Didn't Plan to Become a Companion (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 10
I foolishly stretched out both arms toward him, waving wildly at someone who didn’t even know me, adding a greeting he couldn’t possibly hear.
“Goodbye, Ricardo.”
Ricardo stared at me for a moment, then slowly turned his head away, deliberately ignoring me.
The carriage sped down the wide road without hindrance. Chasing the setting sun, its massive form gradually shrank into a dot and vanished. For some reason, a surge of sorrow rose up my throat.
Still, goodbye, Ricardo Gardarelli Rochester.
It’s fine if you don’t remember me—just be happy, always.
Because my love for him outweighed the sorrow, I was able to keep wishing for his well-being as I saw him off.
The child of the East Wing, whom I had risked my life to protect, had finally flown off into the vast, distant world where he truly belonged.
He was leaving. Leaving me behind like this.
The child abandoned by the Oracle, the child who fled the fate ordained by the Oracle—yet still ended up swept into its whirlpool—the simply incredibly strong child.
Without even looking back once.
[This is the timeline separator]Seven years later, on the outskirts of Resotia’s capital.
As I approached the chicken coop, its distinct smell stung my nose. Carefully, I stepped inside to keep the chickens from escaping.
“This smell just never gets familiar, no matter how long I live with it.”
Flap, flap! Both hens and roosters squawked and fluttered wildly around the coop, as if they knew I’d come to steal their eggs.
“Perfect timing—you laid an egg today. Good girl.”
Collecting eggs from the coop behind the house was always a cheerful task. Especially on days like today, when the egg was beautifully shaped and large, I felt particularly proud.
Seven years ago, after Ricardo departed for the ducal manor, the House of Count Fennel ultimately fell—by the command of the Emperor of the Dermayer Empire.
Just as I remembered, Emperor Dermayer declared that Count Fennel had kidnapped and imprisoned Ricardo, the heir of the Rochester family.
Because of that, Count Fennel and his eldest son, Justin, were hanged, while the rest of the family barely escaped with their lives and moved into the modest two-story house where we now lived.
Later, news of our survival reached the duchy, yet the duke chose not to hunt us down or kill us. Though our titles were stripped, we were allowed to retain our noble status.
Though we had truly committed treason, it was because Dermayer was not our homeland.
At first, we had to manage the household without a single servant. But two years ago, Mother’s birth family began sending us three servants and two maids. Though we now had help, I never neglected household chores.
One maid was assigned entirely to Madam Pernelle, and the other struggled just to keep up with cleaning. The old house demanded constant care, and keeping it warm required a great deal of firewood—so the servants stayed just as busy as I did.
Time flowed on relentlessly. And so, the world forgot the Fennels.
I thought that was a very good thing.
Today, too, my world was warm and peaceful—like the egg cradled gently in my hand.
“I should make Jonathan’s favorite egg dish today.”
As I walked toward the front door with the eggs in hand, an unfamiliar noise reached my ears.
Puzzled, I tilted my head and looked in the direction of the sound—and saw a massive procession of carriages racing from afar.
A carriage drawn by four black horses charged down the narrow path without hesitation, followed by two dual-horse carriages and knights on horseback, all riding in perfect formation.
At first, I doubted my own eyes and ears. After all, such an elegant carriage would never come all the way to this remote spot on the capital’s outskirts—let alone to a house nestled deep beyond the forest.
But it wasn’t just the carriages approaching. At least thirty soldiers on warhorses trailed behind them. The pitch-black carriages, black horses, and swarms of dark-clad men filled me with an uneasy premonition.
Yet, somewhere deep within—a place even I barely knew—a flicker of longing stirred. Seeing the menacing lion emblem on the now-stationary carriage, which had kicked up clouds of dust, sent ripples through my heart.
The man who stepped down from the carriage, after a servant opened the door, paused briefly against the backdrop of sunlight.
The black-haired man surveyed his surroundings with the calm, unhurried grace of the lion engraved on his crest.
Then, just as suddenly as he’d paused, he moved—like a predator who’d locked onto its prey.
“Oh….”
His footsteps echoed as he approached me, backlit by the sun, with no trace of recognition in his eyes—yet he walked straight to me without hesitation.
“You’re exactly as I remember.”
It was only after everything had ended. Only after everything was truly over did you smile like that.
Infuriatingly composed and distant.
“It really is you.”
He stepped closer, our eyes met—and I felt it fully.
Because his childhood had changed, his future had changed; because the painful moments of his arduous life had shifted, his entire being had become someone entirely different.
