132. I Remembered. How Much We Loved Each Other
[To my dear friend, Adele.
Mark came back this morning, fortunately.
His body was badly injured, as if he had been tortured severely, and his face was so bad that it was hard to open my eyes and look at him.
My beloved friend should be happy to have met the lover she had been missing, but my brother ended up like this because he helped them.
On top of that, the children are living in hiding because of the stigma of being a traitor.
If you care about Mark and the children even a little, please ask your lover.
Free them from the cruel stigma of being a traitor.
Don't trample on them like he trampled on my homeland, Kalame.
Please.
Adele, I still love you, but I hate you a little.
Please understand my narrow-mindedness.
Mia Bonita.]
Adele shed tears without realizing it after reading the letter.
While she was happy looking at Christine and Aaron today, Mark and the children were suffering like this.
And Mark was tortured.
Adele ran to the garden of the Marvel Palace to see Christine. At the end of the garden where darkness was falling, she saw Zimmer approaching.
“Where is His Majesty?”
“The meeting with the nobles is over, so he will be here soon. What is it?”
“I need you to go see Mark. Can Lord Crichton tell him something?”
Zimmer smiled awkwardly. He could imagine what kind of expression Christine would make if Adele said she would go see Mark.
Even though Zimmer had served him for a long time, he felt his liver tremble at such times.
“It would be better if you said so yourself.”
However, Adele sighed, thinking of him becoming more spiteful and ruthless than before.
“I don’t think he will allow it.”
“Even His Majesty cannot ignore the request of the Countess. Of course, you must be careful not to provoke his jealousy.”
“Jealousy? No way.”
“Don’t you know yet? How sensitive His Majesty becomes whenever the topic of Count Castler comes up.”
“So he captured him and tortured him?”
Zimmer flinched at the word torture.
“Torture... was not His Majesty’s intention. It was a mistake by soldiers who didn’t know what they were doing.”
“A mistake is when you step on someone’s foot or bump their shoulder. How can you call it a mistake when you’ve left someone so battered and wounded!”
“Yes, it was intentional.”
Adele raised her head at Christine’s voice.
And Zimmer washed his face with a look of madness.
If he showed up at this point and said that, would it be nothing more than a fight?
He didn’t know why Christine, who was otherwise wise and rational, became such a stubborn child when it came to Adele.
Did he really have any intention of doing well or not?
However, it didn’t seem like a problem he could get involved in anymore, so Zimmer decided to quietly step aside.
If you get involved in a lover’s quarrel, you’ll only get what you pay for.
“How far are you really going to disappoint me?”
Christine laughed coldly at that.
“He was arrested on suspicion of treason, and it is only natural to question him for a confession. Otherwise, I would have died a violent death in this Kalame. And yet, to keep my promise to you, I risked releasing a suspected traitor. I don’t know where you can blame me.”
“Mark would never do that!”
Damn it! He’s so trustworthy!
Whenever she mentioned Mark, Christine felt his heart twist.
That made him even colder.
“Adele, shouldn’t you be washing up and in bed right now? I kept my promise, so you must have a promise to keep, too?”
Adele felt contempt at Christine’s cold words and eyes. At such moments, he seemed to be deliberately trying to hurt her. As if he hated her.
Could this also be because he was jealous of Mark?
“Fine. If I keep my promise tonight, let me go see the children tomorrow.”
“Your children will be here.”
“The children at the Castler are mine too.”
“Oh, the children you didn’t give birth to.”
Adele glared at him, feeling stung by his sarcasm.
“Just as you fought for your clan for six years, I have struggled to live as their mother. Don’t speak carelessly of my precious children.”
“Yes, for the sake of those precious children and their father, you must faithfully fulfill your promise to me tonight.”
Thump!
Adele closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath as she heard the bedroom door close.
At the sound of heavy footsteps approaching her, she said firmly,
“I’ll take off my clothes.”
It meant that she would reject his touch.
“That’s difficult...”
Adele stepped back as she saw him approaching her quickly, but Christine was faster as he wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her closer.
“I’m the kind of person who needs to start and finish first.”
He gently caressed Adele’s cheek with his other hand before reaching behind her back and unhooking the hooks on her dress.
Thump, thump...
As each hook was undone, the dress that had been tightening around her upper body loosened.
Adele glared at him without blinking, but she tried to hide her nervousness by tightly grasping the hem of her dress. However, the harder she tried to hide her nervousness, the faster her heart beat and the more difficult it seemed to breathe.
It was even crazier because Christine, with his heightened senses, must have noticed.
Don’t be nervous, Adele. Relax!
In the meantime, he gently pulled the dress down from her shoulders and kissed her white exposed skin.
Chook.
“...!”
