#26
His focus was blurry. A grayish aura instantly spread and shadowed around Johannes’ eyes. I thought it was just the shadow of a flickering candle.
A moment of silence passed between us. Johannes, who was gently caressing my cheek, quietly spoke.
“…Are you tired? Sleepy?”
“No. Sleep has left me completely.”
“Oh my.”
“…It’s your fault.”
He got up first and grabbed my waist to lift me. His hand touched the collar of my clothes as I sat up listlessly without much effort.
“Let’s take off your outer clothes.”
Johannes said calmly, the earlier blurry expression gone as if it were a lie. The long hem of my clothes was already slipping down past my shoulders before I could stop it, revealing my thin nightgown. I hurriedly grabbed his wrist and cried out softly.
“Why, why?”
“Why are you so surprised? You need to undress to lie down properly. Once you lie down, sleep will come even if it wasn’t there before.”
“I, I’ll take it off myself…”
“Alright.”
“……”
Though Johannes moved away, I felt heat rising to the top of my forehead. It had been just a few hours since I had rolled around with Johannes.
The moist, clinging sensation and his gaze that tormented me. His pungent breath. And the occasional painful sighs he let out suddenly scattered in my mind, leaving me slightly dazed.
It felt like my face would burn up completely. I must have been fidgeting for quite a while like that.
“…What’s wrong?”
Johannes pressed his finger against my cheek and smiled. You’re mischievous, Isolde. He teased me playfully, my eyes already heated. His actions afterward were not ordinary. Johannes easily grabbed my arm and swiftly removed the rest of my outer clothes.
“What… are you doing?”
“Hmm.”
“Jo, Johannes.”
“…Didn’t you say you’re not sleepy yet?”
Johannes asked as he drew closer to me. As he leaned his upper body, propping his arm next to me, his forehead tilted towards mine. His dark blue gaze, half-lidded lazily, tracing down to my lips. My heart raced uncontrollably. I tried to cut him off.
“I’m still tired, regardless. How much do you have to torment someone before you’re satisfied?”
“Hmm…”
“Really… You’re such a monster.”
“……”
I still remember his face stiffening a little at that moment. After a strange silence, Johannes gently pulled down one of my sleeves. He began to slowly kiss the bare skin of my exposed shoulder.
The more relaxed touch than before made me feel like my flesh would melt completely. This shouldn’t happen now, it shouldn’t be like this… But I couldn’t help my breath quickening.
Slowly, the hand that swept up diagonally from my lower abdomen and eventually covered under my breast felt good. Following his touch, I could feel my nipples immediately becoming prominent, as if they had been waiting. He lightly sucked around my collarbone. A brief shiver. Both our unsatisfied breaths began to heave little by little.
While absent-mindedly stroking Johannes’ soft hair, I frantically tried to reason that I should stop him somehow.
“…You seem experienced, Johannes.”
It wasn’t something I meant to blurt out.
“Hm?”
But Johannes’ lips, which had reached my neck, suddenly pulled away. The presence of his hand that had been digging into my clothes, inexplicably fascinated by my not-so-large breasts, instantly disappeared. My clothes fell back down with a flop.
“That’s not true.”
It was a hasty denial, even to my heated ears. I’m saved. This is it. While inwardly relieved, yet still feeling somewhat unsatisfied, I deliberately feigned ignorance and pressed on.
“You seemed quite skillful just now too…”
“I told you it’s not true.”
“You didn’t fumble much at all.”
“That’s because naturally… No. Anyway, it’s not true.”
By that point, he was shaking his head as he spoke.
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
“How can I prove it to you?”
“Well… First of all, haven’t you been around quite a bit?”
“That may be true, but…”
“Even the renowned Sir Gustavus’s knight who swept every competition for years… Are you saying you never… mingled… with a woman during that time? How can I believe such an absurd claim…”
My mood gradually sank lower.
