The page he opened showed expensive dresses made from the finest fabrics.

At his slight nod, the employee’s expression changed from surprise to a broad smile as she walked away with the catalog.

Previously, it was that expensive changer.

Then, the dresses.

This man always moves with calculation in everything, so this too must have an intention.

Standing before him reminds me that I wore the same clothes every day.

Though I thoroughly changed the inside to match his intentions, I couldn’t pay attention to the outside.

For someone like me who had no occasion to go to social gatherings or parties, expensive dresses were nothing but a luxury.

If I had money to buy such things, I’d rather have delicious food or fruit from the market.

Even my ill mother would eat those things quite well.

Though even that required me to pretend to be well-off several times.

In fact, even that one dress I wore before him each time was something I bought after much deliberation.

But it seems the things I tried to dress up in looked quite amusing to this man.

Well, he’s someone who changes suits several times a day depending on the situation, so of course he would.

The fine and splendid suit he’s wearing now would boast a different class from what I own.

The prices in the catalog were all jaw-dropping.

This man chooses such things without even looking at the price, so how amusing must I have looked.

Of course, there was no reason to refuse.

Even for a woman to spend one night with him, it’s an unchanging fact that she must match his class.

I try to console myself that these clothes are just tools necessary for him.

At the same time, I imagine.

That I’m not doing what he orders, but gaining tools to use him.

That wearing this beautiful and splendid armor, I will eventually pierce through this man’s heart, use him, and run away.

That would be the best revenge I could exact on this man.

After hours of repeatedly trying on clothes like a mannequin, the man quietly gazed at me standing in a dress covered with blue roses, the logo of the dress shop.

Suddenly feeling an inexplicable defiance at his still arrogant gaze, I asked:

“Do you know what this blue rose means?”

“A miracle… isn’t it?”

“You know.”

“It’s a famous flower meaning.”

Gently wrapping the dress hem around me, I took a seat beside him.

Lifting my face wrapped in the changer he entrusted to me, I gazed at him quietly.

The man looked at me with quite an interested gaze.

His red eyes flickered, fully capturing me as if daring me to continue.

“The owner of this dress shop fell in love with a commoner man. Of course, there was opposition from parents and prejudice from society.”

“And the conclusion.”

“It’s a miracle that they ended up together, isn’t it?”

A smile I’d never seen before spread across his lips.

What started as a sneer soon spread into a real laugh.

A laugh so pure white that one could hardly imagine it to be fake resonated through the space for quite some time.

“So.”

“…”

“What are you trying to say?”

The man’s tone was gentle as he smiled a cruelly beautiful smile.

As if last night’s events didn’t even cross his mind.

“It’s not that I’m trying to say something.”

“…”

“I want to hear it.”

From the moment I decided to be immoral, I forgot all of this man’s circumstances.

No, I had to forget.

The fact that he has a fiancée-to-be, the fact that I’m committing a sin.

“I’m the only one who said it.”

I try a radiant smile I practiced every time I entered a hotel to drug someone.

“That I love you.”

I want you to say the same words I said.

In fact, I don’t expect you to say those words right now.

I just hope it will eventually be so.

So that I can draw out the cruelest emotional rupture I can inflict on this man.

Because he’s not engaged yet, it’s still okay for now.

I decided to be selfish like that.

A deep wave overlaid the red gaze looking at me.

The vibration rising with a crackle contained some form of light for the first time.

Of course, I couldn’t understand that light this time either.

No one would be able to notice anything from that expression.

For a moment, the eyes looking at me curved enticingly.

“I love you.”

My body stiffened at those words like an incantation.

The man, who didn’t even avert his gaze from me, added once more.

“I love you, you.”

Unlike someone who had just received a confession, my body stiffened rigidly.

As if I had been cursed.

“Why are you looking at me like that.”

The hand brushing through my hair was as gentle as ever today.

Fragments of sunlight fluttered over him as he stood by the window that lined the shop wall.

A languid whisper that resembled that light flowed from his lips.

“You asked me to say it.”

His intense gaze fixed on me, following the dress.

I feel captured by his gaze, as if bound by chains.

As he said, I was the one who asked him to say such things, but now the rising feelings seem only laughable.

No, in fact, it’s not a laughable matter, but a desperate one for me.

Because as long as I need to receive the drug from him before manipulating his heart, the positions of superior and subordinate are clear.

In fact, even this manipulation is just a struggle to become at least a subordinate, if not an equal or superior.

So let’s not think about anything.

Every moment standing before him is just a stage play.

Pulling up the corners of my mouth as I’ve practiced thousands of times, I bloomed a smile on my lips and looked up at him.

“I didn’t expect you to say it so directly.”

He just smiled silently.

I acted quite naturally, and though I don’t know how that act appeared in his eyes, it was clearly quite successful.

