Chapter 5
Mealtime came again, as usual.
Lirete sat perched on the bed, rolling her eyes for a long while. Normally, her meals were brought to her on the bed, but today, a new ebony table had been brought in, and a lavish full course was being laid out.
Even as two chairs were placed alongside the fragrant food, she strained to deny reality.
But moments later, with the man who appeared through the door, the last shred of hope shattered into pieces.
“You look ready to sit there and stay up all night.”
Unlike Lirete, who had frozen in place unable to take any action, Valderion entered calmly and sat down in the prepared chair. His mocking tone tapped lightly against her dazed, stiffened mind.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Do you not see?”
Valderion answered unhurriedly as he washed his hands in the prepared finger bowl.
“I came to eat.”
That much was obvious from his attitude alone.
That wasn’t what Lirete was asking. And the man likely knew that well.
“Why?”
“Does eating require a reason?”
“If it’s with you, I can’t help but ask.”
Drying his washed hands on a silk towel, Valderion chuckled.
“It’s just a meal.”
“……”
“It’s not something to take so seriously, is it?”
After lightly wetting his throat with the pre-dinner aperitif, Valderion leaned back in his chair and met her eyes.
“More to the point, how long do I have to wait?”
The direction of his gleaming golden eyes swept across the still-empty seat opposite her.
Lirete clenched her fists tightly. Her nails dug into her tender flesh. Even so, every nerve was trained on the man, so she barely felt the pain.
Valderion twitched an eyebrow as if urging her to join him.
Reluctantly, she rose and approached the table. The shackle around her ankle, adjusted to a length that allowed her to move away from the bed but never leave the bedroom, tightened like a noose.
The meal began amid a silence cracked with tension.
Holding her breath, Lirete moved her cutlery, cut the food, and brought it to her lips.
Normally, she could at least taste the food, but today was different. Simply because she had a dining companion, it was astringent and dry, as if eating sand. Of course, that had less to do with having company and more to do with *who* that company was.
Valderion ate with an elegant posture while steadily watching the opposite side. Occasionally, his gaze flicked to Lirete’s fingertips, which clumsily gripped the cutlery.
“Your hands are still stiff.”
“……”
“I haven’t flipped up your skirt, but I imagine your legs are the same.”
Valderion set down the knife he had been holding. It clinked against the smooth glass tableware, producing a sharp scraping sound.
At that moment, Lirete flinched.
Valderion’s pupils caught the movement and sharpened.
“And yet you still haven’t stopped that nonsense.”
His displeased tone scraped against her ears.
The man’s gaze, which had clearly been directed at her, had now shifted to a corner of the bedroom.
There, the tapestry bearing the proud emblem of House Justutia lay crumpled and tattered. Combined with the report he had heard with his own ears, this was the tenth time it had happened, counting today.
“Don’t you get tired of it?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“I’m also unfortunate.”
The blade of the knife in Valderion’s hand glinted fiercely.
His gestures were aristocratic and refined, yet the appetizing piece of meat before him was being hacked into an unappetizing mess.
“You seem to have a great deal of regret toward me.”
“……”
“That’s the look you have. Every time we face each other, you look as if you’re standing before something filthy, wretched, and hideous.”
But that wasn’t all.
The reason was somewhat more profound.
The crux of it was that he was a scion of the bloodline of *Justutia*.
Since he was the one who had stained her glorious past with a hideous, bloody hue, it was only natural that resentment should dwell within her.
“If I might offer one piece of advice: dwelling too much on the past isn’t good for you.”
Without putting the hacked meat into his mouth, Valderion set down his cutlery and raised his glass to wet his throat. At those words, Lirete’s appetite, which had already been scraping the floor, plummeted straight to the depths of the earth.
*Dwelling too much on the past isn’t good for you……*
That was certainly true. Nevertheless, how one received those words depended entirely on who was speaking them.
At the very least—
At the very least, it was not a message she wished to hear from the very person who had devastated her family on the orders of the Imperial Family.
“……”
Lirete slowly steadied her breathing.
Was it the influence of the Name?
Whenever she faced the man’s golden eyes—like gathered golden sand rolled into perfect spheres—her stiff, useless finger joints ached.
