Chapter 39

Episode 39: An Unbelievable Truth

“Chloe, why are you always…….”

The moment our eyes met, the man stopped talking and bit his lips. His splendid features turned harsh.

“You are bleeding!”

He grabbed my wrist and got angry. He was so angry that he would faint on the spot if he had been a normal person.

As I lowered my head following his gaze, I saw a torn palm and cracked nails with bark embedded in them.

“Why are you…! Until you get to this state……!”

I looked up helplessly at him, who was angry at my wound. Raymond del Astaroth was a man who tried his best not to get involved with me anymore.

I slowly blinked and observed him. The wrinkles of the frowned forehead and the blood droplets formed over the lower lip, which were struggling to suppress emotions, stood out even under the dark sky.

I wasn’t a fool. At this time, in this place, it is by no means an accidental walk for him to encounter me. So he’s here because of me, on purpose, in search of me who disappeared from the ballroom.

The moment I recognized it, my eyes became teary.

“Don’t do that.”

The thin voice flowing through my lips was very faint. However, my voice reached his ears as there was silence that only two could not comprehend.

“What…..?”

Raymond looked at me with a frown as if he had heard something absurd. The two blazing eyes were clearly angry, giving me the feeling that he was going to cry.

“You can’t be nice to me. You don’t have to take responsibility for me anymore. It is too much of a responsibility for a woman who has only spent one night.”

“You are not the one to judge that.”

I strongly expressed my thoughts, but Raymond remained the same. My heart heated and cooled down repeatedly.

I know this feeling. I was getting angry right now. I was angry at Raymond, who was only trying to take responsibility for something like me.

“I don’t want it!”

I raised my voice in front of Raymond for the first time.

“I told you. I’m a woman who’s not worth it……!”

Rather, I dared to refute his will as the emperor, in the hope that he would punish me for my rudeness here and behead me.

“Nothing… Your Majesty says that because you don’t know anything. You don’t know what I’ve done to you. You don’t know anything.”

“…….”

With my howling, Raymond stared at me with painfully distorted eyes. I couldn’t help but look at myself in his red eyes.

“Your Majesty should not open his heart to me. You have to hate and loathe me more than anyone else in the world. I’m a woman who deserves hate. Don’t give me indulgences.”

“…….”

Raymond just continued to stare at me, who screamed helplessly. He twisted his lower lip and narrowed his eyes as if he was in pain.

“Chloe.”

The voice that had always growled low like that of a beast, unfortunately called my name. Drip, Drip. Tears dripped down his cheeks and fell on his wrists.  Drops of tears running down his wrists seeped over the dirty wounds.  It stings, it hurts.

“I can’t forgive myself either, but why on earth would you forgive me? I… I…….”

I’m the woman who already killed you once. I’m a woman who has brutally stepped on all the innocence you’ve given me.

It was a story that he wouldn’t believe even if I brought it up. No one will ever believe it. Therefore, my sins were even uglier and more lonely.

I won’t ask for forgiveness, but please know— this heart, that I regret it like this, that I’m sorry for you with all my heart.

It was such an irreversible sin that no one could recognize, even if I cried so desperately and could not apologize.

“Your Majesty doesn’t know. What kind of woman I am, what kind of scary things I did, you…….”

“Chloe, calm down.”

“I killed, I killed, I killed you!”

“Calm down, Chloe! Please! Please!”

Ssk, his arms wrapped around me. My body, which had not yet calmed down, could not stop crying, and trembled in his arms. Only the sound of teeth gritting and the cry like a baby beast permeated the silence.

Hugging my trembling body, he groaned with his face buried on my trembling shoulders.

“Please, Chloe…Don’t break down.”

I broke a long time ago. Raymond was saying something very strange.

“Everything is okay, I’m alright. It’s okay, I told you so. It’s okay for you to cry for me.”

I was dizzy. I couldn’t understand what he said because I cried so much. Obviously, the voice I could hear up close was muffled in my ears.

“Then you have to be happy. You have to be happy like you miss me.”

