The House Is Empty. Stay the Night.
Yuria bit down hard on her lower lip, teeth grinding against the soft flesh.
She recalled the words he had spoken when he finally told her the truth.
You’ve been dead for six years.
Six years.
Six years of endless accidents and tragedies, year after year.
It was an unbearably long time. Anything could have happened in the six years since her death, and it would all make sense.
Even if Zach had lost everything and become penniless, she could have accepted it. Even if he had committed some heinous crime, she would have tried to understand.
But this… just this one thing.
This was unforgivable.
Remarrying behind her back?
The muscles around her eyes tightened. Her graceful gaze sharpened into a straight, cold line. Her teeth clacked together. Blood vessels burst across her eyes, turning them a furious red as tears poured down in streams.
She remembered everything—from their first love, their wedding, and the countless love confessions he had whispered to her even after marriage.
I will love only you for the rest of my life.
So what the hell was he babbling about now?
If you die, I’ll follow you.
Then why was he still alive?
These absurdly selfish thoughts stabbed into her brain like needles, and rage surged up like a tide.
You bastard.
A red flush crept across her snow-white skin. She forgot to exhale, only drawing in sharp, ragged breaths.
“Haa! Haa! Haaaaah!”
“Calm down.”
She almost laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. Calm down? She wanted to grab him by the collar and ask if he could possibly stay calm in her place.
This was even harder to believe than the fact that she had died and come back to life.
Zach had remarried after her death. It was utterly, unspeakably horrific.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
There was nothing she couldn’t understand. Zach was the eldest son of the Jeremiah family! Of course he needed an heir to pass the laboratory, the estate, and the fortune to!
But did it have to be his own child? Adopting a gentry-born relative as a son would have been one solution.
A storm raged inside her head. She questioned herself, then refuted her own answers. Alone, she nurtured her anger and resentment toward Zach, then alone she manufactured reasons to forgive him.
Her head felt like it would split open. So she gave up. For now, she would let it go.
Yuria forced a bright smile. The curve of her lips trembled with unshed tears. Embarrassed by how ridiculous she must look, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then pouted her lips in an exaggerated show of anger.
Thump! Thump!
She pounded her fists against his chest. To anyone watching, the exaggerated swings looked purely playful.
“That’s so unfair. When did you say there was only me? I feel like I heard you say you’d love only me forever at least a hundred times.”
“I’m sorry.”
Yuria spoke in a sharper tone than usual.
“You damn well should be sorry! How could you do that to me? It’s really too much. Too much.”
“I’m truly sorry.”
Zach swallowed back the many excuses that rose in his mind. After Yuria’s death, he had been little more than a corpse. From his relatives’ perspective, he had lost all ability to manage the estate or the laboratory.
It had happened because he lost his wife, so they decided bringing in a new one would fix things. After weighing various conditions and circumstances, they had chosen Evelyn.
Nothing else mattered. But he had wanted to at least keep his loyalty to Yuria. In the end, he had given up even that.
The pressure from his family and relatives had simply been too overwhelming.
If he wanted to, he could have poured out a waterfall of justifications to Yuria.
Yet he didn’t.
He simply tried to accept her anger.
After all, wasn’t she trying so hard too? Zach looked down at Yuria.
She was desperately smoothing out her twisted expression, forcing her bared teeth back behind her lips, and lifting the corners of her mouth in a strained smile.
In her heart she probably wanted to punch him square in the face, yet here she was, playfully thumping his chest instead.
So he would accept it.
He caught both of her small fists that kept striking him, pulled her into his arms, and held her still. In that embrace, they both gathered their scattered emotions.
They acknowledged that what had already happened could not be undone.
About ten minutes later, Yuria seemed to have calmed down. Her voice came out hoarse.
“So who is it? Who did you marry? Do I know her?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Evelyn.”
“Ah.”
Yuria and I had been classmates at the magic academy. Evelyn had entered right after us as a junior.
She had been famous. She was the first commoner to graduate at the top of her class in the academy’s history, and at the same time, she had absolutely no tact whatsoever.
The school preached meritocracy and equality of status, but it was all just empty words. Evelyn, however, had taken it literally. She showed no courtesy to her seniors and no respect to nobles, which made her the school pariah that everyone avoided.
Everyone hated Evelyn, and Yuria was no exception.
“Why her of all people?”
“It was a matter of conditions.”
Yuria let out a long sigh and shook her head. She seemed to want to drop the subject, but then immediately continued.
“Never mind that. What am I supposed to do now? Should I go to the town hall and tell them I’ve been resurrected? Will they ask me to prove my identity?”
