Chapter 22

Episode 22: Still Crying

My fingertips, exposed for a long time in the cold night air, tingled. I know it’s time to stop and go in.

Is Kailos still in my room? I really hoped he had gone back by now. Of course, I’ll have to meet him again tomorrow, but at least I didn’t want to meet him again tonight.

What is Kailos thinking? What are you thinking, telling me such a lie? I can’t believe you love me.

I was no longer innocent little Chloe, true affection and deception can be distinguished.

When I thought of Kailos, I had a headache. I decided to stop thinking about him, I didn’t want to ruin my feelings after I barely got better.

Thinking that way, I looked back and there was Lord France, who followed me with a calm look. Somehow, my heart became warm.

As I entered the room, warm air wrapped around me at once.

“Thank you,” I said, returning his cloak.

Lord France smiled calmly and nodded. He seemed to return to the original Lord France. Certainly, Lord France earlier was a little strange, but I didn’t hate it.

“I will go to my room alone.”

“Yes, then have a good night, Lady Garnet.”

After saying goodbye to Lord France, he walked alone in the hallway. Suddenly, I noticed a large guest room on the right side of the hallway.

Before coming back in time, I was with Raymond in that room, and Raymond poured out his overflowing heart to me.

It was also a place where he promised to find a way to keep me by his side somehow.

Perhaps he would still be staying in that room.

I stopped walking in front of the door where he was staying. I carefully put my palm over the door.

When I think of my relationship with Raymond, it hurts endlessly.

He died because of me. He is the man I killed.

‘Still, you are crying for me.’

Instead of blaming me even before death, he cared about me. He was the most miserable man in the world and smiled at my tears.

Now I know that you really loved me. You didn’t blame me even though you were killed because of me. The man I killed with my own hands. I laughed bitterly, thinking of him.

“Raymond…”

What should have come out a long time ago is now flowing out belatedly.

“I’m sorry, really…… I’m sorry….”

Words that will not be delivered hover in the air and scatter. Will the day come when I tell you this properly? Perhaps, when that time comes, I’ll have to pay for my crime.

Raymond, please, in this life, I hope you don’t get involved with me.

* * *

Even after dawn, I crouched on the corner of my bed for quite a long time, adding to my thoughts.

I thought about it all night. I can no longer be with the man who deceived me and took Estelle, even if that man was the only light that saved me in the past.

He said he would turn everything back, but it was impossible. There was nothing that could be reversed in this time without Estelle.

He was no longer light to me, but darkness. Dull darkness that will crush and take away everything.

The thought dominated my mind, that I didn’t want to stay in the room that belongs to him for even a second more.

So I was going to visit Kailos and tell him that I would leave this place. I didn’t know where to go after I left and what to do right away, but I didn’t want to be here for another hour where that man was.

The moment I opened the door, there he stood, Raymond, the man who died because of me in the past life…….

“I see the Sun of the Empire.”

Unlike yesterday, when I only shed tears foolishly, I greeted him with manners. Then immediately, there was a thick hand that raised my bent head.

“…….”

Raymond looked me in the eyes silently. His eyebrows twitched slightly, it was Raymond’s habit when he didn’t like something. His eyes that looked at me were burning. At first glance, I felt like he was glaring.

Is he angry? As soon as I tried to carefully pull out my head, I felt a rough hand touching my eyes.

“What’s giving you a hard time?”

I did not know whether the voice that descended low down the quiet hallway was angry or worried.

“There’s nothing like that,” I slowly made eye contact and answered.

It was a hard voice that I had never heard from him in the past.

In that time, I tried to seduce Raymond somehow solely for Kailos. So I always smiled brightly in front of him, whispered softly, and served as a beautiful mistress, but not anymore.

Even if this was after I spent the night with him, I was still only a woman of a one night stand. I had to push him away so that he wouldn’t get involved with me anymore.

