IDIBC Chapter 60

Confession After Resentment and Self-Reproach

I held my breath at the words that came like an attack.

“So, what did you talk about? With that good person?”

“That he didn’t need to pick up my shoe…”

He asked lightly with eyes that seemed empty and devoid of anything, yet somehow his gaze also felt burning hot.

“No, on the balcony.”

“Ah…”

I was at a loss for words for a moment. I hadn’t deliberately hidden it, but somehow I felt like I was being interrogated. It would be strange to ask, “How did you know?”

It would be even stranger to ask, “Did you see?”…

The bigger problem was that because of Ricardo’s gaze, I couldn’t recall a single bit of the conversation I’d had with Walter. Like the day I realized my hopeless heart was beyond saving, my breath rose to my throat, making it hard to even exhale properly.

I thought I’d be fine if I didn’t meet his eyes, but as if they were tied together, my gaze wouldn’t easily pull away.

“What… did we talk about.”

“Why did you laugh?”

Did I laugh?

“Ah! I heard the reason why Young Duke Chaplin was hiding on that balcony.”

Ricardo’s brow furrowed slightly as if it was the wrong answer, but once I started the story, it wouldn’t stop at all. Like an idiot who had lost her mind.

“It was the same reason as mine. Of course, I was there because you told me to wait there. I mean, Young Duke Rochester.”

“What was that reason?”

“Ah, Young Duke—I mean, Young Duke Chaplin—said the reason he was hiding on that balcony was because he couldn’t dance.”

This time Ricardo’s face crumpled completely, leaving no room for doubt.

“Walter… said that?”

It must not have been a question that required an answer, as he laughed in disbelief and muttered to himself.

“He said that… Walter did? Ha, confession after resentment and self-reproach.”

What Ricardo said was correct, but hearing it put that way felt somewhat strange. Just from the words alone, the nuance strongly suggested something momentous had happened between Walter and me.

“Young Duke—I mean, Young Duke Chaplin—didn’t explain the reason why he couldn’t dance. So it wasn’t quite a confession…”

I hastily added more, but my last words got crushed. To him, it didn’t seem to make much difference.

“Young Duke—I mean, Young Duke Rochester—might misunderstand…”

“Ricardo.”

“Yes?”

“Call me Ricardo. You know my name. You.”

“…”

“Are you planning to call both him and me ‘Young Duke’ the same way? When you’re my fiancée, no less. We even held a proper engagement ceremony with all the trimmings.”

Because of the man who permitted his name with cold eyes, I had to briefly raise my hand to cover my mouth.

I recalled Ricardo’s face from childhood, when he told me his name on a windy hill as if teaching me the name of a flower. Even then, he had said it with that cool voice.

[Ricardo, call me by name. You know my name. You.]

“Th-that would be difficult.”

At my refusal, his face stiffened for a moment. Soon he tilted his head, as if to say, explain why.

“If I start calling you by name, I’ll end up doing something you dislike again.”

“What’s that?”

“Calling you by a nickname. Even now, my mouth is itching because I want to call you that.”

A crack formed in his brow. I thought a refusal would come soon, but…

“Call me. That Rica or whatever. As you please.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you’re my fiancée. A nickname would be better than ‘Young Duke.'”

I bit down hard on my lower lip. Trying to calm the corners of my mouth that kept trying to rise.

Watching this intently, Ricardo laughed softly. I liked the atmosphere, which had become much softer than before.

At this moment, at least, I felt like it didn’t matter what lay before us. Even if all that could exist before him and me was a cliff so steep you couldn’t see the bottom, it would be fine.

As long as I could see him smile.

Ricardo propped his arm on the window and rested his head on it. Sometimes when I looked at his face, no matter the moment, I would forget even where I was.

Right now was exactly like that.

Under the low lighting that had driven away the darkness inside the carriage, the sight of his sharply extending jawline and long neck moving, or his slender body that didn’t look dull despite his large shoulders, and the moment his long, stretched-out legs crossed—

I was blushing alone, remembering the feeling of his jet-black hair threading through my fingers, when he gazed at me intensely and spoke gently.

“There’s something I’ve been curious about.”

