Chapter 57
A cold voice, qualitatively different from anything she had heard before, softly scraped against Seo-ah’s chest.
“If you don’t like Traun, I’ll send you somewhere else. There are plenty of places you can go. The Otrion Archipelago, Nice, Dieta—take your pick.”
Oscar listed them off as he pleased. Then, suppressing the turbulence boiling inside him, he offered an incredibly sweet smile.
“They’re all wonderful places.”
“No… No, Your Excellency.”
As the woman shook her head, round droplets fell like rain.
No, my foot.
“There’s no reason for you to stay here, is there?”
Oscar tilted his head toward Seo-ah, who was looking down.
“Is there a reason?”
As the cold whisper flowed into her ears, Seo-ah even forgot to blink.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound of her racing heart made her head spin. She stood there in a frozen world, like a fool who didn’t know what to do.
She was standing precariously on the edge of a cliff.
It felt as if her insides were turning black, and she could feel cold sweat soaking her back like water. It was a moment where the ground felt as if it were dropping out from under her feet.
“Sometimes, instinct provides the answer.”
A hauntingly familiar voice flashed through her mind.
“When you’re backed into a corner and there seems to be no way out, that is when instinct reveals itself.”
Her mentor’s voice spoke as if she were living in a corner of her mind.
Thump.
She felt her rationality shatter like sea foam under the weight of the heavy pulse.
Thump.
How should I answer your question of whether there is a reason?
Thump.
What on earth should my answer be…
Thump.
Why…
Thump.
She lifted her eyes.
Led by something unknown, she even forgot her fear.
As she looked up, her gaze met his blue eyes. Even though the eyes were framed by a sharp, tense expression, her first thought was not of fear, but of how clear and deep they were.
The man’s blue eyes were clear, deep, and startlingly beautiful.
Thump.
Thump.
In an instant, Seo-ah’s world was colored by him.
Her eyes held him, and her mind thought only of him. Her body and soul became filled with him.
Oscar…
Why are you trying to send me away now?
What is it about me that bothers you so much?
Was it because I touched your head? Was that it…?
No. In truth, it wasn’t that.
Muga—selflessness.
A world where she forgot herself had arrived.
Seo-ah was herself, yet she was not; she was herself, yet she was Oscar.
Suddenly, those moments came back to her. The moments when her gaze had been stolen as if she were falling for him.
The mountain of a man lowering himself to meet her eyes without hesitation, or the brief meeting of their gazes through a train window.
Just as she had suddenly looked up to face him, words that skipped past logic burst from her chest.
And they were words that the daughter of Han Hongheon, the pillar of Yongcheon, could never say.
“…I want to be by your side.”
Her faintly trembling voice pierced through the cold air.
She didn’t even realize why she had uttered those words or what they meant.
She only saw his cold, heartless blue eyes widen. She saw a crack form in his handsome face, which had been filled with irritation and anger, and she saw something waver behind his eyes.
And so, she simply let the words out as her instinct led her.
“I… I want to stay by your side, Your Excellency.”
In that moment, Seo-ah’s world, as well as the world of the man who dominated it, came to a still, pooling halt.
Oscar stood frozen.
He stopped, forgetting to breathe, forgetting even the flow of time.
Side.
That short word, a concept he had torn out of his own life, brought him to a standstill.
The time surrounding him began to flow again only after her brown eyes dropped toward the floor.
Oscar looked down at the pale face tilted toward the ground and thought:
I should crush her.
So that she can never climb up again.
He walked toward her. She stepped back. Even though she had come here of her own accord, even though she had called his name again and again despite his attempts to ignore her.
The moment something boiling inside him surged in size, Oscar strode toward Seo-ah like a calm current suddenly turning into a torrent. He swept over her in an instant.
The boundaries of another person were broken with ridiculous ease. They were at a distance where their bodies might touch with the slightest movement—the world of these two had narrowed to exactly that. In a world where boundaries have collapsed, breaths mingle, unique scents intertwine, and if one goes further, even their temperatures begin to merge.
