Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: The Lion Pendant's Secret
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“Marriage proposal? You mean, like, um, marriage?”
“We’ll get married, right? It’s a promise to marry. I propose to you, and you accept.”
“Then we become husband and wife? We can live together?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I like it!”
Rubette accepted readily, and the boy laughed for a good while, finding her amusing.
“Then since we’ve made the promise, we’ll part ways here for today, even if it’s a shame.”
“Ung…….”
Rubette understood the boy’s intentions to console her, so she didn’t trouble him further and took her reluctant steps away.
That day, when Rubette returned home, she got scolded by Molga, who was pretending to worry while shedding crocodile tears, and by her eldest brother Viego, who was thoroughly furious, but she wasn’t too upset.
As long as she could meet that kind boy again……
She felt like everything would be fine.
* * *
Tick.
The brass pendant carved in the shape of a lion.
The moment I returned home, I took out the precious item I’d stored in my accessory box and opened it.
Inside the pendant’s small compartment was the powder made from the dried rose the boy had given me.
“Hmm…….”
I gazed at it quietly.
How many thoughts had raced through my mind while running laps around the training grounds with Lark?
Even now at home, I kept replaying that night from the festival seven years ago.
“That lion mask…….”
It was Cedric Raizer.
‘That’s why I fell in love with Cedric for life because of what happened that day.’
At eight years old, Rubette lay in bed, lovesick, thinking only of ‘Who was that oppa?’
‘He was obviously from a high status, easy enough to guess.’
So, probably one of the young lords around the same age?
Just as I was suspecting, Cedric appeared before me. And by coincidence, I learned his circumstances.
For some reason, he’d been severely scolded by his father and confined, unable to enjoy the festival……
‘The lion mask too. He said it was hard to give his name because he’d snuck out without his father knowing.’
The young Rubette took that as proof and became convinced the lion mask was Cedric.
You ask why I was so sure they were the same person based on such flimsy evidence?
“Because the one who helped me that day wearing the lion mask—it was you, right, Young Duke Cedric?”
Of course. I went straight to Cedric and brought up that day, and heard his answer.
“It was really thoughtful of you back then. You safely escorted me home without spreading rumors that I’d gotten lost, and…… you even played with me.”
“Ahh……. Um, I see.”
“I, I like you! I’ve fallen for you! Please accept this!”
The day I mustered my courage and went to Cedric.
When Rubette boldly confessed and gifted him an expensive cravat, Cedric responded,
“Haha, you caught me. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”
“O-of course!”
He had definitely nodded.
Tick.
I closed the open pendant and slowly tilted my head back.
And the moment I closed my eyes tightly.
Memories of Cedric, who I’d been hopelessly entangled with my whole life, flashed by like a montage.
“From then on, I followed him around persistently.”
Strangely, unlike our first meeting, Cedric wasn’t kind.
‘In the end, every time I tried to give up on liking Cedric out of exhaustion, I failed spectacularly. Failed. Failed again.’
Whenever Rubette’s interest waned, Cedric would flirt subtly, like tossing a scrap of bread to a beast starved for days.
“You know how I feel, right?”
“I missed you.”
“Do you still like me?”
Cedric’s gentle eye smiles and voice were like rain to Rubette’s weary heart.
As time passed, Cedric showed more interest in Lilia and even joined the twins in their rotten bullying……
“But what about those memories.”
Rubette, unable to forget that festival night, always softened toward him.
Cedric was the first person to treat the neglected outcast kindly.
Even when she wailed and threw tantrums, he didn’t get angry and soothed her.
He even promised that they’d marry someday and live together.
“Wah…….”
Rubette had believed ironclad for all forty-five years of her life that the lion mask from that day was Cedric.
“What if it wasn’t…….”
“What are you mumbling about since earlier?”
Wishit, sprawled leisurely on my bed, asked.
“Wishit, why is my life surrounded by so much trash? Is this my fate or something?”
“Nothing new there.”
“True.”
I chuckled, sat up straight, and hung the pendant around my neck.
“Even if just to make up for the lifetime wasted pining after a trash heap without meeting any decent man, please.”
My grip tightened on the pendant.
