Chapter 94
- Why Are You Crying
2024.01.02.
The festival ended, and a desolate darkness descended once more.
"Why are you here, like this?"
Olivia only blinked, offering no reply. Her pale complexion made the redness around her eyes even more pronounced in the darkness.
The woman, huddled motionless with disheveled hair and a ruined dress, resembled an abandoned doll left to languish.
"Olivia."
Yohan, bending on one knee, closed the distance without hesitation, his gaze meeting her unfocused blue eyes.
His deepened gaze followed the tears that welled up and fell, tracing a path down her smooth cheek, clinging to the tip of her slender chin before dropping onto her pristine bosom.
Above the deeply scooped neckline, her full breasts slowly rose and fell, the rhythm scattering light from the teardrop-shaped sapphire.
Yohan unconsciously held his breath, slowly pulling off the jacket that had been draped over his shoulders.
Olivia was soaked through.
Her rain-drenched body shone white under the moonlight.
Warmth spread from the cut on her palm, a wound from the broken glass. Yohan sighed heavily.
The horse chestnut trees lining the Bichen Riverbank swayed in the wind, scattering raindrops from their leaves.
He placed the jacket, far too large for Olivia, over her shoulders and asked,
"What happened?"
Even as their eyes met, her pupils seemed to hold nothing, as if she couldn't see him.
Only her reddened eyes still welled with tears.
The rain was subsiding, so it was tears. Yohan reached out his arm.
"……."
There was no hesitation in the man's actions.
As if tending to his own woman, he unreservedly reached out and wiped away her tears.
The moment warmth touched her cold skin, time, which had stopped, began to flow again.
Only then did the man before her slowly come into focus.
"……."
For a moment, she thought it was a delusion.
Why was the man who should be in Rondos here... before her eyes? It didn't make sense.
So, Olivia thought, it was just an illusion created by a magical spark.
"Olivia."
"……."
The moment her name was called again, it was no longer a delusion or an illusion.
Olivia's face hardened, and she hurriedly pulled away, leaving Yohan's hand, which had been wiping away her tears, suspended in the air.
The unsightly bandage was soaked with rainwater.
"I asked what happened."
Their gazes locked again in the air.
No sound could be heard. Why was this man here? That was all she could think about.
"Why, why are you... here..."
The stammered words failed to connect, hovering in the air before disappearing.
Meeting her eyes, which seemed to be trembling with fear beyond confusion, Yohan was overcome with an inexplicable displeasure.
"Then what about you?"
The man's gaze fell steadily through the sparsely falling raindrops.
"I'm asking you, Olivia."
"……I just got lost. I didn't know where to go. So... But why are you..."
"Alone, without a maid."
Yohan's eyes narrowed.
"I was flustered."
"So you were crying like a child? Just because you lost your way?"
"……."
Uncomfortable with his prolonged gaze, Olivia turned her head away. The rain had stopped.
As the lingering clouds drifted away, moonlight filtered thinly through the horse chestnut leaves.
Olivia wiped her cheeks with her damp palms and bit her lip.
Why did it have to be this man?
She resented it.
Why did she keep running into him? She was afraid. Especially in this state.
Olivia covered her chest with her hand, where the man's gaze had fallen.
Perhaps because the thin fabric was soaked, the cool river breeze felt chilly, and her skin flushed.
Her body trembled.
"……I think I should go now."
Olivia, rising to her feet, tried to take a step, but alas! Her injured leg acted up. Her body swayed and tilted.
At that moment, Yohan wrapped his left arm around Olivia's waist and pulled her close.
"!"
Their bodies were pressed together. Startled, Olivia pushed hard against Yohan's chest.
Yohan readily released his grip at her feeble resistance. In that gap, she hobbled backward.
It seemed that Olivia was not satisfied with merely escaping his embrace. She was acting like a woman fleeing from a molester.
It was as if the memory of living as husband and wife for three years existed only in her mind.
"I'll be going."
The corners of Yohan's lips twisted, and his eyes hardened.
"Do you know the way?"
"……."
Her movement to turn around stopped.
Where should she go?
The lease on the townhouse in Riverside had expired. Olivia regretted not extending the contract, just in case.
'Giving Olivia Blanchett three times the prize money in exchange for losing doesn't feel like a loss. I lost my honor.'
As the memory of facing the cruel truth became clear again, the Lancelot Hotel was not the answer either. She didn't want to see him now...
'The publicity effect was amazing. Without spending a penny, the media and high society were all worked up.'