“Chloe…”

Overlapping the time he had whispered love to me in a voice calling my name, I took a step back and looked straight at him.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. Please go back now. This place….is not for Your Majesty.”

“I decide where I will be.”

Raymond took a step closer to me and gave me a scary look. As I shrank my shoulders with his momentum, he frowned for a moment and added in a calmer voice.

“I told you, I’ll stay here until you get better.”

If others heard it, they would still feel that it was a scary voice, but I know, this is the sweet voice this person used for a frightened child.

As immature parents, we were sometimes embarrassed because we didn’t know what Estelle wanted when she cried. At that time, Raymond tried to soothe Estelle with the same voice he is now.

Unfortunately, Raymond’s attempts ended in failure every time, but I always felt strange when I saw Raymond comforting Estelle.

And, even now.

Raymond, who is looking at me with the same voice as then and the same eyes as then, keeps making me cry.

“Why?”

However, contrary to my mind, the only words that came out of my mouth were to push him away sharply.

“You don’t have to do that. I’m a woman not worth it to Your Majesty.”

“…responsibility, let’s say that.”

It’s one night. The me I am now was only a one-night relationship for him. Not the old Chloe who seduced him with all her might for months, but a woman who just warmed the bed for the night.

“Are you responsible for all the women you’ve spent the night with?”

His eyebrows twitched again. Was it risky? No matter how much he loved me in the old days, it was too rude to say this to the Emperor of the Empire.

“Then what?”

Raymond seemed angry, I thought it was better. I hoped that his liking for me, which was just sprouting in his heart, would be dampened like this.

“You don’t have to take responsibility for me either. It’s too harsh to put the weight of responsibility on just one night’s relationship.”

“Only one night?”

“Yes, just one night.”

Even before the answer was over, Raymond held me roughly on the shoulder. Then, he stared at me with red eyes.

“I….!”

Raymond was about to say something, but he grinded his teeth.

“Damn it……”

He spat out low swear words and bit his lips. I wanted to stop him because I thought he was going to bleed, but I didn’t deserve it.

“If you need my body…….”

“I’m not a pervert who forcibly holds a sick person.”

He cut me off with a determined voice.

As the Emperor of the Empire, he even came to the Duchy simply because I was sick. He tells me that he didn’t come to covet my body, which is just a one-night relationship.

‘Really, it’s perfect. From one to ten, it’s my taste.’

Suddenly I remembered the words he murmured as he looked at me.

For a very long time, Kailos has groomed me into a woman that suits the taste of the emperor. The first moment I met him at the New Year’s ball a long time ago, maybe since then, Raymond fell in love with me at first sight?

“Your Majesty, may I…….”

It may be presumptuous, but I thought of it for a very short time.

“To me…”

My voice, asking to confirm his mind, trembled softly. He looked down at me and sighed harshly.

“I can roughly guess what you’re trying to say, but that’s not it.”

“…….”

“I’m not romantic enough to fall in love with a strange woman at first sight.”

Looking at me, who couldn’t say anything, he smiled.

“So don’t be cocky and get better, Chloe.”

Raymond was a man who expressed his feelings openly, so what he said now would not be a lie. I groaned because he is just trying to take responsibility for me.

I became a little embarrassed, but I tried hard to look okay. I thought I would be more embarrassed when I revealed what I was ashamed of.

“I won’t leave until I’m sure you’re alright.”

“I’m already healed. If you don’t believe me, I’ll call a doctor to confirm it for you.”

Raymond’s eyes curled slowly as he looked down at me, who spoke confidently. I paused at the sight of the gaze.

“You are still crying.”

I’m crying? Embarrassed, I touched my eyes with my hands. But tears did not come off.

“At least you shouldn’t have cried in front of me.”

“I didn’t cry.”

When I protested as if I was wrongly accused, Raymond glanced at me for a moment. It was a look that seemed to penetrate me. I had to try not to avoid his eyes.