But is Kalos really unaffected?

Just seeing his back makes my heart flutter like this.

“……”

Irene, who was absentmindedly following Kalos as he walked ahead, placed her hand on her chest.

Thump, thump-.

She could clearly feel her heart beating faster than usual under her palm.

It was the first time her heart had raced like this looking at someone, except when her father had been violent and verbally abusive towards her mother and herself.

…Is this a bit different from back then?

No, it’s definitely different.

Though her heart was racing just the same, the feeling, the mood, and her thoughts were different.

When her father had raised his fist, she had been so scared that tears came, screams erupted, and she wanted to run away.

But when looking at Kalos, she felt good like eating sweet chocolate, yet shy and bashful, and didn’t want to run away.

And while she couldn’t look directly at his face and wanted to hide somewhere when their eyes met, strangely, she couldn’t take her eyes off Kalos.

…She wanted to ask various things about the kiss.

But knowing she wouldn’t be able to say a word if the chance came, Irene swallowed a bitter smile.

It would be greedy to hope Kalos would explain the reason on his own.

He didn’t seem to care at all about what had happened then.

“……”

Irene bit her lip hard, feeling a bit upset that while she was so preoccupied she couldn’t sleep all night, Kalos seemed unbothered.

*

Kalos, who had come down the central staircase and was walking along the first-floor corridor, stopped in front of a somewhat crude wooden door.

“This is the kitchen.”

As Irene had initially guessed, the kitchen was near the dining room.

Still lacking the courage to look directly at Kalos’s face, Irene kept her gaze around his chest area as she held out her hand.

“Please give me the water bottle.”

“Why?”

Her gaze unconsciously moved upward at the returned question.

She thought he was joking, but Kalos was looking at her as if he genuinely didn’t understand.

Taken aback, Irene hesitated for a moment before answering.

“Well, because I need to fill it with water……”

“I’ll get it for you, you wait here.”

“What? No, I’ll do it myself.”

Irene refused, unable to have the esteemed Grand Duke do such a menial task.

Kalos tilted his head slightly.

“Gilbert won’t like it if you go into the kitchen.”

Gilbert… the chef of Esper Castle?

“Gilbert really dislikes non-staff entering the kitchen. Even Dewey went in thoughtlessly once and got scolded badly by Gilbert.”

“Ah.”

Irene’s eyes widened at this unexpected obstacle.

Kalos said, slightly raising the corner of his lips.

“So, I’ll go get the water.”

“…I’ll leave it to you then.”

Irene still didn’t feel right about leaving the task to Kalos, but given the reason, she had no choice but to ask him.

“Wait here a moment.”

As Kalos entered the kitchen, Irene leaned against the wall facing the kitchen door.

Even with Kalos out of sight, her heart was still beating wildly.

This is different from when it was my father too.

When her father disappeared, even the sound of her heartbeat quieted down.

Then when it was time for her father to return, it would start beating roughly again.

She’d worry about what he might do this time, and her hands and feet would tremble in fear.

“Because of something like you, I, I…!”

As the atrocities her father had committed flashed through her mind like a kaleidoscope, Irene squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears.

I don’t want to remember, please disappear.

Completely disappear from my mind, I said.

Why do bad memories stick like a stamp and refuse to go away?

The nightmares that wouldn’t erase no matter how hard she tried continued to haunt her even after her father’s death.

Kalos, who had come out with the water bottle filled to the brim, noticed something was wrong with Irene’s condition and grabbed her shoulder.

“Are you feeling unwell?”

Unfortunately, Irene’s ears, trapped in the nightmare of her father, couldn’t hear his voice.

Meanwhile, the nightmare rapidly gnawed at her mind.

“Don’t hit me, Dad……”

Kalos’s face crumpled miserably.

“Please, please don’t hit me. I did wrong, so please…!”

Crash-!

The sound of the water bottle shattering echoed loudly through the dark corridor.

Though the water spilling from the broken bottle soaked his clothes, Kalos paid no mind and tightly embraced Irene.

The hand patting her back was gentle.

The voice beating against her eardrums was soft.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s all in the past. It will never happen again, so there’s no need to be afraid. There’s even less need to think about it.”

“……”

Thanks to this, Irene escaped the swamp of terrible nightmares and returned to reality, blinking her eyes slowly.

Am I… in that man’s arms right now?

“!”

Irene’s mouth fell open in shock as she fully realized the situation.

Flustered, she looked up to see Kalos looking down at her.

“Are you alright?”

Judging by his tone and words, he seemed to be worried about her, but his expression was calm.

It felt like he was asking out of obligation because she was struggling in front of him, rather than being particularly concerned.

Seeing that expression, the hypothesis that Kalos had kissed her caught up in the mood grew helplessly larger.

I want to know his true feelings.

I want to know if it was really like that, or if there was another reason.

Irene unconsciously moved her lips.

“Earlier… why did you kiss me?”

*

With Irene’s question, a quiet stillness flowed through the corridor.

