I Proposed to My Childhood Friend After Regressing - Chapter 17

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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After the Regression, I Proposed to My Childhood Friend
Chapter 17
“…….”
“…….”
Her sudden action drew a brief silence between them.
Through her parted fingers, his disheveled hair and defenseless face lay completely exposed.
Beatrice, who had been staring at him intently, narrowed her eyes slightly.
‘……Ah, damn it. He’s infuriatingly handsome.’
His wide blue eyes, startled and innocent, and his softly parted lips were so annoyingly beautiful that they scattered her already-fractured thoughts even further.
“Hey, Beatrice?”
“……Shh. Be quiet. I’m thinking.”
Beatrice, who’d bought herself time through sheer nerve, finally managed to extract a single sentence from the depths of her mind.
“You’re acting suspicious.”
“……What?”
“You’ve been very peculiar for the past while.”
“About what?”
The words had tumbled out to smooth things over, but now that she’d said them, she had plenty more to say.
The fact that he clearly understood what she meant but still managed to slip away so smoothly only made it worse!
“You say it’s something I don’t need to know, then quietly push me aside. You tell me to stay put in a safe place and not move an inch.”
“…….”
“And when you asked me just now where I was going—you weren’t actually curious out of pure innocence, were you?”
The more she spoke, the more sincerity welled up.
Beatrice tightened her grip and pressed closer, her voice sharpening.
“I was willing to give you time, thinking maybe the Regression had dealt you some terrible shock. But honestly. Clyde. Even my parents aren’t as oversensitive as you’re being right now.”
“…The Count and Jedrick probably would have acted similarly if they’d been in my position.”
“What?”
Beatrice leaned forward, saying she hadn’t quite heard him, and Clyde’s body tilted back further against the sofa.
“Wait, actually—”
“Wait for what?”
Feeling as though he might be buried in the cushions if this went on, Clyde gently caught her wrist.
“Just wait a moment, will you? First, get off me. Take your hands off my face. Look, this isn’t——”
“Don’t think for a second I don’t know you. If I let go, you’ll twist your words and play dumb like some weasel.”
She didn’t even have to look to see it clearly.
Beatrice gave a derisive snort and leaned her full weight on him, making it clear she wouldn’t budge.
It was a silent ultimatum: confess and seek redemption.
Seeing that logic had no chance of winning, Clyde protested with an aggrieved expression.
“Why is it so strange for me to worry about your safety?”
“Yes.”
“You’re my childhood friend, my wife, and my fellow traveler in this Regression.”
“Then I’d rather you say you’ve been possessed by a ghost.”
Childhood friends, by nature, gave each other appropriate distance.
Not the kind of relationship where one worried like this, with such nervous intensity.
‘If he’d always been like this, he never would have left me passed out in the flower bed when I collapsed drunk on strawberry wine at the Academy festival!’
Back then, instead of carrying Beatrice from the flower bed to his room, Clyde had asked if she needed blankets.
When she’d drowsily nodded yes, he’d magnanimously draped his own coat—the one with his nameplate—over her and left.
Thoughtfully, he’d even taken a picture of the whole thing with his Obscura for posterity.
‘Of course, the fact that I was passed out in the middle of the Garden where people usually gather meant it was the kind of thing we could laugh off! And the other students came to wake me up pretty quickly once they heard from Clyde.’
But the point was, he hadn’t acted this way back then.
If the suspicious Clyde of recent days had been there…….
‘He probably wouldn’t have let me drink that strawberry wine in the first place.’
It was a fairly sound deduction.
Beatrice poked his cheeks insistently with her palms, not letting him use his face as a way out, and jerked her chin meaningfully.
“Just tell me straight. Your complicated way of thinking is so transparent I can read it like a book. If the version of me that exists now would be shocked to hear it, then something happened in the past, didn’t it? Something that happened to me, or something directly connected to me.”
“…….”
“You said we should move forward together holding hands. So trust me first. Don’t go scaring people for no reason.”
“What’s there to be scared of?”
“Don’t you know? People die when they do things they normally don’t do.”
Her tone was so firm, as if he might die on the spot.
Clyde gazed at her for a long moment, then released a quiet sigh.
