Episode 168. I Love You
The proud man was sitting haphazardly on the stone steps.
Was Noah Astrid, who was perfect at every moment, really sitting like that all day without even wearing gloves?
Olivia, feeling something boiling inside her, lashed out angrily at Noah, who was getting up from his seat in surprise at seeing her.
“What on earth have you done?!!”
“Oh... Olivia!”
As a flustered Noah tried to grab her arm, Olivia shook off his hand and raised her voice.
“How can you bring a warship all the way to Pulder without His Majesty’s permission!!”
“...”
“How on earth did you plan to handle the consequences?!”
Noah remained silent. He simply stared at her blankly.
He looked thin. The area beneath his eyes was sunken, and his jawline, which had already been sharp, looked as if it could cut. Above all, his eyes—those eyes that had shone arrogantly even in the presence of King Herod—had lost their light, as if they were tightly pressed down by something.
That sight made her already boiling heart boil even more. Olivia's brow furrowed as if she were about to cry.
“Why are you here looking like this!! Why are you sitting on the floor, and what a mess you look!!”
“...”
“Noah!!!”
"Sorry."
“...!”
Olivia thought she must have heard wrong. However, Noah parted his lips again and uttered unbelievable words.
"I was wrong."
“...”
As Olivia stared blankly, the bodyguards guarding the surroundings quickly retreated.
Noah's eyes slowly crumbled. The corners of his eyes, which had always been sharp, drooped, and the corners of his mouth, which had curled up elegantly, trembled.
The moment a tear fell from his red-tinged eyes, the moon tore through the darkness and appeared behind him.
“Olivia...”
The moment Noah uttered her name in a slightly trembling voice,
"Olivia!!!"
The voice that had been crying out to her as if it were about to die suddenly burst out of its unconscious and shook her.
The sky where snowflakes were swirling, the bright moonlight, pitch-black death descending toward her, and the one that tore through it to appear and rushed toward her...
“Noah...”
With the last thing being her voice calling out to him faintly, as if about to break, every single moment of that day came flooding back.
Eventually, tears burst from Olivia's eyes.
Noah was flustered and at a loss for what to do at her tears. The hand he had reached out to wipe them away wandered, unable to bring itself to touch her cheek, and his usually composed demeanor was also a mess.
Olivia thought as she watched the sight.
He risked his life to save her from the brink of death, and risked everything he had to save her.
"Noah."
"Yes?"
“What am I... to you?”
Noah could not easily answer that question. He parted his lips as if he had something to say, but no words came out, and his gaze, scanning every corner of her face, wavered incessantly.
He seemed like someone who didn't know what to say or how to say it, and also like someone who had lost their way.
Olivia looked at him like that and asked again.
“Are you... Really calm right now?”
"Yes."
The man, who had only been moving his lips until now, answered that question very lightly.
Olivia let out a sigh and asked back.
"You're saying you're calm right now?"
Then, unbelievably, Noah smiled faintly.
"Yes."
Just as she was about to ask how this scene could be peaceful, Noah opened his mouth.
"Because you survived."
“...”
“Because you’re alive. That’s enough for me, and I’m at peace now.”
Noah, who had been wandering through hell while enduring Olivia's crying, collapsed haphazardly on the stairs from exhaustion as if he himself had been crying when her crying stopped.
As he sat there looking at the wide fields, he suddenly had a thought.
Still, it is a relief that Olivia survived.
Even though he heard Olivia say she wanted a divorce, and he's afraid that the love that once resided within them might no longer exist, isn't she still alive?
Then isn't that enough?
Olivia looked at Noah, who was smiling with a wet face, and parted her lips. Her chest ached, as if the pit of her stomach were constricting or her heart were being tightly squeezed.
Then, suddenly, she realized a very important fact.
She lowered her gaze to the old stone steps. Then she turned her eyes back to Noah and finally placed him and the background showing the old stone path in the same frame.
