“Noah, I...”
Only then did I put everything down and cry.
Noah's face grew increasingly blurred. My eyes stared at the distant gray ceiling, hiding beneath my eyelids. My vision darkened like the curtains on a stage. My consciousness drifted away, drifting away.
“We met a long time ago, so long ago that the Princess can no longer remember.”
I felt a gentle hand embrace my body as it fell down, leaning weakly.
“So, even if it’s a lie, it doesn’t matter. Please, use me, but just need me and stay by my side.”
Noah's lonely voice, which continued to convey his sincerity, was heard loudly and gradually faded away.
“Diana, you are the only one for me.”
I lost consciousness for a moment, as if my brain circuits had flickered, and then I came back to life. My whole body felt hot, and I barely managed to hold on to my clouded consciousness again.
Reuniting with him was such a relief, even a thrill, that neither my cheeks nor my forehead hurt at all. I can't quite remember Noah's last words, which I heard in my fading consciousness.
I barely opened my torn and cracked lips and called out his name.
“Noah.”
"Yes."
Someone answered my desperate call. It was a bittersweet reality. The frost-colored hair, once dazzling in the moonlight, was now dyed pitch black. Black hair was beautiful, too.
I lay in Noah's arms, burying my face in his neck, feeling the warmth and scent I'd longed for. I didn't know if I was dead or in a dream. So, for the first time in my life, I threw a tantrum at him.
“It’s so hard now that I’m here. So, can you take me back?”
“That’s what I’m going to do. Even if you don’t like it, there’s nothing I can do.”
Those words sounded so heartbreakingly sad. Noah buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breath trailing from his chest. He added, as if sighing.
“I like being with you.”
He placed a handkerchief on my forehead and then took my hand and made me press it myself.
“I thought the Princess was dead.”
“No way. I think I fainted.”
Noah carefully picked me up and began to walk away from the cell I was in. A long, dark hallway stretched out behind his broad shoulders.
The path we had walked together was littered with the remains of several dead guards, giving the impression of hell. It seemed like a passage of death, a passage we had traded for freedom.
I don't know, it doesn't matter.
Noah kept his mouth shut and said nothing. Occasionally, his shoulders shook and his breathing, like a sigh, broke into small, muffled gasps.
I desperately grabbed Noah's uniform collar.
“Noah, I don’t hate you. I want to be with you.”
At my belated reply, his body paused, then he started walking forward again. I heard Noah's chest rising and falling rapidly, as he swallowed hard and tried to say something.
A soft sigh repeated loudly, like a gasp. I realized the collar I was holding was damp, so I opened my palm and examined it. Crimson blood soaked my entire palm. It wasn't the guards' blood, but his own.
I suddenly came to my senses. I was in no position to enjoy the thrill of reunion.
“Please come down.”
What kind of princess-like embrace would I have in this situation? Enough of the tantrums. Now, I must walk on my own. He's fought against many to get here, so there's no way he'll be unscathed.
I staggered slightly, then braced myself and stood up straight.
“The Princess is hurt.”
"You're more hurt? I just fainted with a broken forehead. Lean on me."
I briefly imagined the romance of passing out in his arms and waking up in a bed bathed in bright sunlight, but he's still human, and this is reality. We both suffer.
I forced Noah's arm around my shoulder and began walking. In fact, it was almost a stretch to say I was leaning on him. I simply walked with his arm resting lightly on my shoulder, as if I were putting my arm around him.
The fireworks display was nearing its end, and the sound of the firecrackers, which had been like gunfire, was gradually dying down.
"You're talking so calmly about such a serious situation," I said. He removed his arm from my shoulder and took my hand. I looked around and followed Noah into the back of the dark building.
A black car with a covered roof stood in a corner. Noah, sitting in the driver's seat, stared straight ahead for a moment, clutching his right arm. His face was expressionless, but his dark blue eyes were narrowed with a fierce intensity.
He seemed to have been seriously injured, perhaps from a gunshot wound to the arm. I immediately got out of the passenger seat and flung open the driver's door.
“Get out, I’ll drive.”
“Do you know how to drive?”
He obediently got out of the driver's seat at my nodding gesture and asked, "I sat down in the driver's seat and answered confidently."
“I’ve never done it before.”
I've never driven a car here before. I've driven it a few times, so it seems similar, and I have a Class 1 regular license, so I should be fine.
From a distance, through the alleyways, we could hear the shouts of those chasing us. I quickly started the car, shifted the transmission, and pressed hard on what appeared to be the accelerator. The car roared and sped away.
A sharp sound of a bullet bouncing off the vehicle's body was heard, along with a gunshot. The bullet wasn't penetrating, but rather bouncing off?
