“I’m sorry.”

“…..”

The reason for apologizing, despite being sudden and likely too late, was because hurting others due to one’s own difficult situation could not be justified.

Although the outcome was not good, Selene felt sorry for him.

After all, the responsibility for ruining the relationship to the point of no return lay with me.

That’s probably why my chest had been aching since earlier.

Upon hearing the apology, he neither dismissed it as nonsense nor got angry. He was just there, like a large boulder.

His slightly furrowed brow, as if pondering the intention, was the only reaction seen during the long silence.

But as that silent moment passed, his face, which had only slightly creased his brow, twisted fiercely.

“What are you doing now?”

If his voice were to be molded into the shape of an object, it would surely be a well-sharpened dagger. With a voice that was once as sweet as sugar, he muttered softly.

“Does it hurt a lot……”

Even if there were concrete evidence right now, it would be hard to believe, so how much could sincerity expressed merely in words reach him?

She knew. Yet this was the best she could do.

“I know how implausible this must sound. But I’m sincere. I’m sorry.”

Silence fell again.

He, who was usually quick to mock or refute any words, stiffened like someone with no immunity to a single word of apology.

“I hope this whim of yours lasts longer this time.”

It was a clear dismissal.

Selene slowly turned her back as she watched him pick up the quill he had put down.

I will wait until the anger subsides and he accepts my words sincerely. After waiting like that, then I will bring up divorce.

As Selene reached the door, she extended her slender finger to grasp the silver doorknob. As she turned it and stepped on the threshold, she suddenly realized.

The taste lingering on her tongue tip since earlier, that irritating flavor. It was lemon, tasted on some distant day she couldn’t even remember.

Her tongue tip was bitter.

* * *

When he took his eyes off the documents, she was already gone. Exhausted, he buried himself deep in the chair and covered his view with his arm.

He was tired. The reason for this overwhelming fatigue rushing in now was probably…

Stopping his thoughts, he lowered the arm covering his eyes.

‘They say people change when they come back from the dead, I guess she was that type.’

Come back from the dead…

If it was a ploy to completely capture his attention, it was a great success.

Because his gaze couldn’t move away from the space where she had been.

Especially, the words “I’m sorry.”

The reason it kept ringing in his ears was because it was the first time she had apologized.

Her slightly trembling gaze, too subtle to be an act, made him curse under his breath.

That gaze was the reaction she showed when revealing her true feelings.

Boreas, who firmly believed that while words could deceive people, eyes could not, found himself at a loss due to that belief for the first time.

Including their academy days, it had been 15 years since he first saw her. A period that couldn’t be considered short to know a person.

Yet he couldn’t understand at all. It hadn’t been comprehensible before either, but this was undoubtedly the most incomprehensible situation so far.

Of course, it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

When her mania subsided briefly, she often pretended to be fine like this, only to quickly return to abnormal behavior.

However, even during the dozens of times she lost and regained her senses, she had never said she was sorry.

That was the problem.

He didn’t like that variable at all, which made hope rise again in such a pathetic way.

Boreas took out a golden case from the inner pocket of his gray vest.

He opened the case and took out a cigarette, putting it in his mouth. As he was about to take out a lighter from another pocket, his movement suddenly stopped.

His outstretched hand touched the frame of an overturned picture frame.

With a careful touch, as if opening Pandora’s box, he slightly lifted it, and a strand of sunlight fell into it.

The gray eyes gazing at where the beam of light gently landed were deeply tinged.

The moment time stopped was brief.

Withdrawing his hand, he finally lit the end of the cigar. Soon, a sigh mixed with fog spread in the air.

The eyelids that had stretched long following the smoke also lifted. In the hazy mist, the dull eyes that appeared lacked any vitality.

* * *

As Selene was returning to the bedroom, she noticed someone entering through the window.

Sitting leaning against the window frame, Selene tapped her fingers on it.

She was a beautiful woman with long, flowing silver hair and sparkling purple eyes.

‘What was her name… again?’

It seemed familiar yet unfamiliar. Where had she seen her before?

While lost in recollection, the woman had already come up the stairs and was approaching.

