Chapter 130

I can’t get in their way. I can’t become an obstacle…

But soon, the door opened with a crash as though it might break, and urgent footsteps followed behind me. Someone seized my upper arm and spun me around.

Several strands of his disheveled hair had fallen across his forehead. He steadied his slightly ragged breathing and took my hand with his other hand as well.

“Louize, you misunderstood. Just now…”

“Why did you follow me? I… won’t spread rumors anywhere.”

“Louize.”

“More importantly, shouldn’t you hurry back? She’s waiting for you.”

Arvina would clearly find it strange that he had followed me.

I put strength into my voice and concealed my emotional turmoil as much as possible.

But Gerard’s eyes churned violently, as though caught in a storm.

The hands gripping me showed no sign of letting go.

He exhaled softly.

“I know you were startled. I’m sorry. But nothing happened like what you’re imagining.”

The eyes I had thought were as beautiful as gemstones when I saw him in the banquet hall were now busily examining my reaction.

As though he intended to miss neither my breathing, the slightest movement of my facial muscles, nor a single shift of my gaze.

I barely managed to move my uncooperative lips.

“Even if something did happen like what I’m imagining… what would it have to do with me?”

I spoke with a faint smile.

I couldn’t become an obstacle. Repeating that single thought over and over, I struggled to calm my raging heart.

Gerard’s eyes gradually sank.

“Louize.”

“You may have confessed to me, but I know my place. So even if the interest that briefly transferred to me has disappeared, I don’t care.”

I continued speaking with my neck held straight despite his sharp gaze.

It might not be bad to shake off every last bit of lingering affection here.

“And I’ve told you several times. Your attention makes me uncomfortable, and it burdens me. I still feel the same way. Did you think I had wavered? You were mistaken. I only went along with you because I had no choice due to your position and power. I…”

I bit my lip and endured what was rising to my eyes.

“Every day felt like I was being swept away by a disaster.”

Ripples spread across his face like a stone thrown onto still water.

He looked anguished, as though the fragments spilling from my mouth had pierced through his flesh.

You don’t even mean it. Why are you making that expression?

Unable to face him, I tore my gaze away and closed my eyes.

“Alright.”

The answer came far too easily. They were the words I had wanted so desperately, but I hadn’t expected him to give up this easily.

Would this truly be enough?

“What can I possibly do to change your mind when you say you hate it?”

But it wasn’t the voice of someone letting me go. A sinister edge remained, as though he were chewing and tearing at raw meat.

“……”

“Even if I knelt before you and tore out my heart to show you, it seems there would still be no possibility. Am I right?”

He gripped my chin and lifted it. My eyes opened on their own, and my eyelashes trembled. Blood vessels stood out in his wounded eyes.

“…Yes.”

One corner of his mouth rose bitterly.

“Then why does it feel like you’re lying?”

“……”

“You like me. You do.”

My thoughts stopped at the words that pierced straight through me.

My heart plummeted beneath my feet. It felt as though it were falling into an endless abyss from which it could never climb back up.

Through his mouth, I had been forced to confront the emotion I had desperately ignored.

My deathly pale face was reflected in every detail within his gray eyes.

“No, I do not.”

It was miserable. No matter how many times I resolved myself, my heart refused to obey me.

The tears I had held back until now rolled down my cheeks and dripped beneath my chin.

“I have someone else I like.”

His eyes fell to my shoulder. His expression said he knew the owner of the jacket without needing to ask who it was.

I felt as though I could only survive by defending myself that way. No matter how much I pretended to be alright, seeing the two of them together with my own eyes made my heart feel torn to pieces.

“So this bastard is your excuse this time.”

“……”

At the end of his gaze was Theor’s jacket.

“Should I kill him for you? Once I get rid of this bastard, what other excuse will you make next? Go on, keep denying it.”

Gerard looked as though he might truly cause an incident in the middle of the banquet hall. His energy had become that vicious and savage.

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