ERTHMB Chapter 78

The Best and Greatest Choice

 

“Is this the thirty-fourth time today?”

 

“The thirty-sixth time, sir.”

 

Eugene sniffled as he gathered up the rejected daisy bouquet.

 

“You’ve been remarkably good at keeping count despite rejecting me every time.”

 

“Ten more rejections and I’m planning to move away.”

 

“Where to—ah, to Evergale?”

 

Eugene smirked. Helena frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but Eugene’s sneeze interrupted her.

 

Helena abandoned what she was about to say and reluctantly took the bouquet from him.

 

“Please stop bringing these. You go through such trouble every time.”

 

“If you know that, then just accept them.”

 

“……”

 

Instead of answering, Helena unwrapped the bouquet’s packaging and handed out individual flowers to passing children.

 

When not a single flower remained in her hands, Helena resumed walking. She was on her way to work as a daily housekeeper at Old Hector’s place.

 

Eugene had blocked her path, insisting he would buy twice her time, carrying that bouquet of daisies destined only for the hands of snotty kids.

 

Seeing his displeased expression, Helena said:

 

“Please don’t think badly of it.”

 

“I wasn’t thinking badly.”

 

“Then please brighten your expression first. With the single bouquet His Grace brought, more than twenty children became happy today. Making someone smile isn’t an easy thing to do.”

 

“I suppose not. Looking at you.”

 

“……”

 

Helena narrowed her eyes. She didn’t smile even at his sincerity disguised as a joke. Just moments ago, she had raised the corners of her mouth quite well when looking at the children.

 

Eugene changed tactics.

 

“Make me smile too.”

 

“I told you it’s not easy.”

 

“For you, it would be easier than for anyone else.”

 

Eugene sought an answer once again. The same answer he had shamelessly sought for the past few months. Of course, today was no different.

 

“……”

 

Helena beautifully crushed his dignity today as well. She simply pressed her lips tightly shut.

 

From her expression, it seemed she had more than a hundred reasons to object—things like how could that be easy, or that she’d die before giving him the answer he wanted. The nuance suggested she’d rather reduce her words since she had too many reasons overflowing to argue back.

 

Watching her stubbornly hold out to the end, Eugene’s face grew even more displeased. He walked alongside Helena like a gloomy Wednesday child.

 

“It’s already August.”

 

“Does time pass quickly?”

 

“It seems so since I met you.”

 

“I pray you’ll live more slowly in the future.”

 

The rejection came readily without any sign of fatigue. Eugene finally let out a heavy sigh along with his direct business.

 

“Why do you keep pushing me away like this? You know it too, don’t you? In your situation, I’m the best and greatest choice you’ll never have again.”

 

Eugene drew Helena’s hands, roughened from hard work.

 

If only you’d say yes to my question of whether you like me too. No, if you’d just nod your head once. That would be enough to liquidate all this rotten-smelling life.

 

I could gouge out all the eyes that look at you impurely and cut off all the ears.

 

She acted as if she were under some curse where she’d die if she loved someone.

 

Helena hastily pulled her hand away before Eugene could fully grasp it. Eugene’s face grew increasingly dark with defeat.

 

Helena faced Eugene, curling her fingers that wanted to soothe him into tight fists.

 

“Because I know other things too.”

 

“What on earth?”

 

“I can see it, Your Grace. The day will surely come when I become your burden and stain.”

 

“I suppose I’m not human enough to love you despite being prepared for that.”

 

Even knowing it was a self-defeating move, Eugene deliberately dug into his own insides. However, Helena’s immediate response was completely unexpected.

 

“No, I love you even more than that.”

 

Eugene, momentarily dazed, stopped walking. As soon as he regained his senses, he immediately pressed her.

 

“Then what are you hesitating for?”

 

“Because I love you too much.”

 

“……I still don’t understand.”

 

“Because I don’t want to harm you with that love, because I love you so much that I could willingly kill my own heart—when you love that deeply, that’s what happens.”

 

Though he heard the answer, Eugene understood even less. When you love someone, you should burn and hold them close until only ashes remain.

 

You never know when it might fade, so you should burn with all your might. And she’s just stupidly watching?

 

The more she rejected him, the more Eugene felt his own wick burning along with hers.

 

Now he couldn’t let go no matter what. He had to have her.

 

Could this too be the competitive spirit his father had instilled in him? Was he inevitably resembling his father’s blind obsession and greed?

 

The specter quietly appeared and whispered, but no. Eugene argued back.

 

This is love. It had to be clearly love.

 

Giving Helena the Evergale name would also be saving himself. With her by his side, he could become Eugene, not Eugene Evergale. He would become complete in himself.

 

Each making the other complete through their meeting—if this wasn’t love, what was?

 

Eugene resolutely extended his rejected hand toward Helena again.

 

“……I want to stop being lonely. Isn’t it the same for you?”

 

So take my hand, Helena.

 

Eugene prayed and prayed.

 

……..

