Chapter 14
14
At his words, Scarlett opened her tightly shut eyes and looked up at Viktor.
"Should we?"
As she asked, Viktor muttered with an indifferent expression.
"Yes, you had a knack for making me feel awful."
Scarlett, not expecting Viktor to say such a thing, unconsciously took a tense breath, her chest heaving, and pushed him away with all her might.
However, he didn't budge. Instead, he grabbed her wrist as she reached for the doorknob, pinning it to the door, and continued.
"You said it last time, didn't you? That I also wanted a divorce, so I signed right away."
"...Of course."
Scarlett, slightly flustered, tried to pull her wrist away, but his hand was like an unyielding steel cuff.
"Did you hate that I agreed to the divorce so easily? Should I have locked you up like this, like a madman?"
Her ex-husband was acting strange.
It was the first time Scarlett had seen Viktor so openly display his ferocity.
Scarlett, trying to hide her fear, glared at him with rather fierce eyes, like a beast baring its claws.
"What's wrong? This isn't like you."
"I'm asking. You and Father are hiding things from me as if it's none of my business. What should I have done to satisfy you? What should I have done to someone who hands over a divorce paper to a drunk person in the middle of the night and then leaves?"
"......"
Scarlett was silent for a while. After a long pause, she opened her mouth.
"Didn't you ask, while drunk? Why I wanted a divorce?"
"Because I wasn't in a rational state."
"You're always overly rational. How much more rational do you need to be? You're..."
Scarlett asked calmly, exerting all her strength, and then only her trembling breaths could be heard for a moment.
Talking to this man always made her feel like she was the only crazy one.
He made her see a situation he didn't perceive as a problem as a problem.
'I'm always the only emotional one like this.'
Viktor, with his ever-unmoved face, seemed to think the sentence wasn't finished when Scarlett trailed off, looking at her as if telling her to continue.
Unlike him, Scarlett couldn't hide any of the emotions she possessed. Even with a chilly expression, all her feelings were evident on her face.
Viktor looked at her as if she were something that existed in the world but had never been discovered, like a bizarre creature that might live deep in the ocean trenches.
Why she laughed, why she cried, why she got angry, why she said she loved and devoted herself to him, whom she barely knew from the moment they met. He couldn't understand any of it, even why she betrayed him and why she left him.
In fact, not only Viktor but many nobles of Salantie were like that. They despised meaningless actions, things that were overly rational or overly sentimental, wanting something more than just existing as a noble.
His world was all connected, and her world was scattered. From Viktor's always perfect perspective, Scarlett sometimes, in fact, almost always seemed out of her mind.
Just then, a knock on the door broke the silence from outside.
"It's Fran, Master."
As Viktor reached out to lock the door, Scarlett stopped him with a hand as if telling him not to come closer.
Viktor, being a gentleman, had no choice but to step back, and Scarlett opened the door.
Fran, the Dumpelt Family's lawyer, wore a businesslike smile, pretending not to notice the commotion he had heard inside.
"I found the non-disclosure agreement. The master's secretary had it."
Then, Fran handed Scarlett a document.
"It has been processed with the same amount of alimony. You can rest assured now."
"......"
Scarlett, taking it, turned to look at Viktor.
Before she could even say anything, he had already taken care of all the agreements.
Viktor scanned the non-disclosure agreement Scarlett had written, then lit it with a lighter and threw it into the fireplace. Turning around, Viktor faced Scarlett, who was looking at him coldly, and asked.
"Why? You don't like this either?"
"...Everything is easy for you."
"If you had come to me first, everything would have been."
At his words, Scarlett closed her eyes for a moment.
She knew that her ex-husband was someone who didn't want to show his disheveled side to others.
'But would anything change even if that were the case?'
In the end, Viktor Dumpelt was the kind of man who didn't even pretend to hold on to her because he didn't want to show his drunken self to others.
Noble blood.
Blood that flowed through him, blood that seemed as if it would never mix even if dropped at the same time as her own.
As Scarlett turned and moved away, Viktor spoke to Blight, the secretary who was behind the door.
"Prepare the carriage. We're going to the Crimson Family."
"Yes, Master."
Blight bowed and hurried away.
Scarlett wanted to argue about why he was arbitrarily trying to go to the Crimson Family, but she didn't want to argue anymore, so she stopped.
*
It was a journey of over two hours by carriage to the Crimson Family.
Scarlett suppressed her uncomfortable feelings and sighs down her throat. Meanwhile, Viktor, unable to endure the long time, took out a cigarette and a lighter.
Then Scarlett asked.
"You don't smoke indoors."
"I didn't smoke when you were around."
"......"
"Now that you're not my wife, it doesn't matter, does it?"
Scarlett looked at him for a moment, then opened the window, as if there was no need to consider the other person anymore since they were divorced. Or perhaps he was deliberately trying to make her more miserable, she thought.
Viktor lit the cigarette, and Scarlett tried to ignore it. However, as the smoke spread in the small space, she couldn't stand it and coughed.
At that sight, Viktor actually smiled and stubbed out the cigarette in a portable ashtray.
"If you're going to give me such looks, why didn't you say something earlier? That I shouldn't smoke."
He seemed somehow more relaxed than when he was married to Scarlett. Even though he was still dressed in a suffocatingly neat manner.
Even though they had divorced on bad terms, Scarlett was a little worried and opened her mouth.
"Has anything happened to you lately?"
"I got divorced."
"...Something more recent than that."
"I found out that my wife had signed a non-disclosure agreement with my father."
"......"
"I deserved to smoke a cigarette, now that I think about it."
Viktor Dumpelt was, in Scarlett's opinion, a perfect human being. In every aspect, there was nothing to criticize, and his life was like a railroad track heading towards success, without any deviations.
But thinking about it after the divorce, it wasn't that he didn't have flaws. He was a chain smoker, had problems with emotional aspects to the point of being irrational, and was also slightly taste-blind. He wasn't as perfect a man as she remembered.
*
Two hours later, the carriage arrived at the Crimson Family.
Viktor got out first and extended his hand. Scarlett placed her hand on his and stepped out of the carriage, using the steps that the coachman had brought.
As soon as she stepped onto the ground, Viktor gestured for a servant to take care of her luggage. After doing everything alone for a year, it was uncomfortable to suddenly play the role of a noble lady who had everything taken care of.
Viktor was a gentleman with the narrow-mindedness that a lady shouldn't lift a finger like a flower. A lady shouldn't even need to open her mouth, let alone work. Scarlett was certain that Viktor looked down on her running a watch shop.
Scarlett greeted him.
"Thank you. You're going to the mansion, right?"
"Probably."
"Be careful on your way."
Scarlett greeted him like that and turned away.
As she entered the front yard, Arnold and Marilyn's friends were gathered around a bonfire, playing. When they didn't pick a fight with her for once, she turned around and saw Viktor smoking the cigarette he couldn't finish earlier in front of the carriage.
Scarlett silently turned back and headed towards the house.
