149.
“…….”
“I haven’t forgotten. The one who gave someone like me a new purpose… is you. Since you took me in, my situation has improved, and from that day on I could look forward to the future. I originally grabbed onto your clothes feeling like I was dying. You saved me. So you don’t even need to give me orders. Just a simple hint, no, even just a glance… Anytime… This time I’ll really cut off that bastard’s head…. So… Don’t do this to me anymore…”
“No!”
“…….”
“You, you’ll die if you do that…. I don’t want to see that. Truly. Even though what I did to you today was purely… for your own good…”
“…….”
“And Xavier is still my brother after all…. Why do you keep saying such scary things…. Why are you tormenting me….”
Her words cut Idris off mid-sentence, and once again she has the face of a child who doesn’t know what to do with her wounds. Her eyes, brimming with tears and rain, looked ready to burst. Her gaze and gestures as she pressed him were all filled with restlessness, as if she might shatter at any moment. That fragility. Idris found himself closing his mouth without realizing it. Damn it. He couldn’t press her any further. Like this, it felt as if he was the one committing a sin….
I’m still just a man pierced by prison bars.
“I’m sorry, Idris. Today’s events, I… I went too far…. I was wrong. I was wrong. Please forgive me….”
“…….”
“But you know. Even if the Giovinetta of the day sometimes torments you, the Giovinetta of the night is yours without fail. My heart is entirely yours, day and night. Ever since… the day you promised to become my knight in the future, I have… always been yours. You know that. You also agreed to grit your teeth and endure until the day I rescue you, out of your affection for me…. Ah, Idris. Please don’t hate me…. I can’t live if I earn your contempt….”
“…….”
“Forgive me….”
Arms that seemed to be sobbing reached deep into the cell, grasping Idris’s collar as if it were a lifeline. Trembling fingertips dug into his nape. After fumbling over rain-soaked bare skin, in an instant, she embraced him deeply. Startled, Idris nervously lowered his damp head. His skin seemed to rise at every point she touched. His heart was unbearably hot. As if his entire body would give off steam even in this rain.
He raised his gaze, unable to fully open his chest that had instinctively shrunk. Giovinetta’s sensitive bridge of nose and lips, pressed against the bars, bore a desperately sad light. Even if the rain were to stop now, her eyes would continue to shed tears endlessly.
Come here. Please. Dizzily, urgently, she pressed him. Gradually, Idris’s shoulders leaned towards her. Close enough for their breaths to meet.
After hesitating even after coming that close, he quickly extended his arm outside the cell and wrapped it around the girl’s waist. His remaining hand frantically grasped Giovinetta’s hand that was gripping the bars. Soon, the boy and girl’s breaths mingled like rainwater between the bars.
“Gio… vinetta.”
“Yes.”
“Giovinetta….”
“Yes….”
“Don’t cry… please….”
“…….”
“How could I… possibly… hate you….”
“…….”
“I, I simply cannot hate you….”
“Ah….”
“How… could I dare….”
“Mmm….”
“…….”
Idris swallowed the girl’s sigh. She did too. Again and again. For both of them, it was a kiss that could only barely probe each other’s shallow insides, unable to deepen due to the bars between them. Idris gasped violently, thinking that even if this kiss, which they had been secretly sharing for months, were to kill him, he would have no regrets. Unable to control his aching heart, he unconsciously tightened his grip on her.
Giovinetta pulled away with a startled look. With that movement, her wet collar loosened slightly, revealing bare skin. Idris’s eyes twitched.
“Your neck…. Why….”
“…Ah.”
Giovinetta hurriedly adjusted her collar and avoided his gaze. But her neck, which she usually kept tightly covered with layers of clothing during the day as if to raise her value, was whiter than birch bark, and the wide mark left on that white skin was as black as peat. Nausea rose immediately. Even without being told, Idris knew that the owner of that handprint was Xavier.
The girl bit her lip, seemingly embarrassed that her blatant lie had been exposed, and her eyes darted to check Idris’s expression. Her entire trembling body exuded anxiety and unease.
“…He choked you last night.”
“…….”
“So… you laughed as if you were enjoying venting your anger on me.”
Giovinetta had no answer. As if she couldn’t bear the pain to come. As if she might swallow all the water flowing down her chin. She just shook her head violently in the rain, breathing heavily.
“Right?”