An ironic situation where the person who asked the question was more surprised than the one who received it.

Thump, thump, thump-!

Her heart beat violently, incomparably more intense than before.

Irene kept her lips tightly sealed, feeling like it might jump out if she opened her mouth.

She couldn’t speak properly anyway, flustered by the question that had popped out without her realizing.

For the same reason, it was embarrassing to look directly at Kalos’s face, but Irene persevered, clasping her hands tightly together.

Although she had asked by mistake, now that it had come to this, she wanted to hear an answer somehow.

Irene looked at Kalos solemnly, like a soldier going to the battlefield.

“……”

She thought he would answer right away, but surprisingly, Kalos remained silent for a long time.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but judging by how his straight eyebrows had slanted, he was clearly taken aback.

The longer the silence stretches, the more he’s considering… can I get my hopes up?

If it had really been meaningless, just caught up in the mood, Kalos would have said so immediately given his personality.

…But what am I hoping for?

As the question arose again, Irene’s mind became complicated and her heart unsettled. She bit her lip.

At that moment, Kalos’s lips parted.

“Then what about you?”

“…Pardon?”

“Why didn’t you avoid it?”

Irene’s eyes shook greatly at the completely unexpected question.

“If you had wanted to avoid it, you could have easily done so. Why didn’t you avoid it and accepted it instead?”

“……”

Kalos asked in more detail, mercilessly probing Irene’s heart.

That’s right. Why didn’t I avoid his kiss?

To say that she too had been caught up in the mood didn’t explain why she had felt disappointed when his lips briefly parted from hers.

Another confusion sprouted in her already complex mind.

Meanwhile, the loud thumping of her heart was too blatantly audible, interfering with her thoughts.

Irene couldn’t say anything and lowered her gaze for a long time.

Kalos slightly raised his lips as he added.

“If you answer my question, then I’ll answer yours from earlier.”

*

“……”

Dewey, who had gone out to look for Kalos when he hadn’t returned to his bedroom long after coming back to Esper Castle, unintentionally overheard the conversation between Kalos and Irene and was shocked.

In the meantime, he didn’t forget to quickly move away, afraid of being caught eavesdropping by Kalos.

Kalos was not only exceptionally handsome, but also of good status, and possessed wealth and ability, so women who wanted to capture his heart overflowed in both the underground world and the human world.

His somewhat blunt and cold personality was a flaw, but even that was liked as women threw themselves at him like moths to a flame.

But Kalos had never once accepted women’s seductions, nor had he ever reached out first.

He was so indifferent in that regard that Dewey had once suspected if Kalos liked men or had some problem.

Of course, he didn’t use sexual seduction to open the hearts of women who came as sacrifices for the curse, nor did he accept when those women seduced him.

So to hear that Irene and Kalos had kissed.

Dewey’s mouth fell open, unable to believe what he had heard with his own ears.

From what he heard, it seemed Kalos had kissed Irene first.

Why would Kalos to Irene…

Suddenly, Jessie’s words flashed through his mind.

“The master must think of the young lady as special.”

“No, not in that way… Ah, how frustrating!”

“Right now, the master and the young lady are sleeping together.”

“I just asked because I had a strange thought, so don’t worry about it.”

Dewey’s eyes shook greatly.

No way. It can’t be.

Kalos… likes Irene!

To have feelings for a woman who will eventually die for him, as a sacrifice for the curse!

Dewey denied it, saying it was absolutely impossible, that it shouldn’t happen, but the more he did so, the more Kalos’s actions towards Irene up until now came to mind.

Actions that were a bit excessive to simply be for gaining Irene’s favor.

He had found it a bit strange, but thought the master was just being more active since there wasn’t much time left, but now he saw it wasn’t so.

Just when did it start?

Where did things go wrong?

As Dewey was agonizing, clutching his head, he looked up at the sound of someone approaching.

“…Jessie.”

When Dewey called out with a gloomy face, Jessie shrugged as if regretful.

“Looks like you’ve realized the master’s feelings too.”

“…Why didn’t you say something earlier.”

Jessie replied indifferently.

“I did tell you, but you didn’t understand.”

Dewey burst out angrily.

“How am I supposed to understand when you speak so vaguely!”

“Why couldn’t you understand? I figured it out right away without anyone telling me.”

“……”

At the sharp retort, Dewey closed his mouth, at a loss for words.

“And what difference would it make if I told you? Don’t tell me you were going to tell the master he shouldn’t like the young lady because she’s a sacrifice for the curse, that she’s a woman who will die for him?”

“If necessary, that’s exactly what I should say!”

“Oh my, what a loyal subject we have here.”

Jessie clicked his tongue as if exasperated and continued.

“The one fortunate thing in this misfortune is that the master hasn’t realized his own feelings yet. So don’t stimulate him unnecessarily and just stay quietly crushed.”

Has he really not noticed?

Dewey lowered his head, swallowing the words lingering in his mouth.

He could understand why Jessie hadn’t been able to speak properly all this time.