Moreover, this car was a covered four-wheel drive. It was a car that would have been commercialized a few years later. I veered wildly, swerving through narrow alleyways, and slid past the pursuers.
The car was fast, and since I was quite good at driving, I was able to easily shake off the cars and people chasing me.
The car we were in sped along a secluded, straight coastal road. Nothing obstructed the wide, open road stretching across the azure sea, and it felt like a sense of freedom.
“Diana.”
Noah, who was sitting quietly in the passenger seat, catching his breath, called my name.
That tired, drained voice sounds incredibly strange. To think that way, even in this messy situation, is quite rotten. My forehead must be broken, and I must be out of my mind.
“You knew how to drive, yet you didn’t run away. From my mansion.”
"I never intended to run away from the beginning. Sadly, I had nowhere to go."
He gently stroked my swollen cheek, his touch calm and affectionate.
“You really don’t hate me? I thought you left because you didn’t want to be with me.”
I stopped the car for a moment and looked straight at him.
“Noah, I’m good at lying. It was a means of survival.”
“It’s okay. Even if it was a lie, I’d still believe it was true.”
"I always said I wanted to run away and beg you to let me go, but honestly, I didn't want to leave. I was glad we were together."
It was a bland confession. He let out a languid laugh. His hair, dyed the color of a beautiful night, swayed slightly to the low laughter.
"Diana. So we're still dating before we get married, right?"
A relationship that I desperately longed for and longed for, even though we weren't lovers. I wanted to truly understand the feelings I'd been unable to acknowledge, dragged along by lies and improvisation.
I made a calm suggestion to Noah, who had his back turned to the dark blue night sea.
“Let’s start over. This time, let’s start with sincerity.”
Noah tilted his head with a look of incomprehension at my suggestion.
"first?"
“Yes. It started out as a kidnapper and a hostage, right?”
I thought maybe it was a relationship that started with a lie. Besides, I didn't want our relationship to be remembered as a case of romanticizing a crime, where someone fell in love with the criminal and became enamored with him.
Noah leaned back against the car seat and laughed with his nose.
“So now we’re starting with the escaped prisoner and the accomplice who helped her escape?”
Right? That's also a bit odd, so I'm at a loss for words. Can't we be a little more romantic like normal people?
“I want to be a little... ordinary.”
"Then let's do this. We promised to marry before we were born. That's why I went out to rescue the kidnapped Princess. It's just like a fairy tale, right?"
“Have we ever really done that?”
I didn't know much about this body's past, and since he was speaking so matter-of-factly, I asked him with a puzzled expression. He rubbed the corner of his wounded mouth with a playful expression.
“That could have been it.”
Noah answered simply and clearly, got out of the car, opened the driver's door, and extended his hand.
“I’ll drive now. You don’t know the way.”
“Does your arm hurt?”
“I’m sick enough to drive.”
He's a man who makes me feel guilty and sorry. There was a little blood on the rag tied around Noah's injured arm. I looked embarrassed, but instead of insisting any longer, I grabbed Noah's hand, got out of the driver's seat, and staggered into the passenger seat.
Noah, who knows the way to Frogen, must drive.
Noah, who had switched seats and taken the driver's seat, turned around, placed one hand on the passenger seat, and skillfully began to back up. It was a scene I'd have completely fallen in love with if I'd just had the pass in my mouth.
I barely managed to turn my head, stealing a glance at his side profile and neckline, which were reflected diagonally. Outside the car window, a dark, eerie forest flashed by.
As we were running endlessly along the straight forest path, Noah spoke.
"Princess, we can't go back to Froggen."
"Why?"
“My title, house, and land were all confiscated.”
"Yes?"
“If I get caught for deserting and disobeying the imperial edict, I’ll be in serious trouble.”
He speaks matter-of-factly, as if he were talking about something trivial. As if he were talking about something as trivial as 'skipping school.'
“What, what did you say!”
My voice rose sharply in response to his indifferent demeanor. As an officer, deserting during wartime and disobeying an imperial order—wouldn't that be the maximum penalty? Execution.
To call that "a mess" is so nonchalant. That's why you dyed your hair black to escape. I let out a deep sigh. So, a true villain couple was born.
“I’m not rich anymore, is that okay? Princess, you said you had to marry a rich man to eat meat every day.”
Only then did he let out a slightly hoarse sigh, as if something terrible had happened. I tried to sound gentle.
"It's because of me. I have nothing, and it's like I left everything behind, but I don't regret it at all."
I had so much in my original life, but now I have no regrets at all. No more of that emptiness and futility that were always there, never filled, no matter how much I poured into it.