Adele unconsciously grabbed his arm and flinched.
When Christine looked up, she quickly looked away. However, she felt a burning sensation all the way to her ears.
“Are you already excited?”
His voice sounded even more languid.
“In this situation, who would...!”
When Adele got angry, he gestured to his arm with his eyes.
“Don’t you think you’re holding my arm too tightly?”
When Adele, surprised, quickly took her hand off his arm, he turned Adele around so that she looked at the mirror.
“How would you describe this face?”
“Let go.”
Adele resisted, but she couldn’t let go of him. The firm chest she felt behind her felt like a solid barrier.
“Look carefully, Adele. What kind of expression are you making now?”
He, who was behind her, slowly pulled down the clothes hanging from Adele’s body.
At that moment, his face reflected in the mirror hardened like ice.
“What is this?”
Adele was rather taken aback by that reaction. It was clear that he was surprised by the tattoo on Adele’s back.
“Have you forgotten that, too?”
His name covered her flawless, pure white skin like wings. As if it were a brand engraved on her as someone’s property.
“Damn... is this... my... doing?”
Adele felt bitter as she listened to his self-reproachful voice. He had forgotten everything about that tattoo. So it was natural that he felt different from the Chris she knew.
Was he just the Emperor of Bahamart, with so many of the memories they had shared gone?
“Now I understand. Why did you choose Castler instead of me? How could I do such a terrible thing to a woman...”
Christine’s face reflected in the mirror was pale. It seemed that he could not accept himself for having harmed her.
At times like this, he seemed to be Adele’s Chris.
Her anxious lover worried that she might be wronged even a little.
There may still be hope to fix the twisted relationship.
“I did it.”
Adele turned around and stared straight at him.
He looked incomprehensible.
“Why would you do this to yourself?”
“Stone carved his name on my body. The two initials in the middle. I covered them with your name.”
“But still, to think of carving something like this on your body?”
“You told me. How desperately soldiers in the battlefield carve the names of their loved ones on their bodies. I was just as desperate.”
“Ahh...!”
“And I... I was glad that I could be with a part of you like this. For those six years...”
The blue-gray eyes looking at her wavered like deep sleep.
“I think I understand now. Why I made that choice back then.”
“What do you mean by that choice?”
“I also had a part of you right before the sealing ceremony.”
It was the same act that he had carved Adele’s name on his body.
His desperate and earnest desire to be with her until the moment of his death.
“A part of me?”
Instead of answering, he caressed the letters engraved on Adele’s back with his fingertips. He was very careful, as if he was touching a wound that had just appeared.
“It must have hurt.”
“It hurt more than I thought. But on the day I got this tattoo, you were next to me and you hurt more than I did, so I couldn’t tell you were in pain.”
Adele smiled faintly as she recalled that day.
The man who was the hero of the battlefield groaned and hurt every time the needle pricked her skin.
“I think I remember...”
Christine frowned and caressed his left chest.
“Yes. We loved each other so much. The child born from that love was Aaron.”
“Yes. I didn’t want a wolf clan child, but I think I was curious about what our child would look like. And... a child who exceeded my expectations was born.”
Adele felt choked up at Christine’s smiling face as she recalled Aaron.
This was the face of Chris she had known long ago. She hugged him tightly.
“Thank you for remembering.”
He stared blankly at Adele. No, in fact, at that moment, he was trying desperately to overcome the pain in his heart.
His memories were slowly coming back, but they were always vague, like puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together. But suddenly, countless pieces poured out and seemed to complete one picture.
He remembered many things he had shared with her in this room. Countless hugs of love, vows, and happy laughter.
Even Adele’s expression, which had been blurred in his memory, came back to him.
Those beautiful green eyes that were always fixed on him.
How full had those eyes made him?
But the price for that memory was the same amount of pain.
“Go see Mark tomorrow. I’ll give you time to sort things out.”
In order not to let his heart’s pain be discovered, he left Adele behind and hurried out of the bedroom.
“Ugh!”
As soon as he came out into the hallway and turned the corner, Christine staggered, clutching his chest.
“Your Majesty!”
Zimmer, startled, ran over. But he was laughing even as he suffered from pain.
“I remembered, Zimmer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I, we, what kind of relationship did we have... I remembered everything.”
Zimmer was dumbfounded. His shirt was already stained red with the blood flowing from his chest, but he was still laughing.
But since he was so happy, he had no choice but to congratulate him.
“Congratulations, Your Majesty... Your Majesty!”
“Tell Kenny to put Adele and Aaron to a deep sleep with his magic. And have everyone else but the bare minimum leave the Marvel Palace.”
“Yes, what’s that all of a sudden?”
“I might go berserk tonight.”
With those words, Christine’s body collapsed.
