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SERIES: What Remains in the Damaged Place
CHAPTER: What Remains in the Damaged Place 5
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5
Mealtime arrived, as it always did.
Lirette sat perched on the edge of the bed, her eyes darting about for some time. Usually, her meal was served to her on the bed, but today, a new ebony table had been brought in, and a lavish meal was being set upon it.
Even as two chairs were placed alongside the fragrant food, she tried her best to deny reality.
But a moment later, the man who opened the door and entered shattered her last shred of hope to pieces.
“You look ready to sit there all night.”
Unlike Lirette, who was frozen, unable to act, Valderion walked in nonchalantly, took a seat in one of the chairs, and spoke. The mocking tone tapped at her dazed, frozen mind.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t you tell by looking?”
Valderion’s reply was just as leisurely as he washed his hands in the provided finger bowl.
“I came to have a meal.”
That much was obvious from his demeanor.
That wasn’t what Lirette was asking. And the man surely knew it.
“Why?”
“Does one need a reason to have a meal?”
“If it’s with me, I can’t help but ask.”
Drying his washed hands on a silk towel, Valderion let out a smirk.
“It’s just one meal.”
“...”
“Is it really something to be so serious about?”
After lightly wetting his throat with the aperitif, Valderion leaned back in his chair and met her eyes.
“More importantly, how long must I wait?”
His brilliant golden eyes glanced at the still-empty seat across from him.
Lirette clenched her fists tightly. Her nails dug into her soft flesh. Yet with all her senses trained on the man, she barely felt the pain.
Valderion’s eyebrow twitched, as if urging her to join him.
She reluctantly rose and approached the table. The shackle, adjusted to a length that allowed her to move from the bed but never leave the bedroom, tightened around her ankle like a snare.
The meal began in a fractured silence.
Feeling as if she were holding her breath, Lirette moved her cutlery, cutting her food and bringing it to her lips.
Normally, she could at least taste her food, but today was different.
The mere presence of someone dining with her made everything taste as astringent and dry as eating sand. Of course, it had less to do with having a dining companion and more to do with *who* that companion was.
Valderion maintained a haughty posture as he ate, his gaze steadily fixed on the person opposite him. In particular, his eyes would occasionally brush over Lirette’s fingertips, which held the cutlery awkwardly.
“Your hands are still stiff.”
“...”
“I haven’t looked under your skirt, but I imagine your legs are the same.”
Valderion set down the knife he was holding. It struck the smooth glass dish, letting out a sharp, grating sound.
At that moment, Lirette’s shoulders flinched.
Valderion’s pupils seized upon it, narrowing sharply.
“And yet you don’t stop doing *that*.”
His displeased tone grated on her ears.
The man’s gaze, which had been fixed on her, had shifted to a corner of the bedroom.
There, a tapestry bearing the proud crest of Justitia lay crumpled like a rag. Including the report he had heard with his own ears, this was the tenth time this had happened.
“Don’t you ever get tired of it?”
“Regrettably, no.”
“I find it regrettable as well.”
The blade of the knife in Valderion’s hand glinted menacingly.
His gestures were aristocratic and refined, but the delectable piece of meat was being unceremoniously butchered.
“Because you seem to hold quite a grudge against me.”
“...”
“That’s the look on your face. Every time we meet, it’s a look as if you’re facing a filthy, pathetic, hideous pit.”
It wasn’t just because of who he was.
The reason was a little more profound.
The main point was that he was a man who carried the bloodline of ‘Justitia.’
As he was the one who had stained the glorious days of her past with a grotesque, bloody hue, it was only natural that she harbored resentment.
“If I may offer a piece of advice, it’s not good to be overly bound by the past.”
Without putting the mangled meat in his mouth, Valderion put down his cutlery, picked up his glass, and took a drink. That single comment made Lirette’s already nonexistent appetite plummet to the very depths of the earth.
*It’s not good to be bound by the past... *
It was certainly true. And yet, depending on who said it, the sentiment was received differently.
At the very least.
At the very least, it was not a message she wanted to hear from the very person who had laid her family to waste under the imperial command.
“...”
Lirette slowly steadied her breathing.
Was it the influence of the Name?
Every time her eyes met the man’s—which looked as if golden sand had been swept together and hardened into orbs—she felt a throbbing pain in the stiff joints of her fingers, which refused to function properly.
