Chapter 61
Realizing it, Ash felt a slight shiver run through him.
“We make a good pair, Violet Everdeen. You read my heart perfectly, didn’t you?”
Violet smiled.
“Ash, do you remember what you said? That you’d make me into someone new. You said that in the detention cell.”
“…Yeah. I’ll keep helping you.”
Ash reached out his hand to Violet.
Violet shook her head gently but firmly.
“There’s no need for you to make me into someone. I was always the same person. It’s just that my family made me unable to face myself. From now on, becoming myself and living as myself is something I can do on my own.”
“……”
“So… thank you for helping me, Ash. But I don’t need your help anymore.”
Maybe that was why.
At some point, Ash realized that he was the one speaking as if he were clinging to her.
Violet, who had seemed as though she were already in his grasp, scattered away and disappeared through his fingers.
“You still haven’t finished things with your father.”
“I can handle that myself too. You taught me well, didn’t you?”
“Violet.”
“Ash, I like you.”
Violet calmly dropped a bombshell of a statement.
What was that supposed to mean?
He had thought he was the one who had her in his hand. But when he came to his senses, he realized it was he who was standing in the palm of Violet’s hand.
Ash felt as though he were being tossed around and sent flying within her grasp.
“Ash, even when everyone else ignored me, you always showed me casual kindness.”
“……”
“I thought it was strange for a while. The way you treated me overly well.”
Violet looked slightly dejected.
“Aren’t you curious about my feelings?”
“If you’d liked me, you wouldn’t have considered me as a political marriage partner. I’m capable of that much objectivity. You don’t love me.”
“I’ll come closer so you can feel at ease. So you’ll come under my protection. Isn’t that enough?”
Now Ash’s composure crumbled.
“Spending time with you, I think I figured out what kind of person I am. And now I want to try living well with the new self I’ve found. So… I like you, but I don’t want to live a life where I depend on you completely and get swept along by you. What I need right now is—”
“……”
“I know, Ash.”
Violet looked at him with resolute eyes.
In that moment, Ash understood.
That lingering tenth of doubt in his heart before he approached Violet—that tiny speck of unease.
Ash had wanted to see Violet. That was why he’d felt uneasy.
“—When I was immature, I was briefly infatuated with Bluedin because he was my fiancé, but that feeling broke quickly. Um… so, what I’m saying is—”
“So?”
“You’re my first love… that kind of person. I think I liked you because you were you. Not just because you were kind to me. Even before, whenever I happened to see you at the academy, my heart would flutter a little. If you’d shown up at the academy just a bit more often, I might have fallen for you helplessly.”
Violet continued softly.
But she still hadn’t said she loved him. This was a closing statement.
This woman had organized her feelings about Ash on her own terms.
Violet kept speaking, unaware of what was going on inside Ash.
“You remember I talked about how I’d repay you for everything I received. Uncle Cyril said you gained so much from this that you didn’t need any repayment at all, but I don’t think that’s right. Hurt is hurt, and gratitude is gratitude.”
Violet smiled carefully, tenderly, brightly.
“So when I said ‘help me’ at the ballroom, you helped me right away.”
That was true.
In truth, Ash had hoped that the ‘lust’ Edgar awakened would cause even greater casualties.
The more people feared the Seven Deadly Sins, the more it benefited Ash.
So at the ballroom, he’d planned to watch the situation a little longer, but—
‘Violet was desperately asking for help. How could I possibly ignore that?’
At her single plea for help, Ash had moved immediately.
Fortunately, the outcome had been very good.
“So if someday in the future you tell me you need help, Ash, I’ll run to you then. I think that’s enough.”
Violet whispered.
She confessed and then dumped him in one breath. Was that even possible?
When Ash didn’t respond, Violet seemed a little embarrassed. She looked at him for a moment, then placed a small kiss on his cheek.
“Goodbye, Ash. If it’s you, you’ll be able to walk the path of light that everyone looks up to.”
A farewell kiss.
It was an imperial-style greeting shared between friends.
At that moment, Ash gently caught Violet by the wrist.
Violet turned back and looked into his eyes.
“This won’t be the end, Violet.”
Ash said quietly.
“…Huh?”
“Our connection.”
The hand holding her wrist loosened gently. Violet blinked.
She stood up, looked at Ash briefly, then turned away.
She slowly walked farther and farther away.
Ash stared at her back for a long time.
You confessed to me, and then you dumped me.
He felt like laughing and at the same time found it absurd.
One-tenth uncertainty and nine-tenths certainty.
That was how he had defined his feelings toward Violet.
But in this moment, the one-tenth and nine-tenths had reversed.
“No… was it the opposite from the beginning?”
The one-tenth he had overlooked.
That feeling was wanting to see Violet. Longing, yearning, the ache of missing someone.
Ash’s heart was already moving toward her.
The one who was captivated wasn’t Violet.
It was Ash.
From the start, he hadn’t been thinking rationally.
Nine-tenths emotion, one-tenth reason. And he’d been thinking only with that one-tenth, which was why everything had gone awry.
“Seriously… what am I supposed to do with you, Violet Everdeen?”
People now said Ash was the most valuable man in the capital—no, in the entire world.
And tonight, Violet had captured that valuable man with just a few words.
That night, Ash quietly returned to Bluehill Estate.
And for the first time in a while, he slept deeply.
“What happened when you met Miss Violet yesterday? So… have you decided to marry her?”
When Gran approached and asked, Ash was still smiling.
Ash had risen early, leaning back leisurely on a long chair as he reviewed the day’s schedule.
“Do you think I’m the one who decides whether to marry or not? Violet decides that.”
Gran looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears.
“…Pardon?”
“The order is completely wrong. If I want to marry her, I should make her like me first. Whether or not we marry is decided after the courtship.”
“…What did you just say…?”
Gran’s hands began to tremble.
“With all due respect, my lord, you are the man who once drank tea calmly even after your political enemy poisoned their own cup—and then drank the same tea across from them. And yet you speak of courtship? What in the world happened last night?”
His enemy had died on the spot. It was a real incident that had occurred in Kaisería.
Ash had been only sixteen at the time. All of it was in the past.
“A miracle.”
Ash summed up what had happened the night before with a single word.
“A good miracle?”
“Exquisitely good.
