Even If Your Regret Tries to Hold Me Back - Chapter 33

Ian gripped the paper bag tightly in his right hand and slowly extended his empty left hand. He carefully brushed over the small scar visible above Helena’s forehead.

As if he himself were in pain, though this was literally nothing more than a completely healed wound, yet it seemed to still be bleeding vividly.

Though he himself carried countless scars on his back, he did not withdraw his hand that moved as if wiping away blood.

“It doesn’t matter. Even if I remained to you as nothing more than a stray cat you threw bread to, the size of you that remains with me wouldn’t change.”

What a frustrating thing to say, Helena thought.

The size they held for each other was too different. They could never have been the same weight from the beginning.

‘What feelings could he possibly have to want to embrace someone who can’t even remember him?’

By now the dark clouds had rolled right overhead. Raindrops began to fall one by one, but Helena didn’t move.

The fickle weather of this place was just like her heart.

“It’s true that I’m grateful to you. I believe that you want me to live. Whether it’s charity or moral conscience, or stemming from connections in a past I can’t remember, I can accept it as sincere.”

Helena placed her hand over Ian’s hand covering her scar and pulled it down.

“But if that’s the case, you have plenty of money, don’t you? Whether you stole it or had it originally, I don’t know, but you have plenty anyway.”

Helena tried to release their joined hands as they came down. However, Ian slipped out his thumb and pressed it gently against the back of her hand, holding it again.

Raindrops slipped between their warm, clasped hands.

Helena deliberately put strength in her voice, afraid it might slip too, and asked accusingly:

“You could just assign someone to me and send me to a convent or something, and that would be the end of it. Why do you spend your precious time doing this troublesome thing yourself?”

“I’ve simply decided to use it for something more precious.”

“I don’t understand why I fall within your range of precious things.”

“Don’t you also not know any reason why you shouldn’t?”

The next moment, the pressure on Helena’s hand disappeared. Her hand finally fell downward.

Helena attributed it to the raindrops that had grown quite heavy. She thought he hadn’t let go intentionally, but had slipped due to the wetness.

‘Ah.’

As soon as that thought occurred to her, she froze as if cold water had been poured over her.

Yes, this was why she shouldn’t stay by this man’s side—because he made her feel this way.

Just as there would be no disappointment if she didn’t expect anything from the beginning, there would be no sense of loss if she never gave her heart away.

“I thought you wouldn’t understand me, but I’m the same way. I don’t understand you. What exactly do you want to do with me?”

“You don’t need to do anything.”

“Then what do you want to do alone?”

“Don’t get too caught up in relationships. I don’t mind if our relationship isn’t symmetrical. There are people who are satisfied simply by the existence of someone on the other side.”

Whoooosh—

Finally, torrential rain began pouring down. It was a shower, so it would stop soon, but they couldn’t trudge through rain like this.

Helena and Ian stopped their conversation for now and went under the awning of a nearby shop.

Ian roughly shook the water from his hair and looked up at the sky. Helena’s gaze followed his toward the sky.

It was a truly strange scene. On the opposite side, a red sunset was setting, while directly overhead, rain poured down as if a hole had been punched in the sky.

Helena looked at the puddles beginning to form, soaking the parched earth of recent days, and said:

“You still haven’t answered properly. What do you want to do alone?”

Ian turned his head toward her. Helena faced him as well.

Despite the gray tint that colored everything due to the weather, strangely he alone looked clean. An endlessly clear silver color.

With just that face, with just that voice, he answered:

“I will soak you.”

“……?”

“Like drowning in the sea while still breathing. I will soak you completely through.”

And then he turned his head away again.

“…….”

“…….”

By then the rain had thinned.

If they waited just a little longer, it seemed it would stop completely. During that time, neither of the two opened their mouths.

It had become a natural silence.

But separately from that, the fact that she didn’t need to make an effort to draw out someone’s reaction or fill the silence felt somewhat awkward to Helena.

“The rain has stopped.”

A few minutes later, it was Ian who broke the silence first. Taking a step outside the awning, he extended his hand toward Helena.

“Shall we go now?”

Helena looked back and forth between his hand and him, then let out a resigned sigh.

Even if she stubbornly insisted on her own will and tried to part ways here, she would obviously just be treated like a sack of potatoes again.

“I have to sleep with you again today, don’t I? And probably tomorrow too, and the day after.”

“……That sounds a bit strange when you put it that way.”

“Then can we part ways?”

“No. Let’s sleep together.”

He extended his hand closer as a gesture of urging. Helena reluctantly placed her hand on top of his.

Ian led her gently with a small smile. Soon the sound of footsteps on wet gravel continued quietly.