“I hope you weren’t mistaken, Rubette.”
* * *
The next day.
Lark readily agreed to my request to exercise together again tomorrow.
I knew well how piled up his work was even after leaving the palace……
‘Needlessly kind, just like the lion mask.’
I swallowed a hollow laugh and said after running for a while.
“Your Highness.”
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t you married at this age?”
“Huh?”
Lark tilted his head and looked at me.
He was nineteen.
In the world I originally lived in, he might still be an underage kid, but this was different. Especially for a royal, and the Crown Prince at that.
Imperial Law considered sixteen adulthood, so at nineteen, Lark could have been married with one or two kids already.
“Usually, imperial heirs marry around sixteen. They’re even engaged by twelve or thirteen.”
“Yeah.”
“But why haven’t you taken a wife yet, Your Highness? The council nobles must have nagged you endlessly.”
“Suddenly curious about that?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, well…….”
Lark pondered, then shrugged.
“I was just being cautious since I can’t take just anyone as a wife.”
“Aha. So you were mulling it over and thought of proposing to me? Since I’m a daughter of the Diorus Ducal House, close in age, it’d be helpful to have me as Crown Princess?”
Lark paused, then smiled apologetically.
“No, well……. If I had to give a reason, sure, but saying it outright like that makes me feel bad.”
“No other reason besides that?”
“Huh?”
I stopped running, and Lark naturally stopped with me.
In front of Lark’s puzzled expression, I pulled the pendant from around my neck out from under my clothes.
“Hmm…….”
Lark narrowed his eyes at it, paused in surprise, then chuckled softly.
“Cute, right? This lion pendant.”
“Yeah, it is. Who gave it to you? They’ve got great taste.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha……!”
“Hahaha!”
Just from Lark’s playful smile, I was certain he recognized the pendant.
My heart burned and cooled at once as I laughed along with him.
‘He hadn’t married at nineteen—could it be because of that playful promise to marry from that day?’
Before I knew, I’d misunderstood Lark’s deliberate approaches……
Now that I did, my feelings were all jumbled up.
“Who gave it to me? Young Duke Cedric Raizer.”
When I said it with a bright smile, Lark staggered, his large frame swaying.
He furrowed his brow sharply and asked.
“Who gave it to you?”
“Young Duke Cedric Raizer.”
“……No?”
“It was him. Seven years ago, at the National Holiday mask festival.”
Lark’s lips parted slowly in disbelief, trembling. His face screamed that he was the one who gave it.
“I’d gotten lost then and met Young Duke Cedric in a mask.”
“No, wait. Duchess, about that—”
“Listen to the end. That day, Young Duke Cedric showed the crying, lost me around the festival, bought me this pendant, and.”
Heat rising, I closed my eyes tightly, steadied my breath, and continued.
“He told me he’d come propose later since I didn’t want to part. That we could live together once married.”
“S-so that’s—”
“It was Young Duke Cedric. I asked him directly.”
“What? Cedric Raizer said the lion mask that day was him?”
“Haha, lion mask? I only said he wore a mask, not that it was a lion one?”
To the flinching Lark, I gritted my teeth and flashed a brilliant smile.
“You heard from Brother Victor that I’ve been in love with Young Duke Cedric for seven years, right?”
“Wait. Don’t tell me…….”
Lark squeezed his eyes shut and clutched his furrowed brow.
“Yes, exactly!”
Unable to hold back my surging emotions, I yelled and took a step toward Lark.
“That day, I fell for the idiot in the lion mask—Cedric!”
“Ah…….”
“My time! My pure heart!”
It was so infuriating to realize I’d spent my life agonizing over the wrong trash that tears welled up.
Thud. I weakly punched toward Lark’s chest, and he stiffened.
“What are you going to do about it? You should’ve come sooner or at least told me later.”
“…….”
“I didn’t know it was you, Your Highness, all this time…….”
Agh, so unfair.
I bit my trembling lip and forced out the words.
“Seven whole years! Following Cedric Raizer around, and I nearly would’ve for life! Until death!”
Lark seemed quite flustered, gently holding my hand against his chest and falling into a dazed silence.