Roxana
Chapter 90
Chapter 90
How to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 90
“Ah, this really is nice.”
With its owner absent, I lay sprawled out, claiming Cassis’s bed entirely for myself.
Perhaps the grass was simply greener on the other side, but this bed felt far plusher and more comfortable than the one in my own room.
Lying down like this was deeply satisfying. I rolled over onto my side.
Whenever I received energy from Cassis, drowsiness always washed over me.
Though he acted as if that weren’t the case, the reason my sleeping hours had increased so drastically was definitely because of him.
The faint scent that lingered around Cassis drifted up from his blanket as well.
I buried my nose in it. For some reason, breathing in his scent set my heart at ease.
Back when I was still in Agriche, just thinking of Cassis had always eased my tension and relaxed my body.
It was the same even now.
But no matter how much I thought about it, it was strange.
Three years ago, Cassis and I had spent less than a single month together.
Granted, it had been an intensely vivid experience, but…
Even so, I couldn’t understand how I could feel this way around him.
Still, the world was never filled solely with things I could comprehend…
So perhaps leaving what was incomprehensible as it was, without trying to force an answer, was a solution in itself.
Before I could sink any deeper into thought, my eyelids slowly grew heavy.
Deciding to rest my eyes just until the room’s owner returned, I let the tension drain from my body.
I had a dream.
Flowing back upstream through time, the memory finally settled on that final night in Agriche.
Perhaps meeting with Richel was the reason for this dream.
I was standing in Lant’s office. The frostbitten air and the acrid stench of medicinal herbs steeped into it like black stains remained vivid even now.
Yet amidst it all, a faint trace of a different scent drifted in.
It was a refreshing, clear fragrance, entirely distinct from the stimulants Lant always burned.
Ah, right. I had been wearing Cassis’s coat.
Clad in the outerwear Cassis had given me when we met in Yggdrasil, I had been drinking liquor.
It was after I had tasked Jeremy with evacuating the servants to one place and disbanding the soldiers.
Then, the firmly shut door opened, and Deon stepped inside.
His crimson eyes, gleaming vividly even through the darkness, locked onto mine at once.
With low, quiet footsteps, he drew closer to me.
Had I met his gaze straight on back then, or had I closed my eyes as if to turn away once more?
I couldn’t recall what I had done then, but in this moment, I chose the latter.
Suddenly, something cold brushed against my cheek.
Through the haze of my distant consciousness, I felt a chilling hand softly graze my face.
The frigid temperature seeping into my skin brought a certain person to mind.
But he had never touched me so tenderly. He and I were not in such a relationship.
Just as I would never permit him to do something like this, I knew all too well that he would never attempt it either.
That dissonance slowly pulled me back to reality.
The sun must have set completely; the room was submerged in darkness. In my hazy vision, a dark silhouette emerged.
Ah… What was bound to come has finally arrived.
In that fleeting second, that thought crossed my mind unbidden.
And so, without realizing it, I spoke aloud the name of the person I had just seen in my dream.
“…Deon?”
The hand touching my cheek froze in place. Only then did I realize something was amiss.
When the remnants of sleep completely vanished, the person who met my eyes was Cassis.
“Deon, you say?”
His low murmur dropped heavily above my head.
The cold air Cassis had brought in from outside seeped into me. His hand pulled away from me completely.
“…I have never once thought I bore any resemblance to that man.”
In the eyes looking down at me, a freezing gale seemed to blow.
“I cannot comprehend why that name would spill from your lips while you were asleep in my room.”
Whispering under his breath, Cassis smiled faintly. But it was decidedly not a smile of amusement.
Looking up at Cassis, I inhaled deeply.
Then, exhaling slowly, I pushed myself up from where I lay.
My mouth had gone completely dry. Parting my lips, I forced out a voice as parched and brittle as sand.
“…I was half-asleep. I was mistaken for a moment.”
I hoped Cassis would just let it slide, but this time things would not go my way.
“I didn’t mean anything by—”
“Come to think of it, you called me Deon in Yggdrasil as well.”
It had happened on the final night of the Harmony Conference, in the dead of night before the break of dawn.
Exactly as Cassis said, I had mistaken him for Deon back then too.
But that was because it had been three years since I had last seen Cassis.
Moreover, his face had been swallowed by the shadows back then, and I had largely misunderstood based on his physique and presence.
“You must have had a dream about him.”
His dry voice settled heavily in my ears. The weight of this situation pressed down on me.
The realization that no words could explain what lay inside me kept me silent.
To escape this situation for now, I moved to get up from the bed.
But Cassis’s hand came down from above, pressing over mine as it braced against the mattress.
Then, the distance between us narrowed. I instinctively drew back, but Cassis leaned forward just as much, bringing us even closer than before.
In the end, I was trapped beneath him.
“Were you waiting for Deon Agriche all this time?”
His frozen golden eyes pierced straight through me.
I gently bit my lower lip.
I tried to move my hand pinned firmly beneath his, but it didn’t budge an inch.
It was only natural for Cassis to react this way.
Even to my own ears, the voice calling Deon’s name in my half-slumber had carried the tone of welcoming something long-awaited.
Yet whatever Cassis was thinking right now was far from the truth.
I did not know what had become of Deon after we parted on that final day in Agriche. Whether he was dead, or whether he was alive.
But if he were alive somewhere out there, I believed he would come find me without fail.
Wherever I was after leaving Agriche, Deon was someone who would never give up.
When I woke and saw the dark silhouette before my eyes, I thought that moment had arrived.
That was why I had unthinkingly spoken Deon’s name aloud.
“…It’s not like that.”
In that instant, even as resignation washed over me, I felt my heart sink with a bitter pang.
The reason I had never considered Cassis’s side to be my true destination.
For some reason, in the endings I occasionally envisioned for myself, there was always an image of me dying by Deon’s hand.
“Your relationship with that man is strange.”
His heavy, frigid, and sharp voice pierced into my ears.
“Ever since leaving Agriche, you have never once asked about anyone other than Lant Agriche. Not even about Deon Agriche.”
His bated gaze stared deep into my eyes.
As if he would not let a single flaw or vulnerability slip past him.
“That is why I told you that day. That everything…”
His slowly continuing voice settled heavily upon the silent air.
“…went just as you desired.”
The weight behind those words was far from light.
Yet even after hearing that from Cassis, I could decide nothing.
Because whether I wished for Deon to have died there that day, or wished for him to have lived, I still did not know.
“Do you want to return to Agriche?”
His low, whispering voice scattered into the air alongside his ragged breath.
The grip clasping my hand tightened further. At a distance so close our lips could graze at any second, Cassis spoke.
“I will not let you go.”
The moment I heard those words, my heart clenched tightly.