That night.
“……?”
Arthur, returning to the bedroom, handed Reina a bundle of documents.
His hair was wet, as if he had just washed, and water droplets fell slightly from his not fully dried hair.
Reina accepted them bewilderedly, then checked what they were and opened her eyes wide in surprise.
It was because what he handed over were documents related to his assets.
Reina looked up at him in confusion.
“A… Arthur? This is……”
While rubbing his hair with a towel, Arthur pointed out each document one by one.
“The pension-related documents I mentioned. This is money received from Julius. This is the reward to be received from the Imperial family.”
“……”
“This is property gained during the war. Mainly prisoner ransoms.”
“……”
“This is the payroll statement for the knights under my command.”
Arthur explained each one while pointing to the documents.
“……”
“You can open and look through them.”
He said so, but Reina’s hands trembled and she couldn’t dare to open them.
Even without opening them, just seeing what was written on the first page was enough to understand the scale of Arthur’s wealth.
Surprisingly, the money Arthur received from Julius wasn’t even his largest source of income.
Aren’t some of these confidential?
These don’t seem like documents I should be looking at.
Reina’s eyes wavered with bewilderment.
“And this.”
“……”
Arthur lowered the towel and paused for a moment, smiling at Reina.
Reina became even more flustered seeing that.
【 Marriage Contract 】
Her heart sank.
“Our marriage contract,” Arthur said with a calm smile.
“It includes the list of dowry confirmed by my return alive from the war.”
Reina’s face flushed red.
Her heart shrank and pounded as soon as she saw the contract.
In exchange for this marriage contract, Arthur was supposed to go to war and marry Lady Christina,
but I interfered and turned it into a fraudulent marriage.
Arthur continued after a brief pause.
“I didn’t intend to lay it out so awkwardly like this.”
Arthur frowned slightly while fiddling with the towel.
Then he flicked his finger, touching Reina’s forehead.
And he smiled as if embarrassed.
“I’m petty, but only when it comes to my wife. As you well know.”
“……”
Reina touched her forehead absentmindedly while looking at him.
She couldn’t understand his expression that didn’t match what she thought upon seeing the marriage contract.
Arthur looked at her with a gentle smile.
“You seemed not to believe. Proof.”
Reina looked at the documents with a face devoid of reality.
“……”
He’s showing me this because I seem not to believe in his assets and proposal?
Not to accuse me of fraudulent marriage…
But to gain my trust?
“……”
While rubbing his hair with the towel again,
Ah, Arthur suddenly added as if he just remembered.
“The marriage contract is a copy.”
Reina looked up at him dazedly.
“My original is kept by the Imperial family. As for the Marquis’s…”
Arthur glanced at his own nails, pretending to be distracted and casually threw out:
“I suppose it’s in the Marquis’s safe?”
“……”
Arthur said nonchalantly.
“You keep that one. I have another copy.”
Reina was startled.
“What?”
Arthur said, slightly shaking his wet hair.
“You probably know all the contents already. But it might be good to look it over once.”
Reina didn’t know what to do with the documents in her hands.
While she had personally signed the ‘Marriage Vow’ symbolically in front of the priest,
this was the first time she was seeing the ‘Marriage Contract’ containing the actual content of the real marriage agreement.
She never imagined she would see this with her own eyes…
“……”
Reina just held onto the documents nervously, unable to bring herself to flip through them.
Arthur watched her for a moment.
Then, after setting aside the towel, he smiled and opened the marriage contract in front of Reina, who was only staring at the cover.
“Here, look and think about it. All the other documents too.”
“……”
He smiled again, nodding towards the documents.
“And take a close look at the assets I’ve accumulated over five years.”
“……”
While saying it was embarrassing to show off the list of assets,
He smiled with a slightly proud and boastful expression as he shook his slightly damp hair.
Julius territory outer castle, Tristan’s house.
Tristan was sitting in a chair, leaning forward with his head bowed.
His interlocked hands touched his brow, casting a dark shadow.
“……”
Sensing the unusual atmosphere, his wife, who had just returned after putting their son to bed, approached and sat in the chair in front of Tristan, speaking to him.
“Honey.”
“……”
“You seem off today. What’s wrong?”
Tristan was an affectionate husband.
For the past five years, as if to make up for the time he couldn’t spend with his child, he always stuck close to his five-year-old son Benjamin whenever he returned home.
He always enthusiastically responded to the child’s calls as a good father.
“Dad! You’re the knight closest to Arthur, right? Right?”
Answering that question was Tristan’s first task upon returning home.
