It Seems Like The Infamous Trash Can is Right Here! - Chapter 143
On the way back to the estate in the carriage Halid had prepared, Serenia sat, embracing the box of letters, quietly staring out the window.
She must have been filled with complex thoughts.
Whether her family would be able to leave the capital safely, whether everyone would remain unharmed until the day they met again.
Understanding her feelings, Lionel didn’t try to speak to her. He simply watched her in silence.
Now he understood why he had been so helplessly drawn to Serenia.
Why he grew restless whenever she was out of sight, why he longed to spend even just a little more time with her.
Serenia had been the one who saved him.
She had been his lover, and the one he had promised a future to.
Back in the time when he hadn’t even imagined life could repeat.
In that first life, when he was unprepared, when he faced the deaths of his parents, when he was betrayed by everyone he trusted and left with nothing but despair…
Lionel had loved Serenia more than his own life.
Even if those memories were gone, his body remembered. It reacted to her. Yearned for her. Spurred him forward with the need to reach her.
Because his memories were still riddled with holes, he didn’t know how they had come to be separated, how things had ended, or why life began to repeat.
All he could do was piece things together from what Count Solen and Vaikal had said.
Perhaps he had left Serenia’s side because of a desire for revenge for his parents, or from a sense of duty to his family. And it was in that very window that the Imperial Family reached for Solen, and the engagement between Serenia and Lionel was broken.
There seemed to be another reason he had lost the memories of those early lives.
Then at what point had Serenia begun to forget him, just as she had now?
“While that bastard lived however he pleased, forgetting everything… Serenia…”
Vaikal seemed to know something.
“Lionel…?”
Had he fallen too deep into thought?
Even after the carriage had stopped in front of the estate’s main building, Lionel hadn’t moved, and Serenia looked at him, puzzled.
“Ah… we’ve arrived already.”
“You must be tired. You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you…?”
“I’m all right. It’s nothing to worry about.”
Staying up one or two nights meant nothing to him. At dawn, he’d simply felt… mentally unwell.
After they stepped down from the carriage, the coachman and horses were sent back to Calitas.
It was well past midnight, and the estate was quiet and dark.
Though the scattered lamp lights didn’t trouble Lionel, he wasn’t sure how Serenia would feel. So he wrapped an arm around her waist and walked slowly.
“It really does feel like the two of us are the only ones left in this big mansion.”
Serenia whispered softly. The dimples in her cheeks deepened faintly as she smiled.
Lionel, watching her, imagined the two of them not just in this mansion, but alone in the whole world.
It felt like the most perfect thing imaginable.
Without being consumed by childish jealousy, no more anxiety about losing her. Just the two of them giving and receiving love freely, basking in their happiness to the fullest.
But the sweet illusion began to crack the moment they stepped into the third-floor hallway.
The master’s bedroom was perfectly soundproof, and the hallway was always quiet. Still, he felt a presence.
“Wait here a moment.”
“Why?”
“There’s an intruder.”
Serenia tilted her head and looked at him, then suddenly gasped, as if something had come to her.
“What is it?”
“No, it’s nothing. Just… be careful. And don’t be too surprised.”