“…….”
“It was to vent your anger?”
Her lips, turned blue, seemed unable to part, as if hoping the pouring rain would answer for her. Her gaze, transparent even in the darkness, was exactly like dew. Idris swallowed hard, as if forcing it down. As I thought….
This was the reason, wasn’t it.
“Why… do you deceive me so.”
Idris whispered dejectedly.
“Why can’t you be honest with me… even for a single day.”
“…No, no….”
“Why are you so afraid of someone like me… who can’t even lift a finger without your permission….”
“…….”
“Why are you so scared.”
“…….”
“…….”
“…No, it’s not…. I, I….”
Giovinetta barely parted her lips but couldn’t finish her excuse. She seemed to be swallowing her voice and the rainwater down to her solar plexus. With her shoulders completely hunched, the end of her words crawled along the bottom. However, her cheeks were now like a plaster doll seen only in broad daylight. Her pupils, suddenly emptied, were as hollow as some ghost. Faced with her mask that now looked almost like a shield, Idris reluctantly closed his mouth.
There is no color. No light. With such an inanimate expression, she unconsciously bites the tip of her fingernail. That gesture, he had seen it on the day they first met. Idris recognized it immediately. Right now, she is more afraid than ever.
Of his disappointment after discovering her malice.
Of his abandonment.
From some point on, Idris saw not cruel boredom in her misplaced habit, but a deeply hidden fear. It was perhaps a natural progression that the young queen, whose inner anxiety like her own grave had been penetrated for the first time, visited her possession that was not truly hers that very night. So it was all the fault of himself who had perceived this.
Being stripped naked in front of the public like years ago.
The back stripped by a branding iron.
These vicious tortures that are sometimes harder to endure than when she only had to deal with Xavier alone.
On the day he first met her in private, he had only been grateful as if for a newly gained life. He had wept deeply, his whole body trembling at the radiant touch that gently lifted his miserable, bowed chin. And so he had wanted to serve her with all his heart and soul. Not knowing that those hands so fair were hands that convulsed day and night, by the time he realized it, years had flowed far away and now his birthplace was only the trembling fingertips of hers. With no way to leave.
“I understand.”
He swallowed his resignation that resembled anger.
“Whatever your purpose was… I don’t care.”
“…….”
“…It’s okay.”
“…….”
And always, she is the first to crumble.
“I’m….”
“…….”
“I’m sorry….”
And so, her mask melted away immediately at Idris’s touch as he stroked her head. Giovinetta’s eyes were instantly soaked. Falling little by little, the girl who finally burst into sobs as if about to collapse into the arms of a caged beast further tore at his already wrecked state of mind, but he dared not push her away. He could only press his forehead against the bars and stroke her wet hair again and again.
How long had he been comforting her like that?
“…It’s not just because of Xavier….”
Suddenly she spoke through her tears.
“Today, you, you were… You were bad….”
“…….”
“I was trying to hold back today too…. But I, I got so angry…. I couldn’t hold it in…. I endure the pain, but you… you smile at that woman….”
“…That woman?”
“Marietta….”
“Mari… who?”
Marietta? His lips parted slightly in confusion. To tell the truth, Idris couldn’t recall any woman’s face even after hearing that name.
“You smiled. Both you and that woman…. You two. You were giggling…. Right in front of me….”
“…….”
“That brazen woman….”
Giovinetta’s long eyelashes trembled. Idris stared blankly at her eyes, not even realizing that rainwater was entering his mouth. For an instant, Giovinetta’s darkened pupils cast a shadow of hostility close to murderous intent.
“I guess she’s finally noticed how handsome you are….”
“…….”
“I hate it so much….”
“…….”
“I might sneak in at night and gouge out all her eyes….”
“…….”
“Even so, I went too far….”
But the dark shadow was only for a moment. Giovinetta returned to a pitiful sob in an instant, as if she had never made such an expression, and began to beg him again.
“I’m not denying all my faults…. I was wrong…. Forgive me….”
“…….”
“I… wasn’t just enjoying it…. Seeing even that side of you, I couldn’t… control myself…. Before I knew it….”
“…….”
“I really, truly, didn’t enjoy it that much….”
Was that… really the reason?