Surprisingly... She no longer felt like running away.
Is it because Noah is disheveled?
No.
Her mind changed.
Glasses were placed over the eyes of the one who could not fully love their life. They viewed everything in the world through those glasses, and saw the man before them through those glasses as well.
So, she has always destroyed the one assumption that kept popping up inside her.
Saying there's absolutely no way that would happen.
Olivia slowly inhaled. Standing close to her, he smelled of cold wind and earth. As she pictured him sitting here all day, she felt a lump in her throat for some reason.
Feeling like she was about to cry again, Olivia quickly turned her body toward the inside of the house.
As she turned, Noah felt a pain as if someone were stomping hard on his heart. He felt numb and suffocated, but at that moment, unbelievably, he heard her voice.
“...Mrs Betty made stew.”
“...?”
Noah could not quite understand the words that had drifted into his ears, so he thought about them again and again. So, right now, Olivia is...
“...Can I come in?”
Noah asked back in surprise. As Olivia, who had just taken a step inside the house, silently turned to look at him, Noah moved as if springing.
"Thank you."
Noah entered by ducking his head because he was taller than the height of the door. Olivia stood awkwardly in the entryway, staring blankly at Noah as he blinked, before walking toward the kitchen.
The chair with the soft cushion was bound to be uncomfortable for Noah because the legs were short compared to his height, but he didn't even realize it was uncomfortable.
His entire focus was on Olivia, who was sitting across from him. His heart was pounding like a teenage boy.
Mrs. Betty served a bowl of fish stew and a few light dishes to each of the two people, then withdrew.
Olivia stopped picking up the spoon and glanced up. As soon as their eyes met, Noah snapped down. She lowered her gaze to the milky white stew and spoke.
"Please have some."
“Uh, yeah. You eat too.”
Noah, who answered immediately as if he had been waiting for her voice, quickly picked up a spoon.
Mrs. Betty's stew was very delicious. Not only Olivia, but also Noah, who didn't particularly like fish, soon finished a whole bowl.
As the warm soup filled her empty stomach, her heart, which had been seething with turmoil, gradually calmed down.
A soft light filled the space between the two, and Olivia fully faced her husband, who was sitting in the seat where her grandmother always used to sit.
Noah just stared at her endlessly.
Olivia looked at him and slowly began to speak.
“...It was the day of the wedding. I hoped I wasn’t a heavy responsibility hanging on your shoulders.”
Noah repeated Olivia's words.
A heavy responsibility hangs on the shoulders.
“The words I spoke that day... the words about peace and promises...”
The words he had uttered back then hung in his solar plexus like a thorn, rattling with every breath. Noah traced the face of the one he missed so much, even while looking at him, with his eyes, and apologized again.
“I’m sorry. I... was selfish.”
And then, letting go of everything, he confessed.
“Not at any moment were you a yoke to me, nor a responsibility. I didn’t marry you expecting anything in return. I...”
“...”
That moonlit night filled with the scent of roses, the day her heart fluttered at the sight of the shadows lined up side by side.
"I went into the maze to find you."
Olivia slowly blinked her eyes.
"You wore a blue dress that day. I couldn't look you in the eye. That autumn night, we walked together; I walked alone every day."
Olivia bit her lip as she listened to Noah's calm confession. Then she muttered very softly.
"...lie."
Noah, who had been revealing his deep feelings through his shimmering eyes, suddenly stopped. Flustered, he gaped and managed to ask back.
“...How would you know if that’s a lie?”
Olivia felt her heart pounding.
"What I had simply tried to bury and forget felt like a thorn stuck in my throat, grating with every breath. That is why I probably could never forget it."
Olivia bit her lip slightly and spoke.
"The flashlight I gave you that autumn night."
At that moment, a chill ran down Noah's spine. He opened his eyes in surprise, but then he heard Olivia's calm voice.
“That flashlight... I know you gave it to Lady Seymour.”
“...!”