Long forgotten was my resolve during the civil war. The more I continued weaving my fabricated doubts, the more it felt like red ants were swarming at the back of my head. It had started as just an attempt to stop Johannes, but by then, something like a cunning resentment was slowly welling up from inside my chest. It was jealousy.
Jousting tournaments are open for anyone to watch. I had heard somewhere before that not only the noble ladies of the lords, but even women of miserable status sometimes enter the tournament grounds.
And I had been taught and raised hearing it drilled into my ears. That women, by their very nature, are creatures of darkness and born lustful, so the moment they are intoxicated by the masculine vigor of the arena, they endlessly seduce young and vigorous knights. So…
My daughter. Oh, my daughter.
A voice like a bird on the verge of being torn apart, my mother’s voice that sometimes scratched the stone walls until blood burst from under her fingernails, came from afar like an eerie noise.
Please remember.
As one of noble blood, carry yourself properly. Fulfill your duties as a wife. Do not carelessly give yourself to others. Do not show yourself easily. Do not catch the eye of a man who is not your husband. Be wary, be ever vigilant. Stay away from men. Your father. Keep your distance from your brothers.
Ah, but at that time, I…
I could barely stand the mere possibility that Johannes might have shown and done the same things to someone else that he showed and did to me. I didn’t want to share the gaze he sent my way or his heartbreaking warmth with anyone else.
I had never heard of a lord without illegitimate children apart from my father. Johannes could have embraced other women as much as he wanted. Ah, there must be countless women aiming for the Valdemar bloodline.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine the extent of the hands that would have reached out like vines towards the beautiful young knight who might one day stand shoulder to shoulder with the king of a nation.
I’ve kept my distance long enough. I erased my mother’s voice completely.
You’ve gone mad.
That woman screamed, her face flushed red.
How will you deal with the consequences? What do you think you’re doing!
My eardrums were deafening. My vision blurred distantly. Suddenly, someone grabbed my hand.
“I’m telling you sincerely, there was never any relationship like what you’re thinking. It’s not true.”
Johannes, who had cut through the sticky darkness and pulled me out, spoke as if to soothe me. I took a breath. My focus quickly sharpened, and I could see Johannes clearly. I stared at his composed face for a long while. Slowly, my breathing settled.
I avoided Johannes’ gaze. Of course, I didn’t think he would lie to me. Nevertheless, my impoverished heart, which had long suffered in solitude, couldn’t easily accept even his sincere attitude.
Blinded by untimely jealousy, I continued to press Johannes.
“If you confess now… I’ll forgive you.”
“I have nothing to confess.”
“…Not even a speck?”
“No.”
“Swear it.”
“What would you like me to swear on?”
“You should choose yourself.”
“Shall I stake my name on it?”
“Will that be enough? And it’s my name too, so if it’s a lie, I’m the one who loses, right?”
“Then I’ll stake my lance on it.”
“……”
“If there’s even a sliver of untruth, it will break before it even strikes. Believe me. Okay? Isolde.”
“……”
“Isolde?”
“…I can’t believe you.”
“…Aah!”
Johannes let out a long sigh and flopped down spread-eagled on the bed. I sat curled up beside Johannes, glaring at him as he repeatedly rubbed his face with his hands that had been dangling on both sides. His fingers that had been covering his eyes parted slightly, and his clear blue eyes appeared, gazing at me pitifully.
Those eyes, as docile as a well-trained horse. And then a short, forceful laugh that burst out as if to say he simply couldn’t win against me.
“It seems you won’t believe me unless I make up something that never happened and confess it, young lady.”
“……”
“Right?”
“……”
By that point, I had turned my face away from him completely.
It was because I couldn’t handle my own conflicting feelings of wanting to hear and not wanting to hear, emotions that were contradictory yet inseparable. Johannes raised his upper body. He pulled me, who was sitting motionless like a standing stone embedded in the bed, into his arms from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder and whispered awkwardly.