Oscar watched the breath flowing between her flickering lips. Her eyes, still holding teardrops, wandered aimlessly before finally letting those held tears fall. A tear slid down her cheek and disappeared across her dry lips.
The moment he saw those lips—the ones that had uttered bold words no other woman had dared—trembling faintly, Oscar looked up. He glanced at the ceiling, then at the floor below, where their legs were entangled.
His foot encroaching on the hem of her skirt, and her pair of shoes, which were absurdly small in comparison.
He felt the thing boiling inside him incinerate his reason.
Something began to seethe within his blue eyes. Oscar pressed his hand against the wall behind Seo-ah’s back and leaned his head toward the woman who looked as if she wanted to flee immediately.
His shadow, large and sharp like a jagged mountain, leaned over as if to swallow her small, rounded shadow.
He saw her brown eyes widen rapidly as he drew closer. Their breaths mingled at a distance where their noses nearly touched. A foreign breath seeped into his lungs, and just before his lips touched the dry ones where tears had leaked in—
“…….”
“…….”
She turned her head.
Oscar stopped mid-lean. He merely lifted his eyes and glared at her profile as she looked away.
A trail of moisture shimmered along the curve of her cheek.
Oscar stared silently at that shimmering path before eventually breaking into a laugh again.
A laugh that no longer felt like a laugh traveled along Seo-ah’s ear, shaking her cheek and the hair at her temples. Like prey caught by a predator, she could only breathe shallowly, unable to even think of moving.
To her, Oscar whispered in a languid tone.
“Wasn’t this what you wanted?”
Seo-ah opened her mouth, but like someone being strangled, she couldn’t say a word.
“And here I thought that’s what it was.”
She only let round tears fall silently. Oscar grabbed Seo-ah’s desperately turned cheek with one hand and forced her to face him. Looking at her clear face stained with tears, his lips twisted into a smile.
“Ah, is this also because you’re ignorant of the ways of the world?”
He felt the trembling in his grip. That tremor told him exactly how terrified she was.
Then you should have stayed quiet and just taken the money instead of spouting useless nonsense.
If I treat you well, you should know your place and act accordingly.
He was about to release her cheek with a dismissive shove, his mind full of cynical thoughts.
But then, her lips moved. His gaze lingered for a moment on the sight of her upper lip meeting and parting from her lower lip, and a voice smaller than a breath drifted out.
“I—I want to stay here.”
Oscar laughed again out of habit.
Foolish wasn’t enough; she was moronic. And he was just as much of an idiot.
The clear face held in his hand, the flowing tears, the parted teeth, and even her dazed expression—it was all hitting him in a strange way. Even though she looked like a total fool.
The crown of his barely returning rationality was trampled. As his reason sank underground, the hand he had intended to throw off tightened its grip again. The woman caught in his grasp struggled. She grabbed his hand with both of hers, twisting her body. At that pathetic sight, Oscar let out a cruel laugh and whispered words that were sharp in every syllable.
“If you’re so desperate to give me your body, then do it properly. And if you’re just spouting nonsense because you’re ignorant, I told you to be careful.”
His hollow smile evaporated before he even finished speaking. The woman in his grip froze blankly, and Oscar, his vision darkening at the sight of her foolishness, found himself leaning toward her.
But he didn’t want to stop.
Well, what of it? It’s not like I’m killing her.
Dry lips overlapped with lips.
However, their breaths did not mingle, as if neither was breathing. It felt as if the world surrounding them had stopped all movement.
The man with the piercing blue eyes lingered upon the lips of the completely frozen woman. There was no sign of desire, no sign of pressure. He simply stayed there.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he pulled his lips away and stood up straight. He squared his hunched shoulders, looked at the ceiling, then the wall, and then back at the ceiling. A thick vein pulsed in his tilted neck.
“…Damn it….”
