Chapter 75
I almost replied without thinking, “Still, didn’t you go too far saying it like that?”—but I pressed my lips shut.
After snapping at him first with “What business is it of yours?”, it felt ridiculous to say something like that now.
When I fell silent and he didn’t say anything either, a long stretch of silence settled between us.
Rixion Luhanes seemed to realize he was standing far too close to me. He took a few steps back and turned his gaze elsewhere.
I, too, deliberately looked away.
But where my eyes landed—there were corpses strewn across the ground.
“Ugh…!”
I flinched and quickly twisted my body the other way. And once again, Rixion Luhanes came into view.
Since I had suddenly spun around on my own, he looked at me as if asking what I was doing.
Even in that brief glance, there was a strange hint of concern directed at me, and it left me feeling uneasy.
Come to think of it, he said earlier that he was worried about me too.
It was true that his excessive interference had annoyed me.
But still—he was my lifesaver. And snapping so rudely at someone who said they were worried about me… wasn’t that a bit too much?
A faint sense of regret crept in.
After hesitating for a moment, my lips parted slightly. I could feel Rixion Luhanes’s gaze settle on my face.
And yet, I continued to hesitate.
Wouldn’t it be better to just leave without saying anything?
Let him remember me as some ungrateful woman who didn’t even recognize a favor.
If he decided he never wanted to speak to such a horrible woman again, that would actually be better for me.
Getting entangled with him any further would bring me nothing but trouble.
Rixion Luhanes had helped me retrieve the children afflicted with the Red Rat disease. When I was dragged into ugly rumors, he even mobilized Empress Serena to help me. He collapsed after entering a blood contract at my request. And today, he saved me when I nearly died—he even worried about me in his own way…
But I could just pretend none of that mattered.
If I treated him coldly just once more and ended it here, I’d be able to live comfortably without ever getting involved with the original male and female leads again.
Yes. That was all I needed to do.
“Um…”
That was how I’d settled it in my head.
And yet—
When I came to my senses, I was the one who had stepped closer and spoken to Rixion Luhanes, despite the distance he had created.
“You asked why those masked people targeted me without saying anything, didn’t you?”
Unable to bring myself to look him in the eye, I mumbled on.
“Everything happened so suddenly earlier that I didn’t have the presence of mind to explain. And the fact that they were targeting me—and that I got hurt because of it—those are personal matters. I didn’t think I needed to tell Your Grace about them.”
Worried that his eyes might have turned cold, I anxiously shifted my lowered gaze.
“You’re already busy enough as it is. I didn’t want to bother you by making you worry about my problems too. And to begin with, there’s no reason you should have to concern yourself with my affairs.”
Even as I spoke, I regretted opening my mouth at all.
After snapping at someone who helped me, wasn’t apologizing like this afterward just making things more uncomfortable?
What if he responded with “What are you doing now?” That thought scared me a little.
“That’s why… I spoke like that earlier. I’m sorry.”
I spoke faster than usual.
I just wanted to get my words out before he could say something like “Enough. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“And you’re my benefactor—the one who saved my life. You’re not someone insignificant at all.”
Still keeping my gaze near his shoulder, I bowed my head slightly.
“Let me thank you properly again. Thank you so much for saving me.”
“That’s not it. You just don’t like me interfering in your life, do you, Liz?”
Before I had even finished speaking, a voice tinged with hurt flew at me, sounding almost accusatory.
I reflexively snapped my head up.
And just like that, I met his gaze head-on—eyes that had been expressionless now twisted with emotion as he looked down at me.
“You always recoil the moment you see me. You do everything you can to avoid me—because you don’t want to be associated with me in any way.”
Facing eyes filled with resentment, a thought slipped out of me unconsciously.
He knew?
I stared at Rixion Luhanes with a stunned expression.
Considering my behavior up until now, maybe it would’ve been stranger if he hadn’t noticed…
But then—had he been deliberately pretending not to notice all this time?
My mouth fell open.
So it’s not that he didn’t notice me desperately avoiding him—he just acted like he didn’t.
I had suspected it faintly, but seeing it confirmed left me horrified.
Experiencing Rixion Luhanes’s personality firsthand—rather than through the original story—was far more overwhelming than I’d imagined.
“You could’ve just left me alone. You should’ve let me get hurt and suffer on my own.”
I didn’t know what to say and just stared at his face.
He suddenly let out a bitter smile and murmured as if to himself.
I frowned slightly, a question mark popping up in my head.
Huh? Hurt… isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?
I looked at him with complete confusion, and Rixion Luhanes made an ambiguous expression.
Not smiling, not angry—just strange.
He looked at me and said,
“You look like you don’t understand at all.”
Ah—was it that obvious?
Feeling guilty, I averted my gaze slightly and mumbled,
“Well… yeah.”
Honestly, now that even Jieunha had shown up, I really didn’t understand what he was doing.
Was it that fun to toy with me?
Did he really have to go this far?
And how I had even managed to catch this man’s interest over something so trivial—I truly couldn’t understand…
“Because I like you.”
I—
…don’t understand—
I slowly blinked once.
Then I lifted my gaze back up to Rixion Luhanes.
I wasn’t particularly short, but he was so tall that I always had to look up at him—and that pricked my pride a little.
And even from this upward angle—no matter how you looked at him—he was infuriatingly handsome.
After finishing that pointless train of thought in an instant, I looked at him with eyes full of confusion.
“What?”
Not understanding the subject of his sentence, I tilted my head.
As if he had expected that reaction, Rixion Luhanes let out a short laugh.
What? Why are you laughing?
Just as I was about to snap back, thinking he was making fun of me—
“I like you, Liz.”
He had already stopped smiling, speaking calmly with a faint smile.
I stared at him, eyebrows raised, and blinked once more.
This time, I had clearly heard both the subject and the object.
And yet, the sentence still refused to form properly in my head.
I scrunched my face, utterly lost as to what he was saying.
Rixion Luhanes looked at me with a face tinged with unmistakable amusement.
“I said I like you, Liz.”
He stated it again—more clearly, firmly.
In that moment, I felt as if every escape route had been cut off, my entire body bound tight.
I froze, staring blankly up at him.
Without blinking, I just looked at him—and Rixion Luhanes quietly lowered his gaze.
“I never intended to say this like this…”
A bitter smile passed over his blue eyes, shaded by long lashes.
“But suddenly… I couldn’t stand not saying it.”
Still avoiding my gaze, he murmured softly—as if talking to himself.
It was a 모습 entirely unlike the Rixion Luhanes I knew.
And from that unfamiliar man, the last thing he offered me was—
“I’m sorry.”
It was an apology I still couldn’t understand.
The darkness outside the window slowly lifted, the world dyeing itself blue.
Dawn was breaking.
Having not slept a wink all night, I blinked my heavy eyes.
After staring out the window for hours, I finally got sick of it and turned over in bed.
My body and mind were both begging for sleep, but it just wouldn’t come.
I knew why.
“I said I like you, Liz.”
I had heard words my mind couldn’t comprehend—from someone I couldn’t understand.
After hearing that incomprehensible confession from Rixion Luhanes, I was so out of it that I couldn’t even remember how I made it back to the Christener Marquisate.