Instead of using her disobedient fingers, she gripped the tablecloth that hung down over her knees with the parts of her that could still move.
It happened in an instant.
Crash—!
The plates and glasses that had been neatly arranged on the table were overturned in a mess. Lirette’s act of yanking the tablecloth had instantly turned the cozy dinner into a disaster.
After the event that transpired in the blink of an eye, the only thing left intact was the glass in Valderion’s hand.
His golden eyes, excessively brilliant yet often revealing his inherently indifferent nature, calmly surveyed the carnage.
Lirette met his gaze with a brazen face that gave no hint she was the one responsible for such an act.
A moment later, a fissure appeared between Valderion’s brows.
It was a rare stir of emotion from a man who was, within his own space, his own domain, perpetually impassive.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“You asked what reason is needed for a single meal. I feel the same way.”
“...”
“One doesn’t need a grand reason to lose the will to eat.”
A cold sneer formed on Valderion’s lips. The way she used his own words as a shield was almost laughable.
The atmosphere in the bedroom froze in an instant.
Neither of the two people who had created the frosty atmosphere was the first to break their locked gaze. It felt as if they were standing on a sheet of ice that would crack with a single misstep.
Lirette had to tense her entire body to keep him from noticing the nervous chill that was creeping into her fingertips.
“No matter how many years you’ve lived as a lowborn… surely you still have memories of your childhood as a noble.”
“...”
“Just because Dailan treats you like livestock, do you truly believe you’ve become such a thing?”
After bluntly pointing out her attitude, Valderion extended the glass he was still holding into the air.
His straight fingers, a perfect expression of his unbending nature, opened one by one.
The long, transparent glass willingly fell toward the floor, which was now a mire of broken plate shards and sullied food scraps.
Clang!
The shattering sound that followed was nothing compared to the earlier crash, yet it strangely rang more clearly in her ears.
“At this rate, we can’t continue the meal. Can we?”
As he rose to his full, massive height, the spacious bedroom suddenly felt cramped. He had merely stood up from a sitting position, yet a strange sense of pressure weighed down the air.
Valderion stood still, looking down at Lirette.
Perhaps he was far more comfortable staring down from above than looking at her straight on from across the table, for his gaze lingered on her for an unusually long time.
Presently, the corner of his mouth curled.
“My patience is not very good.”
“...”
“If you do this again, it won’t be fun for you.”
Unlike him, who was smiling, Lirette’s face could only harden.
*Again?*
Did that mean today wasn’t the end?
Surely not...
As Lirette watched his retreating back, she desperately hoped that this, too, was just a groundless fear.
But the man truly did begin to visit her bedroom consistently from the next day on.
The time they spent together was always the same.
Food for two would be served, and they would proceed with the meal, creating an atmosphere that would have been an improvement even at a funeral.
Lirette got the feeling that he was using this time to observe her.
There was some truth to it.
In the world of nobles, sharing a meal face-to-face was an occasion for scrutiny. In fact, after a child of a noble house learned to speak and read, the very next thing they were taught was table manners.
A setting where one satisfied their own desires while being observed by others was a kind of trial, aptly used to discern a person’s character.
Of course, Valderion wasn’t observing her for reasons of friendship or socializing.
His gaze still frequently lingered on her two hands.
It was more likely that he was showing concern for the condition of the girl who had suddenly come to bear his name.
Valderion put a piece of cut food into his mouth to savor it, then lightly tapped the glass next to him with the fork in his hand.
A clear, sharp sound, almost like a crack, rang out from the contact. Following the surprise action, Lirette flinched as if she’d been burned.
He narrowed his eyes.
Just as Lirette suspected, Valderion was using these mealtimes to scrutinize her from head to toe.
In some respects, the woman was overly sensitive.
Her hearing, for instance.
She often flinched even at the clear sound that rang out when he occasionally tapped his glass with a silver knife.
At first, it had been an accident.
But the hypersensitive reaction he discovered through that accident was both intriguing and absurd, so sometimes, Valderion would deliberately aim for the glass and strike it.
It wasn’t just in cases like this. Whenever he threw the door open without warning, the small, delicate woman’s frame would often tremble as if struck by lightning.
Whatever it was, her reaction was akin to someone who thought they were about to be eaten alive.
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