Instead of her uncooperative fingers, she gripped the tablecloth that hung down to her knees with what little she could still move.
What happened next was instantaneous.
*Crash—!*
The plates and glasses neatly arranged on the table toppled in chaos. Lirete’s action of yanking the tablecloth turned the cozy dinner into a shambles in an instant.
After the blink-of-an-eye disaster, the only thing left intact was the glass still in Valderion’s hand.
His golden eyes, excessively brilliant yet habitually indifferent by nature, quietly surveyed the wreckage.
Lirete faced him with a brazen face that showed no hint of being the one who had caused it.
After a moment, a crack appeared between Valderion’s brows.
It was a rare flicker of emotion from a man who was consistently dry and unflappable within his own space and domain.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“You asked what reason one needs to eat a meal. I feel the same way.”
“……”
“There’s no need for a grand reason not to feel like eating.”
A cold sneer touched the corner of Valderion’s lips. The sight of her using his own words as a shield was laughable.
The atmosphere in the bedroom froze instantly.
The two of them, having conjured this chilling air, refused to be the first to break eye contact. It felt as if they were standing on a sheet of ice that would crack and split with a single misstep.
Lirete had to tense her entire body to keep the cold chill of nervousness from showing in her fingertips.
“No matter how many years you’ve spent in degradation…… surely you still have memories of your childhood, when you lived as a noble.”
“……”
“Do you truly believe that because Dailun treated you like livestock, you’ve actually become such a creature?”
Having pointed out her attitude without reservation, Valderion reached the glass still in his hand out into the air.
One by one, his upright fingers—bluntly expressing his unyielding nature—opened.
The long, transparent glass willingly fell toward the floor, now a muddy mess of broken dish shards and filthy food debris.
*Crash!*
The belated shattering sound was incomparable to the earlier one, yet oddly, it lodged more clearly in her ears.
“At this rate, we can’t continue the meal. Wouldn’t you agree?”
As he rose to his full, massive height, the spacious bedroom suddenly felt crowded. Though he had merely stood up from sitting, a strange pressure weighed down the air.
Valderion stood still, looking down at Lirete.
Perhaps finding it far more comfortable to gaze down from above than to meet her eyes straight across from each other, he held her gaze for an unusually long time.
Then he curled the corners of his lips.
“I’m not a very patient man.”
“……”
“If you do this again next time, it won’t be amusing.”
Unlike his smiling face, Lirete’s own could only stiffen rigidly.
*Next time?*
Did that mean today wasn’t the end?
Surely not……
Watching his retreating back, Lirete desperately hoped that this, too, was merely a groundless fear.
But true to his word, the man came to her bedroom consistently from the following day onward.
The time they spent together was unchanging.
Food for two would be laid out, and they would sit through the meal, creating an atmosphere more suited to a funeral.
Lirete felt that he was using this time to observe her.
There was a certain logic to it.
In the world of nobles, mealtimes spent face-to-face were occasions equivalent to reconnaissance. Indeed, after learning to speak and read, the next thing a noble child learned was table manners.
A situation where one satisfied one’s own needs while simultaneously being observed by others served as a kind of judgment platform, suitably used to assess a person’s character.
Of course, Valderion was likely not observing her for reasons of friendship or social intercourse.
His gaze still frequently lingered on her hands.
It would be more accurate to say he was showing concern for the condition of the girl who had suddenly found herself bearing his name.
Valderion savored a piece of cut food, then tapped the glass beside him lightly with his fork.
After the friction, a ringing sound similar to a shattering note echoed through the room. Following this sudden action, Lirete flinched as if burned.
He narrowed his eyes.
As Lirete had guessed, Valderion was using these mealtimes to examine her in considerable detail.
The woman was excessively sensitive in certain respects.
Her hearing, for instance.
Even the clear sound of the silver knife tapping against a glass made her startle frequently.
At first, it had been a minor mistake.
But the hypersensitive reaction he had discovered through that mistake was both fascinating and baffling, so occasionally Valderion would deliberately aim for and strike the glass like this.
Not only in such cases, but when he suddenly flung the door open without warning, her small, frail body would also frequently tremble as if struck by lightning.
It was almost as if she expected someone to devour her.
