Chapter 10

Click. I opened my eyes at the small sound of the door opening. Who at this hour! On guard, I glanced outside the window.

In the still-dark yard, Annette was quietly loosening the saddle of her bicycle.

She moved so carefully that I almost felt sorry for watching her now. I checked the clock. It wasn’t even 6 o’clock yet.

‘She’s leaving at this hour. What do I have to do with a woman who runs away over something like that….’

Eliott let out a hollow laugh, placing one arm over his forehead.

The more he thought about it, the more absurd and amusing it seemed. Eliott reflected on his mistake from the night before and fell back asleep.

It was nearly noon when Eliott opened his eyes again. He had slept in soundly for the first time in a long while.

Eliott enjoyed the languid and relaxed moment. Truly, in this moment, he couldn’t recall a bit of the near-death experiences or the suffering of the past.

After taking his time for a while, Eliott got up.

Annette was not in the living room. He looked into the bathroom and outside, but there was no sign of Annette.

He went outside and looked around the house. There was no trace of Annette anywhere.

‘Did she leave at that hour and still not return?’

Giving up on finding Annette, he came back inside and sat blankly at the table.

‘It feels empty.’

Annette wasn’t there. Looking back, there hadn’t been a day in the past few days when Annette wasn’t in this house.

He frowned slightly at the unfamiliar emptiness. Then, his eyes caught a note on the table.

—

—I’m going to work starting today.

Coffee is in the second compartment of the cabinet, and your meal is on the table, so just heat it up a little. Don’t forget to take your medicine.

—

‘So that’s it.’

He held the note in his hand and stared at it for a long time.

‘After committing such an atrocity last night, she ran away quite neatly.’

He pictured Annette in the early morning, writing this note with a flushed face.

Sitting leisurely, he drank his coffee and naturally recalled the previous night.

—

***

—

He had kept making pointless jokes because her reaction of blushing at such obvious lines was amusing.

She seemed quite dense, but her pretending to be sensitive was also amusing because he could see through it.

However, last night, looking at her moist eyes that contradicted her denying tone, his mind suddenly changed.

Sitting on the floor with pleading eyes.

Was she begging to be saved, or to be killed?

“Um… I think I should be going now….”

After luring him in with those moist eyes, she said she was leaving.

‘That’s absurd.’

Looking at Annette in his hands, he cheerfully revoked his decision from the other day not to lay a hand on an innocent country girl.

‘If she wants it, I’m happy to oblige.’

He covered the lips of Annette, who was looking at him with earnest eyes. He saw her beautiful blue eyes widen greatly. Her body, which had been trembling slightly, stiffened completely.

‘Close your eyes, Annette.’

He commanded with his eyes. That’s when it happened.

“Hiccup.”

Annette’s eyes grew even wider. Her face, pitifully reddened, she clamped her hands over her own mouth.

“Oh my… Ah… What do I do? Hiccup.”

At a loss, flustered, Annette eventually ran out to the living room.

Eliott sat dazedly on the edge of the bed. He was just as flustered.

‘What in the world….’

Is she this much of a naive fool? Eliott let out a hollow laugh.

But soon, Eliott stopped laughing and collected his thoughts.

He had thought she was just a small-town girl. She was small in stature and looked young, so at first he wondered if she was around sixteen or seventeen.

After observing her for a few days, she seemed a bit older than that, but he still just thought of her as an ordinary country girl.

When he realized she lived alone in this remote place where passersby were rare even all day long, he naturally assumed there must be some reason.

For example, there are those women who occasionally come with money to spend the night for fun. Of course, he hadn’t found any traces of that in the house.

Even in the Empire, there were women with innocent faces. Women who used their delicate faces and expressions to act perfectly and drag men into the mud.

He thought this woman could be one of them.

But the woman he observed over the past few days was a little different. She was smarter and more endearing than he expected.

And now, Eliott was reflecting on his own overconfidence. He thought she was naive, but he never expected it to be this bad.

He has no intention whatsoever of getting close to a woman for whom even a single kiss becomes such a major event. He didn’t want to feel an inexplicable sense of guilt.

The fun ends here.

—

***

—

Even after doing so much, it was still only 8 o’clock.

The nun, who had no sense of time, practically shoved him out saying it was time to go, so he had no choice but to leave the convent.

Reluctantly heading home, he remembered Karen’s words, who had said she would go home with him.

‘Right, let’s bring Karen home. Then it’ll be less awkward, right?’

With a sense of relief, he turned his bicycle towards the shop where Karen worked.

But Karen had to work the night shift today. Karen, who had decided to work late after receiving Annette’s note earlier saying she was busy, seemed disappointed.

‘Should I call Karl?’

He quickly dismissed the thought. Asking Karl, who worked hard to save up for tuition and spent his nights holed up in the library studying, for such a trivial favor.

‘Why does this road home feel so short today, of all days?’

Passing the riverside, which seemed shorter than usual, the house came into view not far away.

Seeing that it was completely dark, it seemed Eliott had fallen asleep. Thinking it was a relief, he arrived home.

He locked the bicycle and gently opened the door. Then he went inside.

Standing in the pitch-black living room, he looked towards the bedroom door.

‘He’s probably asleep. Good….’

He stood in front of the bedroom door, staring at it for a long while. He was about to turn the doorknob but changed his mind. Then, he fumbled for the wall and turned on the light.

“Kyaa!”

As he turned his head, Eliott was sitting on the sofa across from him. Startled, Annette nearly collapsed on the spot.

“You’re late.”

Having always seen him either sitting on the bed in his room or on the dining chair, it hadn’t occurred to her that Eliott would be sitting on the sofa.

“Ah… I went out to work for the first time in a while, so there was a lot of backlog.”

Annette stammered, calming her startled heart.

‘Was he sitting there, watching me the whole time? In the dark?’ Recalling her own pacing in front of the bedroom door, Annette felt a little wronged. And the sight of that man watching her do it.

“Have you eaten? And your medicine….”

“I ate, everything.”

Annette pondered for a moment what to say to break this awkward atmosphere.

Just then, Eliott stood up. Annette flinched.

Looking at the large Eliott anew, Annette was impressed.

The handsome Eliott approached her.

But Eliott passed by her and headed straight for the bedroom door.

Watching Annette let out a sigh of relief—or perhaps disappointment—Eliott spoke.

“You’re late. Get some rest.”

“Huh?”

“Goodnight, Annette.”

‘Eliott… I thought he’d at least make a joke.’

“Ah… Yes. Goodnight, Eliott.”

Unlike yesterday, Eliott seemed somehow cold.

Just as he was about to close the door, Eliott spoke.

“Annette. You’ll be able to sleep comfortably soon. I’ll be leaving shortly.”

For a moment, Annette stood frozen.

“Ah… Yes….”

‘Suddenly?’

She wanted to follow him in and ask what was wrong, but for some reason she hesitated. It was because of his cold expression from just a moment ago.

Feeling strangely empty, Annette sat blankly on the sofa where Eliott had been, for a long time.