Yet, in that instant, the pupils of his eyes abruptly glinted yellow—a subtle change only visible at close range.
‘Ah, that’s right.’
The price the awakened Rochester heir paid for wielding his power was this: in exchange for reading others’ emotions, he had to reveal his own.
‘If it’s yellow… does that mean you find this situation amusing?’
But before I could interpret his emotion, the black of his irises quickly dulled to ash-gray.
“Do you… remember me?”
Ricardo frowned slightly at my unintentionally blurted question.
“Was that meant for me, or just you talking to yourself?”
He smiled faintly, yet his overwhelming presence and sharp aura still saturated the air.
Had I not remembered his childhood self, I would have collapsed to my knees from sheer intimidation.
“Or… did the thought just slip out of your mouth?”
If I had to choose an answer, it was the latter. As a member of a fallen noble house, I couldn’t possibly question the heir of a ducal family without permission.
‘But why does this feel so familiar?’
Ah… I see. I’ve been mistaken.
A sudden realization struck the back of my head. He hadn’t changed at all. Ricardo wasn’t different—he’d merely learned to conceal his true self beneath an exquisitely polished exterior.
But why? Weren’t you supposed to be free from pain now?
I was no different either. The moment our eyes met, my heart—mine yet not mine—began racing wildly toward the heavens without end.
Instantly aware of my place, I bowed my head sharply.
Below my lowered gaze, the gleaming toe of his shoe twitched slightly. At the same moment, a warm hand gripped my chin.
“Don’t look away from me.”
“…”
“I dislike it.”
“You… dislike it.”
Keeping my eyes firmly on his, I managed a meek, almost servile smile—clinging to the faintest hint of kindness in his gaze.
“People who look at me only ever show one of two emotions.”
I’d heard Ricardo say those words even as a child, so I already knew his answer. But could it possibly be the same as back then?
“Fear… or desire.”
Ah, so his life hadn’t changed at all. He’d never felt even a trace of gentle warmth. My brows furrowed instinctively at the inexplicable surge of emotion.
“But you… what are you?”
Why? What kind of look was I giving him?
“Do you… pity me?”
“Ah…”
“Never mind. I’ll go meet your mother for now. Wait here—and if you could prepare some tea, I’d appreciate it.”
When I offered no reply, Ricardo gave a soft, prompting “Hmm?”
I nodded, and he turned away without a second thought. I watched him walk back toward the crowd of people, his footsteps echoing. The sunlight breaking over his shoulders made it hard to keep my eyes open.
[This is the timeline separator]I can’t say my life became perfectly peaceful after Ricardo left. But after he returned to the Empire, the strange occurrences around me ceased entirely.
The faint, moan-like whispers, the dizzying visions—whether of the past or some distant future—no longer tormented me.
Yesterday, Ricardo had abruptly appeared and declared he’d take me back to the Empire. True to his word, he arrived at our house before dawn the next day.
I pleaded with him to at least tell me why he was taking me, promising I’d go quietly—but he dismissed my request, saying I’d understand once we reached the ducal manor.
Because Ricardo showed up impatiently at dawn, I barely finished breakfast with my family before boarding the carriage with him.
The air was so cold before noon that my teeth chattered—but strangely, my heart trembled just as hard.
I could feel Ricardo staring at me, but I stubbornly refused to look his way. After a short while, the first light of dawn began to break.
We rode in silence for a long time after boarding the carriage. Even someone as accustomed as I was to life turning upside down couldn’t feel at ease in such a situation.
Ricardo was the one who finally broke the silence.
“You seemed quite fond of them.”
“Hm?”
“Even though you’re not even of true blood.”
He must have learned about me and my family through documents. To him, I was probably recorded as the illegitimate child of the disgraced Count Fennel.
“We became family simply by living together for so long. Just like our chickens.”
“Family, huh…”
Thinking of Sabrina and Jonathan, who’d each held one of my hands tightly just moments ago, my chest tightened painfully. As I’d told him, we hadn’t always been a family in name.
It had taken a long time—holding each other close through every storm.
I pictured Jonathan’s face, surely streaming with tears by now. Ever since I reached for his hand outside Countess Fennel’s room, he’d followed me like a duckling—and even now, at fifteen, it was no different.
Hardly had I sighed over thoughts of Jonathan when Ricardo’s sharp voice filled the carriage.
“Until now, the fact that I remembered nothing never bothered me at all…”
“…”
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
_____
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