Chapter 13

In the book, there was not even a single line explaining when I had begun to love Kirill or how much I had loved him.

But the time I had spent loving him amounted to ten whole years. It seemed the feelings built up over ten years could not vanish in an instant.

At such times, I recalled how Kirill had reacted after my death in the book. He had wanted to remain by Gizelle’s side even by using my death.

“Don’t ask me anything about matters concerning Gizelle.”

Perhaps it had worked, because my voice was utterly indifferent.

“That’s not it.”

It was difficult to keep my back turned to Kirill any longer. I turned my head and met his eyes.

His golden eyes held a slightly murky light. I could recognize that subtle difference.

I bit the inside of my cheek by force. Otherwise, I felt I would pour out all my worry for him at any moment.

“Just in case, let me say this in advance—everything you saw last time was true.”

I deliberately brought up the incident we had encountered at the coffee house.

As though deliberately ignoring it, Kirill had not opened his mouth about that day. At my words telling him to be put off, Kirill instead became hard, like a man arming himself.

“I still don’t believe it.”

“……”

His firm voice pierced through me. He didn’t believe it?

That was not something he could believe or not. I, the very person involved, was telling him it was true.

He still seemed to think everything was something I had done to provoke him.

‘If I had known it would be like this, I shouldn’t have confessed that I was giving up my lingering feelings.’

My voice grew calm.

“He is my lover. The confession I made to you was meant to provoke guilt. You don’t really believe those words, do you?”

Each syllable rather clawed at my insides.

‘What you should believe is not that clumsy confession.’

I told him it was nothing, and that I believed that as well. The more I did, the darker Kirill’s face became.

As though he had truly been wounded by my words.

“There is a request I have.”

“……”

“Before you leave, I want you to tell me for certain.”

He was cruel to me to the very end.

He did not know in the slightest why I was leaving this place. If he had known, he could not have made such a request.

I was leaving this place because my love would fail, and because if I did not leave, I would die.

In his eyes, I must look like someone throwing a tantrum and then running away because things did not go as she wished.

Had he heard that I was leaving from Gizelle? I did not need to see it to know what Gizelle had told him.

Perhaps she had said I was trying to leave without taking responsibility after causing all sorts of trouble. Whatever it was, I could tell that he had not come to me of his own accord.

“What did Gizelle say this time?”

“……”

As though struck exactly where it hurt, Kirill pressed his lips into a long horizontal line.

“If you had told me first, I would have come to find you before Gizelle said anything.”

He looked as though he had no idea why I had not said a single word to him.

“I don’t understand why I should tell you anything.”

Now I was truly curious as well. I don’t understand. I need to know what you are thinking, too. Why on earth his attitude had changed, and why he was suddenly paying me so much attention.

“I know you are disappointed in me.”

Disappointed? Disappointment was the emotion furthest from what I felt for him.

“Why would I be disappointed in you?”

“Because I turned my back on you as your friend.”

“To begin with, you and I…”

“I know what you mean. Even so, there was never a time I did not think of you as a friend.”

Those words were now synonymous with saying he had never once seen me as a woman. He truly did not seem to know that that was crueler.

“I was the one who planted the scandal article about Redic Bangeger.”

“……”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know the baron was that kind of man.”

Only then did my vision clear. I realized where the unexpected good fortune had come from.

When I confessed to him, Kirill had despised me and remained indifferent, as though showing me that my confession meant nothing to him.

Then, when the article came out saying I had cheated on my fiancé, he was angry that he had been deceived by me.

He was angry at Redic Bangeger’s rampage. Even though he must have known it was my fault. All of my luck had stemmed from Kirill’s guilt.

Guilt clung to him like a leech, and the more he tried to forget, the more it must have tormented him.

So now he kept paying attention to me under the name of being my friend. Probably until I forgave him.

“Kirill.”

When I called his name, his eyes wavered. It had been a very long time since I had called his name.

‘Think only of getting out of here.’

With that thought, I steadied my heart.

I had even knelt before Redic Bangeger, so this much was nothing.

“I don’t think you deliberately introduced Redic Bangeger to me.”

“……”

“You don’t need to feel guilty. …Besides, the way you are acting now is because your body is not in good condition.”

Whether due to the curse, when his condition worsened, Kirill’s heart sank beyond measure. That period must have overlapped with my confession, doubling his guilt.

“What?”

He immediately questioned my words.

Having loved Kirill for a long time, there were a few facts only I knew.

It was not that I knew the details of the Dobnik curse. Originally, all I knew about the Dobnik curse was that it continued through generations and that it made Kirill suffer.

Even after I learned that this world was merely a book, I did not know much about the Dobnik curse.

The Dobnik curse was described only briefly as punishment brought upon the first head of the house for trying to attack the emperor. Rather than the origin of the curse itself, what was treated as important was how the curse functioned in relation to Gizelle.

In the book, the Dobnik curse served as the greatest reason Gizelle could not shake him off. Kirill used his curse to stir Gizelle’s sympathy.

Later in the story, it is described that the reason Duke Dobnik had Kirill, his son, interact with Erdona was because of that curse.

The reason Kirill came and went from Erdona was that Nolmen Erdona had prophesied that Gizelle and Kirill had to be together for the Dobnik curse to be broken.

But if that had actually happened, the book would not have ended with only Gizelle’s happy ending.

Despite Gizelle’s efforts, Kirill’s curse is never broken in the end.

It was only that Gizelle alleviated his suffering from the curse.

When the curse’s influence on Kirill grew stronger, he showed several signs.

Most of the time he was the same as usual, but if one looked closely, one could see that his golden eyes were murkier than usual. Though even he did not seem to know it.

Whenever he had to go on an “estate inspection,” his eyes grew murky and his nerves grew sensitive. He sometimes showed signs of unease and restlessness.

In childhood, such unease and restlessness led directly to his low self-esteem. He would gnaw at himself, saying he understood why Gizelle would not see him, and it was my role to comfort him.

“When you return from the estate inspection, we’ll talk then. If you still want to talk to me then, I won’t avoid you.”

Unlike the sharp attitude I had shown him for the past few weeks, my voice had become as gentle as before, and Kirill closed his mouth.

For some reason, it felt as though I were looking at the Kirill of our childhood, and I felt strange as well.

“…All right.”

Only then did Kirill let me go up to my room.

I had told him we would talk again later, but that was a lie. By the time he returned from this estate inspection, I would not be here.

* * *

Kirill silently watched Saya grow distant. Recently, he had seen Saya’s back often. It seemed that before, he had never once seen her back. The one who always turned his back first was not Saya, but him.

“…She told me to go on an estate inspection.”

Kirill murmured lowly. He raised his hand to examine it, and it was trembling continuously against his will.

He struggled for a few seconds not to let his hand tremble, then clenched it into a fist and gave up.

Kirill himself had not even thought that he had to go on an “estate inspection.” Yet Saya had spoken as though she knew exactly when he had to go.

Saying that he felt guilt toward her because his body ached.

That was wrong. His pain had nothing to do with this guilt.

“When you return from the estate inspection, we’ll talk then. If you still want to talk to me then, I won’t avoid you.”

Though she said that, Saya no longer looked like someone who would stop caring about him. Saya was merely trying to appear that way. Even though she did not want to.

Kirill decided not to believe everything Saya said. Everything except the fact that she liked him. Believing Saya’s confession was better than believing that she would leave him behind.

Only by doing so could he erase the discomfort whose source he could not identify.