Volume 1 - CH 25

After finishing his lunch at the market, Julio returned to his workplace, the library workshop. He took a seat and exhaled bitterly.

The director was angry with him and moved him from a private office, so he is in a large room with the apprentices. The sound of other people’s work was constantly coming into his ears, making it an uncomfortable workroom.

He had recently been trying to eat lunch outside for a change of pace at work, but instead of a change of pace, he ended up coming back in a lousy mood.

He never thought he would meet his ex-fiancée, Alme, at such a time.

The encounter itself is nothing special…However, Julio just didn’t expect to see her playing around with some man.

He was upset because he had never imagined that that modest and quiet woman would be all dressed up and proudly holding hands with a man while walking down the street.

The older apprentice glared at Julio and said in a deeply troublesome voice.

“Julio, you know, why do you bother to get involved with your old girl? Why don’t you just leave her alone?”

“…so noisy. We’re used to be engaged, in case you’re wondering, and it’s…not a good idea to just walk by like that.”

“Well, Miss Alme already has another life. Even if she walks with a man, you have no authority to interrupt them. I don’t know if you have some weird unresolved feelings, but a light greeting would have been nice.”

“Unresolved…? There is no such thing!”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to get into trouble, so from tomorrow I’ll go out to eat alone. I don’t want that to happen again.”

“You can do whatever you want with…”

The apprentice quickly left the room with a stack of books on his work desk. He did not even take a break for lunch, and was already starting his afternoon work. He is a serious guy.

This is the same for this disciple, but Julio felt that the attitude of his colleagues has become distant recently. Rather recently, should he say, since he broke off his engagement with Alme?

The stories his colleagues were whispering reached Julio’s ears without fail.

“I didn’t think he was the kind of person who would cheat”

“That’s terrible”

“Miss Alme, I feel sorry for her. She is a good girl”

Julio is so angry to hear such words all the time. They talk about things on their own without knowing what’s going on.

(The pitiful one is me. On top of being engaged to a woman I didn’t like, I was hurt by that woman…)

The more he thought about it, the more vague feelings filled his chest, and he let out a deep sigh once more.

The matchmaking with Alme was brought about by his uncle.

Since his father died early in life, he is considered to be the head of the Beatos family, but it is his uncle who is in fact in charge.

So he knew that his uncle would eventually bring him a story involving engagement.

And so the marriage proposal that finally came was to a very ordinary common woman. He remembered well that his first impression of her was that she was a plain and unassuming woman.

She wore a simple dress with nothing to catch the eye, and her black hair was pulled back in a low bun. Perhaps severely nervous, the conversation did not get off to a good start, and ended with a series of quiet exchanges.

Even though he is going to work in a humble job for the rest of his life in a house with a humble family business, he never thought that he would even have a humble plain woman for a wife…

He was disappointed at their first meeting at a tea party.

He thought how much better it would have been if he could have married a beautiful and flamboyant wife like the women at the hostess liquor shop he sometimes goes to.

He was sure he would have received a lot of envious comments from people around him.

It was a tea party for three people with his uncle present, so he couldn’t say anything out of the ordinary, but it just spilled out of his mouth.

“Do you only wear such modest…dresses?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything else. I only have these clothes and …”

“Then, if I give you a trendy dress, will you wear it?”

“There’s no need! I’ll do my best with the dress.”

His uncle chided him, but the woman to whom he was engaged – Alme – smiled shyly at him.

Seeing her smile and demeanor, he suddenly changed his mind.

A story he heard at a hostess liquor shop came to mind. –I was thinking of a story I heard at a hospitality bar: ‘A woman should dyed by the man she loves.’

Alme is a rather naïve and quiet type of woman. He heard that such a type is more likely to be dyed.

He felt that it is good to dye the woman who will become his wife in his own colors and tailor her to his liking. Thinking of it this way, even a woman who is not so flashy is becoming somewhat attached to him.

Arme will be his. She is a woman for himself, not a woman of her own free will. He began to feel that it would not be so bad for him to marry her.

When it was time to return home, he was feeling so good that he accepted the task of taking Alme home in a horse-drawn carriage.

In the carriage, alone with the woman, the conversation was as quiet as ever, but he thought idly that one day he would teach her how to make conversation with a man more lively.

–But his feelings were soon to be shattered.

Julio wanted to give her a kiss as a token of their closeness, but Alme refused with all her might.

He had given kisses to all the women in the liquor shop he had frequented, and not once had they refused. They all cackled and accepted it happily.

This plain woman had refused to accept what the beautiful and glamorous women in the shop enjoy. That was the moment when he could see through this woman’s outrageous pride. What could she mean, he wondered.

At the same time, he felt terribly hurt. He has his pride as a man. To be rejected by a woman like this, he felt like he had been put to a terrible shame.

After that, he completely interest and started to distance himself from Alme.

In the end, the engagement was concluded as planned, but he decided not to treat her as a woman anymore.

She didn’t accept a man’s kiss, so he guessed she doesn’t want to be loved as a woman. -Then, as she wished, he’ll do just that.

Alme followed him around and even tried to help him with his work, but even if she flirted with him now, he had no intention of responding.