[To my dear friend, Adele.
Mark came back this morning, fortunately.
His body was badly injured, as if he had been tortured severely, and his face was so bad that it was hard to open my eyes and look at him.
My beloved friend should be happy to have met the lover she had been missing, but my brother ended up like this because he helped them.
On top of that, the children are living in hiding because of the stigma of being a traitor.
If you care about Mark and the children even a little, please ask your lover.
Free them from the cruel stigma of being a traitor.
Don't trample on them like he trampled on my homeland, Kalame.
Please.
Adele, I still love you, but I hate you a little.
Please understand my narrow-mindedness.
Mia Bonita.]
Adele shed tears without realizing it after reading the letter.
While she was happy looking at Christine and Aaron today, Mark and the children were suffering like this.
And Mark was tortured.
Adele ran to the garden of the Marvel Palace to see Christine. At the end of the garden where darkness was falling, she saw Zimmer approaching.
“Where is His Majesty?”
“The meeting with the nobles is over, so he will be here soon. What is it?”
“I need you to go see Mark. Can Lord Crichton tell him something?”
Zimmer smiled awkwardly. He could imagine what kind of expression Christine would make if Adele said she would go see Mark.
Even though Zimmer had served him for a long time, he felt his liver tremble at such times.
“It would be better if you said so yourself.”
However, Adele sighed, thinking of him becoming more spiteful and ruthless than before.
“I don’t think he will allow it.”
“Even His Majesty cannot ignore the request of the Countess. Of course, you must be careful not to provoke his jealousy.”
“Jealousy? No way.”
“Don’t you know yet? How sensitive His Majesty becomes whenever the topic of Count Castler comes up.”
“So he captured him and tortured him?”
Zimmer flinched at the word torture.
“Torture... was not His Majesty’s intention. It was a mistake by soldiers who didn’t know what they were doing.”
“A mistake is when you step on someone’s foot or bump their shoulder. How can you call it a mistake when you’ve left someone so battered and wounded!”
“Yes, it was intentional.”
Adele raised her head at Christine’s voice.
And Zimmer washed his face with a look of madness.
If he showed up at this point and said that, would it be nothing more than a fight?
He didn’t know why Christine, who was otherwise wise and rational, became such a stubborn child when it came to Adele.
Did he really have any intention of doing well or not?
However, it didn’t seem like a problem he could get involved in anymore, so Zimmer decided to quietly step aside.
If you get involved in a lover’s quarrel, you’ll only get what you pay for.
“How far are you really going to disappoint me?”
Christine laughed coldly at that.
“He was arrested on suspicion of treason, and it is only natural to question him for a confession. Otherwise, I would have died a violent death in this Kalame. And yet, to keep my promise to you, I risked releasing a suspected traitor. I don’t know where you can blame me.”
“Mark would never do that!”
Damn it! He’s so trustworthy!
Whenever she mentioned Mark, Christine felt his heart twist.
That made him even colder.
“Adele, shouldn’t you be washing up and in bed right now? I kept my promise, so you must have a promise to keep, too?”
Adele felt contempt at Christine’s cold words and eyes. At such moments, he seemed to be deliberately trying to hurt her. As if he hated her.
Could this also be because he was jealous of Mark?
“Fine. If I keep my promise tonight, let me go see the children tomorrow.”
“Your children will be here.”
“The children at the Castler are mine too.”
“Oh, the children you didn’t give birth to.”
Adele glared at him, feeling stung by his sarcasm.
“Just as you fought for your clan for six years, I have struggled to live as their mother. Don’t speak carelessly of my precious children.”
“Yes, for the sake of those precious children and their father, you must faithfully fulfill your promise to me tonight.”
***
Thump!
Adele closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath as she heard the bedroom door close.
At the sound of heavy footsteps approaching her, she said firmly,
“I’ll take off my clothes.”
It meant that she would reject his touch.
“That’s difficult...”
Adele stepped back as she saw him approaching her quickly, but Christine was faster as he wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her closer.
“I’m the kind of person who needs to start and finish first.”
He gently caressed Adele’s cheek with his other hand before reaching behind her back and unhooking the hooks on her dress.
Thump, thump...
As each hook was undone, the dress that had been tightening around her upper body loosened.
Adele glared at him without blinking, but she tried to hide her nervousness by tightly grasping the hem of her dress. However, the harder she tried to hide her nervousness, the faster her heart beat and the more difficult it seemed to breathe.
It was even crazier because Christine, with his heightened senses, must have noticed.
Don’t be nervous, Adele. Relax!
In the meantime, he gently pulled the dress down from her shoulders and kissed her white exposed skin.
Chook.
“...!”
Adele unconsciously grabbed his arm and flinched.