 

He begged her to take his hand. Eugene’s eyes said so.

 

They were still pained eyes. They said they wanted to stop hurting. They were pleading only to her.

 

Helena could no longer turn away from those eyes, from him.

 

Why are you, someone who has never even properly cried, making me inevitably embrace you?

 

Finally, Helena placed her hand over his. Eugene grasped it tightly as if he had been waiting.

 

It was hot beyond warm. She wondered if this frozen man had such heat in him. That’s why she couldn’t let go even more.

 

After Helena took Eugene’s hand, time flowed like rushing water.

 

This time, she thought her time seemed to flow faster than his, holding heated hands even in the night air of the terrace.

 

Had his face always had so many straight lines? The eye corners and mouth that used to curve softly whenever he looked at her—everything seemed connected in one hard line.

 

‘Well, to stand in such a position, you’d need a solid mask.’

 

Helena steeled herself and turned her head forward. High-density fabric curtains hung like theater drapes. Here was backstage; there was the stage where acting took place.

 

The curtains boasted the function of not allowing even a ray of light through, but unfortunately couldn’t block leaking voices.

 

“Is the woman you saw at the hall that woman? The one with red hair flowing down to her waist?”

 

Helena was the only woman with long red hair at today’s hall. That alone was enough to guess they were talking about her, but the lady behind the curtain drove in a definitive wedge.

 

“I’m talking about the woman who supposedly has the new head of the Evergale wrapped around her finger.”

 

Soon after, the voice of an older man chiming in could be heard.

 

“Truly pitiful. Having lived only on battlefields, he can’t come to his senses over the first woman’s skirts he’s seen.”

 

Tsk-tsk sounds followed. They would put celebrities on the chopping block for a round of carving before returning to the hall.

 

Helena bit her lower lip.

 

How dare they, how dare they. They were pitying him.

 

You, who shouldn’t even be placed on their vile tongues, they were pitying without knowing their place.

 

For the single reason that he loved her, Grand Duke Evergale had become a pitiful man.

 

Helena looked up at Eugene again. However, his face showed no particular change contrary to expectations. He was just Eugene looking a bit more displeased than usual.

 

Ah. Helena realized anew.

 

‘You too have been worn down so much… you’ve made such an expressionless face to avoid wearing down further.’

 

As if to remind her of this fact, Eugene finally spoke.

 

“I love you, but people will only love a perfect Grand Duchess. I don’t want to see you suffer like before.”

 

Instead of comforting Helena, he put strength into their intertwined fingers. Helena wasn’t offended but felt a little sad.

 

“Remember this. No matter how you lived your life giving your all, that doesn’t matter. It was unavoidable, and all those desperate circumstances will be erased by the single prey called ‘whore.'”

 

“But I’m not that kind of person—”

 

“That will naturally be proven by how you act from now on. So for now, just listen to some empty-headed talk, and even if you look truly empty-headed, it’s fine—smile, Helena. Like you’re the happiest woman in the world.”

 

“……I’ll do my best.”

 

“No. You need to be the best.”

 

“……”

 

“I don’t mean to burden you, but… hah.”

 

After running his hands over his face once, Eugene gently coaxed the speechless Helena.

 

“Whatever prefix comes before it, however tongues wag until they wear thin—Helena Evergale is truly my wife and Grand Duchess. What could be more important? As long as you’re by my side, you’ll only see the tops of their heads. You’re sitting in such a position, Helena.”

 

Eugene lifted the curtain, saying they should go in now.

 

Helena was escorted with respectful hands and entered the hall with Eugene.

 

Countless gazes turned toward them all at once. Helena felt her mask becoming useless.

 

No matter how much she had covered herself, nothing could be hidden. Neither the sharp gazes of those looking at her nor her own wavering gaze.

 

Though she was just standing still, she felt breathless and her half-parted lips trembled.

 

Eugene—whether to comfort her now or to openly show off—brought his lips against hers. Helena’s small cry of surprise was lightly swallowed into his mouth.

 

‘I love you.’

 

‘……I love you too.’

 

This single kiss would have been enough from the beginning. The words they’d shared on the terrace weren’t necessary.

 

They both already knew. That while falling in love with each other was easy, maintaining that love would never be simple.

 

They only hoped each would remain by the other’s side.

 

It was just that the positions they each sat in were vastly different. For Helena, Eugene’s position was far too high, and for Eugene, Helena’s position was far too low.

 

Nevertheless, believing they could overcome this, believing they could conquer it with emotions just a bit deeper than affection—perhaps that was a delusion.

 

Affection and faith sometimes roll together like a ball of fur, difficult to separate.

 

In the end, Aslan’s net hadn’t been torn. The shadow hadn’t melted either.

 

Ah, they should have known then that when insufficiency meets insufficiency, only endlessly insufficient tragedy emerges.

 

They should have known that the best and greatest choice isn’t always the right choice.

 

Later Helena would curse her foolishly matchless fantasy of salvation.