Didn't Plan to Become a Companion - Chapter 68

It was petty. Disgustingly petty. He saved me, brought my family, got engaged to save them, and came to pick me up anywhere.

Why are you always giving me such heartache?

“Why? Is there a rumor that the saint is extremely beautiful?”

“What?”

Ricardo narrowed his eyes at the provocative words and soon let out an incredulous laugh. As his chest heaved with laughter, I felt increasingly upset.

“What’s that laugh? Is there really such a rumor? Is that why you’re pushing me away so coldly?”

“Let’s go down now. Before it gets darker.”

Ricardo skillfully changed the subject. He uttered the words to stop in an attractively deep voice and walked away without hesitation.

He’s leaving again. Leaving me behind like that.

I know. Why the name Ricardo is always followed by feelings of disappointment.

Because he doesn’t love me, because he has no intention of loving me even as time passes so quickly.

You know and I know. Why we’re taking such a long detour when there’s a shorter path.

Your feelings of being unable to open your heart yet not pushing me away when I come close, the reason your lips always tremble when we barely touch.

Unable to bear Ricardo’s indifference any longer, I shouted at the back of his head in a burst of emotion.

“Why, are you afraid I’ll die?”

Ricardo stopped dead in his tracks.

“Afraid I’ll burn to death? Disappear without a trace, turned to ashes? Is that it?”

As he suddenly turned around, my words naturally turned as well. For the first time, the composure completely disappeared from his face and his eyes filled with doubt.

“What… What are you talking about?”

“I heard I could be accused of being a witch and burned at the stake. If I insist on staying by your side.”

“Don’t say such things carelessly, Lienne. That will absolutely never happen.”

Suddenly, an alien color swirled in his pupils. That mysterious light gave me certainty.

“You’re scared, aren’t you? You think I don’t know?”

His eyes looking at me visibly distorted.

“Those purple eyes, they change like that whenever you’re afraid. Rica.”

On the way here, I thought endlessly about all those moments when Ricardo’s pupils turned purple.

Joy, sadness, anger, sometimes even hatred or love can be hidden.

Then what about fear?

“Isn’t that right?”

‘El li ade.’ Even as he spoke the name of God who is alive here now, Ricardo’s eyes were tinged with purple.

We are clearly alive here, so why were your eyes telling a different story?

As I pondered this, it became clearly felt.

On that day that disappeared from Ricardo’s memory, when he awakened, he trembled while kissing me. With eyes full of anxiety.

The emotion Ricardo felt whenever I approached suddenly was an anxiety close to fear.

“That’s right.”

‘Huh?’

The answer came back so plainly it was deflating.

“Even if that’s true…”

He slowly turned his back to me again. Muttering ‘Nothing changes’ in an seemingly affectionate tone.

He didn’t forget to press his forehead as if he had a headache.

I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.

If you’re going to reject me so firmly, why did you come all the way up here? Are you saying we should have a friendly chat and go down together after pushing my heart to the ground from the cliff?

I jumped off the horse.

I didn’t want to go down with Ricardo, and my bottom had been aching for a while so I couldn’t sit any longer.

I got off the horse and patted my back and waist. With my hands on my waist, I looked up at the sky, and the crimson sunset was truly spectacular even in this situation.

Making my heart even more troubled.

“What are you doing, not following?”

Ricardo walked on for a while before noticing I wasn’t following and stopped in his tracks.

“I want to rest a bit. My muscles are aching all over from using ones I haven’t used. You go ahead. I’ll follow soon.”

I didn’t want to walk side by side with him now, but I didn’t want to be left alone in the deep forest where some beast could appear from anywhere.

I really intended to rest for just a moment and maintain just enough distance so our words wouldn’t mingle.

However, Ricardo seemed to disagree with my thoughts and started walking towards me again.

It was right then. Something flew towards me like an arrow. No, it wasn’t like an arrow, it was a real arrow that had been shot.

