“Huh?”
At some point, I suddenly snapped out of it.
I was standing still, blankly staring out the window.
“The sky is pretty.”
Not a single cloud marred the autumn sky — it was vividly clear, like a scene painted with watercolours.
But how long had I been like this, without even realising it?
I felt dazed, like I hadn’t completely shaken off sleep.
Above all, I couldn’t clearly remember what I had been doing just before I started standing here like this.
“What is this?”
Did I develop sleepwalking or something?
Scratching the back of my head, I tilted my head and moved to open the window.
I figured getting a bit of cold air might help me come to my senses.
However...
Rattle—
“Huh?”
Rattle, rattle—
Rattle, rattle, rattle—
The window wouldn’t open!
I reached around the frame, thinking the latch might be locked, but I couldn’t feel anything.
“Ugh, maybe I just can’t reach it.”
But did my room even have a lock on the window?
‘I don’t think it did…’
Or maybe I just didn’t remember.
I didn’t want to call a servant over something so trivial.
With a sigh, I trudged toward the door.
If a tall servant happened to pass by, I’d just ask them to open the window for me.
Click—
As soon as I turned the doorknob without much thought, I felt something catch — and heard this sound:
Click, click—
Click, click, click, click—!!
“Even the door won’t open?”
Wh-what was this?
Only then did I truly realise how serious this was and frantically rummaged through my clothes.
But the potions I always carried with me couldn't be found.
In the first place, I was wearing a slip.
The sun was already high in the sky, so why was I still in my nightwear?
And why was I locked in a bedroom?!
‘Wait. Hold on. Now that I look closer — this isn’t even my bedroom?’
The interior decor was so similar to my original bedroom that I didn’t notice it right away.
Looking more closely, the layout, furniture, and the view outside the window were all slightly different.
This didn’t seem to be the imperial palace.
But it wasn’t Amber’s estate either, nor Chamberlain’s...
And the fact that I was locked in…
It was the moment when I stood there utterly stunned.
The moment when a creeping sense of unease was steadily rising.
The doorknob, which hadn’t budged no matter how much weight I had thrown against it, turned smoothly and easily.
The person who opened the door and stepped inside was Felix.
“Ah, Fel!”
Wait. So it wasn’t actually locked?
Relieved, I greeted him with a bright smile.
“I thought the door was broken since it wouldn’t open.”
“Broken?”
But Felix looked down at me with a strange expression.
As if he were slightly flustered, slightly puzzled, slightly suspicious…
And yet somehow also… relieved.
“Ah.”
He gently pushed the door shut behind him and spoke.
“That’s right. It’s broken.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s broken, so only I can open it and come in.”
“What? Did you use magic to open it?”
“Yes.”
I see.
I nodded obediently.
After all, it was Felix who said it — no one else.
And it was an absolute truth that Felix would never lie to me.
"But if you went through all the trouble to open it, why did you close it again?"
“Rin.”
Felix called my name in a soft voice, cupping my cheek in his hand.
Tilting his head slightly, he looked at me with gently curved eyes.
Beneath his thick, silver lashes, his gaze overflowed with affection, as if he were looking at the most precious thing in the world.
‘But somehow, he feels different from usual…’
Maybe it was because his long lashes cast a shadow that made his irises look darker.
An indescribable, dense black darkness seemed to flicker beneath his eyes like flames burning fiercely.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
But that eerie feeling quickly shattered the moment he smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
‘Now that he mentions it, I do feel a little hungry.’
When I nodded, a sumptuous feast appeared atop an unfamiliar dining table.
“Wow! Did you bring this from the kitchen?”
I erased the odd sense of discomfort I had felt moments ago and exclaimed in wonder.
Felix gently scooped me up in a hug and placed me gently onto the chair in front of the table.
‘Come to think of it…’
There were times like this.
When I didn’t necessarily want to sleep more, but going outside my room felt like such a hassle, and I just wanted to laze around.
“Outside the blanket is dangerous.”
There was this one time I was grumbling like that, and that day, Felix personally set the food he’d brought from the kitchen for me.