When Christine looked up, she quickly looked away. However, she felt a burning sensation all the way to her ears.
“Are you already excited?”
His voice sounded even more languid.
“In this situation, who would...!”
When Adele got angry, he gestured to his arm with his eyes.
“Don’t you think you’re holding my arm too tightly?”
When Adele, surprised, quickly took her hand off his arm, he turned Adele around so that she looked at the mirror.
“How would you describe this face?”
“Let go.”
Adele resisted, but she couldn’t let go of him. The firm chest she felt behind her felt like a solid barrier.
“Look carefully, Adele. What kind of expression are you making now?”
He, who was behind her, slowly pulled down the clothes hanging from Adele’s body.
At that moment, his face reflected in the mirror hardened like ice.
***
“What is this?”
Adele was rather taken aback by that reaction. It was clear that he was surprised by the tattoo on Adele’s back.
“Have you forgotten that, too?”
His name covered her flawless, pure white skin like wings. As if it were a brand engraved on her as someone’s property.
“Damn... is this... my... doing?”
Adele felt bitter as she listened to his self-reproachful voice. He had forgotten everything about that tattoo. So it was natural that he felt different from the Chris she knew.
Was he just the Emperor of Bahamart, with so many of the memories they had shared gone?
“Now I understand. Why did you choose Castler instead of me? How could I do such a terrible thing to a woman...”
Christine’s face reflected in the mirror was pale. It seemed that he could not accept himself for having harmed her.
At times like this, he seemed to be Adele’s Chris.
Her anxious lover worried that she might be wronged even a little.
There may still be hope to fix the twisted relationship.
“I did it.”
Adele turned around and stared straight at him.
He looked incomprehensible.
“Why would you do this to yourself?”
“Stone carved his name on my body. The two initials in the middle. I covered them with your name.”
“But still, to think of carving something like this on your body?”
“You told me. How desperately soldiers in the battlefield carve the names of their loved ones on their bodies. I was just as desperate.”
“Ahh...!”
“And I... I was glad that I could be with a part of you like this. For those six years...”
The blue-gray eyes looking at her wavered like deep sleep.
“I think I understand now. Why I made that choice back then.”
“What do you mean by that choice?”
“I also had a part of you right before the sealing ceremony.”
It was the same act that he had carved Adele’s name on his body.
His desperate and earnest desire to be with her until the moment of his death.
“A part of me?”
Instead of answering, he caressed the letters engraved on Adele’s back with his fingertips. He was very careful, as if he was touching a wound that had just appeared.
“It must have hurt.”
“It hurt more than I thought. But on the day I got this tattoo, you were next to me and you hurt more than I did, so I couldn’t tell you were in pain.”
Adele smiled faintly as she recalled that day.
The man who was the hero of the battlefield groaned and hurt every time the needle pricked her skin.
“I think I remember...”
Christine frowned and caressed his left chest.
“Yes. We loved each other so much. The child born from that love was Aaron.”
“Yes. I didn’t want a wolf clan child, but I think I was curious about what our child would look like. And... a child who exceeded my expectations was born.”
Adele felt choked up at Christine’s smiling face as she recalled Aaron.
This was the face of Chris she had known long ago. She hugged him tightly.
“Thank you for remembering.”
He stared blankly at Adele. No, in fact, at that moment, he was trying desperately to overcome the pain in his heart.
His memories were slowly coming back, but they were always vague, like puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together. But suddenly, countless pieces poured out and seemed to complete one picture.
He remembered many things he had shared with her in this room. Countless hugs of love, vows, and happy laughter.
Even Adele’s expression, which had been blurred in his memory, came back to him.
Those beautiful green eyes that were always fixed on him.
How full had those eyes made him?
But the price for that memory was the same amount of pain.
“Go see Mark tomorrow. I’ll give you time to sort things out.”
In order not to let his heart’s pain be discovered, he left Adele behind and hurried out of the bedroom.
***
“Ugh!”
As soon as he came out into the hallway and turned the corner, Christine staggered, clutching his chest.
“Your Majesty!”
Zimmer, startled, ran over. But he was laughing even as he suffered from pain.
“I remembered, Zimmer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I, we, what kind of relationship did we have... I remembered everything.”
Zimmer was dumbfounded. His shirt was already stained red with the blood flowing from his chest, but he was still laughing.
But since he was so happy, he had no choice but to congratulate him.
“Congratulations, Your Majesty... Your Majesty!”
“Tell Kenny to put Adele and Aaron to a deep sleep with his magic. And have everyone else but the bare minimum leave the Marvel Palace.”
“Yes, what’s that all of a sudden?”
“I might go berserk tonight.”
With those words, Christine’s body collapsed.
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