Episode 132
“…What?”
I asked, startled.
I thought that since he now knew Frilis wasn’t his child, he wouldn’t want to see her again.
I had arbitrarily assumed that since he had already saved the child’s life once, he would consider his friendship and duty towards me fulfilled.
“Ugh.”
Len raised his hand and gently pinched my cheek.
“If I think about it, you really see me as a hopeless bastard, don’t you? I was the first to hear her heartbeat when Frilis’s was in the womb. I already love her; does that feeling change just because she’s not my biological child?”
I ended up covering my face with both hands.
Crying here would be too cowardly, something I mustn’t do to Ren… I’m overwhelmed with guilt and gratitude, not knowing what to do.
Len comforted me with his ever-gentle touch.
“If the Grand Duke had been just a slightly lesser man, I would never have stepped aside. But that guy knew about ‘Illusia’ all this time and didn’t tell me. On his own accord, he supposedly held back, thinking he was protecting my pride as the Tower Master. What a wishy-washy bastard in all the wrong places.”
As I was busy sobbing, Ren continued.
“Continuing to love you would be disrespectful to him, so I’ll stop. But let Frilly’s necklace remain. It’s a protective magic you couldn’t buy with money, so even the Grand Duke probably won’t be able to refuse it.”
Finally, I wiped my tears and tightly grasped Ren’s hand.
“Thank you, Ren.”
To a man who said he didn’t want to hear ‘I’m sorry,’ that was all I could say.
And in response to my words, Len smiled brighter than ever.
“Be happy, Lou. If your feelings change, or if that guy changes, you can always come back to me anytime.” My long-time protector, adding the words as if joking, seemed much more at ease.
Even if he said he was just acting like that, I had no way of knowing.
“Thank you so much, Len.”
Instead of the countless things I couldn’t say, I thanked him once more.
My wizard kissed the back of my hand, wet with tears.
“Farewell, Louise.”
In the end, I boarded the gate with tear-filled eyes and a heavy heart.
But the moment I arrived at the imperial palace, I ran into Callisteon, forcing me to hide even the traces of my tears.
“Carl…?”
He looked at my flustered face and smiled brightly.
“Ren contacted me in advance. He said due to circumstances, he couldn’t see you off, so he asked me to be here first.”
I couldn’t hide the expression that rose to my face in time, earning me a complaint from Callisteon.
“Hmm, judging by your expression, it seems you’re starting to regret sending me off.”
“…No, it’s not that.”
But this time, Callisteon didn’t let it slide.
He immediately bowed his head.
Through our hastily meeting lips, the familiar scent of him wafted strongly.
Callisteon persistently sought my breath until I pounded on his shoulders, gasping for air.
The obsessive affection he felt, not wanting to send me to the Magic Tower in the first place, clung stickily to our touching skin.
When our lips finally parted, his deep blue eyes stared straight through me.
“Just how long are you going to make me anxious and jealous? Until the very moment we swear our marital vows?”
Startled by his seemingly self-mocking tone, I looked up at him.
Regretting once more the fact that my feeling sorry for Ren had hurt the one I love.
Wanting to soothe him, I gently cupped both his cheeks with my hands. Callisteon slightly averted his gaze.
“Without even a proper apology. You… this way of doing things is cheating…”
I rose on my tiptoes and swallowed the lips that were chastising me.
Clumsily, I pried his lips open and delved in.
After conveying my feelings softly, as if to soothe him, for a while, Callisteon spoke with his lips still against mine.
“I can’t stand it. But when you do this, I get even more scared. I’m afraid that you…”
“Carl.”
“…Yeah?”
Just a few steps away from here, everyone, including my brother, would be waiting to welcome me.
I didn’t want to make the man before me anxious any longer.
I didn’t want him to be, even for a moment more.
“I have something to say.”
“…What?”
When I told him that until the night Chirilla tried to harm Prilis, I had still lost my memories of that period, Callisteon was utterly bewildered.
“Why… why on earth didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I had completely lost my memory, I didn’t know who to tell or how. I thought I had become a different person… I thought if I said that, everyone would hate me…”
“That’s absurd!”
Callisteon retorted, his face flushing with anger.
“You became a different person? Do you think I wouldn’t know if you became a different person?”
“That’s not it, Carl…”
Callisteon held his forehead as if he had a headache.
Since I hadn’t even properly broached what I wanted to say to him yet, I was a bit taken aback and watched Callisteon’s reaction.
Thinking about it, his exasperation was natural.
Ren, suffering from the side effects of the magic potion and absorbed in his teacher’s illness, couldn’t process the fact that I had lost my memory more heavily.
But Callisteon had even known about the side effects of Ren’s magic potion beforehand, so how shocking must all this have been for him?
Callisteon frowned and muttered.
“…You said you loved me.”
It was true.
Before my memories returned, while sending him back to Babenberg to avoid Rurik’s wrath, I had said those words.
“Yes.”
As I calmly admitted, Callisteon looked at me with confused eyes.
“Then, why back then…”
Does this man not know that a year was more than enough time for me to fall in love with him all over again?
I quietly smiled and took his hand.
“Indeed. Why did I love you again back then? Even though I didn’t remember a single thing about having loved you before.”
“…What?”
I leaned my forehead against his cheek and whispered.
“It seems I have no choice but to love you. Just like how, facing death, I cowardly coveted a single night with you; just like how, blinded by the desire to save your child, I failed to notice Master Moghold risking his life… No matter what obstacles stand in the way, I…”
I looked up. Callisteon’s blue eyes, capturing the chandelier’s light, shimmered dizzyingly.
His wavering pupils were like a stormy sea.
He must be that bewildered, but I can no longer hold back these feelings.
“…will end up loving you again.”
Despite my definitive tone, Callisteon asked quietly, as if he couldn’t believe it.
“…You coveted a night with me, even facing death? I always thought you hated me for a long time because of my recklessness that day.”
The smile on my lips deepened inevitably.
“Hate you, Carl? I never hated you, Carl, not once since the day I received that absurd magic stone pen. The only regret in my short life was you. I was afraid that if I died, you, left alone, would be in so much pain… I couldn’t even say it. The truth is, I had loved you for a long time… I thought it was better for you to forget me than for you to suffer alone.”
The blue waves contained within his pupils surged as if about to overflow.
“Won’t you say it for me one more time?”
I asked in return, expecting the rough stormy waves to rise up and engulf me.
“Which part?”
Callisteon parted his lips, but his red tongue only moved, and he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
I willingly parted my lips and repeated the words he wanted to hear.
“I’ve loved you for a long time.”
It was I who wanted to tear open my chest and show him this heart.
“You don’t know how anxious I was when you left for Babenberg, afraid you wouldn’t return. Because you were now the master of the Duchy, I thought you wouldn’t look back at someone like me. I was too timid to dare stand by your side…”
A hot lip urgently pressed against mine, so I barely managed to stop confessing my foolish past.
Although I had kissed him many times before, none had been this intense.
The fact that this man, strong as a mountain, was trembling like this because of me made my heart ache with overwhelming emotion anew.
Embracing him with my whole body wasn’t enough, but Callisteon was equally unrestrained.
I was breathless, my throat tight.
When the man, who had been greedily devouring my lips, finally allowed a moment’s respite, I looked up at him, panting.
The moment our heated gazes met, a weighty sincerity struck my ears.
“I love you.”