The arrow seemed to have aimed for my horse, or more precisely, me sitting on the horse, but it sliced through the air and flew on.

Ricardo moved as if he had seen the exact moment the arrow was flying. He ran so quickly that the flying arrow hit the horse he had been riding.

Neigh neigh neigh, the horse that had been rearing up noisily suddenly started running forward.

‘Ah, if it goes that way, it’s a cliff…’

The moment I realized that, my body moved first. I grabbed the reins of my horse and mounted it. There was no thought or calculation. Just the instinct that I had to follow him.

But I soon had to admit. The fact that I had never properly stopped a running horse before.

“Lienne…?”

He had already jumped off his horse and was blankly watching me rush past him towards the cliff with a dumbfounded face.

‘What have I just done?’

Did I think that someone who had awakened the power of Rochester would die unable to escape from a mere rampaging horse?

‘Ah, I’m about to die before I can save you.’

The horse carrying me finally couldn’t stop and stretched its legs into the air. The horse that had risen up flailed its legs in the air a few times before starting to fall off the cliff.

Splash, the horse made ripples on the water surface first, and just as I was about to fall into the water too, I felt someone tightly embracing me.

‘It must be Rica.’

He and I were sucked into the lake at the same time with a gurgle. The body that had been plummeting vertically at high speed suddenly surged upwards when it reached a certain point.

“Puha!”

I was immediately pulled up and clung to his neck, and Ricardo swam slowly to shore without a word.

I was exhausted from coughing frantically for a while, but I didn’t collapse and lose consciousness. Sitting on the ground, I looked up blankly at where I had been standing.

Seen from below, it was a dizzying high cliff.

“Are you fearless?”

Ricardo, soaking wet, was standing looking down at me with black eyes as he swept back his hair.

I couldn’t say anything in response to his question, which was asked with such anger it sent chills. Because I didn’t even have time to think of fear the moment I thought he was in danger.

“You could have died.”

‘I know.’

Not a single proper word came out of my throat, which had swallowed a lot of water.

Ricardo slowly knelt down on one knee and met my eyes.

Drip drip, the water beading on his hair fell to the ground. I couldn’t gauge what his changing expressions with each blink were saying.

“You could have died.”

The arched eyebrows, the clear water droplets on his nostrils, the stream of water like raindrops flowing along his sharp jawline. And the black eyes that held nothing.

It was in the blink of an eye when our lips met, before I could even judge what had happened. It wasn’t a gentle, subtle touch of lips. It was an urgent, desperate kiss, as if giving breath to someone pulled from the water.

Even though my whole body was shivering with cold, our pressed lips were burning hot as if scalded. When our lips, which had been completely crushed together as I gripped his arms, parted, he let out a quiet sigh.

“I know, you are truly fearless. But I’m… not.”

I’m fearless? My heart was pounding anxiously even at his self-deprecating laugh.

“I’m afraid. So afraid I can’t sleep.”

It was an unfamiliar voice I had never heard before. I can say with certainty that I had never heard such a deep, emotional voice from anyone in my life.

“You asked if I’m afraid you’ll burn to death? No, no. That’s not what I’m afraid of. I won’t lose you like that. I have power now.”

‘Then, why…? Why are you so scared?’

Ricardo stroked my wet hair. His cold fingertips were trembling.

“Even now my days begin and end with you…”

“…”

“If you, who I share glances with like sharing food, mix laughter with like mixing words, and who is by my side as naturally as breathing, disappear. Then, how will I live on?”

I could no longer feel the damp sensation of wet clothes clinging to my body, the chill that was rushing in beyond control, or the fishy smell that had been stinging my nose.

Only Ricardo’s wet voice calling my name, ‘Lienne, Lienne,’ completely swallowed up my world.

Ricardo leaned in and pressed his cheek to mine. Burying his lips at the corner of my mouth, he whispered again.

“Then what should I do after that? You’ll be gone, and I may soon kill my father, and after I embrace that woman and become emperor, then I… how will I endure?”

“…”