Suddenly Helena recalled the night when he had searched for her. Like then, she stared blankly at their overlapped hands.

Her hand, covered so firmly it was barely visible, by a hand marked with small scars.

‘Should I let go, or not?’

This time, her contemplation didn’t last very long. Due to the cold rainwater, his hand wasn’t as sufficiently warm as before. But somehow it seemed she could keep holding it.

While she was thinking absent-mindedly like this, a four-wheeled carriage passed right beside them. Ian quickly pulled Helena’s arm, hiding her behind his back.

Muddy water splashed as the wheels passed through a puddle.

“Be careful.”

He looked Helena up and down once, then brushed the fallen leaves off the paper bag.

Before she could even miss the faint warmth that had briefly left, their hands were joined again.

The touching skin was only the area of one palm. Why her whole body felt warm was beyond understanding.

Helena looked down at the tips of her shoes, which had changed from their original beige to dark brown, and murmured quietly:

“I think…… I’m already a little wet.”

That’s why she was worried.

If it was impossible to cut him off now, she didn’t know what to do going forward.

****

Eugene loosened the tie that had been choking his neck as he entered the hotel where he planned to stay for a while.

It had been an exhausting day, and the fact that he didn’t know how many more such days he would have to endure made him even more tired.

As soon as he closed the door to his room and turned around, he threw his jacket onto the sofa and collapsed heavily onto the bed.

Eugene, who had been lying motionless with his eyes closed, only moved when the communication device placed on the nightstand responded.

Before leaving the mansion, only a limited number of people had been given the same communication device in case of urgent matters.

Moreover, there was only one person who would contact him at such an hour, so he connected the signal without even opening his eyes.

“What is it?”

Beyond the screen that flickered to life above the device, Natasha, with her chestnut blonde hair flowing elegantly, stiffened slightly.

Momentarily flustered by Eugene’s appearance, which was different from what she had expected, she soon filled her expression with a shy smile.

“I just…… missed you, Your Grace.”

Both her cheeks began to blush red. She was as lovely as sweet spring flowers.

Though the man she wanted to show this appearance to wasn’t even looking at the screen.

“If there’s nothing special, please refrain from contacting me in the future, Natasha.”

Eugene spoke curtly in a dry tone.

Natasha’s reddened complexion gradually returned to its original color. All she could see was Eugene’s profile as he lay with his eyes closed.

She knew well enough why he was acting this way. Recently, the person who had been disappointing him was predetermined.

Natasha took a moment to steady her breathing.

She couldn’t know what kind of answer the question about to be voiced would bring, but it was something she would have said eventually.

“Can you……not forget the Madam?”

A slight wrinkle formed between Eugene’s brows. At the same time, a displeased groan escaped quietly through his teeth. Eugene was displeased that just one question had dragged up the thoughts he had tried so hard to bury.

……Or perhaps, something else entirely.

Still, Natasha was satisfied that she had finally caught his attention. Eugene opened his eyes and sat up to look at her.

“Natasha.”

For the first time, he looked somewhat angry. The tone that followed was the same.

“The reason I allowed you into the mansion was precisely because you didn’t aspire to anything beyond that.”

“……Your Grace.”

“I wouldn’t care if you filled your room with jewels or made the servants kneel at your feet.”

Eugene cast a coldly hardened gaze.

“But don’t covet Helena’s place.”

Natasha couldn’t speak for a long while. Her eyes, which had begun to flush red, looked pitiful.

With a face that could wring the hearts of all the men in the world just by looking at it, she murmured softly:

“I know that well. I just, I just…… said it because I was worried about you, Your Grace.”

Natasha shrank into herself. She looked endlessly fragile, like a delicate glass doll. At that sight, Eugene’s intensity softened slightly.

He spoke in a voice that barely managed to disguise itself as gentle:

“If that was the case, you should have been even more sparing with your words.”

“But Your Grace—”

“Do you still have more to say?”

Eugene turned his head away from her with a dry sigh. He showed signs of being terribly tired as he bent forward with his arms resting on his knees.

However, Natasha did not back down in the end.

“Even if Your Grace says that, I know. The love I received from Your Grace wasn’t entirely false.”

“You don’t seem to understand even what I’m saying now, so I don’t know what you claim to know.”

“I understand Your Grace as always. That night, surely—”

“Stop.”

At the mention of “that night,” Eugene visibly frowned. Like someone whose weakness had been exposed, he cut off the conversation entirely.

His breathing carried even deeper emotion.

This time Natasha also took a step back.

“I apologize. Please rest, Your Grace.”

Leaving a quiet farewell, the screen disappeared.