greet His Highness the Crown Prince. May Archangele’s―.”
“Move.”
Adrian coldly passed by those offering their respects. Before long, he arrived at the bedroom Artie used.
The bedroom looked no different from usual. Scanning it, Adrian discovered the bag sticking out from under the bed.
Just as Terni had said, all her belongings had been packed, as if she could leave at any moment.
‘That is…….’
Something glinting on the rumpled bedsheet caught his eye. It was an object he could not fail to recognize.
The box containing the dagger Adrian had given Artie as her first gift.
“So she doesn’t even want to take what I gave her.”
Rage surged up as if it would ignite. At the same time, his chest ached.
He felt as though he would go mad if he didn’t see Artie right now.
Adrian turned Lily Palace upside down. He searched everywhere Artie might be, but could not find even a trace of her.
Then Madam Lucy came running toward him.
“Oh my, Your Highness? Why are you so angry?”
“Where did she go.”
“What?”
“I said where did she go—my fiancée!”
She hadn’t even left yet; he had only glimpsed her intent to leave, and yet a tremendous anxiety engulfed him.
“She probably went to the library.”
At Madam Lucy’s words, Adrian immediately turned his steps toward the palace entrance.
As he came down the stairs and the entrance came into view, he found her.
Artie, staring at him with a startled face.
‘Why are you looking at me with that kind of face?’
He felt a sense of self-loathing. Yes. From the very beginning, Artie had never once smiled brightly at him.
It was clear she hated him after all.
Adrian quickly approached Artie. At that, Artie involuntarily stepped backward.
He grew even more impatient.
Does this woman know? That her existence drives him so mad it suffocates him.
But no matter how much Artie hated him, Adrian liked Artie, and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘From the start, I don’t think about others and I’m selfish.’
So he didn’t care about Artie’s circumstances. That was how he rationalized it to himself.
“Y-Your Highness?”
Artie stepped back even further. The widening distance only added to his anxiety. He could not allow any more distance.
“Don’t go.”
Adrian reached out and caught Artie as she tried to move away.
“You can’t go anywhere now.”
Unable to hide his shaken heart, Adrian looked at Artie’s bewildered face.
Looking up at him with a tearful face is cheating.
“It’s no use making that kind of face.”
A hurried, urgent touch. Adrian pulled Artie toward him so she could not escape.
“Because now, my only fiancée is you.”
Truly, Adrian did not want to let Artie go.
* * *
Caught by the Crown Prince, I was dragged straight to his office.
“Artie!”
For some reason, it was Terni who was clinging to me and crying. It was my first time seeing a man cry.
“Artie! You can’t go! You can’t disappear! You have to stay by my side forever! I’ll never let you go! Waaah…….”
What on earth is going on here?
The Crown Prince had suddenly grabbed me and told me not to go, and Terni was clinging to me, crying that he would never let me go.
“Both of you, what are you talking about?”
I let out a sigh, having said something I would never normally say.
Terni cried out tearfully.
“But Artie, you were trying to run away!”
“Me? When?”
As I tilted my head, finding it absurd, Terni thrust his face close to mine.
“Then why on earth did you pack your bags? Huh?! Do you know how shocked I was when I found them?!”
At Terni’s interrogation, I turned to look at the Crown Prince.
He said nothing, but he was looking at me with eyes similar to Terni’s.
“You’re both like this because of the bags I packed?”
Both of them nodded at the same time.
Terni nodded especially enthusiastically. A sigh escaped me on its own.
“That’s because you said I would be sent away once Lord Essen returned…….”
“No! Essen is Essen and Artie is Artie!”
Terni grabbed me again. Honestly, it was nothing short of obnoxious behavior, yet somehow it was touching.
Had he grown attached to me in the meantime?
“But still, now that Lord Essen is…….”
“About that matter.”
Crown Prince Adrian, who had been silent until now, opened his mouth. At the air around him, more rigid than usual, I involuntarily shrank my shoulders.
The Crown Prince gazed steadily at me, then spoke as if tossing out the words.
“I’ll renew the contract.”