“No. Let’s leave it alone for now. It’s dangerous.”
“Is the Church still going around hunting witches like before?”
“Yes. So don’t tell anyone about this, no matter where you go.”
“Then what about tonight? Where am I supposed to sleep? At least lend me some money for an inn.”
Her words brought back the conversation he had with Evelyn that morning.
She had said she was leaving on a business trip starting today.
Even if she went to an inn, finding a decent one would be difficult. And it was already winter—the season when freezing winds cut like blades. A poorly heated inn room would be miserable in every way.
Besides, judging by her appearance, she needed a bath at the very least. Would a place like that even have properly hot water?
So he said it.
“The house is empty tonight. Stay the night.”
Yuria and I had dated for a truly long time. We only started living together after marriage, so that part had been short, but we had spent countless nights together in the same place.
But that was all from years ago.
Even now, I still dreamed of making love to Yuria instead of Evelyn. Naturally, leading her into the house made my heart race with a mixture of tension and anxiety.
Yuria was different. She was completely natural about it. As if it had always been this way, she took my hand and leaned her body against mine.
Standing in front of the mansion, she said,
“Wow. Nice house. You’ve done well for yourself.”
“Done well? I just inherited it.”
“Whatever! Oh, I want to wash up.”
I led Yuria to the bathroom and handed her a robe.
In my heart, I wanted to give her a few of Evelyn’s clothes, but I held back. Evelyn was extremely territorial about her things. If anyone touched them, she would throw a fit, and she had an almost supernatural ability to spot any evidence.
While Yuria was in the bathroom, I prepared various things with a smile on my face.
After Yuria died, I had forgotten all the small joys in life.
I had once lived on alcohol, but I realized how meaningless it was and quit drinking. Eating became nothing more than a means of survival, and I lost all interest in the taste of food.
The music I had loved since childhood, and even the pieces everyone praised as beautiful, had all become nothing but noise to me.
But perhaps because I had met Yuria again today?
The desires I thought had died were stretching and waking up once more. I took out one of the wines Evelyn enjoyed, pulled the cork, and poured it into the glasses we had used a few times during our honeymoon before abandoning them.
I prepared some snacks, and the gramophone began playing the music I had loved as a child. Why had I forgotten about all of this?
As I savored the feeling of having returned to the past, Yuria came out of the bathroom. She looked completely different from the ragged figure at the graveyard. Her dust-covered hair now gleamed with luster, and her damp skin took my breath away.
The glimpse of bare skin between the folds of the robe was nothing special, yet my body reacted immediately.
“Whoa, what is all this!”
“Let’s eat together.”
“I thought you said you didn’t drink anymore? You’ve changed with age. You’ve changed.”
“It’s because I’m with you. It’s been over five years since I last drank.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Hahaha…”
Laughing with Yuria, I felt drowsiness creep over me. It wasn’t that the time with her was boring. I had suffered from insomnia for a long time, my nerves always on edge, but I had never felt this comfortable before.
“Sleepy? Should we call it a night?”
The casual way she said we would sleep together instantly chased away all my sleepiness.
I was about to clear the table and agree when—
Click. Click. Click.
The sound of the security artifacts being disarmed made me freeze. Goosebumps rose across my skin. My pupils dilated. My breathing quickened.
Evelyn had definitely said she was leaving on a business trip today. So why were the locks opening?
I tried to convince myself it couldn’t be, but one security device after another kept unlocking.
“Looks like she’s here!”
Strangely, Yuria moved first. She quickly hid one wine glass under the bed and slipped straight under the covers.
The bedroom door opened immediately after.
“The business trip was suddenly canceled. They said a gate opened on the kingdom’s side and caused problems.”
Evelyn entered with slumped shoulders, clearly exhausted.
Normally she wouldn’t even come near my room. We would exchange a few words in the living room and then treat each other like we didn’t exist. So why now?
“But what’s going on? You brought out all the alcohol? And snacks too? You never do this.”
“I just… suddenly felt like it.”
“Then should I join you for a glass?”
“What?”
At my stiff reaction, Evelyn let out a small snort and shook her head. Her jet-black hair swayed with the motion.
“I’m joking. Why do you look so startled? I’m tired too, not just you. I’m going to bed soon, so you should wrap it up too. You have work tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
Evelyn closed the door and left.
I was just beginning to feel relieved when—
Bang!
She suddenly yanked the door open again, strode straight up to me, and said,
“Do I really look that pathetic to you? That you’d pull shit like this.”
Evelyn ripped the blanket off in one motion. Yuria’s wide, startled eyes met Evelyn’s gaze head-on.