WICE 33

WICE

Chapter 33

At first, I thought she’d lost her mind. After all the torment she put me through, hearing her suddenly say it wasn’t my fault irritated me. I thought it was just a new form of torment.

But Roni’s changes didn’t stop there.

“My Allen is cute even when he’s got dust on him.”

She looked at me and called me “my Allen.” It felt strange. I felt uncomfortable hearing her call me that.

And yet, I couldn’t easily reject it—because the way Roni said it was so gentle.

Roni started acting strangely, one thing after another. She ran out alone, then used that as an excuse to generously give me anything I needed. Swordsmanship, training grounds, food—whatever I needed.

She supported me without lacking in anything. Of course, the violence and verbal abuse had completely stopped. Instead, she praised me, encouraged me, even said I was the best.

The way she acted when the Duke of Sharligean punished her also shocked me. Unlike the usual Roni, she showed up in work clothes and crouched down to pull weeds, grunting with effort. Watching her like that, I even found myself thinking she looked… cute.

Of course, the moment I realized I was thinking that, I ran off, quickly recalling all of Roni’s past cruelty.

Even after that, Roni was strangely tolerant, even when the servants were caught stealing.

And when I saw her get angry on Becky’s behalf after the maid was unfairly treated—so angry you’d think it was her own problem—I had no choice but to accept it.

Roni’s behavior wasn’t just a whim or hypocrisy. She had truly changed.

After that day, I started wanting to watch Roni from closer by. I even wondered if maybe I had misunderstood her all along.

That’s how warm she had become toward me. When Gail was being nasty, Roni even stepped in to correct her.

Just when I started to let down my guard toward her, I began to feel an odd wall between us—something that hadn’t been there before. Especially when she called Sasha “my daughter,” yet kept emphasizing “only while we’re engaged.” That phrase kept stinging.

Roni gave me everything, and yet she never seemed to want to give me her heart. When I got even a little closer, she would subtly avoid me and keep her distance.

She said she wanted to give me happy memories, but she never stayed alone with me. She always included someone else, as if she were trying to blur her presence—like someone preparing to leave soon.

“Just being with Roni makes me feel so good…”

At some point, I found myself thinking that—and I laughed at how pathetic I sounded. Didn’t I used to hate her? So why did I keep wanting to make her smile and keep her by my side?

Was I always this obsessive? I had never yearned for something like this before. Since birth, I’d had nothing.

And yet, before I knew it, my eyes were always following Roni. She had become the center of my world. The Roni standing in front of me now was so lovely, I couldn’t even compare her to the pain or the salvation I once felt because of her. My heart was overwhelmed.

Little by little, the hatred and desire for revenge I’d felt toward her melted away like snow. Looking back, even the cruelty she showed as a child seemed bearable—an absurd thought, really.

Before I knew it, I’d come to like the way she touched my hair. I liked the clear way she looked at me.

When I was very young, she had only ever looked at me with a cold expression. But in the past five years, she had shown me so many different faces. I was completely disarmed.

When I turned 18, I started wanting to touch her. Just being next to her wasn’t enough anymore.

“Can I touch your hair?”

I asked, and Roni allowed it without much thought. Her black hair slid between my fingers.

It was soft. I clenched it, then let go, over and over again. Strange emotions surged within me. But she didn’t seem to care. She didn’t even look at me—she was too busy drawing Sasha.

I felt jealous that Sasha had her attention. I gave a bitter laugh and muttered:

“Have I gone insane? Am I really jealous of Sasha now?”

Thankfully, she didn’t seem to hear me. Annoyed by her indifference, I kept playing with her hair until she stopped drawing.

For some reason, she didn’t tell me to stop. That made me feel even more crazy—I realized that for the first time that day.

If I could, I wanted to keep her by my side forever. One word floated into my mind.

“Marriage.”

That would let me make her mine completely. Even if I had to wait another year to become an adult, I didn’t think I could wait that long.

Our engagement had already been early, so not marrying would be strange. And lately, I’d been haunted by this anxiety that she might disappear.

I looked for a chance to propose to Roni. But then, out of nowhere, she started talking about magic school.

If I went to magic school, I’d have to live in the dormitory until graduation. I didn’t want that. I rejected the idea several times, but she kept insisting that I should enroll.

It was hard to say no to her. I thought I’d make a deal with her—based on the idea of marriage. I didn’t want to be separated from her.

“Should we get married?”

“Pfft!”

I asked after much hesitation, but she looked flustered—and rejected me far too easily. I thought she at least had some feelings for me, so I couldn’t believe she turned me down.

Roni was the one who made me like this. And now she was just tossing me aside—it made me furious. I felt like if I stayed any longer, I’d show her a truly ugly side of myself, so I hurried out.

Since she was with Sasha, I thought I’d cool my head and return later.

But then, her presence suddenly disappeared from my senses. Heart pounding, I ran toward the forest where I’d last felt her energy.

What if something had happened? Could my terrible intuition be right? Was she really going to disappear?

I didn’t even have time to think about why she’d gone to the forest. I was too scared she might have been attacked by a monster, or worse, that she might vanish for good—just like I’d always feared.

When I finally found her, she looked surprisingly okay. She smiled awkwardly and lied to me.

I didn’t care about the lie. I was just relieved that she hadn’t disappeared. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that one day, like my mother, Roni would abandon me, saying she didn’t need me.

She wiped the sweat from my brow with worried eyes. She was so kind—so why wouldn’t she accept my heart? It hurt.

It felt like she didn’t even realize how I felt. Even when I looked at her with such desperate eyes, Roni firmly pushed me away.

“If you don’t go to magic school, I’ll break off the engagement.”

Break off the engagement. When those words came out of her mouth, my mind went blank.

“Why now…?”

I couldn’t even remember how I made it back home that day. Something dark and heavy stirred inside me. I wanted to run back to her and beg her not to do this.

But that wasn’t what she wanted. So I fled—and applied to magic school.

It wasn’t as hard to get in as I expected. Without even telling Roni, I left the Sharligean estate. In the end, I had thrown a tantrum after all.

I hoped she would come to me and say it was all a lie. But no such miracle came.

After entering magic school, strange people started clinging to me. Especially that redhead—he acted like he could see right through me, only to slip away like a snake, constantly making me uncomfortable.

“Hey Allen, let’s go together.”

“Please get lost, Hadelio.”

No matter how coldly I spoke, it didn’t seem to affect him much. Next to him was Ian from the Vernique family.

At first, he looked at me with jealousy, but gradually, his gaze turned to admiration.

He was different from Harry. Harry couldn’t stand that I was better than him, but Ian tried to walk beside me instead.

There was also a noble girl with pale gray hair in my class who kept showing interest in me. I suddenly remembered how Roni had once told me to meet a gray-eyed noble girl. And whenever I saw Biana, I’d get irrationally angry.

And yet… I couldn’t treat her harshly. Something told me I shouldn’t. Because anything Roni said was almost like absolute truth to me.

Then one day, Ian invited me to his sister’s birthday party. I didn’t want to go, but Hadelio kept nagging, so I eventually agreed and went to House Vernique.

In the end, that bastard Hadelio didn’t even show up. I was thinking I’d half-kill him when I saw Roni in the distance.

Wearing a silver dress, she was stunningly beautiful. Honestly, I was really happy to see her. She seemed happy to see me too.

But I suddenly remembered how coldly she had rejected me before—so I reacted coldly in return. She looked a bit flustered by it.

In that awkward silence, someone suddenly gasped in admiration.