Chapter 6.1

Chapter 6.1

Eileen felt embarrassed under his gaze. She wondered what Chezare’s reaction to her cross-dressing would be, even though it seemed to her that it had been a rather gawky get-up. 

She cautiously took a look at Chezare. The moment their eyes met, she was startled. She thought that he would look at her with a piteous gaze, yet, it wasn’t the case. He looked at her with a gaze that she had never seen before. 

His crimson eyes were like a land of ruins, broken, destroyed, and only left with fragments. She couldn’t believe that his eyes, which were always shining brightly and held his arrogance, had been completely destroyed. 

However, the dangerous look vanished almost instantaneously. Chezare smiled as he usually did; it was as though what Eileen had seen was just a dream. 

‘My eyes must have been playing tricks on me, right?’

While Eileen was lost in her thoughts, Chezare stood up. Then, he sat down beside her and picked up the bag of snacks on her lap. As he absent-mindedly tore the packaging open, he asked, “Why are you so scared?” 

Eileen couldn’t answer his question, so he tapped a piece of cookie on her lips. She opened her mouth slowly, and he pushed it into her mouth in one slick move. 

“I’ll never do anything bad to you. Of course, aside from kissing you.” 

Eileen almost swallowed the cookie whole without even chewing. As she hastily chewed on it now, Chezare unwrapped a second one. 

She was blown out of her mind. She couldn’t believe that she was in the midst of a conversation with him, and it included the word “kissing”. It was difficult to follow Chezare’s changes. To Eileen, this was a completely earth-shattering situation. 

He was about to feed her with the other cookie, but she took it from him. And so, instead of feeding her the cookie, Chezare lightly wiped the crumbs off her lips. 

After finally swallowing the first cookie, she asked in a hoarse voice, “… Do you really want to marry me?” 

Chezare replied calmly, “Why are you still in doubt? Do you need me to show you again?” 

“No, no! I don’t mean that.” 

Eileen frantically denied it, and as she clutched the cookie in her hand, she explained cautiously, “You didn’t act like that towards me before. Of course, the situation might have changed, but your sudden changes are quite surprising…” 

“It’s been seven years. There’ll surely be changes.” 

“Seven years?” 

The war took three years. Eileen waited for Chezare to correct her, wondering if she had repeated his words correctly, but he simply smiled and didn’t respond to her remark. She put that brief hint of doubt aside momentarily and continued to speak. 

“Anyway, I wonder… Is there no other way?” 

She couldn’t bring herself to speak the truth. She didn’t dare to confess she liked him, that she didn’t want to be stuck in a loveless marriage. 

The marriage between noble families, also known as bluebloods, was completely a transaction. Eileen’s desire to speak about love and such would be nothing more than an immature complaint. 

Suddenly, the image of the kiss they shared popped up in her mind. She bit the flesh inside her mouth at the memory that made her blush shoot through her mind. It might not have been a big deal for Chezare, but it was a memory that she wouldn’t forget even until the day she died. In fact, she had been having sleepless nights ever since. 

‘That was my first kiss.’

Eileen had avoided men since she was young as a result of her own experience with her father. Her father enjoyed drinking, gambling, and even women. She grew up watching her mother suffer because of her father’s affairs. Naturally, she developed an aversion toward the opposite sex and placed all of her focus on her education. 

Even in the extremely infrequent situations where someone tried to approach her, they would also walk away because Eileen didn’t want to interact with them. Chezare’s soldiers would also step forward and deal with those who were persistent and tried to go out of their way to get to her. 

Due to these circumstances, she had never properly embraced a man even at this age, much less kissed anyone. The only contact she had was probably light touches with the knights when they escorted her. 

To put it in the words of the other ladies, Eileen was “uninspiring”. She was a truly boring opponent, one who was naive overly modest, and extremely plain. 

However, she also didn’t particularly desire the attention of the opposite gender, so, she lived a rather fulfilling life. Yet, she was suddenly thrust into his overwhelming actions. 

The more she thought about it, the more she felt an itch on the lips he had passionately kissed. And at that moment, a strange sensation began to rise in her mind. 

“Eileen.” 

The deep voice startled Eileen, pulling her away from her thoughts. Then, the man who gave her the most astounding experience in her life asked her a question. 

“Did you hate that we kissed?”