13. Please Just Leave Me Alone

“Let go!”

Adeline let out a scream that sounded like it would tear.

If they hadn’t been in the forest, it would have been a high-pitched voice that could wake all the people of Horn village.

Adeline struggled to free her captured shoulder. But the more she tried to escape, the stronger the grip tightened.

“Help! Someone help me!”

Please save me, if anyone is there.

Adeline cried out.

It was already unfair to be reborn as a character in a novel, but to be dragged to her death by the hands of her biological father who gave birth to her.

It was too cruel. So she was struggling to escape when.

“Adeline!”

Adeline flinched at the familiar voice that seeped into her ears.

She carefully raised her head.

“Mel? W-why are you here?”

Only then did Adeline realize that the person who had grabbed her was Casis.

She urgently scanned the surroundings and grabbed his sleeve.

“Did you see anyone chasing me? Are you alone? Are you okay?”

Her hand holding the duke trembled uncontrollably.

Adeline was hopelessly soaked in the pouring rain. The streams of water flowing from her hair to her round forehead and eyes blocked Adeline’s vision.

“It’s okay. I’m alone. No one is chasing us.”

The duke raised his other hand and wiped away the water flowing down Adeline’s cheek.

It wasn’t rainwater.

The warmth that dampened the tips of his fingers was Adeline’s tears.

“I just came out because I was worried about Adeline. But what’s going on? What do you mean someone is chasing you?”

Adeline collapsed, her legs suddenly giving way at the duke’s innocent gaze.

No one was there.

The one chasing her wasn’t the Marquis Credion’s group but this man!

The tears that had been welling up in her eyes flowed down pitifully.

It was resentment toward the man mixed with relief.

“Why…… why did you come out here!”

Adeline suddenly felt a surge of emotion.

“I told you to stay at home!”

She had repeatedly told him not to come out. Yet again, he couldn’t resist and had come looking for her.

Normally, this might have been a matter to gently admonish and let go.

But perhaps due to the tension from being chased by the marquis’s family all along, Adeline had reached her limit of patience.

She was tired, both physically and mentally.

She should have been grateful to the duke who came to get her through this storm, but while her mind knew this, her body wouldn’t cooperate.

“It’s okay, I’m here……”

Adeline struck away the duke’s arms as he tried to embrace her.

Her gaze toward the duke was colder than frost. Cold enough to freeze the heart of the man looking at her.

⁕⁕⁕

The duke had only intended to help with the troublesome small zipper and then leave.

But the moment he touched the zipper, his thoughts changed.

Seeing Adeline who had stopped breathing, he wanted to tease her. So he deliberately began to lower the zipper slowly.

He resented this woman who said no to his words. At first, it was just a mischievous desire to fluster Del.

However, as the zipper descended revealing her fair skin, his mind became distant.

Conversely, he became the one being tormented.

The duke couldn’t control himself when he saw Adeline’s white skin.

Knowing full well that Adeline would be troubled, he buried his lips on her shoulder.

As expected, Del startled and tried to turn around, but the duke held her firmly, unable to face her expression.

“Haa……”

The duke feared Adeline would look at him with contempt.

So he lowered his head deeply so that he couldn’t see her expression.

Why am I creating this situation by losing my memory?

The duke felt utterly pathetic about his memory loss.

At that moment, something hot boiled up in the duke’s heart.

What if his memories never returned?

He wanted to make his relationship with Adeline clearer.

So he turned her around and lowered his head toward her.

Fortunately, there was no sign of the contempt he had worried about in Adeline’s eyes that met his.

Her eyes were just trembling endlessly like his.

In truth, he thought he would be satisfied with just touching lips.

But the moment Adeline’s breath touched him, he couldn’t come to his senses.

Without realizing it, he gripped Adeline’s waist as if it might break, then immediately embraced her gently as if she were precious.

“Ah.”

Startled by the flash that suddenly came through the window, Adeline pushed him away.

Her pushing hands felt only spiteful to him.

Looking at the woman’s eyes that had lost their way, he found her so lovable that he smiled.

He decided to let her go for today by just cleaning up her lips.

“Go wash up now.”

He needed to cool down his heat too. Feeling that it wouldn’t cool down at all in the same space, he left the bedroom.

After some time had passed.