To Benjamin’s question, who would cling to his neck with sparkling eyes as soon as he entered,
Tristan would always lift the child with his strong arms and say,
“That’s right! Daddy is closest to Arthur! All the other knights know it too!”
He would then become his son’s proud father by telling stories of his time with Arthur, as if showing off a shining medal.
But today was somehow different.
·
·
·
“Dad! Dad! Can I bring my friends next week and brag about you? Can I tell them that you’re the knight closest to Arthur?”
He, who came home a little later than usual, hugged the dancing Benjamin as always and smiled brightly.
However, today, he suddenly started to say, “That’s right! …Daddy…” but then his lips trembled and he looked like he was about to cry.
Tristan’s wife, who had been standing a couple of steps behind with her arms crossed, smiling as if she couldn’t help it as usual,
quickly noticed something was off and hurriedly approached, taking Benjamin from Tristan while making a fuss.
“Benjamin! Are you trying to brag to your friends again?”
She hugged the child and tickled Benjamin’s side.
“I know you want to brag, but if you do it too often, your friends might get jealous and gossip, saying, ‘He’s always just bragging about his dad.'”
The son burst into laughter and pushed away his mother’s tickling face.
“Mom! It tickles!”
The wife kissed the child and carried him towards the kitchen.
“You rascal! If you brag outside about your dad becoming a baron, His Majesty the Emperor might say, ‘You rascal! Bragging about a title you haven’t even received yet!’ and take away the title!”
“Kyahaha! I didn’t tell anyone!”
“Our son! You promised to help prepare dad’s meal today, didn’t you?”
“Yes! I did! It tickles, stop, Mom!”
She carried the child, who was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, away to the kitchen.
“……”
Blankly watching his young son’s laughter fade into the distance,
Tristan was left standing alone behind.
“You’re closest to Arthur, right?”
Mulling over those words he heard every day,
Tristan stood dazed before the peace Arthur had returned to them.
It felt like something was stuck in his throat.
·
·
·
“…What’s wrong? Did something happen outside?”
“……”
Though his wife asked again, Tristan didn’t answer.
His wife carefully placed her hand over the back of his.
“Honey… What’s wrong? You’re making me anxious. Did something happen? Tell me. Is something wrong?”
Tristan bit his lip, then shook his head and held her hand.
Then he quickly raised his head to reassure her.
“…No. Nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry for worrying you.”
It was a forced smile.
“Nothing happened.”
“Honey.”
Tristan’s lips trembled again.
Tristan finally confessed part of the truth.
“…It’s not that nothing happened. But it’s not related to you or our family. Just…”
And he finally bowed his head.
Tristan’s wife hugged him in surprise.
“What’s wrong, honey? Hm?”
Tristan couldn’t hide his crumbling heart.
It was a sadness he couldn’t show in front of Arthur.
[This is the timeline separator]…Tristan.
Don’t be alarmed, just listen. It’s not serious.
There’s something about me that I haven’t told you yet.
I’m facing some difficulties right now.
It’s not a very serious problem.
It’s not your fault.
Promise me you won’t be too sad or blame yourself?
I think I’ll need to ask for your help with some things in the future.
So that I won’t hesitate to tell you about my difficulties each time.
[This is the timeline separator]“……”
He couldn’t remember what kind of document it was.
After receiving some kind of document from Tristan and listening to him speak passionately about it for a while,
Arthur, who had been silently watching Tristan with a smiling face for a long time.
Quietly lowered his gaze and smiled.
He pushed the document aside.
Sitting at the desk, he gave Tristan a few introductory words to prepare him mentally.
Then calmly
He confessed that he had gone blind.
__________
Male Lead, The Black-Hearted Lotus (Female-dominant)
Short intro by Yuushi L:
At first, the male lead despised the female lead. Later, he misunderstood that she liked him, so he condescendingly and reluctantly reciprocated her feelings.
Then, he suddenly discovered that she was kind to everyone in the same way, and there was already someone she cherished in her heart, and that person was not him.
The male lead couldn’t believe it, he became angry and crazy. He was determined to capture her body and heart by any means necessary.
Synopsis:
Want to see how a green tea bitch male lead falls in love with the female lead?
Want to see how he flirtatiously pursues the female lead?
Want to see how he gets slapped in the face repeatedly?
The male lead is a green tea bitch, a poisonous lotus, jealous, ruthless, unscrupulous, with a venomous heart, and he’s also a delusional maniac.
The female lead is righteous, positive energy-filled, kind, a holy mother.
Let’s see how two people with extreme personalities come together~
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