You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 73

I laid the sleeping Apple on the bed and opened the letter Sioden had sent.

When I sent a reply, the response came back immediately. It was a faster reply than I had expected.

Accordingly, I prepared to go out and covered Apple, who still hadn’t opened her eyes, with a blanket.

“I’ll be back.”

Apple, who still smelled faintly of the unfamiliar scent, did not wake up even at my whisper. I smoothed the crease in her brow once and stepped out of the bedroom.

Sioden was waiting in the main hall’s dining room, where I arrived with an attendant other than Apple.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yes.”

Sioden didn’t look drastically different from before. He seemed to have lost a little weight, but it probably wasn’t a major change. Or perhaps it simply didn’t register in my eyes. My mind was focused on the topic I was about to broach.

We sat facing each other, as before. With two sets of cutlery, a few plates, and food that neither of us would likely enjoy properly, between us.

Today, I had a conversation more important than the meal, and Sioden… I had never seen him pay attention to a meal. At least not when he was with me.

Sioden was the first to speak.

“Thank you for sending a reply.”

“It’s nothing.”

I shook my head at his words and slightly lowered my gaze. This way, I could minimize the risk of making eye contact.

Observing the appetizer made with easily digestible ingredients, I said,

“I didn’t expect you to make time right away, either.”

The letter Sioden sent me was a simple inquiry about my well-being. Since I was only staying in my room and hadn’t said anything even through Luke, he seemed curious about how I was doing.

Although I didn’t think he had any reason to be curious about my current situation, recently Sioden seemed like a completely different person from the man I used to know.

‘I love you.’

…Hadn’t he even said something like that?

I buried that still-incomprehensible confession in my memory. Sioden also seemed to regret saying such a thing. But was there any need for me to dwell on it?

We were going to be strangers soon anyway.

Apple had said we could take a ship to Emerta when spring was in full swing. We were now passing through the beginning of spring.

However, preparing for the journey seemed difficult for Apple to do alone. Although she hadn’t revealed it to me, I wasn’t so unobservant that I couldn’t notice just because she didn’t speak of it.

Given Apple’s personality, she would never ask me for help. Yet, I didn’t want to stand by idly.

That was why I had responded to Sioden’s inquiry about my well-being with a question asking if he could give me some time to talk. Afterward, his reply was that the earliest we could meet was during dinner.

Sioden, who was observing my expression from across the table, offered,

“If you are uncomfortable, you may return even now.”

“It’s alright.”

Although my last conversation with him hadn’t been pleasant, I was here with a purpose today. As I was trying to figure out the most natural way to bring up my purpose, Sioden spoke again.

“You didn’t press the wax on the letter. Was there a reason?”

“Ah.”

I hadn’t sealed the reply I sent to Sioden today.

Since this action had its own reason, I explained without hesitation.

“If I seal it with wax, it looks messy when you receive it. I thought it was better to leave it off than that.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Because the wax has to be broken to be inspected.”

The last time I wrote a letter to Sioden, a knight had opened it and inspected the contents right in front of me.

Sioden paused, then spoke in a subdued voice.

“…You don’t have to do that in the future.”

It didn’t seem likely that I would write him a letter in the future, but instead of correcting every detail, I simply nodded.

Sioden spoke again before the silence between us grew too heavy to bear.

“Are you feeling well?”

“Yes.”

“I was worried that your illness wasn’t clearing up.”

The thought, ‘When did my cold go away?’ flashed through my mind, but before it could pass, I remembered the reason I had given for my recent confinement.

I had said I couldn’t see people because I wasn’t feeling well.

Recalling that, Sioden’s words—that he was worried because I seemed to still be sick—felt significant.

Perhaps he had already noticed that I was hiding something?

And perhaps he used the expression of ‘worry’ to indirectly reveal his suspicion.

A sudden fear gripped me as my speculation reached that point. I quickly answered him.

“Th-there’s no need for that.”

The reaction felt overly defensive after I said it. This behavior might even look more suspicious.

I tried to salvage the situation belatedly.