“Around the winter of my seventeenth year…”
“……”
“Once.”
My head turned reflexively. I saw his eyes light up as they met mine over my shoulder.
“Hey now? Don’t glare at me before even hearing it. Okay?”
“…Speak.”
Johannes, who had thunked his forehead against my shoulder and let out a brief groan, began a very reluctant confession slowly. That he had been invited to attend a banquet and happened to have his lips stolen by the lord’s daughter there. Other than that, there had been nothing with anyone else, no other incidents.
He confessed sincerely while carefully observing my reactions. Perhaps worried that I might jump up from my seat as I listened, the muscles of the arm wrapped around my waist would tense whenever an incredible detail came out and I frowned.
I liked it.
Johannes’ subtle expressions, each glance, separately and together, I liked it all. The murky feeling slowly dissolved like lukewarm water. With my mood considerably lightened, I unfolded my knees that I had been hugging. I leaned my back against his body. Johannes kissed my temple several times.
“…At the time, that young lady was twelve, and I felt quite conflicted.”
“Why?”
“You’re asking me that…? Why do you think?”
“Was she too young?”
“…Let’s not talk about it.”
“Whyyy. What is it?”
I turned to face Johannes and asked. He didn’t look at me. I cupped his cheeks in my hands, turning his gaze towards me. I saw the corners of his eyes showing a strangely disappointed expression, as if his mood had soured a bit unlike him.
“Tell me. Okay?”
“I won’t.”
Johannes’ answer was quite indifferent. For a while, his face, which had been yielding to my hands, came down to my forehead. Johannes closed his eyes and just held my waist without saying anything.
Once.
I remember watching two small birds, so tiny they could fit in my fist if I grabbed them, pecking at each other and fluttering their wings.
Feathers in the clear daylight. Even the birds’ colors were so beautiful. I’m alone, but these lowly creatures are together. I was deeply envious in my heart. And that night. Johannes and I engaged in a bright blue, embarrassing tussle like those birds I had seen.
He wrapped around my waist and I wrapped around his nape, trading trivial banter more insignificant than grass between stones – tell me, I can’t – and at some point his head spilled down, his breath reaching the side of my forehead, just above my ear.
Please, come to me first.
His low whisper, which seemed almost like a whine, mixed with a sigh-like laugh, lightly scattering my long, flowing hair.
In the end, I didn’t get a satisfactory answer.
Cold Male Lead Became My Clingy Husband (Female-Dominant)
Feng Bai Su transmigrated into a matriarchal novel, becoming the sister of the female protagonist and the Seventh Princess of the Feng Ling Kingdom.
After working herself to death in her previous life, finally reincarnating as a princess, she only wanted to be a lazy fish who could eat, sleep, and play.
Until she met the male protagonist from the book, Wei Jing Mo, and he took a liking to her!
Wei Jing Mo is the top young man in Feng Ling City, talented in both appearance and ability, from a prestigious family, with a cold and otherworldly appearance, a figure like the bright moon in the hearts of noble ladies. It was thought that only the most powerful and talented noble lady in Feng Ling City would be worthy of such a brilliant young man. Who knew that this young gentleman would secretly admire the infamous Seventh Princess?
Short scene 1:
Feng Bai Su looked at the young man crying like a pear blossom in the rain before her, and couldn’t help but doubt her life.
Wasn’t the male lead described as a cold and otherworldly figure in the book?
Then who was this poor little thing crying with swollen red eyes and tear-stained face?
Short scene 2:
Wei Jing Mo stared intently at Feng Bai Su who was about to go out, wanting to say, “Be careful on the road.”
Before he could speak, Feng Bai Su suddenly bent down and bit his cheek.
Her peach blossom eyes were full of disdain: “Tsk! You’re so clingy!”
Wei Jing Mo: “…”
A talented fox spirit female lead with a flirtatious appearance but actually abstinent VS A cold-looking but actually naive and clingy little jealous male lead