Back then, all I desperately wanted was someone affectionate. Someone who would stay by my side for no reason. So, it didn't matter if they weren't special.
As an heiress since childhood, I desperately yearned for the ordinariness I lacked, even if it was just greed. Perhaps specialness is a shackle, a prison, while ordinariness is, in fact, a liberation.
“Freedom. You and me.”
At my words, Noah's lips, which had been tightly shut and drawn in a straight line, rose prettily. He had been driving, looking straight ahead, but he turned his head toward me and spoke with a resolute tone.
“But I can still buy you meat.”
“No... I don’t have to eat that meat.”
His low, pleasant laugh was sweet. Noah, who had been staring straight ahead, extended a hand toward me and asked quietly.
“Then, since we’re just starting out, let’s hold hands and go.”
Instead of answering, I placed my hand on his. A warm, large hand gently wrapped itself around mine.
We held hands, as if granted ordinary freedom. The car sped forward, cutting through the unpaved road, seemingly aimlessly.
I didn't even ask where I was going. It didn't matter. I was just a small boat, without a mast, on the vast ocean, tossed by the waves of fate, heading somewhere.
I felt at ease because I felt like I had reached a state of no thoughts and no mind, thinking that even though I didn't know what my future would hold, things would work out somehow.
“It seems like we’re going on a trip.”
“This is my first time traveling. It sounds fun.”
Noah responded to my sentimental remark, seemingly changing his purpose. Since he was just running away, and we were just going on a trip, it felt quite romantic, so I didn't bother to add a commentary or ask further questions.
The moonlight brushed against Noah's jet-black hair, fading away. The hair, now pitch-black, added even more mysteriousness to the peculiarly languid atmosphere.
“Noah. Black hair suits you well, too.”
“Are you in love?”
"Yes."
His impression may seem colder, but he's still alluring. His sensuality has intensified, and he's simply overflowing with sexiness. Why does he look so racy? His eyes are always rosy, and those lips... In short, he's full of peach blossoms.
While I was wondering where his deadly sensuality came from, the car we were in sped aimlessly through the dark forest road.
Noah occasionally turned his head to look at me, his eyes bright with amusement. His eyes seemed to have found something long lost.
"I'm going to Medea. I don't really want to take you, but I have no choice."
Unlike me, who dreamed of romantic, unplanned things, that man had everything planned out.
Only then did I put everything down and cry.
Noah's face grew increasingly blurred. My eyes stared at the distant gray ceiling, hiding beneath my eyelids. My vision darkened like the curtains on a stage. My consciousness drifted away, drifting away.
“We met a long time ago, so long ago that the Princess can no longer remember.”
I felt a gentle hand embrace my body as it fell down, leaning weakly.
“So, even if it’s a lie, it doesn’t matter. Please, use me, but just need me and stay by my side.”
Noah's lonely voice, which continued to convey his sincerity, was heard loudly and gradually faded away.
“Diana, you are the only one for me.”
***
I lost consciousness for a moment, as if my brain circuits had flickered, and then I came back to life. My whole body felt hot, and I barely managed to hold on to my clouded consciousness again.
Reuniting with him was such a relief, even a thrill, that neither my cheeks nor my forehead hurt at all. I can't quite remember Noah's last words, which I heard in my fading consciousness.
I barely opened my torn and cracked lips and called out his name.
“Noah.”
"Yes."
Someone answered my desperate call. It was a bittersweet reality. The frost-colored hair, once dazzling in the moonlight, was now dyed pitch black. Black hair was beautiful, too.
I lay in Noah's arms, burying my face in his neck, feeling the warmth and scent I'd longed for. I didn't know if I was dead or in a dream. So, for the first time in my life, I threw a tantrum at him.
“It’s so hard now that I’m here. So, can you take me back?”
“That’s what I’m going to do. Even if you don’t like it, there’s nothing I can do.”
Those words sounded so heartbreakingly sad. Noah buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breath trailing from his chest. He added, as if sighing.
“I like being with you.”
He placed a handkerchief on my forehead and then took my hand and made me press it myself.
“I thought the Princess was dead.”
“No way. I think I fainted.”
Noah carefully picked me up and began to walk away from the cell I was in. A long, dark hallway stretched out behind his broad shoulders.
The path we had walked together was littered with the remains of several dead guards, giving the impression of hell. It seemed like a passage of death, a passage we had traded for freedom.
I don't know, it doesn't matter.
Noah kept his mouth shut and said nothing. Occasionally, his shoulders shook and his breathing, like a sigh, broke into small, muffled gasps.
I desperately grabbed Noah's uniform collar.