On the way back to the carriage, the man held my hand.

As if we were affectionate lovers.

He pulled the held hand even more intimately, interlocking our fingers one by one.

I could see the side of the man’s face smiling.

After boarding the carriage, he didn’t say anything special.

But the held hand was not released.

[This is the timeline separator]

The season when flowers begin to bloom over melted snow boasted a moderate temperature.

The rather cozy weather of the capital was more peaceful than ever, but any peace for me was always just in the midst of war.

As I looked at the bustling crowd due to the nice weather, my mind went blank.

It was because my sense of reality was refreshed, as if I had returned to reality from a dream.

“You can drop me off where you picked me up.”

I was hit by belated worry about what if the man’s strange playfulness activated again and he tried to reveal our appearance together.

If there was any hope, it was that the man’s hand had not detached from mine.

For some reason, the man seemed to have softened after saying he loved me.

As if he was immersed in playing the role of a truly loving partner.

“Alright.”

As his order was conveyed, the coachman who had smiled when he first saw me drove the horses away.

After that, the scenery in the carriage window changed several times, and after passing a fountain, the carriage stopped gently at the back of the square.

As soon as I got out of the carriage, I hurried my steps.

The background of the rear where buds were starting to swell was quite beautiful, but there was no leisure to appreciate such things.

I hadn’t expected to be away for even a day, so I hadn’t even told my mother.

She must be worried sick about me by now.

When I entered the lodging with steps close to a sprint, I saw my mother.

“Mom.”

A bright smile hung on her face as it gradually turned towards me.

She didn’t seem flustered or like she had been waiting for me.

As I looked at her dumbfoundedly at the unexpected reaction, she put down the knitting she had been working on and looked at me.

“You came back earlier than expected, my daughter.”

Earlier than expected? Did she lose her memory again?

Seeing that she called me ‘my daughter’, it doesn’t seem like she doesn’t recognize me…

Tears welled up in my eyes at the situation where I didn’t know whether to say it was fortunate or not.

As I hugged my mother tightly while trying hard to smile, she hugged me back while saying, “What’s wrong with this child?”

“I’m sorry for coming back late without saying anything.”

The movement of patting my back stopped at my words, which I barely managed to say without sobbing.

“Huh? What are you talking about? Someone from the imperial palace came by.”

Someone from the imperial palace came by?

As I barely escaped from my mother’s embrace and looked at her, a puzzled gaze was directed at me.

“They said you’d be away for a day for an administrative officers’ union meeting?”

Who could have sent such a message…

“A blonde knight delivered the message and left. Didn’t you send him?”

With a half-beat delay, I remembered the knight who had been smiling continuously in front of the carriage.

That man must have ordered it.

From the beginning, that person had planned to spend more than a day with me. I sighed at this belated realization.

Anyway, thanks to the advance notice, my mother hadn’t worried, which was fortunate at least.

“Yes, I asked him to. My mind has been coming and going lately.”

When I smiled, my mother’s gaze stopped on the pile of luggage in my hands.

Only then did I notice the cumbersome luggage in both hands.

It was the result of refusing the man’s offer to send a porter along.

[It’s okay. My hands should be as heavy as what I received, so my heart will be just that heavy.] […..] [I want to cherish my feelings for you heavily.]

Only after hearing those words did he take a step back.

It was rather strange to see the person who never listened to my words retreat so easily.

Now I think I know a little, just a little, how to move him.

That to refuse him, I need to show a heart that has become that much closer.

The weight on my wrists felt endlessly heavy, as if my words had really come back like a curse.

Of course, outwardly I just shrugged as if it was nothing.

“Things needed for the project.”

My mother soon acquiesced and returned to casual conversation without any particular questions.

As usual, I mixed various lies with the truth.

That I’m getting along well with my colleagues and the project I went on went well.

That I was so happy throughout the trip.

That the place beyond the Calps River was so beautiful and wonderful.

In the conversation with my mother, the events with that man disappeared, covered with lies.

In reality, I couldn’t utter even a single line about this abnormal relationship.

My mother, who had been listening quietly, asked about Hael.

“Are you getting along well with Hael?”

There was no light in my mother’s eyes as she asked the question.

Whenever her memory stopped in the distant past, my mother’s eyes often had that light.

With an expression no different from usual, I responded to that.

“Of course. We’re getting along well.”

Hael. Actually, since that day, Hael hesitated for a while but still treated me the same.

He doesn’t wait for me on my way home from work, but when he runs into me, he smiles and greets me, and also follows me secretly.

When I turn around, I occasionally see Hael’s shadow.

I’m thoroughly ignoring that.

Anyway, since the relationship is being maintained in that way, it wasn’t a complete lie.

“Then… what about the young master?”