It felt as if all the arrogance he had committed was overflowing like a tidal wave and engulfing him. Noah involuntarily sprang up from his seat.
“I mean, Olivia, that is... no, that’s not it.”
Flustered, Noah spoke incoherently before finally letting out a sigh. He felt as though he would do anything if only he could turn back time to that day, that moment.
Noah ran his hand over his face several times before finally deciding to confess honestly.
“That... wasn’t what I gave.”
However, the tidal wave of arrogance was by no means easy to overcome.
“It’s not that I gave it...”
It's been thrown away.
How should I say that?
How am I going to take back the abusive words I spewed at Isabelle Seymour and explain them to Olivia, and how am I supposed to tell you that I am that kind of person?
While she was hesitating like that, Olivia asked.
"Did you throw it away?"
“...”
Noah was speechless.
Olivia had a complete grasp of Noah Astrid.
Noah wanted to stomp his feet and run away anywhere, just as he had in his childhood. But since he could not, he nodded with a heart full of confession.
“Around that time, news spread that you had become a professor. At the same time, I heard that you... might marry Ansen Wilhelm.”
Olivia's brow furrowed sharply.
“That’s ridiculous...”
At her reaction, Noah forgot the situation and let out a small laugh.
“I don’t know why I was so angry. Even on the day I heard those words, I had a broken flashlight in my pocket. I felt so pathetic... I just thought I had to throw it away quickly.”
He thought that if he threw that away, his feelings for her might be sorted out, too.
“But why give that to Lady Seymour...?”
In the end, all sins are bound to return.
Who would have thought that I would pay the price for the abusive words of that day in this way?
Noah eventually had no choice but to sit across from Olivia and stammer out what had happened back then. Being the type to detest explanations or excuses, he wanted to stop halfway through, but he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.
She did not add or ask a single word while listening to Noah's explanation.
Noah apologized again, thinking that he was going to collapse and die right then and there.
"...Sorry."
At that, Olivia immediately shook her head.
“I told Lady Seymour this as well, but since I have already given it to you, it is yours, not mine. So there is no need to apologize to me.”
“...”
“You don’t really need to explain what happened, but still... honestly, I was curious, so I kept listening.”
As he listened to Olivia, Noah thought.
I suppose I will be a bad son to this woman until the day I die.
Noah slowly lowered his weary head.
Olivia gazed at him blankly. Her husband, who had seemed as tall and massive as a mountain range, appeared for the first time to be just like her.
That is why, only now did she see his wounds and sincerity faintly.
Beatrix pointed out Noah's wounds to her, but she could not truly empathize with them.
She was the same; she couldn't see the world properly because of her own wounds.
She chose necessity and comfort, then fell in love with him, and he chose peace, then...
"It's not that you don't trust me, but were you always worried about me?"
Noah, who had been hanging his head, suddenly lifted it.
Just as autumn leaves turn a beautiful color, the corners of Noah's eyes had turned reddish. As Olivia watched this change, clear tears welled up in her own eyes as well.
On Noah's face, which she fully faced, there was an emotion that was impossible not to notice.
And so, Olivia spoke the words she had always wanted to hear and believe.
“Do you love me?”
Noah realized that even in moments that were overwhelming and difficult to bear, his throat tightened. He simply could not sit still.
He rose from his seat as if entranced, approached Olivia, and knelt before her. Then, carefully grasping her hand, he confessed in a hoarse voice.
“I... can’t live without you.”
He carefully articulated the word that had already seeped into her.
"I love you."
Olivia held her breath.
Love. A word she never dared to expect from this man.
“I love you, Olivia. From the moment I first saw you... I fell in love with you.”
Noah's confession shattered even the last piece of glass remaining in Olivia's eye.
Olivia released her hand from Noah's grasp, pulled him closer, and hugged him. Then she buried her face in his hair.
The brilliant blonde hair smelled of wildflowers and the wind.
"I love you."
Olivia closed her eyes and slowly nodded.
