Contract Dating (5)
The moment Amelia pulled me into the nearby Rosemary Hotel, I found myself following her into a waiting room. One look at the interior was enough to tell me this was a space far beyond anything my ordinary life could have imagined.
A chandelier hung from the ceiling. Glassware and liquor bottles decorated the shelves — bottles whose names I couldn't even read, whose contents I couldn't begin to identify. All I could dimly grasp was that each and every one of them must have cost a fortune.
"What the hell happened?"
Kang Areum asked, having calmed down a little now that Amelia had vanished on some errand. Even if she wanted to know what had happened, there wasn't much I could tell her. I barely understood any of it myself.
Amelia had confessed to me out of nowhere. I'd turned her down at first — except it hadn't been a confession at all, but a contract proposal. Blinded by what was essentially a monthly salary dressed up as an allowance, I'd accepted. Contract Dating. That was more or less the whole story. Strip out the part about the contract, and I had almost nothing left to say. And I didn't really need to say much anyway.
"I got confessed to."
I'd been confessed to. Me. By Amelia Rosemary. Dead last at the Academy, with no family name to my name — confessed to by the Academy's valedictorian, Amelia of the Rosemary magic house. There was no story less realistic than that. I didn't need to explain a thing.
"You received one? You didn't give one?"
I don't get it either.
Why she'd confessed to me of all people. What that reason she couldn't tell me was supposed to be. If I said any of that out loud, I'd have no answer for the question that would inevitably follow — If you don't even understand it, why did you accept? — so I kept my mouth shut.
"......"
Silence settled over the waiting room. Kang Areum seemed to use the stretch of it to gather her thoughts; when she looked at me again, her eyes had gone flat and cold.
"You two looked close."
"What?"
"How long have you known each other?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
The words that came out of her mouth were ones I hadn't even imagined.
How long have we known each other?
Kang Areum was suspicious of me. As if I'd been cheating on her before we'd even broken up.
"Are you accusing me right now?"
It was the kind of line that usually came from the woman in a crime-of-passion drama. And yet here it was, coming out of my mouth. Sure, it happened to plenty of guys... I'd just never imagined I'd be one of them. I'd never had a reason to. Our — no, my grades had been the problem, but even so, I'd thought we were happy.
"Yeah. I am. There's no way you'd get confessed to and start dating the second we break up. No — I don't even believe you got confessed to."
My head hurts...
Kang Areum quietly tore into me, as if she'd decided not to believe a single word I said. My skull throbbed at the sight of her. I'd known this was going to be a headache, but I hadn't expected it to go quite like this. All I'd wished for was that, someday, when this contract dating reached its end, we might be able to meet again.
"How long have you been cheating?"
And now she'd decided it as fact. If she'd just think for a second, she'd easily see how wrong she was.
"Areum. Kang Areum. The other person is Amelia. Amelia Rosemary. Rosemary."
The words I finally managed to squeeze out were thick with grievance. It wasn't an act. I genuinely felt wronged, and I was still reeling. Too much had happened in a span of time that hadn't even reached twenty-four hours.
"And yet you're calling her by her first name? The daughter of a great house?"
"That's..."
Because she told me to...
No. That was something I couldn't explain my way out of. If I said she told me to call her by her name, the answer I'd get back would be something like, Oh, she told you to, so you just went ahead and did it, huh? Everything that followed would look like nothing more than me making excuses for myself.
"And contacting her the second we broke up to tell her we'd split — if that isn't cheating, what is it?"
"What?"
I contacted her to say we'd broken up?
I'd contacted Amelia? I couldn't make sense of that at all. Hadn't the news of our breakup already spread through the community by then?
"I stepped out to take care of something, and I come back to an atmosphere far more hostile than I expected."
That was when it happened. Amelia, who had disappeared, had returned. Her entrance did not... thaw the chaotic, ice-cold air in the room. Still, at the very least, we could clear up Kang Areum's misunderstanding.
"I happened to overhear. You were saying Yeonho had been unfaithful."
"......"
Kang Areum held her silence. Amelia went on.
"Yeonho and I first met that evening. And the confession, too — I was the one who approached him. I was the one who confessed."
"But that doesn't make any sense! I mean, yeah, Yeonho's good-looking, but a Rosemary...?!"
