I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 3

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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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Chapter 3
“I’m not particularly fond of it.”
“That’s surprising. I thought you’d say it outright—that you hate it.”
“If anything, that’s closer to the truth.”
At his answer, I broke into a delighted smile.
It was only natural.
I knew everything.
How tenderly Ernan had treated the young heroine. And which charitable organization you were currently sponsoring.
So I couldn’t help but smile at the man maintaining his expressionless facade as if to say, “So what’s the problem?”
“That’s so like you.”
Saying things you don’t even mean so casually.
I let my laughter drift away on the cool autumn breeze beyond the terrace railing.
That was why I failed to notice the deep blue gaze that lingered on me for so long.
* * *
I warned old Pippin several times to keep his mouth shut, then ordered him to prepare a room for Kiara.
After that, I had the servants feed and bathe her, and I didn’t forget my promise to give her dessert after the meal.
When I came to my senses, I was already sitting beside the drowsy Kiara with a fairy tale book open in my hands.
Though truthfully, this wasn’t like me at all.
‘Anyone would do the same after seeing limbs rubbed raw and red from winter’s cold.’
It was early evening. Since Kiara, freshly bathed and fed after so long, had grown drowsy early, we decided to retire for the night.
The nightclothes the servants had brought fit Kiara perfectly. The child, nestled in the soft bed, looked up at me.
Unlike the vicious original character, the rather taciturn child had pulled the blanket up to her chin and was moving her mouth silently.
“I have a question.”
“Of course.”
“Does that mean you’re my sponsor now? Do sponsors always use formal speech?”
Kiara really was clever.
“Do you understand the concept of sponsorship?”
“I heard about it at the orphanage.”
Ah.
At those words, I closed my mouth.
Not for any other reason, but because I’d pricked myself with guilt.
By this point, I should have been married and already adopted Kiara besides.
But I was not in that position now. The word was not “could not”—it was “had not.”
“So you were at the orphanage.”
Since I’d deliberately refused marriage.
In other words, the fact that this whole situation had spiraled out so far was largely my fault.
“Yeah. But I ran away. They kept hitting me.”
Kiara shifted her body with an irritated motion.
In the original, Kiara had suffered abuse at the orphanage as a child—or so it was said. I found myself deeply disturbed by how casually Kiara spoke of it.
“The servants here said… the ladies mentioned that Kiara has many scars on her body.”
“Yeah, because they hurt.”
“…That must have been painful?”
“Why would you ask something obvious?”
I apologized, and Kiara let out a dismissive snort.
“It’s fine.”
I found myself at a loss for words again.
‘Somehow she seems more composed than I am.’
So my conclusion about Kiara’s current situation, summed up in a single sentence, was this:
The window in which I should have adopted her had closed, and unlike in the original, Kiara—never adopted—had fled the orphanage, unable to endure the abuse any longer.
Oh, this was difficult.
The guilt stirring beneath my feet swelled and took on weight.
Even though it was truly the orphanage people who were at fault, I still felt it.
“My feelings aren’t in a good place right now.”
“Huh? Why would you feel that way?”
“Just… that’s all.”
Even though I knew I had no right to.
To be honest, I was so irritated I wanted to burn all of them to ashes.
“What does that mean?”
Kiara’s face twisted in confusion.
I let out a small, hollow laugh.
‘Should I call it heaven’s blessing that I found this child at the Train Station?’
If I had passed by without noticing, I couldn’t bear to imagine what would have become of her.
“You won’t hurt anymore now, so don’t worry.”
Even so, guilt for not finding her sooner was bleeding through me.
When I thought about how much more Kiara must have suffered during all those hours I failed to find her, I wanted nothing more than to crawl along the ground.
“I hope you’ll forgive my formality—it’s simply a habit I’ve developed. Nearly everyone I meet moves in circles where formal speech is required, and by now it’s become second nature.”
I meant both High Society and Romen University. My world was crowded with people of higher station than myself, and I had scarcely a single close friend I could speak to without ceremony.
‘Now that I think about it, Ernan was the unusual one.’
He’d shown me respect while still managing to be surprisingly unguarded with me.
Kiara regarded me with curious eyes.
“Are you a commoner, then?”
“No. I’m nobility, though from an insignificant house. We simply have money.”
A lie. There was scarcely a soul in this kingdom who had not heard of House Jonas.
“Becoming your patron is the right decision. You may not be the person I was searching for, but you clearly possess a keen mind worthy of such investment.”
But she was. Kiara was exactly the person I’d been looking for.
And yet…
‘If I told her everything, she’d be terrified.’
Who wouldn’t be frightened to learn that someone from House Jonas had been watching over them all this time?
So I made a decision then: I would keep this secret forever.
The child’s eyes still held that flicker of lingering distrust. But soon I watched those golden irises grow hazy, drooping softly closed.