I tried to wipe the moisture off my face with my thick fingertips. For many years, he grabbed a knife and his rough, hard fingertips left his place and were delicate.

“…..Your Majesty?”

I slowly blinked and called him. Raymond did not answer my call for a long time, wiping away tears, sighing, and lowering his hand.

“Chloe.”

He called my name, sweeping my teary hair neatly.

I had the illusion that his still, soft voice was tapping in my ear and echoing in all directions. At the same time, goosebumps climbed up my spine.

I flinched and stepped back. But there were two hands holding my shoulders tightly so that I could no longer move.

“Even if you say you can’t forgive yourself.”

“…….”

“Then I have to forgive you, too.”

Shwaa— The wind blew. The cold and distant winter wind made my heart drop.

“Now, what are you talking about…….”

The world shook. No, what is shaking now is not the world, but my eyes containing Raymond.

“Did I say I can’t be nice to you?”

Raymond grabbed my shoulders tightly and stared straight at me so that I could no longer run away from him.

The warmth, affection, and longing for me reflected in his gaze that I encountered now matched my memories, so I stopped breathing in fear.

“You don’t want to get involved with me anymore?”

A cool voice from the past timeline came back and he repeated what I had said to him.

“You were afraid that I would fall in love with you again, so you kept avoiding my gaze.”

While muttering fiercely, he suddenly burst into vain laughter.

“You’re already wrong.”

I stared up at his face blankly.

“I don’t know you. But I know myself better than anyone else.”

His palms, wet with tears, swept down my face, slid down and clenched my chin so that it didn’t hurt. His thick thumb gently pressed down on my lips. The breath that I was holding back quietly burst out.

“And I remember everything between Raymond del Astaroth and Chloe Garnet. Even if they are memories that are not important to you.”

“Maj…”

Pressing, his finger pressed my lips harder.

So that no more sound can leak out between these lips. So that nothing interferes with what he wants to say to me.

“I love you, Chloe.”

Unbelievable. This is nonsense. What a ridiculous development.

“Wrong.  It’s impossible not to love you. It has been impossible for a long time already.”

I couldn’t even imagine. I didn’t even have the slightest suspicion.

“I know myself very well”

He smiled sadly at me. Avoiding his face, which gradually receded downward, my gaze fell down, down, and to the tip of my toes.

“I, who don’t love you, is not me.”

His lips touched my forehead. A warm sensation ran down my head and ran down my entire body.  I stopped and closed my eyes in front of the unbelievable reality.

Chapter 5. Raymond Del Astaroth’s Story I

Raymond Del Astaroth.  From the moment he was born, he was born and raised as the heir of the empire, and he was born only to become an emperor.

When Raymond turned fourteen, his parents died. The cause was drinking poisoned tea. In the Imperial Palace, where the borders were stronger than anywhere else in the world, the emperor and the empress died at the same time.  It was impossible.

Raymond tried to find the criminal by delaying his parents’ funeral, but he could not. However, on the same day, like himself, he had to endure comforting each other with the half-brother who had to lose his parents.

Shortly after Raymond became emperor, he had to greet Daria Caroline, the eldest daughter of the Duke Caroline, as his wife.

Indeed, Raymond didn’t like Daria Caroline, who was three years older than him. Daria, who claims to have raised Raymond herself, was as distasteful to the marriage agreement between the Emperor and the Duke of Caroline as much as Raymond.

“Don’t worry, Ray. You and I will never get married. Am I crazy? Am I going to marry a nosebleeder like you? You’re even shorter than me.”

As a child, Daria Caroline would always speak with her nose raised. It was a word that secretly hurt Raymond’s pride, but Raymond’s refusal to join her was the same.

“Watch your mouth, Caroline witch.  If you become the empress, it is obvious how much the discipline of the imperial family will deteriorate, but the Emperor is too much. How did you choose such a witch as the Crown Princess?”

Since childhood, the two have been enemies who growl whenever they make eye contact. However, as time passed, they grew estranged from each other, and the two rarely met.

They met again when 14-year-old Raymond, who became emperor, visited the Duke of Caroline under the late Emperor’s will.