“Noah, I don’t hate you. I want to be with you.”
At my belated reply, his body paused, then he started walking forward again. I heard Noah's chest rising and falling rapidly, as he swallowed hard and tried to say something.
A soft sigh repeated loudly, like a gasp. I realized the collar I was holding was damp, so I opened my palm and examined it. Crimson blood soaked my entire palm. It wasn't the guards' blood, but his own.
I suddenly came to my senses. I was in no position to enjoy the thrill of reunion.
“Please come down.”
What kind of princess-like embrace would I have in this situation? Enough of the tantrums. Now, I must walk on my own. He's fought against many to get here, so there's no way he'll be unscathed.
I staggered slightly, then braced myself and stood up straight.
“The Princess is hurt.”
"You're more hurt? I just fainted with a broken forehead. Lean on me."
I briefly imagined the romance of passing out in his arms and waking up in a bed bathed in bright sunlight, but he's still human, and this is reality. We both suffer.
I forced Noah's arm around my shoulder and began walking. In fact, it was almost a stretch to say I was leaning on him. I simply walked with his arm resting lightly on my shoulder, as if I were putting my arm around him.
The fireworks display was nearing its end, and the sound of the firecrackers, which had been like gunfire, was gradually dying down.
"I killed him quietly, but it seems I've already been discovered. They'll be chasing after me soon."
A black car with a covered roof stood in a corner. Noah, sitting in the driver's seat, stared straight ahead for a moment, clutching his right arm. His face was expressionless, but his dark blue eyes were narrowed with a fierce intensity.
He seemed to have been seriously injured, perhaps from a gunshot wound to the arm. I immediately got out of the passenger seat and flung open the driver's door.
“Get out, I’ll drive.”
“Do you know how to drive?”
He obediently got out of the driver's seat at my nodding gesture and asked, "I sat down in the driver's seat and answered confidently."
“I’ve never done it before.”
I've never driven a car here before. I've driven it a few times, so it seems similar, and I have a Class 1 regular license, so I should be fine.
From a distance, through the alleyways, we could hear the shouts of those chasing us. I quickly started the car, shifted the transmission, and pressed hard on what appeared to be the accelerator. The car roared and sped away.
A sharp sound of a bullet bouncing off the vehicle's body was heard, along with a gunshot. The bullet wasn't penetrating, but rather bouncing off?
Moreover, this car was a covered four-wheel drive. It was a car that would have been commercialized a few years later. I veered wildly, swerving through narrow alleyways, and slid past the pursuers.
The car was fast, and since I was quite good at driving, I was able to easily shake off the cars and people chasing me.
The car we were in sped along a secluded, straight coastal road. Nothing obstructed the wide, open road stretching across the azure sea, and it felt like a sense of freedom.
“Diana.”
Noah, who was sitting quietly in the passenger seat, catching his breath, called my name.
That tired, drained voice sounds incredibly strange. To think that way, even in this messy situation, is quite rotten. My forehead must be broken, and I must be out of my mind.
“You knew how to drive, yet you didn’t run away. From my mansion.”
"I never intended to run away from the beginning. Sadly, I had nowhere to go."
He gently stroked my swollen cheek, his touch calm and affectionate.
“You really don’t hate me? I thought you left because you didn’t want to be with me.”
I stopped the car for a moment and looked straight at him.
“Noah, I’m good at lying. It was a means of survival.”
“It’s okay. Even if it was a lie, I’d still believe it was true.”
"I always said I wanted to run away and beg you to let me go, but honestly, I didn't want to leave. I was glad we were together."
It was a bland confession. He let out a languid laugh. His hair, dyed the color of a beautiful night, swayed slightly to the low laughter.
"Diana. So we're still dating before we get married, right?"
A relationship that I desperately longed for and longed for, even though we weren't lovers. I wanted to truly understand the feelings I'd been unable to acknowledge, dragged along by lies and improvisation.
I made a calm suggestion to Noah, who had his back turned to the dark blue night sea.
“Let’s start over. This time, let’s start with sincerity.”
Noah tilted his head with a look of incomprehension at my suggestion.
"first?"
“Yes. It started out as a kidnapper and a hostage, right?”
I thought maybe it was a relationship that started with a lie. Besides, I didn't want our relationship to be remembered as a case of romanticizing a crime, where someone fell in love with the criminal and became enamored with him.
Noah leaned back against the car seat and laughed with his nose.
“So now we’re starting with the escaped prisoner and the accomplice who helped her escape?”
Right? That's also a bit odd, so I'm at a loss for words. Can't we be a little more romantic like normal people?
“I want to be a little... ordinary.”
