Chapter 72

***

The moments you don’t want to come always approach quickly. Such is the unchanging law of time.

Vivian didn’t care too much about such things, but she did today.

She bathed hesitantly, changed her clothes as slow as a slug, and combed her hair like a death row inmate. Meanwhile, time passed without stopping.

She wanted to eat comfortably in her bedroom, but if that happened, Roger would surely check on her. It wouldn’t be easy to hide from him here, so she thought going to the dining room would be best. Since it was large, she could easily slip away.

Her steps towards the dining hall were slow. Standing at the entrance, she looked inside quietly, gripping the door handle tightly.

Through the open door, the atmosphere was as noisy as usual. The knights who drank quite a bit yesterday, although not to the point where they were drunk, were chatting cheerfully with no hangovers. Wondering where Roger was, Vivian’s eyes eagerly darted between them.

“Who are you looking for?”

She flailed her body like someone struck by lightning at the feeling of breath on her ear. When she turned around urgently, the person she wanted to avoid the most was standing right in front of her.

“Or who were you looking to avoid?”

Roger looked down at Vivian, who was already sweating, with an expressionless face. His static gray-yellow eyes were terribly cloudy. His jaw was clenched, so she couldn’t help but avoid his gaze. Roger let out a sigh at the withered look that had not changed much since dawn.

“Let’s eat.”

He led her into the room like a lamb to slaughter. Vivian sat down next to him, and finished her meal without knowing whether she ate with her mouth or her nose. The knights sitting around her talked to her, but she couldn’t answer in time and often missed the conversation. All she could think about was her desire to get out of here quickly.

“Good food!”

She ate and drank, but because of the sincerity he provided, she couldn’t just run away. After saying a polite goodbye, Vivian got up quickly and left the hall. She was so fast that there was no time for anyone to catch her.

* * *

In this way, Vivian avoided Roger for an entire day.

When he climbed up the wall, she left on the pretext of taking a walk, and when she met him in the mansion, she turned away as if she had never seen him in the first place. She was well aware that there was no benefit to avoiding him, but strangely, her body reacted before her head.

Roger didn’t even try to have a conversation with her, understanding how embarrassed she must have been. It was too much for her right now, so he let her go several times to give her time to calm down. He didn’t catch her at dawn, in the morning, or even at lunch.

But his patience gradually shortened as she continued to avoid him with a monstrous complexion every time she encountered him.

He finally exploded in the evening.

While she ate, Roger’s stinging gaze was constantly on her face. Vivian pretended not to know it, finished her meal steadfastly, and quietly got up.

“Is the answer to avoid me like this?”

At that moment, Roger’s deep voice stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t think he would be able to speak so openly in front of everyone. Embarrassed, Vivian sat back down and began to play with her utensils. The noises unintentionally drew attention.

Vivian’s and Roger’s eyes met.

“I’m going to try to avoid you again this time.”

Roger’s sharp eyes pierced her heart like a spear. Vivian avoided his gaze with a guilty feeling.

Enka, who was next to Roger, blinked her eyes in embarrassment.

“Chief?”

“One day? Two days? A week?”

As if the emotions he had been holding back were boiling over, he slammed the table. The knights who were watching them dazedly came to their senses.

“Since when did you two stop talking…?”

Among them, Tainy, who had an unusually bewildered expression on his face, asked a question, but was unable to finish it.

Vivian, who was embarrassed, recognized the atmosphere of the hall. If this continued, the situation would get out of control.

To take him out of the hall once, she forgot how hard she had been avoiding him and grabbed Roger’s hand. He knew very well how fragile her body was, and he thought what would happen if he didn’t follow her, so he followed her without saying a word.

Leaving behind the bewildered knights, Vivian hurriedly took him out of the dining hall. They went through the hallway, opened a random door, and went inside. Compared to the sky that had not yet become completely dark, the inside of the room was as dark as night.

As soon as she pulled him in and closed the door, Vivian took a deep breath. It was her own fault for avoiding him, but he shouldn’t have been so full of himself in front of other people. She was belatedly annoyed at the actions he had made without taking her into consideration. Vivian turned to him with a firm expression on her face.

