#31
“I thought this would happen. I should have stopped him from approaching from the beginning.”
“…Johannes.”
“I can’t believe I hesitated in that situation when there was nothing to think about. What was I thinking? I was too careless.”
“No, Johannes. How could you have rashly intervened? Who knows what others would think.”
“What, others’ thoughts? How dare such things matter when you were collapsing? No. I was rather worried. Perhaps you… Actually… No. No, I’m sorry.”
“…Johannes.”
“I thought he might be unfamiliar with etiquette due to his long wanderings, but to think he’d be this… barbaric.”
“Johannes…”
“I didn’t realize. I’m sorry. Does it hurt a lot?”
“Johannes.”
“How about if I press here? Does it hurt?”
“Johannes!”
Johannes seemed too distraught. When I raised my voice slightly to get his attention, his agonized gaze, tightly knotted with self-loathing and thoroughly exploring the red marks, finally flashed up to look at me directly.
Thinking that he had been showing uncharacteristic behavior lately, I was facing Johannes almost as if soothing a dog or horse. I watched as the sharp energy that had filled his eyes gradually diluted, mixing with his labored breathing.
I placed my empty hand on Johannes’ palm. I turned inward the wrist he had been holding. As I grasped his fingers, the back of my hand that had touched the unpleasant flesh was fully exposed. I raised the back of my hand to Johannes’ lips while holding his glove.
Johannes’ eyes wavered as if unsure of my intentions. In the end, I pushed it right up to the point of almost touching. Johannes raised his eyes. He was speechless for a moment. And then…
He crumbled.
His upper body folded, bending forward.
Again and again, Johannes kissed the back of my hand. Soon after, his arms wrapped around my waist, and I was easily pulled into his embrace. As our bodies pressed together, he took my awkwardly bent hand and placed it behind his neck, while his lips traced my wrist and arm. Up to the inside of my forearm.
Then Johannes’ face moved to my ear. I wrapped my arm that had gone over Johannes’ back around his nape, and clung to him. I wanted to melt into him right then and there.
I was embraced. It was truly an embrace after several weeks. As soon as the warm heat clung to my body, I completely collapsed. Even the armor he wore was bothersome, and I was frustratingly disappointed that we couldn’t be closer. Johannes, Johannes. I whispered his name several times.
“I was scared. That man, I hated him so much. He was so forceful, I was really scared… Ah, I’m so glad you came.”
The pent-up feelings of sorrow and fear overflowed freely.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
“How could he do that? I hated it so much…! That man, he didn’t seem to see my expression or reactions at all. Will the man who sent the marriage proposal this time be like that too? You, Johannes, you would never do such a violent thing…”
“…That’s right.”
Johannes, who had hesitated for a moment, spoke with a slightly choked voice.
“Now… Now I really hate it all. This situation, I’m sick of it… Every day I miss you so much, and it’s so hard because of that.”
“……”
“You know, rather than that…”
I pulled away from Johannes slightly. I looked into his deep eyes. That day, I was half-mad with fear, relief, and hunger.
“…Johannes, if you’re okay with it…”
My anxious lips trembled slightly.
“Just the two of us, anywhere… shall we run away…?”
Foolish me, once again I begged that pitiful and miserable man for a wish that he couldn’t take responsibility for or handle.
“What?”
Johannes’ entire body stiffened as if shocked. He looked as if he had been slapped by my voice. Crack, somewhere deep in his unconscious, the sound of a stone coffin breaking was heard. His reaction made me uneasy. I pushed a little harder.
“I want to disappear. I want to leave for a place where no one knows us.”
“…Are you serious?”
Johannes asked again, as if he couldn’t believe it at all. I felt somewhat hurt by his attitude. Surely, surely he hadn’t been without any expectations? Had he never thought about our future? Surely not.
He wouldn’t dislike it, right?
With the feeling of my insides burning up, I could no longer move my lips. Feeling like I might burst into tears at any moment, I turned my face away. Johannes grabbed my shoulders, pulled me away slightly, and bent down. He met my eyes.
“Yvette, look at me.”
“……”
“Yvette.”
“……”
“Answer me. Are you serious?”
“…I am serious.”
I barely managed to answer through my throat, choked with tears. Johannes’ hands gripping my shoulders tightened.
“We’ll have to abandon everything.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure? Do you know what you’ll have to give up when you say that?”
“…Are you joking right now? What do you take me for?”
“……”
“Johannes, Johannes. It might not seem like it to you, but I’ve thought about it every single day. About wanting to disappear with just the two of us. About wanting to vanish. And if we were to leave, there hasn’t been a single day, truly not a single day, when I haven’t calculated on my own what things I would have to leave behind, what I would have to betray. The only thing I don’t know now is how to run away.”
My voice gradually rose as I became angry at his seemingly accusatory tone, and in the end, tears that I could no longer hold back mixed in. Johannes took off his gloves completely. After tossing them to the floor, he wiped my tear-stained eyes, which were still gasping, and asked repeatedly.