"Then let's do this. We promised to marry before we were born. That's why I went out to rescue the kidnapped Princess. It's just like a fairy tale, right?"
“Have we ever really done that?”
I didn't know much about this body's past, and since he was speaking so matter-of-factly, I asked him with a puzzled expression. He rubbed the corner of his wounded mouth with a playful expression.
“That could have been it.”
Noah answered simply and clearly, got out of the car, opened the driver's door, and extended his hand.
“I’ll drive now. You don’t know the way.”
“Does your arm hurt?”
“I’m sick enough to drive.”
He's a man who makes me feel guilty and sorry. There was a little blood on the rag tied around Noah's injured arm. I looked embarrassed, but instead of insisting any longer, I grabbed Noah's hand, got out of the driver's seat, and staggered into the passenger seat.
Noah, who knows the way to Frogen, must drive.
Noah, who had switched seats and taken the driver's seat, turned around, placed one hand on the passenger seat, and skillfully began to back up. It was a scene I'd have completely fallen in love with if I'd just had the pass in my mouth.
I barely managed to turn my head, stealing a glance at his side profile and neckline, which were reflected diagonally. Outside the car window, a dark, eerie forest flashed by.
As we were running endlessly along the straight forest path, Noah spoke.
"Princess, we can't go back to Froggen."
"Why?"
“My title, house, and land were all confiscated.”
"Yes?"
“If I get caught for deserting and disobeying the imperial edict, I’ll be in serious trouble.”
He speaks matter-of-factly, as if he were talking about something trivial. As if he were talking about something as trivial as 'skipping school.'
“What, what did you say!”
My voice rose sharply in response to his indifferent demeanor. As an officer, deserting during wartime and disobeying an imperial order—wouldn't that be the maximum penalty? Execution.
To call that "a mess" is so nonchalant. That's why you dyed your hair black to escape. I let out a deep sigh. So, a true villain couple was born.
“I’m not rich anymore, is that okay? Princess, you said you had to marry a rich man to eat meat every day.”
Only then did he let out a slightly hoarse sigh, as if something terrible had happened. I tried to sound gentle.
"It's because of me. I have nothing, and it's like I left everything behind, but I don't regret it at all."
I had so much in my original life, but now I have no regrets at all. No more of that emptiness and futility that were always there, never filled, no matter how much I poured into it.
Back then, all I desperately wanted was someone affectionate. Someone who would stay by my side for no reason. So, it didn't matter if they weren't special.
As an heiress since childhood, I desperately yearned for the ordinariness I lacked, even if it was just greed. Perhaps specialness is a shackle, a prison, while ordinariness is, in fact, a liberation.
“Freedom. You and me.”
At my words, Noah's lips, which had been tightly shut and drawn in a straight line, rose prettily. He had been driving, looking straight ahead, but he turned his head toward me and spoke with a resolute tone.
“But I can still buy you meat.”
“No... I don’t have to eat that meat.”
His low, pleasant laugh was sweet. Noah, who had been staring straight ahead, extended a hand toward me and asked quietly.
“Then, since we’re just starting out, let’s hold hands and go.”
Instead of answering, I placed my hand on his. A warm, large hand gently wrapped itself around mine.
We held hands, as if granted ordinary freedom. The car sped forward, cutting through the unpaved road, seemingly aimlessly.
I didn't even ask where I was going. It didn't matter. I was just a small boat, without a mast, on the vast ocean, tossed by the waves of fate, heading somewhere.
I felt at ease because I felt like I had reached a state of no thoughts and no mind, thinking that even though I didn't know what my future would hold, things would work out somehow.
“It seems like we’re going on a trip.”
“This is my first time traveling. It sounds fun.”
Noah responded to my sentimental remark, seemingly changing his purpose. Since he was just running away, and we were just going on a trip, it felt quite romantic, so I didn't bother to add a commentary or ask further questions.
The moonlight brushed against Noah's jet-black hair, fading away. The hair, now pitch-black, added even more mysteriousness to the peculiarly languid atmosphere.
“Noah. Black hair suits you well, too.”
“Are you in love?”
"Yes."
His impression may seem colder, but he's still alluring. His sensuality has intensified, and he's simply overflowing with sexiness. Why does he look so racy? His eyes are always rosy, and those lips... In short, he's full of peach blossoms.
While I was wondering where his deadly sensuality came from, the car we were in sped aimlessly through the dark forest road.
Noah occasionally turned his head to look at me, his eyes bright with amusement. His eyes seemed to have found something long lost.
"I'm going to Medea. I don't really want to take you, but I have no choice."
Unlike me, who dreamed of romantic, unplanned things, that man had everything planned out.
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