“Why should I trust someone who abandoned me? If they left like that, it’s over. What are you saying I should trust again now?”

Ibi asked back as if she couldn’t understand.

Her voice was filled with clear doubt, as if she had heard someone say they were feeding straw to a lion.

So Sion’s heart sank once again.

But all the cursed man could reveal was his wavering gaze, and even that was hidden by the darkness all around. In the end, Ibi didn’t notice anything. Instead, only Sion was buried in secrets once again.

“…I said something nonsensical.”

After a while, Sion spoke with difficulty.

“To trust someone who irresponsibly abandoned and left.”

His voice was emotionless and dry as usual.

“Of course you can’t trust a hypocrite who only pretended to be nice and then disappeared.”

So Ibi thought Sion was agreeing normally.

“There’s no way you could trust a sinister person who lived with you but never showed their face.”

But she soon realized something was off with his next words.

“Then they should know their place and disappear quietly, it’s right not to trust someone who just causes trouble and holds you back.”

“Um, you don’t have to go that far…”

Ibi mumbled in confusion.

The count’s attitude of thoroughly criticizing the astrologer was strange. At first she thought he was being sarcastic, but listening carefully, he wasn’t really angry or mocking. Nor was he joking.

His attitude was more like that of a monk confessing his sins. Calm and serious, even seeming somewhat intimidated.

But he was insulting someone else with that attitude.

Ibi was perplexed, wondering what kind of behavior this was, and in the meantime, Sion calmly drove in the final nail.

“As you say, if it weren’t for that person, I wouldn’t have had to be so troublesomely entangled with you. At this point, it would have been better not to have met at all. They were nothing but an obstacle until the end.”

“Wait, Count. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

Ibi, unable to listen any longer, objected. Sion turned to Ibi and asked back in a dry voice.

“Is what I’m saying wrong?”

“It is wrong. The words ‘obstacle’ and ‘better not to have met’ are all wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think that way. Meeting that person was the most fortunate thing for me, and the one miracle that happened to me!”

Ibi answered firmly to Sion’s question. Then she covered her mouth in shock at her own embarrassing statement.

Though it was hard to see in the darkness, Sion expected Ibi’s face to be bright red again.

So he looked at the visibly flustered Ibi and asked again.

“You said you don’t trust them?”

“I don’t trust them, but that’s separate from them being precious.”

“How can that be separate?”

“They’re precious, but the fact that they left me is true, and they gave me too much to just forget, even so.”

Ibi said this and was surprised by her own answer. The true feelings drawn out by the curse were newly poignant.

So while Ibi was frozen like someone who had just realized something belatedly.

“…What did that person give you?”

Sion asked rudely, as if he had completely forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to ask personal questions carelessly.

So Ibi grimaced at him but couldn’t resist and opened her mouth again.

“They were by my side when I was alone. When the whole world was moving on without me, when I could hardly believe I was myself, they found me. They cherished me, who had no need or use, for no reason, making me think it was fortunate to be born. They taught me that this world isn’t always bad.”

However, as she continued speaking, making confessions she had never made to anyone before, Ibi’s tangled feelings unraveled in an unexpected direction.

She felt like crying for some reason. Not because she was frustrated or embarrassed, but because she felt a little sad and overwhelmed for no reason.

It was clearly her own feelings, but expressing them in words made their meaning so vivid that it hurt.

“Until then, the world I lived in had no hope or help, it was a world that was too cruel only to me, but that person came and changed it. They gave me a world where miracles exist and salvation is possible. So, if I hadn’t met them, I…”

Ibi felt a lump in her throat. If it weren’t for the curse, she would have given up speaking long ago.

But the curse that gripped Ibi, the curse that forced her to always speak the truth to questions asked, opened Ibi’s dishonest lips and made her confess at last.

“I… wouldn’t have wanted to keep living.”

Ibi, having finally finished speaking, hurriedly threw her gaze to the sky. It was to prevent the tears that had suddenly welled up from falling.

Ibi, who had been alone since before she came of age, devoted her entire being to living just one day. Ibi’s world was a world that could barely be maintained only by struggling so fiercely.

A barren and vicious world, a world where only the lucky ones other than herself lived somewhat comfortably, a cold and cruel world that kept turning well, leaving only her out.

But one day, you appeared and changed my world. You didn’t just take care of me, but showed me a new truth.

The fact that this world shows kindness to me too, a fact I couldn’t believe until now.

That kindness was the salvation that kept me alive, and meeting him was still an incomprehensible miracle.

But to say it would have been better not to have met?

Ibi, having barely dried her tears, took a deep breath.

She had a lot to confront the count about. She was angry that he spoke carelessly without knowing well, and also for forcing her to reveal her inner thoughts.

So Ibi turned to the count with an indignant face.

But the count was already looking at her. Silently, calmly. Even in the darkness, she could clearly feel his gaze fixed on her.

His gaze was intense, so Ibi was a bit flustered. For some reason, she felt like a rabbit that had encountered a lion.