He gently pulled her hands away from where she was squishing his cheeks.
Clyde shook his head lightly and spoke in a tone of half-surrender.
“Fair warning: guessing and knowing are two different things.”
“At least it’s less frustrating than being dragged around by vague suspicions.”
“You’re……. Fine. Just sit up and we’ll talk properly.”
Supporting her waist with one hand to keep her from falling, Clyde raised his torso slightly.
In that moment, the distance between them grew momentarily closer.
—Knock knock! Click!
A light knock sounded, and the door swung open.
“Beatrice, Clyde isn’t in his room. He’s here, right? He’s leaving far away and my brother wants to give him something, so can I borrow it for a moment…….”
The eyes of Carlyle, the second son of the Hartwell household, who had opened the door so naturally, met those of the two people unexpectedly entwined together.
“…….”
“…….”
A heavy silence fell among the three of them.
Not a soul moved or thought to speak.
In the awkward quiet, it was Carlyle, who had opened the door, who first tried to salvage the situation.
“Um.”
He swallowed once, his gaze dropping briefly before rising again.
Then, with the most composed expression he could muster, he nodded.
“Yeah. You two made up well, it seems……. Uh. That’s good, I guess.”
But his voice betrayed him entirely.
Only then did Beatrice’s senses return, and she shook with embarrassment, her face flushing crimson.
“No! That’s not what——!”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.”
Carlyle cut off Beatrice’s protest with a gentle smile and a nod.
It was the sort of smile that said he understood everything, even if his older brother didn’t.
“Don’t be embarrassed explaining. I’m sorry. I still can’t quite believe you’re married, you know?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you—it’s not!”
“That’s the thing, I wasn’t…….”
“Yeah, yeah. If it’s not that, then it’s not. I’m not so dim I can’t read the room.”
He clearly had no intention of accepting their words.
Whether Beatrice protested in frustration or not, Carlyle seemed to have already made peace with whatever had happened.
In fact, from his perspective, it made perfect sense.
Though they hadn’t yet moved out, they were legitimately a married couple.
Moreover, wasn’t today Clyde’s last day before leaving for a long journey, his last day before parting from Beatrice?
‘They say that quarrels between husband and wife are like cutting water with a knife…….’
Awkwardly, he ran a hand over the back of his head, stepped back, and reached for the door handle.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep it from the older brother. I’ll smooth it over nicely.”
“Don’t smooth anything over! Carlyle, come on!”
But it was already too late.
Even as she called his name, he didn’t so much as nod, and as he closed the door, he added one final word right before it shut.
“Oh, and lock the door, just in case.”
“…….”
—Click.
Beyond the fully closed door, cheerful footsteps began to fade into the distance.
Beatrice stared numbly after him, muttering helplessly.
“……But I just said it’s not like that. Why would he tell me to lock the door, this insane brother…….”
And of all people, it had to be Carlyle.
The same Carlyle who was helplessly terrible at lying or keeping secrets, the one who always got exposed by his older brother Ian.
Within hours, Ian would surely know. Her parents would know. The entire household would know what had just happened!
‘Ian has good instincts, so he probably won’t mention it or pretend to know, and he’ll definitely tell people to keep quiet…….’
Beatrice, eyes squeezed shut, performed a dry wash over her face and muttered shortly at Clyde.
“……Want to escape?”
“……To the Imperial Palace?”
“Yeah, to the Imperial Palace.”
Normally, the Imperial Palace was off-limits during this hour, but Clyde, fortunately, was a knight under the direct command of the Crown Prince.
One who was being sent out on dispatch tomorrow, no less.
‘And I haven’t revealed it, but I’m technically the Empress’s special envoy anyway!’
The knight brigade had a dormitory for knights who couldn’t return home due to official duties, and Beatrice had Kaya, her lady’s maid, to assist her.
The two exchanged a quick glance and, drawing on the hide-and-seek skills they’d honed as children in this very mansion, slipped out of the Hartwell estate.
[We have urgent business to attend to, so we’re leaving first! We’ll be back soon! I’ll write! With love, Beatrice and Clyde.
P.S. I swear on my life we’re not running away]
They left a note to keep their family from worrying.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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