Publicity effect.
He only had a purpose. He was just someone who smiled kindly at everyone.
She thought that kindness was love.
Love.
What a pathetic and grand delusion.
How foolish.
She should have left for Bryer. If Count Blanchett hadn't appeared at Litten Central Station that day.
Perhaps she would be living a quiet, peaceful life with Anne by now. If so, Edgar too.
And she wouldn't have had to face this man like this.
"Let's go back."
The thought was brief.
Olivia looked up in surprise. Their eyes met as if it were natural.
His face, thinner than when she had seen him at the Leopold Hotel opening party, was looking down at her calmly.
As the night deepened, the river breeze also grew more desolate. Her body was flushed, but at the same time, she felt goosebumps.
Olivia doubted her ears. Go back? Where to?
"No. I refuse."
Olivia was resolute, without a moment's hesitation.
"You don't know the way."
"……Even so, I don't want to."
Just because she had lost her way for a moment, she couldn't go somewhere other than the right path.
Especially if she knew that the end of that path was a cliff.
"Why?"
He asked with a blank expression. Just his silent gaze pressed down on Olivia.
Yohan, who had been waiting for an answer, swept back his hair. As the wet golden hair fell back, a scar was visible on the left side of his forehead.
"……."
Come to think of it, on his arm too.
He was a mess.
How did he get hurt like this?
She was suddenly curious, but she didn't voice it.
The circumstances of a man she shouldn't be involved with had nothing to do with her.
It was when Olivia's gaze was about to fall from his splinted left arm that the man suddenly took a step forward.
She involuntarily stepped back.
"I asked why."
"Because there's no reason for me to follow you. I'll... find my own way. Then."
Olivia turned quickly.
Her vision swayed greatly, but fortunately, she avoided falling. She hunched her shoulders, shivering with a chill, and took unsteady steps.
She felt a gaze like a veil behind her, but her staggering steps quickened. But she couldn't go far.
"Ah!"
The terrible pain in her swollen left foot made her vision spin, and her body slumped down.
At that moment, Yohan supported Olivia's back with one hand.
As her soft chest pressed against him, Olivia, trying to regain her balance, grabbed Yohan's shoulders.
Yohan's brow furrowed. The fractured shoulder bone caused a splitting pain, and he clenched his teeth.
Olivia's surprised hands reflexively fell away, flailing in his arms.
As her slender body, with the chiffon clinging to her from the water, rubbed against him, the problem was not the injured shoulder but something else. Damn it.
"Just. Hold on quietly."
He said, grimacing.
"Let me go."
Olivia struggled. In the end, it was Yohan who surrendered. Olivia limped away again.
"The carriage is waiting. Just walk that far."
Olivia let out a hot sigh.
It seemed like she was getting a bad cold. Even as her body trembled slightly, Olivia did not avoid the gaze that was fixed on her.
"Hold on."
Yohan reached out his hand again. Dark red blood was seeping through the wet bandage.
Olivia stared at his hand and parted her dry lips.
"We're divorced."
"So?"
Yohan, tired, closed his eyes and slowly opened them, asking back.
"So why are you being kind now... I don't understand the reason."
"……."
Since when have you become so obsessed with reasons?
Yohan stared with narrowed eyes at the extremely familiar woman who was acting strangely.
"Does divorce mean I have to become a bastard?"
"……."
"Then don't show up in front of me in that state. I'm trying to help you because you look like you're about to collapse, is that such a big deal?"
Yohan thought that the old Olivia Blanchett was easier to handle.
Back then, when she was so easy that she didn't feel any charm, the problematic situation was resolved with only a lukewarm response.
All the reason was him, himself. But you now.
"I asked if it's such a big deal to take you where you need to go if you have a place, or to offer you a place for the night if you don't. Olivia."
Horse chestnut leaves were swept away by the intensifying river breeze. The rustling sound seeped into the taut silence.
Olivia, who could no longer bear it, parted her lips with difficulty. She was feverish.
"……Even if I have nowhere to go... I don't want to be with... you."
"You-"
It was at that moment that the pitch-black sky without a single star plummeted to the ground.
Olivia's body, which had been stubbornly standing, tilted.
"Olivia!"
The voice calling her now-familiar name seeped into the terrible heat and faded away.
The tiara, whose existence she had completely forgotten, rolled off helplessly.
Even in the mud, the fake queen's crown shone brilliantly. The light and sound slowly faded away, and soon there was a complete blackout.
