Chapter 64
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 64
What if I didn’t hate what happened yesterday?
What if I…
The pain had stirred so deep inside her that she’d forgotten her own shame. The hot, wet sensation that persistently teased the tips of her breasts—a place she had never even consciously touched with her own hands. All of it was so secret, so private…
Suddenly, a memory surfaced: a night stroll with her master.
It was about a year before her Coming-of-Age Ceremony. Around that time, marriages were being arranged for her nieces and nephews of similar age, one after another. Her grandfather, his health already failing, would sometimes visit, gaze at her in silence, and then leave. She knew he felt a deep, unspoken apology for her own marriage, one that could never be.
An apology? There was no reason for him to feel that way. Wasn’t this simply her fate? Seo-ah was only ever worried about his health.
The only time her thoughts had lingered on the concept of marriage, even for a moment, was the evening she saw two lovers standing beneath a moonlit willow tree.
Bathed in the pale moonlight, they had gazed at each other, smiles so tender it made her own heart flutter just to watch. In that shared silence, they had drawn closer with the utmost care.
They were like slender willow branches swaying in the moonlight. As if fearing a single touch might cause pain, or worse, drive them apart, they had leaned into each other ever so gently, then stilled.
She remembered thinking that to never marry meant a scene like that would never be a part of her life.
The reason she recalled those two lovers now—who had cherished each other so deeply they seemed at a loss for what to do—was likely because they were the only example of romance she had ever witnessed.
She loathed herself for trying to exploit someone else’s precious memory, but she had no other inspiration to draw from. For someone who had to do whatever it took, there was no other choice.
Like the lovers who had swayed beneath the willow branches that day…
Seo-ah stepped toward Oscar with painstaking care.
With the first step, his polished black shoes overlapped with her bare feet. With the next, the boundary between them collapsed entirely. The acrid smoke of his cigarette seeped into her trembling breath, followed by the warm, damp scent of wood that filled her nose.
A faint, mist-like warmth radiated from his body, like the vapor that hovers over ice. At this terrifyingly close distance, she didn’t dare look up at him.
She had only one wish.
Seo-ah closed her eyes and prayed.
Please, hold me…
As if fearing a touch might hurt, or that a touch might drive them apart—like a slender willow branch in a pale wind.
Seo-ah rested her cheek against Oscar’s chest, right over his heart.
The world narrowed once more. And in this shrunken world, time itself ground to a halt.
“……”
“……”
The frantic thumping in her ears was surely her own heart.
Thump, thump, thump.
What if he hears it?
But she couldn’t indulge in such foolish thoughts for long.
“Ha.”
A hot breath ruffled her hair. Every nerve in her body was so hyper-focused on him that she instinctively looked up.
He was staring at the ceiling.
She could see the blue veins pulsing in his tilted-back neck, his entire body rigid as if he were desperately holding something back.
Without warning, Oscar snapped his head down. Before she could even think to look away, her eyes locked with his cold, blue gaze. His expression was hard, almost furious.
“……!”
A freezing, biting gale swept through her from head to toe.
Was this what it felt like to stand before a deity in a temple one had dared to enter uninvited?
His vivid blue eyes seemed to burn with contempt, disillusionment, and mockery.
Cold sweat broke out where the icy wind had clawed at her skin. Seo-ah tried to take a step back. Or rather, she attempted to.
“Ah!”
Oscar mercilessly snatched her wrist as she tried to pull away. A freezing blue flame flickered in the depths of his eyes, and Seo-ah quickly looked down.
His gaze remained fixed on her downcast face with relentless intensity.
He glared, as if trying to pierce right through her, then finally placed a cigarette between his lips. Held between his long, straight fingers, the tip glowed red, releasing a curl of smoke.
For the first time in a long while, Oscar realized he couldn’t taste the tobacco. He felt neither the acrid smoke swirling in his lungs nor the sharp sting in his nose. He felt nothing at all.
Finally, he slowly rubbed his eyes with the hand holding the cigarette, pausing with his face half-covered.
