127. What Happens If I Don’t Accept It?
As expected of a romance novel male lead—he even confesses as if he were reciting lines from some melodramatic script.
But oddly enough, I felt no stirring emotion.
I eyed the sword Ferwyn was holding out to me with suspicion.
“…How did you even find this?”
From someone who was supposed to have fallen off a cliff, no less.
He puffed his chest proudly, giving a careless shrug.
“It was hidden behind the waterfall beneath the cliff. I only went up there after I found it in the first place.”
If Ferwyn had retrieved the sword, then the victory would naturally be his.
I could picture it already: him basking in the spotlight, drenched in cheers and blessings from the crowd. And beside him, I too would receive the mark of triumph, standing in the glow of everyone’s gaze.
“…But this feels far too great a gift for me to accept.”
“Too great?”
His brows arched in displeasure. The hand that had playfully extended the sword lowered slightly.
“Isn’t this something one gives to their beloved? I’m Your Highness’s fiancée, not your lover.”
“Why draw such lines between us? You are my beloved—naturally, this is yours.”
“That’s only how you see it.”
“…What?”
Like mismatched gears grinding against each other, our words clashed and snagged.
It’s always like this.
A deep sigh escaped me. Conversations with him always felt like running along parallel lines that would never meet.
The man who once despised me so thoroughly now delivered even his confession one-sidedly. And then, when I refused to accept it at face value, he sulked and complained.
But a “sincere heart” that lacked understanding and communication was just as exhausting as contempt and misunderstanding.
“Your Highness claims to like me, but you don’t show me even a shred of respect.”
“…Me?”
His eyes, fixed on me as he sat across my lap, flickered with bewilderment.
“Your Highness’s will and emotions always come first. Have you ever once considered my heart seriously? Or how much trouble you put me in? My position? My circumstances?”
“…That…”
No, of course he hadn’t.
Why would he ever need to?
Especially when the one in question was his fiancée.
His handsome face, his captivating voice, that confident smile of his—all of it was more than enough to dazzle and numb the senses.
To be Crown Princess promised not only personal honor, but also guaranteed the elevation of one’s entire family.
Anyone chosen as his fiancée would instantly stand at the very pinnacle of power. The most glorious, the most exalted woman of all.
Who wouldn’t be intoxicated by such sweetness?
“…But do you think that just because you say you love me, I will naturally love you back? No. Not at all.”
“What?”
“I want someone who can stand on equal ground with me, someone who can look ahead together with me—not someone who stares down at me from above.”
At my firm declaration, Ferwyn’s face twisted openly in shock.
The sight was almost amusing.
He had always been the one to choose, never the one chosen.
That overwhelming wealth, that supreme authority that set him above all others—it had filled him with arrogance and selfishness.
He had been raised to command instead of compromise, to demand obedience instead of understanding, to bestow charity instead of showing consideration.
What, then, could I possibly expect from him as a partner?
“Being chosen as Your Highness’s fiancée doesn’t make me your lover. Just as a subject cannot be called a friend.”
Ours was a marriage contract forged between families.
A relationship that swayed aimlessly at the whim of the imperial will.
That was the true essence of what bound us.
If Ferwyn refused to recognize this truth—if he continued to blind himself with his romantic illusions and ignore the hierarchy that always overshadowed love—then there could never be closeness between us.
“I…”
His voice broke, each word dragged out as if it pained him.
“I’ve lived my whole life like this. I’ve never had a friend, only vassals. Before I could ever have a lover, I was already given a fiancée.”
“…”
“Perhaps even family was no different. My parents were not just mine—they were parents of the people. From them I learned responsibility and duty as an heir, not familial warmth.”
I knew.
His identity as Crown Prince was so absolute, so all-encompassing, that no human bond could ever exist outside the boundaries of rank and power.
“…To be honest, I don’t really understand. What does it mean, this ‘equal relationship’ you speak of?”
Perhaps because of his injuries, his tone was gentler than usual.
Like a wanderer searching for the path in a maze, he seemed quietly determined to find an answer amidst his confusion.
“I just wanted to give you the best things I could.”
“…”
“When you said you didn’t have a dress, I wanted to gift you the finest gown in the world. When you said the flowers were pretty, I wanted to give you the entire garden. Instead of a shabby ring, I thought you might treasure a rare sword.”
His gaze lingered on my ring finger.
A lingering bitterness settled faintly over us.
“…I never realized it could feel like I was forcing it onto you. You always seemed to crave my affection.”
“…”
“And I was always the one running away from those feelings. So when I finally returned them, I thought that would be enough.”
He bit down hard on his lip, as though swallowing something hot and painful.
Then, in a low voice that trembled faintly, he whispered:
“…I’m sorry.”
Each word pressed down with earnest weight.
An apology offered to Roselia—the so-called villainess who had never once had her heart reciprocated.
Instead of answering, I recalled an old story.
“…I once had a dream.”
“A dream?”
“In it, Your Highness hated me so much that our relationship fell irreparably apart. Misunderstanding piled upon misunderstanding, until in the end, I died by your hand.”
I closed my eyes.
With them shut, I retraced the memory etched deep in my mind.
A story I had never told anyone.
I spoke as calmly as if I were narrating an old fairy tale.
“That dream repeated itself every night. I tried avoiding you, even running far away, desperate to survive—but it always ended in death.”
“…”
“The methods changed, but the horrific ending was always the same. After I died, another life began. Over and over again.”
“…”
“Only after several lifetimes did I finally wake. And even then, I couldn’t tell whether it was truly a dream or reality.”
Ferwyn’s expression grew somber as he listened.
“Even now, the image of you from that dream is vivid. The face that turned away from me, the voice dripping with scorn, the hand that pronounced my death sentence—every detail.”
Each day had been like walking on thin ice, judged for even the smallest mistake.
I had no allies. And always, death awaited at the end of every tragedy.
“After that dream, it felt like a harsh awakening. Your beauty, your sweet voice, even the dazzling title of Crown Princess—they all looked like traps to me.”
“…”
“That’s why I avoided you. Because I realized this place was never meant to be mine.”
“For such a reason…”
Ferwyn let out a hollow laugh.
“So that’s why you suddenly changed overnight.”
Yes. A dream.
To anyone else, that’s all it was.
But to me, it was reality—engraved in every bone of my body.
In one life, Ferwyn abandoned me. In another, he killed me.
Layer upon layer of nightmarish reality had built a chasm between us that could never be bridged.
“…That wasn’t me.”
At last, he lifted his heavy eyelids, staring at me with difficulty.
“That fool you dreamed of—that wasn’t me. No matter how vivid, no matter how real, a dream is still just a dream.”
“…”
“I’ll try harder. I can’t erase the mistakes of the past, but I can try to bury them beneath new memories.”
He did not blame me for being trapped in those lingering shadows.
He only kept insisting that this version of him, in this life, was different.
He was trying so desperately to turn my heart. His earnest gaze and pleading voice stirred faint echoes within me.
It made me wonder.
If I had been honest from the start, if I had told him about my circumstances and cleared away the misunderstandings—would things between us have turned out differently?
No. That was a meaningless what-if.
“…This is as far as we go.”
The faint regret I felt as I looked at him was nothing more than longing for a path I had never walked.
“…”
Our relationship had been twisted from the beginning.
To repair it would demand more courage than I had to give.
I did not have the strength to believe things would be different this time.
Knowing the misfortune that awaited, I couldn’t throw myself into fate once more.
Sometimes, there are feelings you must fold away—leaving them behind with nothing more than a faint, lingering regret.
