Smoked salmon salad, tomahawk steak, and Pinot Noir wine were being served one after another on the table, looking delicious.

“Two wine glasses will suffice.”

At Biare’s words, the waiter who had finished serving took one wine glass back, and Rosalind tilted her head to one side curiously and asked.

“Aren’t you going to drink, Lady?”

“No, it’s for the young lady’s fiancé, not me.”

Finally understanding the meaning, Rosalind deliberately raised her water glass nonchalantly and said, glancing at her fiancé.

“Ah, I didn’t know the young lord couldn’t drink alcohol.”

At her small provocation, Gaizen frowned deeply and replied.

“Who says I can’t drink…”

“I thought you didn’t like it since you only held your glass at banquets.”

Rosalind slightly lifted the corner of her mouth as if finding Gaizen ridiculous, as if she had grasped his weakness.

At this, Gaizen shot a look of protest at his sister, and then pretended to be indifferent as he said.

“Huh- I know how to drink too.”

“Then would you like to drink instead of me?”

When Rosalind deliberately offered him wine, he began to grumble with his brows furrowed.

“Young lady, you seem to have quite a mischievous side.”

She snorted and retorted.

“I’ve learned a lot over the past year.”

Without having to explicitly state what that was, the three people present could clearly understand.

“……”

“Come on, why don’t we all eat now? The food will get cold at this rate.”

At Biare’s words, they stopped bickering and began to eat the food placed before them.

As the main course ended, a waiter who had been watching their meal from behind approached with dessert.

“The after-dinner dessert is carrot cake.”

Seeing the cake plate brought by the waiter, Rosalind slightly dispersed the gentle smile she had been holding.

Not wanting to miss this, Gaizen, who had been observing his fiancée’s change in expression, looked alternately at her and the carrot cake and said.

“Don’t tell me you can’t eat carrots?”

“……It’s not that I can’t eat them, I just don’t eat them.”

“Isn’t that the same thing? You’re not a child……”

As Gaizen sneered irritatingly from the side, Rosalind, unable to bear it any longer, began to glare at him.

Watching them with a subtle smile, Biare stepped hard on her brother’s foot and quietly warned.

“Gaizen, you shouldn’t tease your fiancée.”

Startled by her sudden action, he looked at his sister in disbelief, cupping his foot, and then said in a resentful voice.

“Sister, why are you only like this to me?”

Biare pretended not to hear his words and looked at Rosalind, saying.

“Please understand, young lady. He’s my brother, but he’s still immature.”

Biare felt embarrassed, as if she had become a mother apologizing for her son’s mischief.

At her words, Rosalind smiled brightly as if all her anger had dissipated and replied.

“Of course. I understand completely.”

Gaizen, looking at his fiancée’s appearance as if dumbfounded, could only shake his head.

After that, Gaizen and Rosalind bickered several more times, and watching them, Biare quietly excused herself.

‘I’ve set the stage for them, so now they’ll spend time together on their own.’

After going downstairs and finishing the payment, Biare left the restaurant, accompanied by the farewells of the staff.

Perhaps because it was just past lunchtime, Lanvin Art Street exuded a quiet atmosphere.

With the warm and gentle sunlight and a soft breeze blowing, the feeling of spring was fully apparent.

As her nose tickled from the occasional dandelion seeds and pollen blowing in, Biare entered a nearby shop.

When she had glanced at the glass display case from outside, she thought it was an ordinary store no different from others, but now she realized it was an antique shop selling rare items.

The owner of the shop, who looked quite elderly, smiled kindly and told her to browse comfortably.

‘This isn’t why I came in…’

Feeling awkward, Biare nodded with an ambiguous smile and slowly looked around the interior of the shop.

She planned to purchase anything that caught her eye or interest and leave immediately.

Wooden dolls, antique clocks, and various other miscellaneous items were displayed here and there.

‘The owner must like these kinds of things.’

As they were a bit far from her taste, Biare picked up one of the visible items randomly and was about to head to the counter.

‘Why… is this here?’

