I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 65
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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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Episode 65
The moment Kiara stepped down from the carriage and entered the Cleroor Mansion, she asked the butler where Ernan was.
“The master is in his study, miss.”
So Sarubia headed for the reception room, while Kiara made her way to Ernan’s study.
It was highly unusual for Kiara to seek out Ernan first, without looking for Rene straightaway.
Which meant the matter was serious indeed.
Bang!
Kiara then burst through the study door with force and cried out.
“Mister, emergency! Mister, you have a rival!”
At that, the gaze of Ernan, who had been attending to his work, and his aide Lui shifted toward the doorway.
Standing in the frame was a red-haired girl.
Lui sighed inwardly.
‘Calling him “mister,” of all things.’
There could be no one in this world but Kiara who would address Ernan Cleroor himself as “mister” and carry on as she did.
Yet Ernan paid it no mind whatsoever.
“A rival?”
One of his eyebrows arched slightly as he posed the question.
Seeing his interest piqued, Kiara chattered on excitedly.
“Yes! I asked Sarubia about it, and she said this person was Fidellia’s partner at the coronation ceremony!”
“……Ah, a partner.”
“Right, a partner! And before that, you were Fidellia’s partner, weren’t you?”
Kiara watched Ernan intently, her eyes gleaming as if urging him to react in some way.
Ernan, who seemed to be thinking something over, soon spoke a name aloud.
“Sireen Marco, is it?”
Kiara’s eyes widened with surprise.
“You know him?”
“I know him very well. I was there at the coronation ceremony that day.”
“Oh…….”
Kiara’s expression fell noticeably, and she pouted.
“What, I thought you’d be shocked.”
Then she plopped down on the sofa arranged in one corner of the study and grabbed a cookie from the table.
Crunch.
Watching her, Ernan asked a question.
“Why did you think I’d be shocked?”
“Because it’s obvious, isn’t it? A new man in the life of the woman you love! It’s natural to feel jealous just hearing about it.”
“Hm.”
Ernan exhaled as if exasperated.
“Where did you learn to talk like that…….”
“It’s all in the books in your library.”
……
Ernan’s gaze turned toward Lui.
“Why on earth are those books in the library.”
“I’m not entirely sure…….”
Regardless, Kiara continued on.
“Anyway, this Sireen person has been glued to Fidellia’s side twenty-four hours a day lately.”
“……With whom, doing what?”
“Sireen and Fidellia.”
……
“They’re together all the time, mister, I’m telling you.”
……
After a long silence, Ernan uttered a single word.
“Why?”
Kiara’s shoulders rose with a shrug.
“Why? Because Sanna quit as her aide, so she appointed this guy as her new one instead. Apparently they’re doing research together these days, staying up through the night and all that.”
……
Ernan fell silent again, while Lui clapped a hand over his mouth in astonishment.
“When a man and woman are together like that……!”
“You feel the same way too, don’t you, aide? I feel the same way. That’s why I came here to tell you.”
Kiara took another bite of the cookie.
Crunch.
“You should be grateful to me. Who else would tell you things like this?”
At the end of Kiara’s cheerful chatter, Ernan muttered quietly to himself.
“Wasn’t she saying she wouldn’t associate with me anymore?”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. It’s not my concern.”
“There goes this man saying things he doesn’t mean again.”
The fountain pen moving across the documents came to an abrupt halt.
“Complete liar.”
In that moment, Ernan’s mind was overlaid with a voice he’d heard from Fidellia sometime past.
Setting down his pen, Ernan crossed his legs and rested his interlaced hands on his knee.
Then he offered a brief observation.
“Mother and daughter are remarkably alike.”
“……? What are you talking about?”
Leaving the bewildered Kiara to her confusion, Ernan pondered quietly.
Tap. Tap.
Ernan’s index finger drummed the desktop at regular intervals.
……
Had Fidellia truly given up on him?
Of course, Ernan had been hoping for exactly that all this time.
That was what he’d wanted ever since Fidellia first confessed to him.
‘Like you.’
When he’d first heard those words, he’d thought them tiresome.
Fidellia Joneus.
The eccentric scholar of the Joneus Family.
That genius who appeared in the scientific world like a comet was known as a celebrated figure even among ordinary people.
Though few truly understood the full breadth of her achievements, Fidellia Joneus’s image in the public mind was just that.
A genius. Or in any case, a remarkable person.
Ernan too had heard of Fidellia’s renown well enough.
Though he’d only ‘heard’ of it, nothing more.
They had no personal acquaintance, and there was no reason they should ever become entangled.
And yet such a person liked him?
And committed the foolish act of following him around because of it?
It would have been more credible had she harbored some other scheme.
But as time passed, it became clear that Fidellia’s words were true.
She attended every gathering without fail, following him.
She showered him with gifts.
She sent love letters.
She adorned herself in ways she’d never done before in her life.
Even her own advisor had said as much.
If it were merely some scheme, Fidellia Joneus couldn’t have gone to such lengths.
Though Fidellia’s confessions lacked the bashfulness that usually accompanied such admissions, and though that very absence had fed Ernan Cleroor’s distrust, the conclusion he’d reached after observing her to discover her true intentions was this:
Fidellia Joneus genuinely liked Ernan Cleroor.
In all of Ernan Cleroor’s life, there had never been anyone as persistent as Fidellia.
‘Even someone who loved like that.’
He had deliberately left room for doubt.
He had permitted her presence beside him through silence.
No, in truth it was persuasion.
Most people would have shown some sign of being wounded by it.
‘But you didn’t.’
How strong a person must you be?
And so Fidellia Joneus loved in that way.
The one receiving it felt more overwhelmed.
Left helpless and bewildered.
A love so pure and lucid it shone with preciousness.
Perhaps for that reason, at some point Ernan found himself thinking this about Fidellia’s fervent love.
That Fidellia Joneus’s fate was cruel indeed.
‘To love someone who will die soon.’
Naturally, Fidellia did not know she had a terminal illness.
A thing she had said once came back to him.
“There must be a reason for not liking someone even while liking them. If it can’t happen, there’s a reason it can’t. People live in civilization, so there’s so much to consider, isn’t there? Do you know Romeo and Juliet?”
She was right.
He could have accepted Fidellia Joneus’s heart from the beginning.
Had I not been terminal, I would have.
Even if he didn’t love Fidellia, he would have accepted her confession, moved by the devotion with which she pursued him so relentlessly.
But because his own fate was inescapable death, someday Fidellia would be left alone.
Ernan Cleroor would never reveal the truth of his illness until death claimed him, so Fidellia would likely only learn of his incurable disease after he was gone.
Fidellia, left to live out her remaining years in an empty mansion.
Fidellia, a widow while still young.
She would pour her resentment upon his grave.
How could he not feel guilty then?
The proposal of marriage came from a similar logic—hearing that Fidellia had nearly abandoned her unrequited love.
If you don’t hold me in your heart, you’ll be fine even when I die.
Won’t you?
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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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