TAHR 07

Chapter 07

“Ethan……?”

The voice, murmured almost like a whisper, spread throughout the backyard on the breeze carrying the warmth of the spring sunlight. The ribbon tied beneath her chin fluttered in the wind, tickling the back of her neck.

Elisa stared blankly up at Ethan, unaware even of that.

His pitch-black hair, brushed back to reveal his forehead, his dark eyebrows, and his smooth, handsome face without a single scar despite spending four years on the battlefield were all impressive, but what caught her attention the most was, as always, his gray eyes.

Because he was standing with his back to the sunlight, his gray eyes received no light at all, making them seem darker and colder than usual. They looked like the sky just before a heavy downpour.

That was why she had liked them.

That sky.

The eyes of this man who carried that sky within them.

When the feelings she had desperately tried to forget resurfaced, Elisa bit her tongue.

“You still have that habit of biting your tongue.”

The moment a finger that felt both familiar and unfamiliar touched her lips, her dazed mind suddenly snapped awake.

“Take your hand away!”

Elisa let out an almost scream as she pushed against his chest. But Ethan did not even move. He stood firm like a tree with its roots buried deep in the ground, and instead, she was the one who was pushed backward.

“Ah!”

Because of that, Elisa fell into the fountain and let out a short scream. More than her wet clothes, Ethan’s gaze bothered her.

He must be laughing at her, thinking she was such a foolish woman.

Not wanting to see his face, Elisa lowered her head deeply.

Perhaps for the same reason, she could not get up and simply remained sitting in the water.

Then a large hand appeared in front of her.

“Get up. You’ll catch a cold again.”

It was a kindness she did not appreciate at all.

Rather, it felt as if he were making fun of her, so Elisa frowned deeply and slapped his hand away.

“I don’t need your help, so move it.”

“Why? Because you like me?”

What kind of ridiculous thing was that?

Staring at him in disbelief, Elisa saw Ethan laugh in a low voice, as if the sound were scratching his throat. His laughter suited the cool breeze blowing through the backyard, which only irritated her nerves even more.

Just Ethan’s very existence annoyed her.

If his eyes were a sky filled with dark clouds, Ethan was the sudden shower that poured down from those clouds.

A shower that felt terribly unpleasant when it suddenly fell on you without any warning.

Since there was no way for a person to stop a shower from falling, it was better to avoid it.

Elisa stood up on her own and brushed past him.

“Where are you going?”

That was what she had intended to do, but Ethan grabbed her wrist.

His hand was cold, but the place where he held her felt hot, as if it had been burned by fire.

Her heart, which had gone cold from this completely unexpected encounter, began pounding again, and her mouth went dry.

“Aren’t you going to thank me?”

“What?”

“I helped you get your hat. You should thank me.”

It sounded like complete nonsense, but he was technically right.

If it had been anyone else, she would have thanked them several times.

But because it was Ethan, she did not want to.

“When did I ever ask you to help me?”

Elisa glared at him and snapped.

“You stuck your nose into something that wasn’t your business. Why should I thank you?”

“I was sticking my nose into something?”

“Yes. You were. I could have gotten the hat down myself!”

Elisa raised her voice without realizing it in her burst of emotion, then bit the inside of her lip tightly.

Because she felt as if she were showing him that she still liked him, that she still had feelings for him.

“All right. Elisa, if that’s what you say, then I’ll accept it.”

Unlike Elisa, who was so agitated that her small shoulders trembled, Ethan remained calm.

“Then shall I change the question?”

“I don’t want to hear it. And don’t speak informally to me.”

“You were the one who allowed me to.”

Ethan continued speaking as he fixed the slightly crooked ribbon on her hat.

“You said formal speech didn’t suit us and told me to speak comfortably. Have you changed your mind?”

“I don’t know what time you’re talking about.”

Elisa said this as she irritably untied the neatly arranged ribbon.

“That was when I was young and knew nothing about the world. And you were the one who rejected me, saying it couldn’t happen and that you couldn’t do it.”

She roughly took off her bonnet as if she were about to throw it away.

“On top of that, you abandoned me and left without a word. And now you’re saying you’re going to keep that promise? Are you making fun of me?”

“There’s no way I would do that. I’m serious, Elisa.”

“Don’t call my name!”

Elisa shouted so loudly that the veins in her neck stood out. Perhaps startled by her voice, an unknown bird suddenly flew away with a flutter of its wings.