There wasn't a single thing wrong with what she'd said. The daughter of a great house and the Academy's nobody, dead last in the rankings. It was only natural that no one could even imagine the two of them together.
"Is a Rosemary not permitted to fall in love?"
"That's—"
"Because I am a Rosemary — because I am the daughter of a great house — do you believe a fated meeting, a fated love, is something I am not allowed to have?"
"That's... no."
The words wouldn't come. Kang Areum sat with her mouth open for a long moment before she finally managed to speak. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn't. It was something she must not deny.
"I invited you here because you were Yeonho's former lover. But looking at this, it seems things did not end well between you."
The cold words filled the room. Kang Areum's lips worked a few times. Then she lowered her head, glanced at me once, and walked out. The sight of her back as she left was unbearably bitter. I wanted nothing more than to go after her and stop her — but I couldn't. The lady of the house had already issued her dismissal. And I, too, thought it was right that we take a little time.
It was a reality hard to accept. I hadn't even fully accepted it myself — how much worse must it have been for Kang Areum? I would have to wait for the day we met again, hoping she could come to terms with the situation, and that the misunderstanding might ease, even a little.
"Well. That turned out rather awkwardly. I'd originally hoped we might go on a date after class."
"A date?"
"Well, of course. It was all so terribly sudden, wasn't it? I thought we might get to know each other a little — and shake off some of the exam stress while we were at it."
What a bother this has become. The quiet words that followed didn't sound like resentment over a ruined date so much as something almost... relieved. I couldn't quite say why.
"Still, we can hardly part ways like this. You should at least stay for a meal."
I wasn't particularly in the mood to eat, but I wasn't in a position to refuse, either. I couldn't let my own mood ruin Amelia's as well.
Amelia picked up the small yellow bell beside her seat and gave it two shakes.
Dong. Dong.
The sound that rang out was far too deep and resonant to have come from a bell that small. A moment later the door opened, and a woman in a formal suit stepped inside.
"You called, my lady?"
"Have dinner prepared."
So Amelia didn't use honorifics with the help, either. Then again, speaking politely to a servant would only put the servant in an awkward position. If I were the one in service, I'd be grateful, sure — but the discomfort would outweigh it. A servant hearing honorifics from their master would only find it troubling. And from the master's side, being overly polite would be its own kind of imposition. Not that I'd ever been either a servant or a master, so I couldn't say for certain.
"Please wait just a little. The food will be out shortly."
"I'll wait as long as you need."
I had no appetite anyway, so it didn't matter how long it took. Amelia had been terribly difficult at first, but I could feel her being considerate of me now. Besides, I was tired. Mentally drained. I needed a moment's rest, so I sank into the sofa and let my posture go slack. Amelia herself, the lady of this room, kept her back perfectly straight — but she showed no sign of stopping me. The more I watched her, the more that thoughtfulness came through. And her face... looking at it was enough to lift a person's mood.
First time I've thought something like that since Areum...
I closed my eyes, just for a moment. Just until the food arrived...
"Oh my. You're awake."
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was something blue, like cloth, covering more than half my vision. And the voice coming from beyond it was unmistakably Amelia's.
"...?"
In the haze of half-sleep, I tried to make sense of the situation. The sensation against my head was soft. That blue cloth reminded me, somehow, of Amelia's dress. And the voice was coming from above it. Conclusion: a lap pillow.
"Let me down..."
Thrashing around while your head is in someone's lap is a bad idea for everyone involved. You risk putting your hands somewhere they shouldn't go, and you risk hurting someone. I'd been on the receiving end of a lap pillow now and then as a child. But receiving one as an Academy student, nearly an adult, was a different thing entirely. It wasn't so much embarrassing as it was... something that caught in my chest. Maybe it was the old memories that made it feel that way.
"Forgive me. You were sleeping so peacefully — I took a liberty."
"I'm the one who should apologize..."
I truly hadn't imagined I'd end up on the receiving end of a lap pillow. It was probably easier on my sanity to just accept that this woman, Amelia, existed somewhere far beyond the reach of my imagination.
"Ah. Dinner's gone cold."
If Amelia had waited long enough for the food to go cold, that meant the lap pillow had gone on for quite a while.
Her legs must be numb...
A stretch of time that left me feeling somehow sorry, and somehow grateful. When the deep, resonant bell sounded through the room once more, it felt a little more comfortable than before.