I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 72

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Chapter 72
When Ernan Cleroor first laid eyes on Fidellia Jonus, he was at a Banquet Hall networking for business.
“Ah, come to think of it, ‘that’ Fidellia Jonus is attending today.”
He was already well acquainted with Fidellia Jonus by reputation—a woman who had left a luminous mark on the scientific world.
Fidellia Jonus.
Her name was widely known even to the general public, but because Ernan took a particular interest in pharmaceuticals, he was relatively attuned to matters in scientific circles.
There was no way he could not have heard of her.
But seeing her in person was a first, so Ernan simply listened quietly to his chattering business partner.
“They say she’s a voracious scholar, but look at her—attending the banquet without so much as a touch of adornment. Doesn’t she lack courtesy toward those around her?”
At first, he thought nothing of it.
He simply assumed that was how she naturally was.
After that, Ernan and Fidellia crossed paths frequently. Not by good fortune, but because Fidellia was following him around.
Ernan found himself naturally suspicious—what was she scheming?
“I simply like you.”
Fidellia’s reason for following Ernan was that straightforward.
But Ernan didn’t believe her words at the time, so he decided to wait and see until she revealed her true intentions.
Yet Fidellia remained consistent, month after month.
Still, Ernan’s suspicions would not ease; he thought she meant to lower his guard so she could strike at him from behind.
If he had not glimpsed a certain emotion in her eyes, he would have harbored that doubt for the rest of his life.
“Ernan.”
A flicker of something—that rare emotion that would cross through eyes so indifferent they seemed cold, so chestnut-brown and void of warmth.
“Can’t you still believe what I say?”
In those moments, Ernan found he had no choice but to believe.
That sentence: “I simply like you.”
And because such things were profoundly foreign to a man like Ernan, he often found Fidellia remarkable.
Ernan Cleroor—he did not think himself capable of loving another person in that way.
He had never understood love as an emotion.
The love that people sang of, affection, the yearnings of the heart—he could not fathom them at all.
He had simply never been raised to receive such things.
His parents had married for political advantage, and they did not love one another.
And perhaps for that reason, they poured no affection upon their own son, Ernan Cleroor.
Raised in the thorough indifference of distant parents, Ernan Cleroor became exactly like them—a man bereft of feeling, emotionless in heart.
The innate sensitivity he possessed was buried beneath the expressionless mask he had forged in the process.
Yet Fidellia seemed to regard him somewhat differently.
“I am sometimes astonished by that coldness of yours.”
It began with a simple, reasonable statement.
‘Fidellia Jonus is sometimes astonished by Ernan Cleroor’s indifference.’
There was nothing strange about that fact.
But the words that followed were different.
“But I like you precisely because you’re not a heartless person.”
A heartless person?
Ernan harbored doubt.
If one were to personify the word cruelty, one would arrive at the man called Ernan Cleroor.
I am a person incapable of understanding others’ hearts, of consideration, of empathy.
And from what he could see, Fidellia was strange.
She often behaved as though she knew Ernan Cleroor well.
As though she had been watching him for a long time.
“I don’t particularly prefer children.”
When he had said he did not prefer children, the very reaction Fidellia showed was proof of it.
“That’s just like you.”
“Speaking untruths so matter-of-factly.”
Fidellia often referred to Ernan as a “liar.”
It was not entirely wrong.
Ernan sometimes spoke words different from the truth to preserve his image and dignity.
And Fidellia saw through all of it.
Because of this, Ernan began to regard Fidellia with eyes of wonder.
That gaze, once, twice, many times……
It was not strange that such repeated glances transformed into affection. That they developed into unrequited love was hardly unusual.
“Have you truly never once fallen for me?”
……

So that conversation had been a lie.
For some reason, Fidellia didn’t know that Ernan was lying on that particular subject alone.
The reason he’d lied about not caring for Fidellia was simple enough.
Ernan Cleroor was a dying man.
Fidellia was a woman with her whole life ahead of her.

How could he make such a woman into a widow?

Fidellia said so, but in truth, it was Ernan Cleroor who was afraid.
I’m such a cowardly, contemptible person……
I couldn’t bear to be crushed by guilt.