However, when she saw Roger standing there more expressionless than before, she shuddered. For some reason, it seemed that he was more angry than she was.

“Is it over now?”

He took a step closer and asked. He was still speaking in the same tone of voice that he did in the dining hall.

“Avoiding me.”

The presence of the man was truly remarkable, even though there was darkness all around.

She always wondered whether he was more like her dreams or reality. But this was the first time he had approached her with his heart and not his head.

In reality, Roger was provocative. That, whether he intended to or not, naturally reminded her of the man of her dreams.

For a brief moment, Vivian’s heart fluttered. She clenched her fists as tension ran through her body.

“First of all, yesterday… I apologize.”

Roger, who stood with his arms crossed, raised his eyebrows.

“I made the mistake of entering your bedroom, it was clearly my mistake, so I apologize.”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

He no longer spoke in honorifics towards her.  But his characteristic arrogance suited him well, so she said nothing.

Roger slowly tilted his upper body forward. His stillness, which had always felt comforting, gave off a particularly intimidating feeling today.

“Dreams of having sex with me.”

Vivian’s eyes trembled.

“Do you dream?”

Contrary to the question, his eyes did not waver. It was like he was asking what he was already sure of.

Vivian felt her throat tighten and swallowed dry saliva.

“…You dream?”

Her head, unable to wrap her mind around it, gave instructions to pretend not to know. Vivian muttered in a calm tone, hoping that there would be no disturbance in her expression. Then, with a grin, Roger took a step closer. As his chest got closer and closer, Vivian naturally leaned back. However, there was a door right behind her, so it was impossible to retreat further.

“I tried to pretend I didn’t know.”

As if familiar with Vivian’s mind, he whispered calmly. Even in this situation, his sweet voice provoked her senses.

“If you don’t, then why did you naturally fall into my arms, cry, and pant?”

Coming into his bed was clearly a mistake and she wasn’t proud of it. But the series of actions that flowed after that… weren’t. She acted voluntarily, and mistakenly thought it was a dream. It was Vivian who had been too tamed to refuse his touch.

She blushed as she recalled the scene from last night. Tilting his head slightly, Roger watched her with a gaze that deepened with her silence. His stern gaze was disappointingly tenacious.

“I dreamt of you every day.”

Vivian flinched as his fingers stroked her silver hair that reached down to her waist.

His fingers were thick and familiar.

“We roll in bed, kiss deeply, have hot s3x…”

His sweet voice suddenly took on a sticky tone. As a subtle stimulus enveloped her body, her desire to escape this situation grew. His skinship, which was pleasant in her dreams, was unbearably heavy in reality.

She had always wanted to know whether he dreamt with her or not. She found out, but because of the situation, she couldn’t be happy.

Vivian’s gaze flicked upwards. The pinna* exposed through her silver hair was so seductively red that Roger wanted to lick it up and bite it right away. Perhaps her covered cheeks were also delectably red.

[*E/N: the pinna is the external part of the ear.]

“We made a bet in our dream.”

It seemed that she needed a cause to tell the truth, and Roger was willing to give it to her.

“I won the bet.”

She looked up at him with trembling eyes. The moment he saw it, Roger smiled confidently.

“The reward of the bet was to answer a question honestly.”

“…”

“Therefore…”

He gently swept the silver hair that covered her cheek behind her ear. Vivian’s head was spinning so much that she didn’t even realize he was touching her.

She could honestly pretend she didn’t know.

‘However…’

For some reason, looking into his eyes, she couldn’t lie. Just imagining lying felt like an invisible arrow was being stabbed into her conscience.

She didn’t know how their relationship would change in the future, but she knew one thing. Here, if she had lied, the amicable relationship between them would be strangely twisted. Perhaps he would be more angry than he was now, and she would continue to avoid him like a criminal, even though she did nothing wrong.

She hated it. Only now, the man of her dreams and reality had merged into one, and she was moving away from him…

As her internal conflict escalated, Roger sighed. Vivian flinched at the sound that seemed to represent his exhaustion. He released her face, presuming that she didn’t want to answer. Fear surged in her, and Vivian grabbed his retreating hand.

“Dream!”

A voice as urgent as her action followed.

“…You dream just as I do.”