He had cast a preservation spell on the food.
And Felix and I spent the whole day lounging around in the bedroom without any interruptions.
‘For some reason, that moment comes to mind.’
I thought living like that forever wouldn’t be so bad.
Did Felix read my thoughts? Was that why today, too, we could spend another relaxing day together in the bedroom?
I looked up at him with sparkling eyes full of hope.
“You’re not busy today?”
“Hm?”
“Fel’s been busy, so other than our honeymoon, we haven’t really spent this much time together.”
Of course, I wasn’t blaming him.
I added that as I plucked a grape from the bunch in front of me and popped it into my mouth.
“Oh, so that’s where Rin’s memories begin?”
My memories?
Before I could ask what it meant, he reached out his hand to me first.
Felix gently wiped the droplets that had transferred from the grape to my lips with his finger, then whispered in the kindest voice.
“I’m not going anywhere without you, Rin.”
His lips slowly curved into a soft smile.
“We’ll stay here together forever. Just the two of us.”
It was a whisper as sweet as honey.
Almost nodding absentmindedly, I caught myself and looked up at him, dazed.
Stay here together forever?
Just the two of us?
“By the way, where exactly is this?”
“It’s our castle.”
Castle?
“No, when on earth did we move...?”
But would Claudia really have allowed Felix and me to live alone in a different castle?
Something was strange.
Something was definitely strange, but...
I felt my head going fuzzy from hunger.
At times like this, you just have to eat.
I willingly accepted his kindness and looked for the fork and knife that should have been on the table.
“There’s no cutlery?”
“Sharp objects are dangerous.”
“I’m not three years old, you know.”
There was no way I was going to cut myself on that blunt knife.
Giving Felix a look full of disbelief, he casually sat beside me and, with elegant movements, began slicing the steak.
And then, he speared a neatly cut piece of meat with his fork and held it up to my mouth.
“Ah.”
“Aaaah…”
I opened my mouth reflexively, but couldn’t help wondering what was going on.
It didn’t seem like he was teasing me.
But it didn’t quite feel like a gesture of affection either — more like he was just wary of me touching the cutlery.
As if he truly thought I might do something dangerous with it — and he was cutting off that possibility in advance.
After briefly shifting my eyes this way and that, lost in thought, I asked.
“Can’t we open the window? It looked like it was locked earlier.”
“No, we can’t.”
The refusal was blunt and sharp.
But it wasn’t like I was asking for something outrageous.
“Why not?”
“It’s dangerous, Rin.”
“Why is a window dangerous?”
“What if you get hurt?”
“No, what the... Are you saying the window’s going to suddenly come crashing into me or something?”
Apparently, everything was dangerous.
When I asked back as if in disbelief, Felix slipped a piece of steak into my open mouth and said.
“Because you’ll jump.”
"...”
“If there’s no window, maybe you won’t think of doing it again.”
It wasn’t just my imagination.
That familiar darkness rippled in Felix’s eyes.
The soft smile on his lips was so overly sweet that it sent a chill down my spine.
“I think about it all the time. What could I possibly do to have Rin entirely to myself?”
“...”
"I want to be the only one who sees Rin. Things like that.”
Felix slowly brought his face closer and spoke, his words tickling my ear.
The lips that lightly brushed my cheek pulled away without lingering, yet it felt as if they were tightening around me, leaving me unable to breathe.
“If I break this…”
Felix bent down, his hand touching my ankle.
He gently wrapped his hand around my ankle and tapped it lightly with his fingers, as if pondering something.
As I trembled slightly from the strange tension, wondering if I had just heard him right, a deep smile spread across his lips.
He took his hand off my ankle, covered my eyes with his large hands, and softly whispered.
“If I cover these forever…”
“What?”
"You're never going to think about running away again, are you?"
It was at that moment, I thought I saw a sharp, vivid red gleam flash in his eyes through the gaps between his fingers.
“Gasp!”
I woke up from the dream.
⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡ ⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆
If you notice any errors or broken links, please let me know and I will get that fixed~ Additionally, if you would like to support me, I have a Ko-fi ~ Thank you! 💖