The rain stopped, and he encountered Adeline in the hallway. She saw him, lowered her flushing face, and fled to town.

At first, he thought she would return soon.

But contrary to his expectations, time passed endlessly, and darkness covered the world.

The summer after rain became cool when night fell, as if it had never been hot.

Recalling the thin dress she had worn, he began to worry.

She must be cold. With that thought, he decided to take a coat and go find her.

When he entered the forest path leading to town, the rain that had stopped began to fall again.

The rain that started lightly soon intensified and was soaking everything again.

He couldn’t return home due to worry.

He began searching for her, holding up the coat he had brought for Adeline with both hands to roughly block the rain.

After searching for a while, he saw her sheltering under a large tree in the distance.

“Del! You’re there!”

He shouted, wondering if she could hear his voice.

But perhaps because the sound of rain was too loud, it didn’t seem to reach her.

“I’ll come to you, wait!”

He shouted in a louder voice. Then Adeline began to run in the opposite direction from the house.

“That’s the wrong way! Where are you going!”

He quickened his steps to catch Adeline.

“Stop!”

No matter how much he shouted, Adeline continued to flee.

Eventually, he saw piles of earth in the distance. It looked like there had been a landslide due to the heavy seasonal rain.

However, Adeline was dangerously trying to hide her body between the piles of earth. In a place that could collapse at any moment.

The duke approached urgently and grabbed her shoulder.

“Ahhh! Let go!!”

When he grabbed her, she started screaming this time. As if she had seen a monster.

“Calm down! It’s me.”

“Ahhh! Help!!! Someone help me!”

“Adeline!”

“Mel? W-why are you here?”

Adeline, who had been in a state of panic, seemed to recognize the duke.

Upon discovering the duke, Adeline began to sob this time.

“Did you see anyone chasing me? Are you alone? Are you okay?”

Adeline was on the verge of losing her mind.

The duke’s throat tightened at her extremely precarious state. Why, who had driven this woman into such a corner?

“It’s okay. I’m alone. No one is chasing us. I just came out because I was worried about Adeline. But what’s going on? What do you mean someone is chasing you?”

Even though he was the one who had been chasing Adeline,

“Why…… why did you come out here! I told you to stay at home!”

Tears thicker than before streamed down Adeline’s cheeks.

She must have been very scared.

Though he didn’t know what it was, the duke wanted to embrace the pitiful Adeline before him.

However, Adeline harshly brushed off his hand.

Then Adeline spat out words mixed with resentment.

“From now on, even if I don’t come back, never. Never come out!”

“How can I just stay at home when Del doesn’t return?”

“When I say don’t come out, don’t come out.”

Adeline was unwilling to compromise at all with the duke’s words.

A hollow laugh escaped his lips at Adeline’s unyielding attitude.

“How can I not worry?”

“Why do you worry about me? Don’t! Just stay at home whether I come back or not.”

Adeline raised her voice.

Beyond resentment, the emotion Adeline showed toward him was close to hatred.

“Why are you acting like this to me?”

He had only come out to look for a lover who hadn’t returned until late.

He was just worried. He was concerned that Adeline might get hurt or lose her way in this storm.

“Is it so difficult to understand that you shouldn’t leave the mansion?”

Adeline’s thorny words continued endlessly. Casis’s red eyes sank deeply at the barrage of venom she spewed as if she had lost her mind.

His reflection in her gray eyes looked infinitely miserable.

What made this woman so angry and anxious?

“Whether I disappear, get captured, or die, don’t care. Please just leave me alone.”

Was his heart merely annoying and uncomfortable to this woman?

The rain continued to pour heavily. His heart felt more than bitter; it felt like it was being torn apart.

The duke’s eyes sank desolately. They were eyes that had been hurt.

It would have been nice if she had understood a little. That he had come here out of genuine concern.

But perhaps hidden by the heavily falling rain, that sincerity didn’t reach Adeline.

His chest ached, and he unconsciously contorted his face. Then his lowered gaze fell on Adeline’s hand.

The bandage wrapped around her hand had been soaked through and had come half undone long ago.

When he discovered that hand, the ache in his chest was no longer felt. This woman’s pain came first for him.

“Alright then. If you still have the strength to be angry, let’s continue at home.”

The two didn’t say a single word during their journey home.

The emotional gap that couldn’t be resolved in the rain only continued to deepen.