“Why do you keep looking if you’re not interested?”

This time, Ian raised his head. His narrowed, pale eyes caught her gaze.

Helena, startled for a moment, dropped her fork.

Thud, clang.

The fork hit the table once and fell to the floor with a loud noise. Though it was actually quiet enough to be drowned out by the surrounding noise, to her ears it sounded like that.

Like hundreds of plates shattering simultaneously, with a crash.

With each plate breaking, black spots appeared in her vision. They grew steadily until suddenly enveloping her surroundings.

⌜You think you can act like a duchess with that?⌟

In the midst of total darkness, a stern voice whizzed past her ear like an arrow. It felt as if blood was flowing from where it grazed.

Her tightly clenched fist trembled and chills ran down her spine. She could only roll her eyes, unable to even look around.

‘Huk.’

Her breath caught in her throat.

All the people eating in the restaurant were staring only at her.

Like black shadows, they all grew unnaturally tall, with blood-red eyes glaring down at her as if to devour her.

The shadows began to rise from their seats and approach.

⌜Pick it up again, Helena!⌟

They shouted with the same voice, same mouth shape, at the same timing.

⌜Straighten your back. Again.⌟

The dark voices berated her from all directions.

⌜Do it again, again.⌟

The sound of breaking plates grew louder and louder.

⌜Again. Again.⌟

They shattered and broke mercilessly. It rumbled like thunder.

⌜Again!⌟

“Shut up!”

“…len. Helen?”

Suddenly, a gentle human voice was heard.

A living voice. A voice that didn’t choke her.

At the same time, she felt something warm rubbing her hand. The breath she had been holding burst out all at once.

The dark space vanished like a candle in the wind.

Helena opened her tightly shut eyes, breathing roughly. The coarse wooden table slowly came into view.

She finally realized that the warmth spreading over the back of her hand was someone’s body heat.

“Are you alright? As I thought, it’s still too much−.”

“I’m fine.”

Helena quickly pulled her hand out of Ian’s grasp. And before he could say more, she hurriedly called the waiter.

“Th…”

Her voice cracked a little while asking for a new fork. She hastily looked around the table.

Ian poured water into a cup and handed it to her while relaying her request to the waiter. After she gulped down the water, he softly spoke her name.

“Helena.”

His tone was slightly firmer than before. There was a nuance of urging her to look at him, but Helena stubbornly kept her eyes lowered.

If she looked now, he would see.

He would see the imperfect monster she harbored within herself at every moment.

He was already skilled at reading people. Helena didn’t want to expose her weakness now that she had already shown her true self. She couldn’t give him any more openings.

After taking a deep breath, she furrowed her brow in feigned anger to hide her anxiety.

“I was just annoyed by the noise. You know, you have quite a talent. You can irritate people with just your voice.”

“…”

Strangely, he remained silent. He just stared at her intensely. His gaze made her skin tingle as if she were naked.

She had expected him to make a light joke or argue back, to say something. Why was there no reaction? Or was he really angry with her this time?

Helena found this feeling of instinctively gauging someone’s reaction unsettling. As she chewed on the inside of her lip, the waiter brought a new fork.

As soon as the clatter of metal touching wood was heard, Ian spoke.

“I’m glad you noticed. I do have that tendency.”

He said it in the plainest tone possible. Helena felt those words were even drier than the cheap, cold piece of meat in front of her.

Despite all her efforts, it seemed he had managed to read her again. But she didn’t show it. She only sensed his intention to shift this uncomfortable atmosphere as he wished.

Whether he was going along with her or had other motives.

She couldn’t tell, but if he wanted her to find him irritating, he had succeeded.

Helena frowned as she met his gaze. This time it wasn’t an act, she was genuinely displeased.

“What exactly are you so happy about?”

“That you’re angry like this. Even better that it’s because of me.”

“I don’t particularly want to understand, but you really are an incomprehensible person.”

He clearly had a strange preference. Otherwise, he couldn’t maintain that smile while being constantly berated.

“There’s no need to understand. Don’t try to read my expressions either. It’s difficult, isn’t it? Just look at what you see and be angry.”

“Then you’ll be happy again? What a nasty hobby.”

“Yes.”

“So why, exactly?”

Her voice grew louder. Guests at nearby tables began to look at her one by one.

This time it wasn’t a hallucination but reality, yet Helena didn’t care at all.

She was too irritated to see anything but the man in front of her.

As her frown deepened, his smile also grew.

“Because you seem alive. That’s why I’m happy.”

At that moment, something snapped inside Helena’s chest. The tightly drawn air evaporated in an instant.

Only then did she become aware of the surrounding gazes. Her consciousness, which had been focused solely on him, scattered.

The feeling of déjà vu from last night rose again. The feeling of having stepped onto an irreversible path.