“Time for sleep, I see.”
I carefully closed the Fairy Tale Book I’d been about to read aloud.
The saying that children fall asleep the moment their heads touch the pillow seemed to ring true.
This was a moment that called for peaceful silence.
“Dream sweetly, Kiara.”
As I gently smoothed back the wisps of hair fallen across her face, I swallowed words I couldn’t speak aloud.
I’m sorry for finding you so late.
* * *
Kiara had only just turned eleven, I learned.
‘To look at her, she doesn’t seem more than ten.’
No matter how I tried to think rationally, I kept coming back to one thought: the Orphanage deserved to be torn apart.
‘They hit the child and starved her.’
In the name of House Jonas, I would not forgive them.
The very next day, I went straight to the police and filed a report. I was grateful that Kiara remembered the Orphanage’s name.
<You know who I am, of course.>
<Ah… you did write your name on the report form.>
<Good, then this should be simple. Please handle it well.>
<Of course! I understand completely.>
In moments like these, power was a useful thing.
If only everything could have been resolved so easily.
Originally, I’d planned to stay in the Capital only until Kiara’s wounds had healed. The problem was that whatever those monsters at the Orphanage had done to her, the bruises didn’t fade even days later.
Winter’s cold had slowed her skin’s recovery—scraped raw and battered as it was.
The doctor had simply said to apply medicine and leave it be, but I wasn’t one to sit idle. How could I just wait?
For more than a week, I threw myself into strengthening her immunity and concocting better medicines by any means I could devise.
Since I’d always taken some interest in Pharmacy, I told myself this was practical experience, at least.
Nothing worked.
Which made sense—I knew absolutely nothing about medicine.
And so a week passed.
‘If only I had studied Pharmacy as my major.’
The problem was that I’d chosen the same field as my past life, thinking I could skate through without effort. Now I was frantically trying to extract medicinal properties from plants when all I’d ever done before was peer at their cellular structure through a microscope.
“Fidellia. What are you doing?”
“Just… poking through some herbal samples.”
“Still?”
By then, Kiara and I had grown comfortable enough to speak plainly with each other.
On the very first night, before I went to sleep, I’d asked her something as I wished for her peace.
<Would you call me Fidellia?>
I’d offered it first because she kept calling me “you”—never using my name.
Kiara had been too drowsy to respond that night.
Her proper answer didn’t come until the following morning.
<Then you use informal speech with me too.>
We grew close in an instant.
In the original story, Kiara had desperately craved Fidellia’s affection, hadn’t she?
From what I could observe, Kiara was no ordinary girl.
“How much longer? I’m bored.”
“Go play with the other servants. If you tell them I said you could, they’ll be happy to keep you company. Everyone adores you.”
“But I want to play with Fidellia.”
At least she seemed unbothered about it.
“Well then, just play with the servant girls instead.”
If she’d grown up outside these walls and suffered abuse, I might have understood a withdrawn temperament.
Whether it was her natural disposition or something else, Kiara maintained an unflinching composure. She’d been uncomfortable with the servants’ attentions at first, but by the second time, she seemed entirely at ease with it.
‘Setting that aside.’
The real problem right now wasn’t that.
The previous visitor who’d entered the library before Kiara.
The man who rattled off his prepared remarks whether or not I was leafing through the Herbal Compendium.
“……That concludes the future schedule of His Grace, the Duke Ernan Cleor.”
“Pippin.”
“Yes?”
I pressed my palm to my forehead, regarding my devoted butler.
Seeing his cheeks puffed up with satisfaction, I didn’t even have the energy to scold him.
“I told you—you don’t need to inform me anymore.”
“……Ah.”
Old Pippin finally seemed to remember. He glanced about sheepishly and cleared his throat.
“Ahem, my sincerest apologies. As one grows older, the memory does falter so. I shall hold my tongue from this point forward.”
“Not just holding your tongue—I’d prefer you didn’t notice in the first place.”
“Of course. Naturally.”
Through Pippin’s unintended disclosure, I learned that Ernan was still in the Capital.
In truth, Ernan was always in the Capital.
The high nobility recognized by society maintained townhouses in the Capital and resided there, with only a rare few exceptions.
And among those rare exceptions were my parents, the Marquess and Marquise of House Jonas.
It was hardly surprising that Ernan, being a blood relative of the Emperor, spent his days virtually rooted in the Capital.
Recalling the past three years of following him about like some celebrity stalker, Ernan’s range of movement was remarkably narrow. Mansion, Imperial Palace, someone’s party, someone’s banquet, back to the mansion—that sort of endless cycle.
Beyond that, I remember him sequestered in the mansion conducting business.
Yet all that following had occurred merely two weeks ago, strange as it felt to recall something so recent as a distant memory.
Just then, a servant knocked softly at the door with news, her expression grave.
“Miss. He has arrived.”

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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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