Her direction was towards the study Selene had just left.

The woman, discovering Selene standing blankly in the hallway, approached with a bright smile.

“I see Your Grace, the Duchess.”

“Ah, yes.”

Selene, who had been leaning against the wall, straightened up and received the greeting indifferently. Seeing her up close, she finally remembered.

One of the foremost among those eagerly eyeing the unique position next to the Grand Duke while she was suffering from mania.

Naturally, it couldn’t be a very pleasant encounter.

Selene tried to just pass by her. However, what stopped her was the other’s perplexed expression.

What is it?

The eyes with a hint of purple color trembled slightly, as if looking at a different person.

Ah, right. It’s understandable to be surprised.

Since she used to resort to violence whenever they met, annoyed by her constant advances. She must be surprised that the person who would usually hurl insults at her cheerful approach was staying quiet.

“Do you have anything else to say?”

But why should I care? When Selene asked with a look that seemed to say ‘Is there a problem?’, she quickly shook her head and composed her expression.

Of course, there would be no reply. She was about to take a step in the silence.

“Whatever Your Grace has done to me, I can understand and forgive.”

A voice as fresh as the pink rouge painted on her cheeks pierced her ears.

It was so vivacious that Selene put her foot back down on the ground and pondered the meaning.

“Pardon?”

“You poured hot tea on my head at the party last time, remember? That’s why I came here today, but have you forgotten it all?”

The young lady opened her eyes wide.

Within the question thrown with somewhat exaggerated actions was an implicit reproach, as if to say how could you forget.

Unable to find the words omitted from the question that seemed greatly abbreviated, Selene furrowed her brow.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh my, you really don’t remember.”

The young lady shook her clenched fist above her head. At that moment, a scene flashed through her mind.

Was it during the last royal banquet? The chattering sound next to her was so ear-splitting that she poured hot tea on that head.

She even remembered the nagging of her aide, who was aghast, asking if she intended to turn the Imperial Tower, the Imperial Palace, and even the Temple against her, given that she was a woman monopolizing the love of the most prominent men in the empire.

“His Grace the Grand Duke invited me here to try to settle that matter. But it’s regrettable that the person involved doesn’t remember. Still, I’m fine. As I just said, I can understand you, Madam.”

She often said she was fine whenever she suffered at my hands. But hearing it again with a clear mind, her tone was strange.

It left an oddly uncomfortable feeling, as if mocking.

The young lady, who had been chattering on with unsolicited explanations for a while, lowered her eyes sorrowfully.

“Are you very displeased that I came here?”

The young lady soon imagined the impending future. Like last time, her hair might be pulled or she might be cursed at. She might get slapped or be forced to kneel.

They were all tragic predictions of being unilaterally assaulted.

Despite the situation where she might want to run away at any moment, the young lady not only didn’t avoid it but even covered her mouth with a fan.

She even gently waved the feather attached to the fan.

Because that was her ‘role’.

A kind and gentle woman to make the villainess stand out. A pitiful woman who needs the rescue of a prince on a white horse from the villainess’s misdeeds. That was who she was.

Watching the Grand Duchess’s expression darken, the woman diligently prepared to burst into tears.

However, the response that soon came made the woman’s face collapse grotesquely.

“You’re not a being that concerns me enough to feel displeasure.”

“…Pardon?”

Selene, who had been muttering loudly enough to be heard while twirling her hair, looked at the young lady and asked the question she had been curious about.

“By the way, young lady, what was your name?”

“…Excuse me?”

“I can’t remember your name. Shouldn’t I at least know your name to apologize properly?”

If it was wrong to pour water because she was annoyed by the woman constantly approaching her husband, well.

At Selene’s question, the woman’s expression, which had momentarily become stupid, immediately turned red and blue with anger.

“Are, are you insulting me right now?”

Fritten Crosse Lenoir, the young lady of the insignificant Lenoir Baron family, felt her anger gradually accumulating.

How could she forget her name when it hasn’t been that long since they last met? Fritten Lenoir thought that the Adrian Grand Duchess considered her a woman not even worth remembering her name, and trembled with indescribable humiliation.