Of course, Ibi thought it was unfair. So she was about to protest after gathering her thoughts, when the count suddenly approached, closing the distance.

As he leaned in, resting one hand on the back of the bench, the space between them was filled too easily. As the count’s shadow fell like a curtain, Ibi was once again at a loss for words.

The count’s broad shoulders pressed down on Ibi’s gaze. Though he had only come a little closer, Ibi felt like she was about to be trapped or crushed.

And when the count reached out his hand towards Ibi, it became not just a feeling but a prediction.

Ibi, frozen at the casually approaching hand, took a deep breath.

Just as she was about to say something to the count.

The count’s large hand passed by Ibi’s body.

That hand reached the snack basket placed next to Ibi, and the count, who had draped his arm over Ibi’s knees, took out a bottle of alcohol from the basket and returned to his place.

Ibi, who had been very tense, stared blankly at the count.

But the count ignored whether Ibi was looking at him or not and drank the wine straight from the bottle.

“Ah! What if you put your mouth on it!”

Ibi screamed. The count then nodded towards Ibi’s still plentiful glass.

“That one glass should be enough until tomorrow morning.”

“No, it’s not!”

Ibi, provoked by the count’s shamelessness, bravely drank her glass of wine.

But she was only brave until she put the alcohol in her mouth, and afterwards she froze, unable to swallow it.

The strong taste, the expected discomfort, the dizziness that would follow, and the pain the next day.

There were too many reasons not to swallow the alcohol in her mouth. Ibi was strong in adversity but always avoided unnecessary pain.

As Ibi agonized in that state, the count clicked his tongue and said,

“I won’t look, so spit it out.”

Saying that makes it even more impossible to spit out.

In the end, Ibi glared at the count and then gulped down the alcohol in her mouth.

“Such stubbornness…”

The count clicked his tongue again at that sight. So Ibi turned her head away with a huff.

Thanks to that, Sion’s already unsettled heart became even more troubled.

Ibi Ariate is hateful. Yet she’s also cute despite that. As if doing it on purpose, each of her actions makes one melt helplessly.

It was like that earlier too. When Ibi tried to speak calmly, holding back her tears, and when she kept taking deep breaths while looking at the sky as if trying to calm her heart.

Sion just watched that sight and almost made a big mistake. He reached out his hand without realizing it.

He doesn’t know his own intention. Whether he was trying to pat her head, or what he was going to do.

Anyway, he impulsively reached out his hand, and came to his senses at the sound of Ibi’s wary breath. Not panicking and snatching the wine bottle at that moment was the greatest judgment of his life.

Sion, who had grasped the wine bottle without any plan, swallowed his self-loathing and drank the wine.

His heart, which had been ground to ashes just a moment ago, now felt like rain-soaked grass.

The feeling wasn’t unpleasant. That’s why it was even more unwelcome.

He still wished. That he didn’t want to find Ibi Ariate lovely.

.

.

.

It was now dawn.

Ibi was still in the hydrangea garden, having dozed off with her forehead buried in her knees.

Her shoulders trembled in the cold air. So Ibi, who had woken up slightly, pondered whether to side with being cold or being lazy.

“If you’re cold, let’s go inside.”

At that moment, the count’s voice was heard from beside her. It was a blunt and gruff, not very nice voice.

Though her ears were perfectly open, Ibi pretended not to hear. It was indeed the victory of laziness.

“What am I supposed to do…”

When Ibi pretended to be asleep, the count got annoyed. So Ibi also got irritated in her half-asleep state.

He could just leave, why is he getting upset? Who asked him to stay?

As Ibi was complaining inwardly, something fell on her shoulder. Something like a large blanket. Ibi smelled the faint scent on it and realized it was the count’s coat.

His clothes were warm as if they had been hanging in front of a fireplace until now. So Ibi unknowingly exhaled as if relieved.

Ibi was very sensitive to cold and liked warm things. But she rarely had the chance to feel a cozy warmth. The butler was a person as cold as Ibi, and she was too afraid of animals to even imagine hugging a dog or cat.

So Ibi didn’t dislike the coat the count had put on her. Though her complaints and resentment towards the original owner were reaching new heights daily, this coziness was still welcome.

Ah, come to think of it, that person was warm too. That’s why it always felt good to hold their hand.

Ibi, thinking absent-mindedly, tilted her head to fall into a deeper sleep.

But she felt a firm arm digging under her back and legs. Though it was a careful touch, Ibi immediately fretted and tossed about.

Ah, why is he doing this? Who told him to touch me?

Ibi realized that Sion was trying to lift her up and tried to push him away.

But she froze at the voice that followed.

“It’s okay, just sleep.”

It was a gentle voice, as if soothing a sleeping child.

It was a voice so soft that it was hard to believe it came from the mouth of the count who always spoke badly and meanly.

So Ibi couldn’t even think of pushing him away and just froze blankly.

Is it an illusion?

Just now, the voice was exactly the same as that person’s.