Idris couldn’t speak again for a long time. He knew that the murderous intent and fear she showed, and even her cruel nature, were all genuine. He was already accustomed to her darkness, so no other special sentiment arose. He was just in ruins. He watched Giovinetta sobbing endlessly with dead eyes. Then, he leaned in as if collapsing. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders with his forehead against the bars. It’s okay, he seemed to say. You can do whatever you want with this body.
“…I understand.”
He murmured against her forehead. His wet shirt clung to his scorching back where the flesh seemed to be melting. The rising pain felt almost like lifting weights.
But there is no way not to understand and forgive. This person who is even more fragile than himself. This person who has been broken alone for so long, who at times seems even more cornered than him. His irresponsible, cowardly, and indescribably beautiful lover.
The respite at the edge of the cliff.
And so he forgave her with the feeling of shattering himself completely. If only he had never been born.
***
Johannes inhaled and opened his eyes. Kneeling and holding an arrow, he couldn’t focus his scattered gaze for a while and stayed blank before almost falling forward. At that moment, the arrowhead lodged in his neck was pushed into the floor with such force that it seemed about to break through his remaining neck. Crack. It was chilling. Warm liquid flowed down between the crushed flesh.
Johannes instinctively grasped the carpet. He tried to let out a groan but couldn’t due to his injured throat.
Just then, as his bulging gaze shook uncontrollably.
“…Why are you helping me?”
The moment he heard his sister’s voice coming down from the ceiling along the wall, Johannes’s spine stiffened. In the end, it was at that very moment that he stiffened his entire body like a truly dead person and paid attention.
“Lord Johannes must be missing you so much, my lady….”
The one answering his sister’s question was Griselda. His sister asked breathlessly, seeming to look around the surroundings:
“You’re quite bold indeed. You really surprise me…. How on earth did you persuade the guards?”
“The messy aftermath is my responsibility, so you don’t need to know about it, my lady….”
“…Still.”
“…….”
“…….”
His sister’s rather anxious voice spread into Griselda’s calm one like hot and humid mist. Up there. His sister was quietly exiting the chamber door that seemed like it would never open again. Pat, pat, the sound of two feet that seemed about to run at any moment faded away like an echo as she barely held back. The voices of the two women also faded with their footsteps. Getting farther away. Coming down the corridor.
Here.
She is coming.
Male lead is a Destined Young Husband (Female-dominant)
One-sentence summary: Wife-master, listen to my explanation!
Li Ruantang, a young lady from a prestigious family, stumbled and fell. When she woke up, she saw a noble and beautiful young man sitting by her bedside, wiping away tears.
The young master had slightly reddened eyes, and his every move exuded charm.
The sight made Li Ruantang’s eyes hot and her heart flutter. After all, she had made a bet with the young master Meng from the neighboring family. If she couldn’t marry a husband before the end of the year, she would have to admit defeat and give up the jade she had worked so hard to obtain.
Outside the window, the flowers were in full bloom.
Rather than losing the bet, the jade, and her face, Li Ruantang calculated that it would be better to seek marriage with the young master in front of her, killing three birds with one stone.
…
Meng Jun never thought that an accident during a spring outing would lead to them rolling down a cliff and into a river, yet still survive.
Now they were trapped in an unknown village, and Meng Jun had overheard that the family who had rescued them had their own intentions.
After all, it was Li Ruantang who had lost her mind and sought marriage first. He was only trying to protect himself!
Glancing at Li Ruantang, who was listing her own merits, the young husband’s voice softened, and he blushed as he lied, “W-wife-master, Wife-master, don’t you remember me?”
The young husband’s voice was clear and handsome, coaxing Li Ruantang’s heart to be soft and sweet, and she spared no effort to protect him.
It wasn’t until they returned to the capital that Li Ruantang suddenly remembered.
When they had fallen off the cliff, in order not to implicate Wei Yunruo, whom he secretly admired, the young husband had instead pulled her, who was slightly farther away, down the cliff with him…
Short summary by Yuushi L: Initially, the male lead (ML) liked another girl, while the female lead (FL) liked the ML. Both fell off a cliff. The FL temporarily lost her memory, and the ML, fearing others might take advantage of him, claimed FL was his wife while they were staying in a village. Later, when they returned home, the FL regained her memories and remembered that the ML liked someone else, so she kept her distance from him. However, during their time living together in the countryside, the ML’s view of the FL had completely changed. From this point, his pursuit of the FL begins.
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