“……”
In his grasp, he could feel her damnably slender wrist trembling violently.
Holding his breath, Oscar swept his hair back with his free hand. His gaze, which had been locked on Seo-ah a moment ago, drifted toward the empty air.
Her pitifully trembling hand, and the gentle touch of her cheek against his chest.
Which one was the truth?
Staring blankly at a point behind Seo-ah, he crushed his cigarette into the ashtray on the desk.
And then—
“…Your Excellency!”
The man who had been desperately restraining himself finally moved.
Gripping her arm, he strode forward, dragging her along behind him. One of his long strides equaled several of hers; she had to practically run to keep from falling.
Oscar headed toward the heavy curtains he had emerged from earlier. He yanked them aside, revealing a deeper darkness beyond. He stepped into the cold, damp chill without a second thought, but Seo-ah felt a jolt of terror. Still, she couldn’t stop.
The grip on her wrist was merciless, and the man pulling her kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. After passing through a long, cavernous corridor, they entered the bathroom where she had washed herself the night before. He dragged her through it and into his bedroom, which was just as pitch-black as it had been yesterday.
Outside the tightly drawn curtains, the rain poured down in a deafening torrent. Yet her own ragged breathing sounded louder than the storm, and the frantic pounding of her heart, which felt ready to burst, was louder still.
Seo-ah stared at his back, shrouded in shadows, her eyes trembling.
He suddenly came to a halt, plunging them into a terrifying silence. The dread tightening her chest seeped into her very bones. The moment she tried to wrench her arm free, Oscar spun to face her.
And, shattering the quiet restraint he had maintained until now…
“……!”
He lunged.
“Ah…”
It felt as if a mountain range were collapsing on top of her.
He cupped her face, tilting her head up, and slammed his lips against hers.
“Mmph!”
He crushed and devoured her lips before his tongue invaded her mouth without mercy, tangling deep with hers. It felt as though he were sucking the very breath from her lungs—as if her breath, her soul, everything was being drained away by this man whose blood ran cold.
His overwhelming strength bore down on her. Gripping her arm with one hand and cradling the back of her head with the other, Oscar seemed intent on quenching a burning thirst with her very essence. There was no trace of his usual playful probing, his relaxed mockery, or his dry laughter. There was only a raw, desperate hunger.
He pressed into her like a man determined to consume her lips and everything beyond them, or perhaps like someone whose mind had been hijacked by a single, all-consuming urge.
Or maybe, he was punishing her.
She was suffocating. Trying to breathe through her nose was useless. With their mouths locked so tightly, she couldn't draw in any air, forcing her to twist her head away with all her might.
“Ha… ah…”
She managed a ragged gasp, but Oscar gave her no respite. As his lips crashed onto hers again, her senses began to slip away. It felt like swallowing the ocean, like being buried alive under an avalanche.
“Ha… mmph…”
She tried to breathe through their parted teeth but could only catch fleeting, fractured gasps. Her mind grew hazy. The hyper-sensitivity that had kept her on edge was worn away, her bruised lips turning numb.
There was nothing she could do but desperately endure the onslaught. She could see nothing, hear nothing. She lost all sense of where they were going, or what would await them if they drifted away like this.
Suddenly, Oscar stopped. The moment his lips parted from hers, Seo-ah collapsed into a fit of ragged gasps.
Had she possessed even a shred of composure, she would have realized that the man who had driven her to the brink was in no better state.
Oscar stared down at her, his chest heaving.
His heart hammered against his ribs, his breath tearing from his lungs in time with its rhythm. And below his waist, he was harder than he had ever been. The sheer absurdity of it all left him speechless.
Seeing her flushed, disheveled face as she gasped for air sent a jolt of electricity from his lower abdomen straight to the crown of his head, completely bypassing his willpower.
Oscar felt a sudden, violent urge to rip his own head open and scramble his brains.
He had seen her in the carriage when he’d arrived at the estate. The moment he stepped down, she had peeked through the curtains, only to quickly hide herself again.
How ridiculous.