Helena nonchalantly picked up her knife and cut the bean stalk. She focused on it as if cutting the bean stalk would yield an answer.

“I, I…”

The sound of the knife hitting the plate was quite loud. She tried to maintain composure, but it was difficult.

“I’m not angry.”

She was angry.

For feeling so intensely alive, even if just for a moment.

The reception garden of the grand duke’s residence was always in full bloom regardless of the season.

An elderly lady was walking through the garden of the east mansion, which was the most elaborately decorated among them.

She was admiring the colorful hydrangeas when she heard footsteps approaching from afar and turned around.

Soon, Eugene appeared.

“What brings you here?”

He was dressed somewhat loosely instead of in a crisp suit, perhaps having come during training.

A long, torn scar was faintly visible through his generously open shirt. Beads of sweat slid over it, then flowed down along his pectoral muscles.

The servant following behind hurriedly offered a towel. However, Eugene dismissed everyone, saying he would return before the sweat dried.

The elderly lady sat on an ivory-colored round stool with a displeased expression.

“Are you saying that even time spent talking with your mother is wasteful?”

“What is your business?”

Eugene replied without budging from where he stood. Christine frowned even more and nodded towards the opposite seat.

A light sigh escaped from between Eugene’s teeth. He reluctantly sat down, pressing his back against the chair. Only then did the wrinkles around Christine’s eyes loosen slightly.

“We don’t have to have a reason to see each other’s faces. If someone leaves, someone else should come.”

“…Did you threaten Gordon again?”

“If you won’t talk to me, what other choice do I have?”

Unlike Eugene’s momentarily sunken expression, Christine laughed refreshingly as if a toothache had suddenly been cured.

“She finally left. Looking so docile yet enduring for 5 years, she was quite tough indeed.”

Christine’s head slowly turned to survey the surroundings. She took in the view of the mansion behind the garden with satisfaction.

“Now it finally feels like Evergail.”

Her tone suggested she couldn’t be more relieved. It sounded almost as if she had finally driven out a bug that shouldn’t have been in the house.

Eugene’s lips tightened. He suddenly remembered that Helena had met his mother a few days before she left.

Eugene asked, not hiding his intensified demeanor:

“What did you say to Helena? What exactly have you been doing to that woman all this time, Mother?”

His already low voice growled even more roughly.

Christine’s eyes widened in surprise. Rather than anger, her face showed that she didn’t even understand why this was worth arguing about.

She soon sneered coldly.

“You’re the one who entrusted that child to me all this time, Eugene.”

“I was at war, and you kept threatening me about etiquette and adapting to high society.”

“It must have been convenient to pretend not to know, right?”

“I will never send Helena to you again, Mother.”

Eugene’s golden pupils glinted sharply. Christine, who had maintained her composure, furrowed her delicate brow.

“Again? It sounds like you’re saying there will be a next time.”

“We are still married. We haven’t divorced.”

“Is that why you’re holding out without signing until the end? How much did she ask for alimony? Acting like she couldn’t even think of such a tactic, yet so cunning until the very end.”

As Christine spoke, Eugene’s voice grew louder.

“I didn’t do it. And I won’t. Helena will be the only woman who can bear the Evergail name from now on.”

“You…!”

Christine opened her mouth as if to retort immediately, then closed it again.

After a moment, she folded her fan with an audible snap, revealing her displeasure, and spoke as if admonishing him.

“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly acting like this. You’ve been displeased with her lately too, haven’t you?”

“When did I−”

“Don’t try to deny it. I’m ultimately a woman like her. I can tell just by looking at your face.”

“I am that woman’s husband.”

Eugene declared firmly. In name and reality, she was his wife.

Therefore, he should be the one to know Helena. Others shouldn’t know her better than himself.

But why, why.

Why are you so blurry?

Meanwhile, Christine retorted, undaunted by Eugene’s fierce demeanor.

“And you are my son. You resemble him a lot, Eugene. You achieve everything easily, obtain things easily, and get bored easily.”

“…”

Eugene unconsciously placed his hand on his scar and lightly stroked it. Christine continued speaking, seemingly unaware of his action.

“No matter how harshly I treated her, she would cry and then smile right away with just a word from you. But now she had no expression at all. I thought I wouldn’t need to call her anymore even without you making such threats. And that’s how it turned out.”

Christine stood up.

“Even if you haven’t ended it, she has.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she turned on her heel as if her business was done. The pink hat adorned with glossy swan feathers disappeared from the garden.

Eugene sat alone, quietly swallowing. His body was cold. The sweat had cooled long ago.

So he kept repeating to himself, as if to raise heat in his cold body:

‘No. You will come back.’

She was Helena Evergail. That’s the kind of woman she was.

Even if he forgot.

A woman who always returned.