IYWHM Chapter 174

Not long after that, Kisa collapsed onto the bed as if falling.

Perhaps it was because she had scraped together every last bit of energy remaining from her recent confrontation with Seyard.

As a result, she now didn’t even have the strength to move a finger.

“Haa.”

Kisa let out a weak sigh as she thought about what had just happened.

Even as her entire body ached from muscle pain, a strange sense of elation swelled in her chest.

She had stood against that Seyard and enforced her own will. Against that very Seyard.

Though he hadn’t completely given up, the fact that he had backed down for now felt like a tremendous achievement to Kisa.

‘It’s been quite a while since I felt like this.’

Last year, when she had confronted Daniel head-on for the first time in her life, the emotion she felt then was quite similar to this, though different in the details.

Kisa raised her weakened arm above her body and looked up at her own hand.

Perhaps what she had desperately longed for, even to the point of fleeing abroad in the dead of night, was exactly this kind of thing.

Not a life starting anew in a place where no one knew her.

‘That wasn’t bad either. No, it was actually good.’

The daily life she had spent with Mana and Daisy, mother and daughter, wasn’t physically comfortable, but each day was filled with ordinary yet fresh pleasures.

But on the other hand, there was definitely an unsettling sensation that something not insignificant was left unfulfilled.

‘Back then, I simply thought it was because I couldn’t shake off my lingering feelings for Seyard.’

But now, looking back, she began to think there might have been more than one cause.

After learning Seyard’s truth, Kisa feared him. She was on guard with all her might, afraid that she would eventually succumb to love and follow his will.

‘So I never properly faced him.’

She chose the path of running away, thinking that even if she opened her heart and had a sincere conversation, it wouldn’t get through to him anyway.

Even when Seyard appeared before her and they were reunited, rather than truly facing him, she had merely pleaded with him to let her go as if being chased.

‘After coming to this place, I fell into helplessness and obediently remained in his grasp.’

Now she seemed to understand. Deep down, Kisa had wanted to stand against Seyard just as she had done with Daniel. Even if it meant shouting and fighting in an unseemly manner.

Kisa clenched her hand into a fist with force in the air.

That fist, so pale it was bloodless and white, looked unreliable as if it couldn’t even hit a person, but the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.

‘Yes, this is what I wanted.’

For some reason, it felt as if she had grasped a small piece of the ideal she had been desperately pursuing all this time.

Moreover, though it might just be her imagination, she felt as if she had caught a glimpse of the raw nature of the human Seyard… no, Vischer Hillan.

The way he slammed the door, and several expressions he had shown earlier were somewhat different from the polite and noble ‘Duke Hillan’ she had seen so far, and the caring lover ‘Seyard’ that Kisa knew.

‘Seyard.’

Though his true identity was something else, to Kisa, the name Seyard was more familiar for that man.

If she continued to refuse the treatment, would his mask crack more than it had now?

Honestly, Kisa was curious about him as he truly was, beyond the mask.

Not him as educated to be the ideal heir of his family, not him crafted to draw Kisa’s favor, but the real person himself.

“…….”

However, in the next moment, Kisa, suddenly coming to her senses, shook her head briefly.

What a futile thought. Wasn’t he someone she wouldn’t see again soon?

‘When I’m waiting for Gale’s next message, what’s the point of wondering about Seyard’s true nature……’

Kisa lowered her arm, which had been tingling for a while now, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep.

Her ailing body quickly succumbed to drowsiness.

Beyond her consciousness that sank into darkness, various thoughts arose and then disappeared like bubbles.

Among them were thoughts about the child in her womb, about her illness, and regrettably, about Seyard as well.

Most of all, his image saying that Kisa and her health came first flashed through her mind.

To confess, when she heard those words, the emotion Kisa felt wasn’t only negative like anger.

‘Actually…… truly actually……’

She was a little happy.

Her heart raced at the way he naturally prioritized Kisa over the child.

Of course, this was the very feeling she herself could least tolerate, so Kisa ignored it, whether consciously or unconsciously.

The day she would acknowledge it would probably never come.

Nevertheless, her mind, colored by drowsiness and freed from conscious control, recalled Seyard’s image when he had said those words.

Thinking of him, Kisa fell asleep.

A few hours later, Kisa was awakened from sleep by the servants.

They too would have preferred to let Kisa continue sleeping if possible, but it was unavoidable since she needed to replenish her nutrition and the doctor needed to examine her condition.

