Chapter 17
17
After a moment, he spoke.
"It would be better for you to come back to my house."
"What?"
"You."
Scarlett frowned at Viktor's words.
"Me? Why?"
"Why? You're living like this."
Viktor gestured towards her workbench, and Scarlett paused. Then, she looked up at Viktor and asked.
"Do I look more unhappy now than when I lived with you?"
"Is that even a question? Do you think this life compares to my house?"
"I was unhappy when I was in the Dumpelt Family!"
Scarlett, who was usually calm, raised her voice, and Viktor frowned as he replied.
"You said you were happy."
"I was happy because I had someone I loved. Pretending to be okay in front of people who I didn't want to be with, who went to parties and luncheons every day, and who subtly ignored me from head to toe, wasn't happy at all. And our marriage was always me clinging on my own, and you were..."
Viktor's expression twisted at her words.
"Are you saying I didn't make any effort?"
"Is that even a question?"
"I thought I made enough effort."
"It was an effort to make me, a flawed product in your eyes, into a wife you could proudly introduce to others."
Viktor was silent for a moment at her sorrowful voice.
His face wasn't clearly visible because of the light, but he probably couldn't understand how Scarlett could be happier living here, handling tiny parts that were barely visible without a magnifying glass, than living a glamorous life in the Dumpelt Family.
"Why is that?"
"..."
"Yes, you were lacking, so I brought you up to my standards. To improve you. Isn't that effort?"
At that answer, Scarlett looked at him with a blank face, then simply closed her mouth without saying anything.
Hearing in his dry voice that she was a flawed product made her lose all motivation. It seemed impossible to convince the self-centered him that she could be loved just as she was.
"..."
"..."
Silence flowed for a while.
Since she didn't answer, Viktor remained silent as well.
Eventually, Scarlett looked up at Viktor, who was leisurely looking down at her without moving, and spoke first.
"Any other questions?"
"The street gaslight shines through the window next to your bed."
"I know."
"And you still prefer it here?"
"Yes."
For Viktor, who had lived in a mansion surrounded by a vast garden, it would be unimaginable to hear street noise or have light seeping into the house.
Scarlett looked towards the window and said.
"I'm always anxious about meeting strangers. I like it here because Andrei, who is an employee, greets the guests."
"Then you should have said something."
"How could I say it?"
Scarlett chuckled and buried her head in the sofa.
"You said it yourself. That the only thing I had to do was help you succeed. How could I tell you that I couldn't even do that one thing?"
In the early days of their marriage, she couldn't sleep because she was so afraid of those aristocratic gatherings. On those nights, she would curl up in bed, hugging her knees and trembling, waiting for the day to break.
She opened her mouth.
"Could you please leave? You make me uncomfortable."
"I'm not a stranger."
"You're not a warm person either."
She pulled her knees up onto the armchair to soothe her anxiety, then buried her face and mumbled.
"And definitely not someone I love."
After a long time of her crouching like that, she heard Viktor's shoes moving away.
"..."
The wooden door creaked, and she heard Viktor going down the stairs.
As soon as he left, Scarlett got out of the chair.
If one gear was out of place, the clock wouldn't work. Perhaps it was an occupational hazard, but Scarlett had been experiencing severe stress lately if anything wasn't in its proper place. So, she tried to push the armchair back into its place, but it wouldn't budge, and she sighed.
"How did he move this?"
Moreover, since the day she returned from being interrogated, Scarlett had been experiencing memory loss, with her memories sometimes returning only after a few days.
Scarlett had to endure the terror of that time entirely alone. Her precariousness made her compulsions grow more and more. Unable to bear it, she ran down the stairs, and for the first time, Scarlett was grateful that Viktor was a heavy smoker.
Scarlett grabbed the coat of Viktor, who was smoking a cigarette right in front of the shop door, and pulled him.
"Put the chair back."
Viktor, with a cigarette in his mouth, turned around at her words.
Scarlett tried to force her breathing to even out as she continued.
"The chair. You moved it, put it back where it was. Don't mess with my routine. Don't try to fix anything!"
"Scarlett Dumpelt."
Why are you calling me Dumpelt? I'm Crimson. I'm the one who makes clocks using the Crimson Family's technology.
She wanted to answer like that, but the words wouldn't come out.
Anxiety was consuming her.
Viktor dropped the cigarette and wrapped his arms around Scarlett's waist as she was about to collapse to the floor.
Inside his arms, Scarlett struggled to take deep breaths as her chest felt tight, and Viktor picked her up, stroking her back.
"...Not even the navy."
Viktor clicked his tongue at the panic symptoms his subordinates often showed, carried her upstairs, sat Scarlett on the bed, and then put the chair back in its place.
Scarlett, exhausted, couldn't even sit up and collapsed sideways, watching Viktor put the chair back in its place.
As she fell into a daze, unsure whether she was losing consciousness or falling asleep, she mumbled.
"I'm never living with you again. So don't show up in front of me, ever again."
She tried to read his eyes, but she was too tired to do so.
Scarlett mumbled weakly.
"I'll kill you, you. If you show up..."
Then she fell asleep as if she had fainted.
Viktor stood in front of her for a while, looking down at Scarlett with a blank face.
*
The alarm rang, and Scarlett got up to find the curtains closed. She must have been quite bothered by the streetlights.
"Oh, what to do."
Scarlett, who woke up in a daze, felt as if the blood was draining from her body and covered her forehead with both hands.
"I threatened to kill Viktor Dumpelt..."
Scarlett, with a bloodless face, opened the curtains first.
Only after the faint dawn light poured into the house did Scarlett discover that the built-in safe door was open, and she rushed there in a frenzy.
After checking inside the safe, she soon realized that several of the blueprints she had drawn were gone. They were all Biplane blueprints. Moreover, even the miniature she had made had disappeared. He had taken the evidence while she was panicking and asleep.
Her face turned white as she sat down in front of the open safe door.
Since they were denouncing even the Tram as demonic, airplanes were out of the question. The King had said that nothing should pass over his head. If the Biplane blueprints were discovered, it would be a capital offense.
Scarlett closed the safe and covered her face with both hands.
She had thought they had turned a blind eye to the Tram repair, and she had been careless, wondering if he had any lingering affection for his divorced wife. That was the problem.
The only one who had lingering feelings for him was herself, who had been pretending to have no feelings at all. The fact that he had simply overlooked the Tram repair was just bait to catch a big fish.