However, a light response came back, tilting her head as if wondering why this was something to get so upset about.

“Ah, is it a bit awkward to say your name?”

Selene asked curiously, placing her thumb on her chin. And such a response became like fanning the flames.

“Are you saying that I’m ashamed because our family is an insignificant one?”

It was then, as the woman was huffing with her hands on her hips.

“What’s all this commotion?”

“Your Grace!”

As soon as the deep, mellow voice resonated through the corridor, the silver-haired woman called out to him in a heightened voice.

Transforming into a sorrowful expression, she ran to Boreas. With her eyes lowered to the corners, she spoke in an aggrieved voice.

“The Grand Duchess said my family is of no account. I suppose she was displeased that a mere insignificant young lady dared to set foot in the Grand Duchy.”

Sob sob.

She, who had been wearing an expression as if the world was crumbling, finally let a single tear drop.

“…..”

Is this the same person who was angry just now? She could be an actress.

Selene, dumbfounded, let out a hollow laugh.

“Is that true?”

Boreas looked at Selene with clear eyes.

Fritten, who visited at every opportunity, was not a particularly pleasant conversational partner for him either.

The reason he invited someone he would usually ignore was because he had a role in cleaning up the incident Selene had caused.

That role might have grown, so Boreas wanted an objective explanation of the situation.

Selene turned her body straight ahead. And looking at him, she spoke firmly.

“No.”

“Then why is Lady Lenoir crying?”

“Ask the young lady directly. I’m curious too.”

“Sob sob, Grand Duke.”

Fritten, who had been squeezing out tears, threw her body forward as if all her strength had left her. It was a gesture with a clear intention of expecting someone to catch her.

Boreas, who stepped back to widen the distance with Fritten, approached Selene and asked.

“I’m asking you because the young lady doesn’t seem to be in a state to speak properly. What were you doing?”

“I asked for her name.”

“What?”

Selene shrugged her shoulders.

“I forgot the young lady’s name for a moment, so I asked. But suddenly she accused me of mocking her as a young lady from an insignificant family.”

Fritten, her expression crumbling, couldn’t hide her flustered emotions and alternately looked at Selene and Boreas.

The droplets that had been moistening her eyes until just now had abruptly stopped.

“If you had told me your name earlier, we wouldn’t have had to drag out the conversation, Lady Lenoir.”

As the matter-of-fact tone was added, as if that really was all there was to it, Fritten creased her brow, unable to manage her expression.

It was a calm response, too calm. As if she had become a different person overnight.

Is she crazy? She should get angry and excited. That’s how it should be, like usual.

Boreas, having grasped the situation, turned his head and looked at Fritten with indifferent eyes.

“Was that so?”

“Ah, no, Your Grace!”

Fritten, suddenly coming to her senses at the voice above her head, hurriedly looked up at him.

With large, wet eyes, she spoke imploringly, sobbing.

“The Grand Duchess didn’t consider how the other person might interpret her words. At least, that’s not how it sounded to me.”

Incredulous. Selene, her lips set in a straight line, wondered what exactly this woman thought ‘consideration’ meant.

At the very least, interfering with a married couple by approaching a married man isn’t called ‘consideration’, does she even know that?

“It seems there was a misunderstanding if I didn’t speak with that intention. Whatever it may be, if you misunderstood, I regret that.”

“Misunderstanding? Your Grace, no.”

Though she might not know the meaning of consideration, Fritten seemed to have some sense of the situation, as she offered excuses in the face of the cold gaze directed at her.

She knew it too.

Misunderstanding. How much he hated that word.

Boreas, speaking politely but in a tone that drew a line, told Fritten that today didn’t seem to be the day, and called the head butler to order him to see the young lady out.

“…. If the conversation is over, I’ll be going now.”

Selene touched around her scarred forehead as she moved her steps.

At the moment she turned her back, red hair scattered across his field of vision.

Perhaps because it was as red as a rose, as it always had been, the afterimage easily remained.

“…..”

Boreas deliberately turned his head away from the space where the roses had scattered. The afterimage lasted quite a while.

.