“How is your body feeling?”

Kisa answered the doctor’s question while still feeling drowsy.

“It hasn’t gotten worse.”

That meant there wasn’t any particular improvement either.

The doctor checked the thermometer Kisa had been holding and asked a few more questions.

Since her physical condition wasn’t good, she didn’t particularly want to keep talking, but Kisa answered as faithfully as possible.

Since recovering her health until she received Gale’s message was her biggest goal, she had to cooperate with the doctor as much as possible.

“…….”

Seyard, standing behind the doctor, just watched Kisa silently without saying a word.

Perhaps because the Duke, who usually encouraged patients with kind words, was creating such a heavy atmosphere, the expressions of the doctor and servants were also somewhat stiff.

Kisa recalled the conversation she had with him just before the doctor’s visit.

The man who came to this room while she was eating her dinner of thin soup still had a dark expression.

“Have you thought about the treatment?”

“My answer remains unchanged.”

“……I heard. Your fever has gone up more than before.”

“It’s only slightly. It’s common for fever to rise in the evening, isn’t it?”

Kisa put down her spoon after eating more to fill her stomach rather than for taste, as if trying to prove she was fine.

Then the servant who had been attending to her meal cleared the dishes and left the bedroom.

With only the two of them left in the room, the man who had been leaning against the doorway approached the bed.

Instead of sitting in the empty chair, he knelt on one knee on the floor and gently caressed Kisa’s right hand resting on the sheet.

“Think about it once more, Kisa.”

The voice that leaked from his slightly trembling lips contained earnest pleading.

“I…… am afraid of losing you.”

“Seyard.”

“I didn’t want to say this, but I heard that your mother also passed away from an epidemic.”

Mother—at that word, Kisa’s hand trembled slightly.

“Your nanny said so. That you look exactly like your mother. Even I can see that the woman drawn in the portrait at Count Vansfelt’s estate resembles you……”

“Stop.”

“Please, I beg you, bend your stubbornness. Don’t ruin yourself out of defiance against me.”

Kisa stared at the white sheet silently for a while.

In truth, during the time she had been lying quietly in her sickbed, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought of her mother.

But memories of Countess Vansfelt were a long-standing trauma for her, and even now she unconsciously rejected the act of recalling them, so her thoughts were only fragmentary.

Especially her blue eyes, which she was often told resembled her mother’s, disappeared behind her thin eyelids.

‘Mother……’

A gentle smile, hazily remaining in her memory, was drawn in her mind.

Now that Seyard had mentioned her first, Kisa found herself facing old memories she had been unconsciously avoiding.

When she finally opened her eyes, Kisa had a more resolute expression than ever before.

“Thank you, Seyard. Thanks to you, I have an even stronger conviction about the direction I’m heading.”

“What?”

“I won’t use the treatment. Because I think that’s what mother would have done.”

His face quickly stiffened as she met his gaze.

“Mother truly loved both me and my younger brother. I don’t have many memories of her and they’re hazy, but I remember that clearly.”

Based on that memory, the path she had chosen was indeed not wrong.

“I want to give that love to this child as well.”

This was the new goal Kisa had found now that she had stood against Seyard and enforced her will.

He had called it simple defiance, and perhaps it really was childish defiance.

“I’m not giving up on myself. I’ve chosen a more difficult path for the tomorrow we’ll share.”

At least for now, she wanted to directly pursue what she desired. That was Kisa’s wish.

“…….”

The man who was still kneeling on one knee remained silent for a long time.

As if he felt disillusioned with Kisa, who couldn’t be persuaded at all, now very blatant displeasure was dripping from him.

The man quietly stood up and left the bedroom without leaving any words.

This time the door didn’t slam shut, but it was obvious that his mood was worse than before.

Finishing her recollection, Kisa deliberately ignored the man who was watching her like a stranger and answered the doctor’s final question.

Having finished the conversation, the doctor wrote something in his chart and then spoke to Kisa.

“The progress isn’t too bad. Let’s just bring down the fever a bit.”

At the doctor’s gesture, a servant handed Kisa the pills that had been prepared in advance.

Kisa put water in her mouth to take them as usual.

“Huh?”

But in the next moment, she noticed something strange.

“There’s a pill I haven’t seen before.”

“Ah, that’s muscle pain medication…… I added it after hearing what you mentioned earlier.”

The doctor saying this was somehow pursing his lips as if uncomfortable.