The proud man was sitting haphazardly on the stone steps.
Was Noah Astrid, who was perfect at every moment, really sitting like that all day without even wearing gloves?
Olivia, feeling something boiling inside her, lashed out angrily at Noah, who was getting up from his seat in surprise at seeing her.
“What on earth have you done?!!”
“Oh... Olivia!”
As a flustered Noah tried to grab her arm, Olivia shook off his hand and raised her voice.
“How can you bring a warship all the way to Pulder without His Majesty’s permission!!”
“...”
“How on earth did you plan to handle the consequences?!”
Noah remained silent. He simply stared at her blankly.
He looked thin. The area beneath his eyes was sunken, and his jawline, which had already been sharp, looked as if it could cut. Above all, his eyes—those eyes that had shone arrogantly even in the presence of King Herod—had lost their light, as if they were tightly pressed down by something.
That sight made her already boiling heart boil even more. Olivia's brow furrowed as if she were about to cry.
“Why are you here looking like this!! Why are you sitting on the floor, and what a mess you look!!”
“...”
“Noah!!!”
"Sorry."
“...!”
Olivia thought she must have heard wrong. However, Noah parted his lips again and uttered unbelievable words.
"I was wrong."
“...”
As Olivia stared blankly, the bodyguards guarding the surroundings quickly retreated.
Noah's eyes slowly crumbled. The corners of his eyes, which had always been sharp, drooped, and the corners of his mouth, which had curled up elegantly, trembled.
The moment a tear fell from his red-tinged eyes, the moon tore through the darkness and appeared behind him.
“Olivia...”
The moment Noah uttered her name in a slightly trembling voice,
"Olivia!!!"
The voice that had been crying out to her as if it were about to die suddenly burst out of its unconscious and shook her.
The sky where snowflakes were swirling, the bright moonlight, pitch-black death descending toward her, and the one that tore through it to appear and rushed toward her...
“Noah...”
With the last thing being her voice calling out to him faintly, as if about to break, every single moment of that day came flooding back.
Eventually, tears burst from Olivia's eyes.
Noah was flustered and at a loss for what to do at her tears. The hand he had reached out to wipe them away wandered, unable to bring itself to touch her cheek, and his usually composed demeanor was also a mess.
Olivia thought as she watched the sight.
He risked his life to save her from the brink of death, and risked everything he had to save her.
"Noah."
"Yes?"
“What am I... to you?”
Noah could not easily answer that question. He parted his lips as if he had something to say, but no words came out, and his gaze, scanning every corner of her face, wavered incessantly.
He seemed like someone who didn't know what to say or how to say it, and also like someone who had lost their way.
Olivia looked at him like that and asked again.
“Are you... Really calm right now?”
"Yes."
The man, who had only been moving his lips until now, answered that question very lightly.
Olivia let out a sigh and asked back.
"You're saying you're calm right now?"
Then, unbelievably, Noah smiled faintly.
"Yes."
Just as she was about to ask how this scene could be peaceful, Noah opened his mouth.
"Because you survived."
“...”
“Because you’re alive. That’s enough for me, and I’m at peace now.”
Noah, who had been wandering through hell while enduring Olivia's crying, collapsed haphazardly on the stairs from exhaustion as if he himself had been crying when her crying stopped.
As he sat there looking at the wide fields, he suddenly had a thought.
Still, it is a relief that Olivia survived.
Even though he heard Olivia say she wanted a divorce, and he's afraid that the love that once resided within them might no longer exist, isn't she still alive?
Then isn't that enough?
Olivia looked at Noah, who was smiling with a wet face, and parted her lips. Her chest ached, as if the pit of her stomach were constricting or her heart were being tightly squeezed.
Then, suddenly, she realized a very important fact.
She lowered her gaze to the old stone steps. Then she turned her eyes back to Noah and finally placed him and the background showing the old stone path in the same frame.
Surprisingly... She no longer felt like running away.
