Regression After Proposing to My Childhood Friend
Chapter 17
“…….”
“…….”
A brief silence flowed between the two at her sudden action.
His hair was disheveled between her fingers, and his face, caught off guard, was fully exposed.
Beatrice, staring intently at that sight, narrowed her eyes slightly.
‘……Ah, he’s seriously, disgustingly handsome.’
His blue eyes, widened in surprise, and his slightly parted lips were so irritatingly handsome that they further scrambled her already malfunctioning train of thought.
“Hey, Bea?”
“……Shh. Be quiet. I’m thinking.”
Having bought some time with sheer force of personality, Beatrice searched her brain for what to say before finally spitting out a single sentence.
“You’re suspicious.”
“……What?”
“You’ve been extremely suspicious for a while now.”
“What is?”
It was a remark made to smooth over the situation, but once she brought it up, she found she had plenty to say.
Seeing him naturally try to back out of it, even though he knew exactly what she was talking about, made her even more certain!
“You keep pushing me aside, saying it’s something I don’t need to know, and telling me not to budge from a safe place.”
“…….”
“And that question you just asked me about where I was going—you didn’t ask that out of pure curiosity, did you?”
The more she spoke, the more her true feelings welled up.
Beatrice tightened her grip, pressing him down further as she opened her mouth.
“I tried to wait because I thought maybe you’d suffered some great shock during the Regression, but seriously. Hey. Even my mom and dad don’t act as sensitive as you do.”
“…I think the Count and Caelen would have been similar if they were in my position.”
“What did you say?”
Because Beatrice leaned in, saying she couldn’t hear him well, Clyde’s body was pushed back even further than before.
“No, wait a second.”
“Wait for what?”
With the situation heading toward him being buried into the sofa, Clyde lightly grabbed her wrists.
“I told you to wait a moment, didn’t I? First, get off me. And take your hands off my face. Hey, right now this is…….”
“Where do you think you’re pulling your tricks? Do you think I don’t know you’ll just turn the conversation around like a slippery eel and play dumb if I let go?”
She could see it clearly even without looking.
Beatrice scoffed and leaned her weight into him, as if to say she would never let him off the hook.
It was a silent proposal to confess and find salvation.
Faced with a situation where his excuses wouldn’t work, Clyde protested with an aggrieved expression.
“No, Bea. Is it really that strange for me to be concerned about your safety?”
“Yes.”
“You’re my childhood friend, my wife, and a comrade who regressed with me, aren’t you?”
“You might as well say you’re possessed by a ghost.”
A childhood friend was, by nature, a relationship where you let each other be.
It meant they weren’t the kind of pair to be this clingy with their worries.
‘If that guy had been like this from the start, he wouldn’t have just left me sitting in a flowerbed when I passed out from strawberry wine at the academy festival!’
Back then, instead of moving Beatrice, who had climbed into a flowerbed thinking it was a bed, to her room, Clyde had simply asked if she needed a blanket.
Then, after she nodded in her sleep, he had covered her with his coat—the one with his name tag on it—as if doing her a favor, and left.
And he had kindly recorded the whole thing with an Obscura for posterity, too!
‘Of course, the flowerbed I fell asleep in was in the center of a crowded garden, so it was at a level I could laugh off! The kids came to wake me up pretty quickly, saying they heard about it from Clyde.’
However, the point was that the version of him back then didn’t act like he did now.
If it had been the suspicious Clyde of recent days…….
‘He probably wouldn’t have let me drink the strawberry wine in the first place!’
It was a reasonably sound deduction.
Beatrice pressed down on his cheeks—which he was trying to use to solve the situation—and tilted her chin.
“Hey, just come clean. Your brain, which is always overthinking things, is easy to read. Did something happen in the past that would shock me if I heard it now? And is it something that’s either about me or closely related to me?”
“…….”
“If you asked me to join hands with you, then trust me first. Don’t go around scaring people for no reason.”
“What’s there to be scared of?”
“Don’t you know? People die when they start doing things they never did before.”
Her voice was as firm as if he were about to drop dead right then and there.
Clyde looked at her blankly for a moment before letting out a low sigh.
Then, he pulled away Beatrice’s hands, which were still squishing his cheeks.