(You can keep on selling your undeserved flirtation like that…Well, if you show me one tear and cling to me, I’ll reconsider.)

With this in mind, he had been observing his fiancée hanging around him for about six months.

One day, however, there was an encounter that led to the end of that relationship.

At an evening party in the palace square, where he went as a distraction, he made a connection with a girl who was wonderfully to his liking. She was a delightful girl with a gorgeous appearance, a daintiness that made him want to protect her, and a pleasant conversationalist.

She was exactly the kind of woman he had dreamed of.

He had a series of secret encounters with this woman, Campbellina, and they fell in love with each other.

Finally, they were ready to get engaged.

He was glad that he managed to break off the engagement that day, even though he procrastinated because he could not find the right moment to tell Alme and his uncle.

When he saw Alme’s dejected look, he felt like he had won. He felt as if his pride, which had been hurt on the day of their first meeting, had finally healed.

-He thought so.

Today, that nearly healed wound was gouged out by Alme again…

During a chance encounter in the marketplace at noon, Alme allowed herself to be held by a stranger with a friendly hand on her shoulder.

He is sure this is the kind of relationship between a man and a woman. He thought it’s just a whim of a man’s side, a commoner woman to play around with.

He couldn’t help but wonder how long she had been in such a relationship with that man, even though she was… she seemed very close to him, but what if all along she was having some side affair with this man.

His chest prickled as he thought of this and he was angry. He was being looked down on as if he was the only one cheating, but she was doing the same thing.

In the marketplace, he was so irritated that he just had to rush into it.

After that, it was unexpected that he was restrained by the other man… It’s so humiliating that he doesn’t even want to remember it anymore.

As he recalled, shortly after they became engaged, Alme once eagerly watched a military march from the corridor window of their workroom.

The man she was with today was also tall and had the physique of a knight…unlike himself.

(…I’m sure Alme only likes that type of a guy. That’s why she rejected me…Damn it, she made a fool out of me!)

Compared to that man, he is on the thin side of the line. What a terrible woman to choose a man based on his physique.

Alme, who was with the man she liked, was dressed much prettier than when she was with him.

she had only ever dressed soberly in front of him. He is sure that Alme did not see him as a man who would be such a partner.

He only noticed today how truly impertinent she is and he also felt that his pride had been seriously hurt.

-Even with such circumstances, the eyes of those around him are cold and judgmental.

He didn’t understand why he’s treated like a bad guy even though Alme is hurting him much more.

When he told his uncle that he had broken off his engagement and connected with another partner, he was overreacting and severely disappointed.

“I don’t know anymore. After he threw out something like, “Just wipe your own butt yourself”, he felt that his uncle’s involvement in the Beatos household had diminished.

The things his uncle had done in the house up to now instantly fell to Julio, the head of the family.

His mother was happy that his uncle backed out, but it was complicated for Julio. He was not interested in running the house and it seemed like a hassle…

He rested his cheek on his work desk and muttered in frustration.

“I’d rather receive the consolation money…”

In the discussion with Alme that day, he canceled the debt as alimony, but he wondered if that was really necessary.

(–Yes, I have been hurt much more deeply by Alme than her, and I have been in trouble. Why did I have to apologize to her? Why did I bring up the idea of clearing the debt?)

Once he started thinking about it, he couldn’t stop.

On the day they broke off that engagement, he was in a high spirits and and he proceeded without thinking deeply about it. When he thinks about it now, he’s starting to feel that the victim is on this side.

(No written documents were exchanged in the discussion that day. The money was just an oral agreement! If that’s the way you want to treat me, then I’ll make sure there’s no talk of settling the debt! That would be the proper treatment!)

Hmm, he nodded to himself and thought:

Alme’s debt is 700,000 G. It must be a huge sum for a commoner woman.

If he charged that amount, would Alme come crying and cling to him? ‘Please, please help me.’

Julio immediately took out his notebook and checked his schedule. When would be a good time to go talk to her?

If possible, he wanted to go with his mother and Campbellina.

He is a little weak in spur-of-the-moment situations, but having a mother who is always ready to talk is a big relief in case of emergencies.

When the man with Alme comes out again, it will be fine if he leaves the response to his strong-minded mother.

And with Campbellina, it would be even more reassuring. Since Campbellina has the status of a noble daughter.

The man from Alme was also acting like a nobleman, but it was probably just a playful relationship. It is hard to believe that he would go out of his way to protect a woman who was just playing around in a troublesome money dispute, or even a dispute involving another nobleman.

Alme and the man have a playful relationship – just a thin connection that can be cut off in a matter of seconds. In contrast, Julio and Campbellina are connected by the strong bond of engagement.

It goes without saying which one has the solid strength behind it.

As he flipped through his notebook to check his schedule, his finger touched a postcard that was stuck between the pages.

He borrowed it from a colleague who had it a while ago. It was on his desk with his work papers, so he somehow picked it up.

It is a postcard announcing the opening of Alme Titty’s Ice Cream Shop.

He had no interest in the shop, but it’s a good way for her to get out of debt.

Keeping the postcard tucked into his notebook as a bookmark.

He decided to have a meeting with her on the next day off.