“It’s not a name someone like you, who was nothing more than a servant and a nanny’s son, has any right to call.”

The greatest obstacle between Elisa and Ethan had always been their difference in social status.

Perhaps that was also the reason Ethan had left without a word four years ago.

That was why Elisa deliberately struck at that very point.

She wanted him to be hurt.

She wanted him to suffer as much as she had suffered, or even more, so she spoke cruelly.

Perhaps her wish had come true, because Ethan’s peaceful expression twisted.

The gray eyes that held Elisa within them trembled.

She thought seeing him in pain would feel satisfying.

But it did not.

Instead, her heart throbbed painfully.

It felt as if she had stabbed her own heart.

Foolish Elisa Leslie.

You can’t even get properly angry.

Elisa gave a self-mocking smile and slowly closed her eyes.

The strength left her hand, and the bonnet fell to the ground, but she did not care.

After taking a deep breath and calming her churning emotions, Elisa opened her eyes again and looked up at him.

“Baron Isteban.”

When she called him by his title instead of his name, Ethan’s eyes trembled even more.

“The person I allowed to speak informally to me was Ethan. Not Baron Ethan Isteban.”

Elisa’s eyes, meeting his gaze, were calmer than ever.

“So never speak informally to me again. And don’t pretend you know me, either. I don’t know a person named Ethan Isteban.”

“……You’ve changed a lot.”

Elisa had been the one to demand that he stop speaking informally, but hearing him use formal speech made her feel strange, and she flinched slightly.

Of course, she did not show it on the outside.

Instead, she clenched her fists tightly.

“You used to be the kind of person who, once you got excited, would charge forward without caring about anything until the very end. Your personality has changed so much that I’m starting to wonder if you really are the Lady Elisa Leslie I knew.”

Who was he to say that she had changed?

The person who had changed the most was him.

When she had seen him at the victory banquet, she had spent quite some time wondering if he really was the Ethan she knew, or if he was someone else with the same face.

He had become completely different.

And yet he was saying something like that.

It was so absurd that she could not even laugh.

That was also why she did not bother arguing with him or telling him not to say such ridiculous things.

He was not worth arguing with.

Just being in this situation and quarreling with him was exhausting.

The damp hem of her dress repeatedly clung to her legs, which was uncomfortable as well.

“Then I’ll assume you understood what I said and take my leave.”

“Are you not curious?”

The Ethan Elisa knew had always been someone who was definite about ending things once he had made up his mind.

But Baron Ethan Isteban was sticky like melted candy.

So the Ethan I knew no longer exists.

With that thought, Elisa firmly made up her mind and walked away.

Water dripped from her clothes with every step, as if leaving a trail behind her.

She had long since forgotten that she had dropped her bonnet.

“Are you not curious why I left without a word four years ago?”

Elisa had intended to ignore whatever nonsense Ethan said and simply leave.

But she could not do that with this.

Even though she knew it was foolish, she wanted to hear the reason.

Stopping in her tracks, Elisa sighed deeply inside and turned to look at him.

“As I thought. You are curious.”

His smiling face, as if he had known all along, irritated her.

She wanted to crush his face with her palm.

“Stop saying useless things and just tell me the reason.”

“I can’t tell you.”

Was he seriously making fun of her right now?

The anger she had barely managed to suppress began rising again, and Elisa touched her wrinkled brow.

“I can’t tell you now, but I will definitely tell you later, so please wait just a little longer.”

She had already waited four years, and now he wanted her to wait even longer?

Elisa gave a hollow laugh and tilted her head slightly.

“Are you planning to tell me the reason at my grave?”

“……”

“Actually, isn’t there no special reason? Why don’t you just honestly say that you were afraid, that the wall between our social statuses was too high and too solid, so you ran away?”

Elisa spoke sarcastically, but no answer came back.

By then, all traces of a smile had disappeared from his eyes, and he simply stared at her silently.

Who was it that once said silence meant agreement?

A bitter edge appeared on Elisa’s slightly raised lips.

“Thanks to you, my curiosity has been satisfied. I’m grateful for that, Baron Isteban.”

Elisa turned around after making one last sarcastic remark.

She had worried that he might grab her again, but that did not happen.

He gave up.

Then why did she feel disappointed when she should have felt relieved?

For some reason, Elisa looked toward the backyard for a moment before entering the exhibition hall.