Is it because Noah is disheveled?
No.
Her mind changed.
Glasses were placed over the eyes of the one who could not fully love their life. They viewed everything in the world through those glasses, and saw the man before them through those glasses as well.
So, she has always destroyed the one assumption that kept popping up inside her.
Saying there's absolutely no way that would happen.
Olivia slowly inhaled. Standing close to her, he smelled of cold wind and earth. As she pictured him sitting here all day, she felt a lump in her throat for some reason.
Feeling like she was about to cry again, Olivia quickly turned her body toward the inside of the house.
As she turned, Noah felt a pain as if someone were stomping hard on his heart. He felt numb and suffocated, but at that moment, unbelievably, he heard her voice.
“...Mrs Betty made stew.”
“...?”
Noah could not quite understand the words that had drifted into his ears, so he thought about them again and again. So, right now, Olivia is...
“...Can I come in?”
Noah asked back in surprise. As Olivia, who had just taken a step inside the house, silently turned to look at him, Noah moved as if springing.
"Thank you."
Noah entered by ducking his head because he was taller than the height of the door. Olivia stood awkwardly in the entryway, staring blankly at Noah as he blinked, before walking toward the kitchen.
The chair with the soft cushion was bound to be uncomfortable for Noah because the legs were short compared to his height, but he didn't even realize it was uncomfortable.
His entire focus was on Olivia, who was sitting across from him. His heart was pounding like a teenage boy.
Mrs. Betty served a bowl of fish stew and a few light dishes to each of the two people, then withdrew.
Olivia stopped picking up the spoon and glanced up. As soon as their eyes met, Noah snapped down. She lowered her gaze to the milky white stew and spoke.
"Please have some."
“Uh, yeah. You eat too.”
Noah, who answered immediately as if he had been waiting for her voice, quickly picked up a spoon.
Mrs. Betty's stew was very delicious. Not only Olivia, but also Noah, who didn't particularly like fish, soon finished a whole bowl.
As the warm soup filled her empty stomach, her heart, which had been seething with turmoil, gradually calmed down.
A soft light filled the space between the two, and Olivia fully faced her husband, who was sitting in the seat where her grandmother always used to sit.
Noah just stared at her endlessly.
Olivia looked at him and slowly began to speak.
“...It was the day of the wedding. I hoped I wasn’t a heavy responsibility hanging on your shoulders.”
Noah repeated Olivia's words.
A heavy responsibility hangs on the shoulders.
“The words I spoke that day... the words about peace and promises...”
The words he had uttered back then hung in his solar plexus like a thorn, rattling with every breath. Noah traced the face of the one he missed so much, even while looking at him, with his eyes, and apologized again.
“I’m sorry. I... was selfish.”
And then, letting go of everything, he confessed.
“Not at any moment were you a yoke to me, nor a responsibility. I didn’t marry you expecting anything in return. I...”
“...”
That moonlit night filled with the scent of roses, the day her heart fluttered at the sight of the shadows lined up side by side.
"I went into the maze to find you."
Olivia slowly blinked her eyes.
"You wore a blue dress that day. I couldn't look you in the eye. That autumn night, we walked together; I walked alone every day."
Olivia bit her lip as she listened to Noah's calm confession. Then she muttered very softly.
"...lie."
Noah, who had been revealing his deep feelings through his shimmering eyes, suddenly stopped. Flustered, he gaped and managed to ask back.
“...How would you know if that’s a lie?”
Olivia felt her heart pounding.
"What I had simply tried to bury and forget felt like a thorn stuck in my throat, grating with every breath. That is why I probably could never forget it."
Olivia bit her lip slightly and spoke.
"The flashlight I gave you that autumn night."
At that moment, a chill ran down Noah's spine. He opened his eyes in surprise, but then he heard Olivia's calm voice.
“That flashlight... I know you gave it to Lady Seymour.”
“...!”
