Excessive Punishment (4)

“It’s true that I’m a little angry, but…” She lowered her eyelashes and gently licked her tiny rosy lips under her sharp nose.

She still didn’t know that those feeble lips were the only weapon capable of slicing him into two.

A drop of rain fell down her cheeks.

“It wasn’t that great. I’m that… Ah.”

He suddenly closed the distance, forcing Lily to stop speaking. She reflexively shrunk as the gigantic figure approached her. Even though it was just an instinct, he felt like a thorn had been lodged in his throat.

Vlad just passed by her. Before long, he stood in front of the carriage in the far corner and opened the door. “The rain is getting heavier. Come this way.”

Lily looked at him for a moment, lost in thought.

An ebony carriage adorned with gold leaf, and a mountain landscape behind it as if submerged in a warm cloud. Against a borderless canvas, he stood there.

His facial features were clear and colorless in the thick fog. His eyes, as sharp as a dark purple sword, were alluring even in the dark. “…Do you not like it?” His hand gripped the carriage door forcefully.

When she didn’t answer, he got nervous.

Is it that she doesn’t want to come close, or is it that she feels uncomfortable accepting my proposal?

He didn’t know which of the two, so his throat was sore.

As soon as he lowered his gaze, belatedly she moved her feet. She narrowed their distance with small strides. “I don’t hate it.”

The bright green eyes that approached him and looked up at him were clear without a single speck. The fresh scent of her body tickled his nose.

Lily, who had been escorted by him into the carriage, stopped. As she sat down in the seat, she leaned over and looked at him.

He stood still, holding the wagon door, as if he were a coachman.

“…Aren’t you coming in?”

“I will remain here. I think that would be convenient.”

He had to refrain from losing control. It was right to do so to avoid the situation of being locked up together in an enclosed space.

“It’s raining heavily… I can’t let you catch a cold. I know you’re healthy, but just in case you don’t know…”

“If that’s the case, don’t worry about it at all.”

It couldn’t have been easy to sit alone under a roof, leaving her husband under the rain.

No matter how many times she suggested it, he didn’t budge. It was difficult to understand why he was so stubborn.

She didn’t want to argue with such an unimportant issue. Lily raised the truce flag first. She hesitated before standing and sitting back down on the carriage steps.

Her cloak parted, revealing her dress. Then the laceless dress was pushed up, revealing her shoes as well as her toes.

Noticing that he was affected, she quickly stopped him. “I can’t see you well from the chair.”

“…”

Raindrops fell on her lap as she sat up, but it didn’t matter that her clothes were wet.

He, too, seemed to have realized that it was best to compromise at this point.

He stood with the carriage door half closed.  Lily was seated near the carriage doors next to her manly husband’s figure.

Because of that, almost no rain fell on her.

As he stood holding the door, he looked at her.

She looked impatient, but never rushed. As always. He waited for her to speak first.

“About wanting to leave you…”

His heart sank as if he had heard the harbinger of disaster.

“I never thought of that. I just wanted to be by myself for a bit and tried to come back.”

“I see.” Vlad took a deep breath. He was trying hard to hide his eyes, but it wasn’t easy.

Every word she uttered had him out of breath.

“It’s embarrassing to even be with me… Is that why?”

Those were the words he thought through carefully. She, who was sitting in a squatting position, opened her eyes. The large green eyes were distorted by an unreasonable shock.

“I didn’t say it like that.”

“Unless otherwise, there is no need to leave the castle, is there?”

Lily placed her hand on her lap and clenched it into a fist. “I would have come back.”

“It takes a month and a half to two months to get to the chapel by horse-drawn carriage, you know.”

“…”

“You might be leaving me alone for four months to six years so easily.”

Lily had nothing to add to him. It was the first place she could think of, perhaps even the only place She knew it wasn’t a wise excuse.

The raindrops landed on his hair and dripped down his bangs, then to her cheek. He stared at her desperately. As if in the blink of an eye she would be engulfed in a torrent and disappear. It was a desperate look.

“The fact that you tried to get away from me doesn’t change. Never…”

The door of the carriage he was holding shattered.