A very familiar shape was clearly reflected in her blue-green eyes.

Putting down the item she was holding and grasping that shape in her hand, Biare stared at it intently as if doubting what she was seeing.

Opening the cover of the faded silver pocket watch, there was a clock on one side and a familiar painting on the other.

“This is……”

It was the pocket watch she had received as a gift from Dension before her regression.

It was no longer something that belonged to Biare, something she no longer possessed.

‘So it really was the watch you gave me.’

While reproaching herself for how she could have forgotten about this, Biare longed for the time that had passed.

The owner of the antique shop, who had approached her side without her noticing, pointed at it with a warm smile and said.

“You have a good eye, miss.”

Then he told her the story of the pocket watch.

“This was a watch made by a craftsman on order from a noble gentleman, they say.”

Apparently, one day a nobleman drenched in rain came to the craftsman and ordered a pocket watch to give to his wife.

Despite being a nobleman, he spoke to the craftsman without awkwardness, personally sharing his circumstances.

In noble society, as arranged marriages were common, there were nobles who lived respecting and caring for each other, while there were also many who lived coldly, worse than strangers, and this nobleman was the latter.

Then he belatedly realized that he loved his wife.

Thinking it was too late, he tried to hide his feelings, but his son noticed this and said mature things like telling him to be good to his mother.

Reflecting on himself, the nobleman carefully chose the pendant and watch chain to use for the pocket watch, and in the space for a photo on the opposite side, he included a painting his wife loved.

Saying he would come to pick it up after returning from an inspection of his territory soon, he left but never returned.

The craftsman who made the watch also passed away not long after, and so the watch came into the possession of the current owner.

Although it’s unclear why it wasn’t delivered to its original owner, the pocket watch had been carefully kept in the antique shop for years.

Biare, now learning that there was a story behind the watch she had possessed in the past, gazed at it quietly.

Watching her, the owner of the shop casually spoke.

“Do you know that there’s also meaning in gifting a watch?”

At this, Biare took her eyes off the watch to look at him, and said in a tone encouraging him to continue.

“There’s meaning in gifting a watch?”

The shop owner nodded and said with a kind smile.

“Of course. There’s meaning in all gifts.”

According to him, gifting a watch carries the meaning of ‘wanting to spend the same time with you’.

‘Wanting to spend the same time…’

It was what Biare wanted both in the past and present, but at the same time, it was a wish that could no longer come true.

“Could you sell this to me?”

“Since you recognize the value of this precious item, please just take it.”

He said that seeing how the owner hadn’t appeared until now, it seemed they had forgotten about its existence.

He added that he was glad someone who recognized the value of the pocket watch, which had lost its owner and been kept in one place for a long time, had appeared.

Biare thought that since it had eventually ended up in Dension’s hands and come to her in her past life, the owner probably wouldn’t appear in the future either.

“But it’s an item with a story, I’m not sure if I should take it.”

“Please accept it. This watch would also wish to be passed on to someone who knows its story.”

Nodding reluctantly at those words, Biare left the antique shop holding a paper bag containing the pocket watch.

Looking at the watch that had come back into her possession, she felt overwhelmed with longing for Dension.

In the past, it was something Dension had given to her, but now, of course, he doesn’t know of its existence.

That’s why this time, she wanted to gift it to him.

If she couldn’t spend time with him, she at least wanted to spend the same time.

‘Before, it was a gift from you, but this time, I hope you’ll accept a gift from me.’

Since Biare was soon to be engaged to Ivan, she thought she should give the gift to Dension before that day came.

Having decided to give it to him as a return gift in the near future, Biare started walking again through Lanvin Art Street.

‘If only that nobleman had realized his feelings a little earlier…’

The nobleman who had ordered the pocket watch must have surely realized his feelings belatedly and reproached himself with regret every day.

The emotion of love always makes people great, but at the same time, it can also make them weak.

That’s why sometimes that love is misunderstood, doubted, and not believed.

If the god Ekarto really existed, he might have created quite a fearsome creation.