Shaking his head lightly, Clyde spoke in a voice of half-resignation.
“I’ll say this in advance, but guessing and knowing are two different things.”
“It won’t be as annoying as being swayed by vague guesses.”
“Hey, you……. Forget it. Just get up and we’ll talk again.”
Supporting her waist with one hand so she wouldn’t fall, Clyde lifted his upper body slightly.
Just then, as the distance between the two temporarily closed.
—Knock, knock! Click!
With a light knock, the door swung open.
“Bea, Clyde isn’t in the guest room, so he’s here, right? Hyung said he has something to give him since he’s going far away, so I’ll borrow him for a mome…nt…….”
The second son of the Hartwell Count family, Carlyle, who had opened the door naturally, met the eyes of the two who were unexpectedly tangled together.
“…….”
“…….”
A heavy silence flowed between the three.
No one could think to move or speak.
In the space filled only with awkward air, it was Carlyle, who had opened the door, who first stepped up to handle the situation.
“Hmm.”
He swallowed once, dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment, then raised it again.
Then, he nodded with the most nonchalant expression he could muster.
“Right. You’ve reconciled well……. Yeah. That’s a relief.”
He said the words, but his voice sounded anything but relieved.
Only then did Beatrice regain her senses, her face turning bright red as she shuddered.
“No! That’s not it…!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Carlyle cut off Beatrice’s words, nodding with a benevolent smile.
It was the kind of smile that said, even if his older brother didn’t understand, he, the second son, understood everything.
“You don’t have to explain; it must be embarrassing. I’m sorry. I still haven’t quite realized that you’re married.”
“I’m telling you, that’s not it!”
“That’s right, I, it’s not like that……”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure. If you say it’s not, then it’s not. I have enough tact to know that much.”
His tone suggested he had no intention of listening at all.
Whether Beatrice was grabbing the back of her neck in frustration or not, Carlyle seemed to have quickly processed his emotions.
In fact, from his perspective, it was only natural.
Even though they hadn’t moved out yet, they were, after all, a married couple.
Besides, wasn’t today the last day Clyde, who was leaving for a while, would be staying with Beatrice!
‘They say a marital spat is like cutting water with a knife…….’
Brushing the back of his head with his hand as if feeling awkward, he took a step back and grabbed the doorknob.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep it a secret from Hyung. I’ll make up a good excuse.”
“What excuse! Oppa, Carlyle, hey!”
But it was already too late.
Even as she called his name, he didn’t stop, and just before the door closed, he added one last thing.
“Oh, but just in case, you should lock the door.”
“…….”
—Click.
Beyond the fully closed door, the sound of his cheerful footsteps began to fade away again.
Beatrice, watching that sight blankly, muttered in despair.
“……I told you it wasn’t like that, so why tell us to lock the door, you crazy brother……”
It was Carlyle, of all people.
He was hopelessly bad at lying or hiding things, always getting caught by their eldest brother, Ian.
Soon enough, their eldest brother Ian, their parents, and the entire household would know everything that had just happened!
‘Since eldest brother is sharp, he won’t bring it up or act like he knows, and he’ll probably tell everyone to keep their mouths shut, but…….’
Beatrice, who had been rubbing her face with her hands while squeezing her eyes shut, muttered briefly to Clyde.
“……Hey, want to bolt?”
“……To the Imperial Palace?”
“Yeah, to the Imperial Palace.”
Normally, it was a time when entry to the Imperial Palace was prohibited, but very fortunately, Clyde was a knight under the direct command of the Crown Prince.
And a knight who was being dispatched tomorrow, at that.
‘And even though I haven’t made it public, I’m the Empress’s special envoy anyway!’
The Knights had dormitories for knights who couldn’t return home due to official business, and Beatrice had Kaya, the head maid who would help her.
The two exchanged a quick look and, putting to good use the experience of playing hide-and-seek at the mansion when they were young, slipped out of the Hartwell Count family estate.
[We’re leaving early because we’re busy! We’ll be back! We’ll write! With love, Beatrice and Clyde.
P.S. I swear on my life, we aren’t running away.]
Leaving behind a note, in their own way, so their family wouldn’t worry.
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