My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 71

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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 71
Chapter 8. Awakening (1)
The warmth of alcohol rose steadily through her. Celia pushed at their touching knees, setting her foot atop Lucius’s. Even with his escape route cut off, he laughed with easy confidence.
Celia rested her chin on her hand and leaned forward.
Lucius met her gaze as it came flying toward him, willing and unswerving. The green of his eyes, darker and more saturated than usual, flickered like dying embers. It was difficult to tell whether it was mere drunkenness or the gaze of someone harboring some unspoken intention.
Celia swallowed the sensation as though rolling it across her tongue, then asked.
“You…”
The hand that had been circling the rim of the glass stilled.
“If you told me you actually hated me in the past. What would you do.”
Her hair spilled across her shoulder, releasing its fragrance.
The unexpected question pulled Lucius back from the world he’d been savoring into harsh reality. His eyes lifted a beat too late, meeting hers.
“Why would you ask something like that.”
There was something almost chiding in his tone, yet an undertone of subtle amusement. It resembled the expression of an adult watching a child frightened by imagined nightmares.
He set down his glass and leaned forward, elbows finding the table to match her posture, slowly closing the distance between them.
His shadow stretched long enough to fall across her knees.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know.”
“…Cough.”
Lucius’s brow furrowed as he laughed.
“But Celia. The one who hated you and hurt you—that was me from memory. Not who I am now.”
What was he saying.
That he knew our past wasn’t good? Or rather, it seemed he was aware only of the fact that ‘he had hated her’ back then. But that wasn’t the most important fact to Celia.
“Forget that worthless bastard.”
At his firm gaze, she caught her breath.
Lucius, speaking with apparent ease, gently took the glass from her hands. In its place, he interlaced his fingers with hers.
“Whether you fear him, despise him, or loathe him.”
His eyes held the look of someone who wanted to swallow her whole. Like a beast with prey before it, his pupils narrowed with relentless focus, chasing her until something deep in her chest tightened.
“Don’t you dare use that as an excuse to push away who I am now.”
At his firm voice, she swallowed hard.
Alcohol traced its way up her lungs, and with it came a thought she’d long suppressed, rising from deep within her chest.
‘But if he regains his memory, he’ll flip his attitude just like that.’
When that happens, the Lucius of now will vanish without a trace, like a single night’s dream.
‘Will he rage that I deceived him. Or will he blame me for clinging to him so disgustingly.’
A shallow tremor crossed her eyes.
“Celia. What are you afraid of.”
Me, afraid?
“What frightens you so much that you wear that face.”
Celia deliberately composed her features.
She wanted to cover it with scorn or mockery, anything to brush past this question. But the alcohol had made her vigilance as waterlogged paper—soft and disintegrating.
“That you…”
Who suggested they drink in the first place.
She’d been caught in her own trap, her own ankle in the snare.
“That you might come back.”
She seemed startled by her own words and fell silent for a moment. Lucius, who had been caressing the back of her hand, did the same.
But once the floodgates opened, they didn’t close easily. From between her trembling lips, all the things she’d held back leaked out like salty water.
“After you remember everything.”
Her grip tightened. When Celia realized it, she couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh.
“And laugh at who I am now…”
And yet she continued.
“Or grow angry with me.”
When her eyes opened, shadows pooled beneath her lashes like wet ink, thin and spreading.
“If, if it comes to that…”
“Celia.”
When the original Lucius returns, who will be the one unable to bear it.
Perhaps.
“Lucius, I like you now.”
It will be her.
“That’s why I’m afraid.”
This was a truth Celia had never spoken aloud before.
***
Celia fell asleep quickly.
After she’d finished speaking, she drank in succession. The bravado with which she’d warned herself not to get drunk vanished, and she merely repeated the same motions like someone serving a sentence.
“Just this once. I won’t ever say anything this shameful and humiliating again.”
She carried on as though regretting her own words.
Unaware of how delighted he was.
Lucius watched her sleep for a long time. Soft breath escaped through barely parted lips.
Her face was shockingly defenseless for someone who had just made a confession. Her breathing, saturated with alcohol, came in steady rhythm, and her fingers remained curled as though still trying to hold him.
“And you sleep like this. Do you have any idea what I might do.”
Beyond the open window, moonlight streamed in in long silver streams. In the pale luminescence that pooled across the room, he leaned against the windowframe where the light was clearest.
“I like who you are now.”
He closed his eyes and savored her words.
Her voice, lingering in his ear like an echo—or like honey—slowly dissolved. He smiled soundlessly.
“Celia.”
“…Mm.”
“I like you too.”
Vague emotions take form the moment they leave the lips and become words.
“When I’m with you, I feel complete.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the frame, and the moonlight filtering past his shoulder settled evenly across her forehead and cheeks.
“Love me, Celia.”
How long had he wished for this.
Her few words, and the handful of heart she had finally placed in his hands.
His eyes softened with warmth.
“I’ll always remain the Lucius you love.”
But soon he erased the emotion from his eyes and tapped the windowframe lightly with his fingertips. Moonlight beaded and scattered across each knuckle.
“She said she was afraid I’d regain my memory.”
But that wasn’t what he feared.
Even if his memory returned, if those memories tried to rot away who he was now, he could simply cut that part away. Like excising infected flesh.
He looked back at Celia. Beneath the moonlight, she appeared impossibly fragile.
“How could I ever hate you. I of all people.”
An elegant smile took shape at his lips.
“I can do anything for you.”
As the moon tilted a little further. Kabel arrived.
He moved carefully so as not to wake Celia as she shifted restlessly. As he was draping her upper garment over her beautiful form, Kabel grew impatient and called him outside urgently. Only after one last glance at sleeping Celia did Lucius step out.
“Young Master!”
“Kabel.”
Kabel, holding a lantern, practically leaped.
He had come in such haste that his front was improperly buttoned and his hair was disheveled.
At this display of emotion from usually composed Kabel, Lucius, who had been rotating his stiff shoulders, changed his demeanor.
Sleep cleared from his eyes in an instant, yielding to reason.
“What is it.”
“A serious matter has arisen.”
When Lucius brought his index finger to his lips, Kabel immediately lowered his voice.
“It concerns the young lady of the House of Larendel.”
The sweet night transformed in that moment into the bitter taste of autumn wind.
Lucius recalled a letter he had received days ago.
His eyes, searching through memory, grew cold and still.
[ I’m certain you’ve been awaiting my letter.
I send these words with my heart, thinking of our ‘Promise.’
It’s Claire. ]
Lucius confirmed the closed door once more, as though urging Kabel to continue. Watching his back, Kabel took a grave breath.
He struggled unnaturally with his word choice. What followed was enough to stop the movement of Lucius’s hand on the doorknob.
“The young lady of House Larendel and Evandor of House of Brickwell—Celia’s younger brother, the young heir of House of Brickwell—have become betrothed.”
And at those words, the green eyes of a man who had just reached some resolve glimmered with a turbid light.

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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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