It felt as if all the arrogance he had committed was overflowing like a tidal wave and engulfing him. Noah involuntarily sprang up from his seat.
“I mean, Olivia, that is... no, that’s not it.”
Flustered, Noah spoke incoherently before finally letting out a sigh. He felt as though he would do anything if only he could turn back time to that day, that moment.
Noah ran his hand over his face several times before finally deciding to confess honestly.
“That... wasn’t what I gave.”
However, the tidal wave of arrogance was by no means easy to overcome.
“It’s not that I gave it...”
It's been thrown away.
How should I say that?
How am I going to take back the abusive words I spewed at Isabelle Seymour and explain them to Olivia, and how am I supposed to tell you that I am that kind of person?
While she was hesitating like that, Olivia asked.
"Did you throw it away?"
“...”
Noah was speechless.
Olivia had a complete grasp of Noah Astrid.
Noah wanted to stomp his feet and run away anywhere, just as he had in his childhood. But since he could not, he nodded with a heart full of confession.
“Around that time, news spread that you had become a professor. At the same time, I heard that you... might marry Ansen Wilhelm.”
Olivia's brow furrowed sharply.
“That’s ridiculous...”
At her reaction, Noah forgot the situation and let out a small laugh.
“I don’t know why I was so angry. Even on the day I heard those words, I had a broken flashlight in my pocket. I felt so pathetic... I just thought I had to throw it away quickly.”
He thought that if he threw that away, his feelings for her might be sorted out, too.
“But why give that to Lady Seymour...?”
In the end, all sins are bound to return.
Who would have thought that I would pay the price for the abusive words of that day in this way?
Noah eventually had no choice but to sit across from Olivia and stammer out what had happened back then. Being the type to detest explanations or excuses, he wanted to stop halfway through, but he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.
She did not add or ask a single word while listening to Noah's explanation.
Noah apologized again, thinking that he was going to collapse and die right then and there.
"...Sorry."
At that, Olivia immediately shook her head.
“I told Lady Seymour this as well, but since I have already given it to you, it is yours, not mine. So there is no need to apologize to me.”
“...”
“You don’t really need to explain what happened, but still... honestly, I was curious, so I kept listening.”
As he listened to Olivia, Noah thought.
I suppose I will be a bad son to this woman until the day I die.
Noah slowly lowered his weary head.
Olivia gazed at him blankly. Her husband, who had seemed as tall and massive as a mountain range, appeared for the first time to be just like her.
That is why, only now did she see his wounds and sincerity faintly.
Beatrix pointed out Noah's wounds to her, but she could not truly empathize with them.
She was the same; she couldn't see the world properly because of her own wounds.
She chose necessity and comfort, then fell in love with him, and he chose peace, then...
"It's not that you don't trust me, but were you always worried about me?"
Noah, who had been hanging his head, suddenly lifted it.
Just as autumn leaves turn a beautiful color, the corners of Noah's eyes had turned reddish. As Olivia watched this change, clear tears welled up in her own eyes as well.
On Noah's face, which she fully faced, there was an emotion that was impossible not to notice.
And so, Olivia spoke the words she had always wanted to hear and believe.
“Do you love me?”
Noah realized that even in moments that were overwhelming and difficult to bear, his throat tightened. He simply could not sit still.
He rose from his seat as if entranced, approached Olivia, and knelt before her. Then, carefully grasping her hand, he confessed in a hoarse voice.
“I... can’t live without you.”
He carefully articulated the word that had already seeped into her.
"I love you."
Olivia held her breath.
Love. A word she never dared to expect from this man.
“I love you, Olivia. From the moment I first saw you... I fell in love with you.”
Noah's confession shattered even the last piece of glass remaining in Olivia's eye.
Olivia released her hand from Noah's grasp, pulled him closer, and hugged him. Then she buried her face in his hair.
The brilliant blonde hair smelled of wildflowers and the wind.
"I love you."
Olivia closed her eyes and slowly nodded.
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