When I asked, “What is it?” he lowered the arm he had placed on the windowsill and clasped his hands together, placing them on his knees.

Because he drew closer, I flinched, and without realizing it, my body pulled back.

“I achieved awakening almost simultaneously with manifestation.”

“Ah…”

“The Duchess said it was right after I came back from meeting you. More precisely, after I went back to Resotia to save you.”

Somehow feeling like I was being scolded for committing some great wrongdoing, my posture straightened without me realizing it. My neatly trimmed nails came into view.

“The Duchess was certain that you not only caused my manifestation but also my awakening.”

When I couldn’t say anything and just rubbed my innocent nails, Ricardo’s hot hand lifted my chin. It was a larger hand than I remembered, and much hotter.

“How did you do it?”

“I, I don’t know.”

He looked into my eyes and smirked.

“You do know.”

I quietly cursed between my teeth and turned my gaze away from him. But when he called “Lienne” affectionately and pleadingly, my face automatically turned back.

“I want to know. How you awakened me.”

“You… want to know?”

“Yes.”

When love beckoned and pleaded desperately before my eyes, there were no words I couldn’t say. Nevertheless, silence circled between him and me for a moment.

Did I really not know? The fact that I had awakened him. Hadn’t I vaguely known? I had witnessed that momentary instant when the evidence of awakening clearly appeared.

I had just been turning away. Since it would be a forgotten memory anyway.

I slowly reached for Ricardo’s other hand that wasn’t holding my chin. At that action, his fingertips touching my chin trembled. I slipped between his fingers so he couldn’t escape from me.

His face, like a solid castle that seemed like it would never crumble no matter what happened, stared at me directly. For a moment hesitation arose, but I steadied my mind.

Ricardo said he wanted to know, and I had decided not to run away while I was with him. I wouldn’t push unless he wanted me to, but Ricardo hadn’t yet told me no.

I love you.

There was no way he couldn’t hear what my eyes were clearly saying. Like a child who doesn’t fear the sea because they don’t know its depth, I slowly stood up while holding his hand.

Then I went straight to his lap and plopped down. I wanted to move skillfully and lightly, but in reality my legs gave out and it didn’t go as intended.

Ricardo’s pitch-black eyes entered my vision precisely, capturing the moment they lightened as if trying to focus, then narrowed. He smiled with his brow furrowed.

That night was the same.

On the boundary between boy and young man, with a jawline slightly softer than now.

When I approached him, who had told me to say what I wanted since he wouldn’t remember anyway, Ricardo had looked at me with exactly the same expression as now.

“You really said you wanted to know, right?”

Instead of answering, Ricardo moved his Adam’s apple greatly. His face already knew the answer.

I gripped his collar tightly until my knuckles turned white and slowly approached. Back then I had been swift like stealing, but now there was no need for that.

Since I was in the position of giving an answer to a question, he who was waiting for the answer couldn’t rush me.

I approached unhurriedly, but our lips touched faster than I thought.

I, who had actually approached, flinched in surprise but didn’t pull back, quietly pressing and pulling his lower lip with force. For a moment my breath stopped at the softness that I couldn’t believe was part of Ricardo’s body.

As I released the lip I had been holding in my mouth, I slowly moved away from him.

My eyes still couldn’t open.

When I finally lifted my eyelids, the light in his eyes was exactly the same color as seven years ago.

Violet.

An unfamiliar and strange color that I couldn’t insist was the lantern in the carriage, a color that couldn’t possibly be reflected in his pupils.

‘What emotion could this be?’

Before I could gauge it, that mysterious color disappeared in an instant just like back then. Enough that I could close my eyes, shake my head, and convince myself that I had seen it wrong.

“I only realized recently too. That you achieved awakening at that time.”

“…”

“Or maybe I knew but didn’t want to know. Because if only I didn’t know, the whole world couldn’t know either…”

The excuse I brought out with difficulty couldn’t continue further. After that, with the hands that urgently followed, I was swept away somewhere—there wasn’t a single moment I could properly remember.

The sound of wet lips pulling and sucking on my tongue devoured all the surrounding noise.

My mind grew distant, but I hadn’t finished saying everything I wanted to say. I pushed against his chest with my hand and caught my breath.