“…Life outside is very different from here.”
“Yes.”
“Your body and mind might be more strained than they are now.”
“Yes.”
“Because of me alone… Yvette. I will ruin your life.”
“How can you say that? You wouldn’t do that, and even if you did, I’d be fine. I don’t need anything but you. I’m okay with being abandoned, and I want to abandon everything first. Even if I break, as long as we’re together, I’ll be happy. If we can be together, I don’t care about any harsh place…”
I said, burrowing into Johannes’ embrace. I felt his heartbeat pounding strongly against my chest. His gaze as he looked down at me was pale. Johannes, who had been closing his mouth as if he had forgotten how to breathe, began to whisper rapidly, as if exhaling.
“I might make you suffer more.”
“Jo…”
“No, no. Of course, if you’re with me, I’ll never let that happen. Ah, never! But…”
“……”
“But think about the things I’ve done to you. Hm? Yvette. You know what kind of man I am. You know how terrible and despicable I am.”
“What… are you saying… Why are you…”
“Think it through carefully. Am I really any better than that old man? Do you truly think that?”
“Johannes.”
“Yvette, more coldly…”
I felt like I was going crazy.
“Am I a burden to you?”
By then, even my tears had stopped. Feeling as if all the fluids in my body had rushed to my head, I pulled away from Johannes and asked. But that separation was only momentary. I threw myself back into his arms with a thud. Johannes had grabbed my shoulders and pulled me roughly. He embraced me frantically.
“No.”
Johannes shook his head vigorously above my head. That gesture, somehow childlike. I asked again, panting.
“Am I annoying you?”
“Not at all.”
“Is it because you have too much to lose?”
“Nonsense!”
“Then you now…”
“……”
“What more explanation do you want from me?”
Johannes didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Yvette, I…”
When he finally opened his mouth, I stood on my tiptoes. I pulled Johannes’ neck into an embrace and brought my lips to his ear.
“I like you, Johannes.”
“……”
“I truly, deeply love you.”
“……”
“You probably didn’t know. This isn’t a feeling that happened overnight. I think I’ve liked you for a long time, probably long before you even knew, for a very long time…”
Johannes didn’t move at all. Just silently, quietly. After a while, he buried his forehead in my neck with a thud. I felt his lips quivering near my collarbone.
“Even someone like me… Is it really… okay?”
He asked me, and.
“Because it’s you. It’s okay because it’s you.”
I answered.
“…Ah.”
That voice, which sounded like a sigh.
“Johannes, so…”
I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Because Johannes, who had been persistently probing my true feelings, suddenly kissed me. Tilting slightly and diving in deeply, he urgently explored the moist inside, almost pouncing on it, before breaking away as he lifted me up in his arms.
Huff, I barely exhaled the breath that had been blocked, looking down at him breathlessly. But Johannes had already buried his face in my chest. I couldn’t see his face. His blonde hair rustled messily as he burrowed into me.
“…I want to hold you like this, right here.”
A voice so low it was almost inaudible, more like a monologue.
“…After hearing your sweet cries calling my name. I want to scoop you up… and really run away just like this.”
Heartbreaking.
Ticklish.
Lovable to the point of tears.
I embraced Johannes’ head. When I buried my forehead in his hair, strands of gold illuminated by light tickled my cheeks. Johannes put me down. I slid down and hugged him tightly. As he lowered his head, I tilted mine back, and Johannes, who had come down to my eyebrows, traced me with his soft lips and said.
“…I couldn’t easily decide on my own. So… I was too late.”
“……”
“Please wait just a little longer. I’ll find a way somehow.”
“Okay.”
“No matter what I have to do, I’ll make it happen…”
“Okay.”
“Even if our path is like hell, at least for you…”
“……”
“I’ll make sure you know nothing of it.”
I felt dizzy.
My whole body shivered, and from my solar plexus, I felt choked up, unable to speak. Something unbearably hot welled up deep inside my stomach, climbed up my bent neck, and overflowed to the inner corners of my eyes. Tears pooled like a well.
Absolutely. Johannes’ low voice drew tears from deep within. They flowed down my cheeks and chin. They didn’t stop. They didn’t cease. The feeling was entirely different from a simple joy that could be hidden or buried.
Elation.
Like embracing a pitiful bloody lump that had torn its way out after days of intense labor, with a heartbroken bosom. Like crawling out of a distant earthen wall at the bottom of a ninety thousand-li deep hole with hands that didn’t even have a sip of water to drink.
So, finally, in the wide-open world where it seemed I was the only liberated person, with nothing else in sight, it was an intense elation that made me feel like I might go mad right there. I was intoxicated with the sweet scent of love. I covered my eyes and closed my ears. I erased the world completely.
I didn’t know. That it was all just a shell without substance. I still can’t fathom what Johannes must have felt at that moment, promising me empty love, vowing to forge a path where there was none.
Not knowing the things Johannes would have to give up and his life that would be eternally bound because of me, I just loved the strength of his arms embracing me so much…
“…I believe you.”
I believed.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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