“It’s not… something to worry about…”

Before I could finish the sentence, I realized. By this point, my forced attempts to speak must have been completely obvious. Feeling it was already too late, I lowered my gaze even further, but Sioden’s answer came back.

“I understand.”

His voice was calm.

Involuntarily, I raised my eyes at the voice that carried no hint of suspicion, and he said with an unperturbed expression,

“I didn’t mean to startle you. Please be at ease.”

Fortunately, to Sioden’s eyes, I seemed to have merely been flustered by the sudden question. I cleared my throat before he could notice any other strange points.

“How have you been?”

* * *

This was unlikely to be a sincere question.

Sioden thought this while taking in the sight of the woman who was glancing at him with drooping, pale green eyes.

There was no reason for Iella to be curious about his well-being. Sioden knew this without needing to hear it, as he would have felt the same way if he were in her position.

Iella was averse to him.

It was a clearly visible fact, to the point where he wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before.

He had held the hand of such a woman and poured out his true feelings.

“I love you.”

Thinking back to that moment made Sioden want to bite his tongue. How could he have made the other person hear such a thing? No matter how desperate he was, if he had any conscience, he should have stayed silent in that situation.

In that moment, Iella would have been more willing to hear him say he’d go out and die than to hear his declaration of love. If he were her, he wouldn’t have hesitated to pour out that truth, but Iella’s reaction was limited to merely fleeing the scene.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

The image of the woman, pale-faced and trembling, flickered before his eyes. Sioden instinctively sought out the traces of that moment. Her cheeks were soaked with tears, and her eyes were reddened. Her hands recoiling as if to avoid being caught by him.

It wasn’t a curse-filled resentment but merely an attempt to return the very words she’d heard from him.

“You didn’t want to hear me speak before, either.”

Sioden couldn’t even say he hadn’t done that to her.

Iella was already proclaiming with her whole body that she didn’t want to hear his excuses.

“I think it’s that kind of feeling.”

Her voice sounded desperate, a testament to how badly she wanted to avoid him.

Sioden couldn’t approach her further, fearing that even a wrong touch of his fingertip would cause her to burst into tears out of fright.

Afterward, the woman remained cooped up in her room, refusing to come out.

He heard she had caught a cold.

“It’s because she caught a chill after seeing off Lord Rowen.”

Luke, who had examined her, said that, but Sioden knew the truth.

Iella’s sickness was because of him.

She always suffered a fever, large or small, after encountering him. Previously, Sioden had blamed her illnesses on things other than himself. The weather was cold. She was frail, and someone who had lived elsewhere all their life couldn’t adapt to the North overnight.

He believed this because if something else was the cause, he could simply fix it.

Yet, looking back, he was the problem all along.

There was a wound between them. Trying to find another cause in a situation where the distinction between perpetrator and victim was clear was simply absurd.

As if mocking his belated realization, Iella, whom he hadn’t seen for over two weeks, looked much brighter than before.

As though his very presence had been making her ill all this time.

Not receiving a response made Iella nervous, and she glanced at him nervously.

“I, my words…”

“I heard you.”

I wasn’t ignoring you; I was deep in thought. I apologize. Explaining his state in an uninflected tone, Sioden chose an answer that would bother her as little as possible.

“I have been well.”

The words, which had felt like broken glass in his mouth right before he spoke them, sounded quite composed once released into the air.

Perhaps it was the right choice, as the woman’s complexion eased slightly. She spoke in a much more natural voice.

“You said to tell you if there was anything I wanted. So, there is something I’d like to ask…”

Iella trailed off. Her round, pale green eyes made a small arc once again.

The words she was hesitating to speak now were probably the reason she had come out to see him.

What could the woman, who had been avoiding him all this time, desire so desperately that she would endure his presence?

Whatever Iella wanted would inevitably be contrary to all of his own wishes.

Knowing this fact, Sioden still nodded.

“Tell me.”

Since she was a woman whose pleas he had never once granted, he could not refuse anything she might ask for now.