| I came back to my previous life |
One year before the heroine wakes up -
Black ink dripped from the fountain pen onto the paper. The edges of the writing spread. Oh, it smudged. Jimin brushed his hair back. He always kept his hair tied tightly around the back of his neck because it was annoying. He was rummaging through his drawers when the extra hair tie he carried disappeared. A black hair tie with white initials. The door to Jimin's office burst open. Startled by the unexpected visit, Jimin avoided the Grand Duke's gaze and sat down across from his father.Knock knock -I bit my thumbnail with my index finger and blood started to form.
"Prepare for an audience with the Emperor. This is a great opportunity, so you must seize it."
“..Huh? An audience all of a sudden?”
A good opportunity. According to the Grand Duke, the princess was almost poisoned this morning. Poisoning? Who, who? How dare...
Jimin bit his lower lip and swallowed the questions that were rising to the tip of his throat.
He swallowed it all. Let's not ruin a good day. It's a rare day. That's why the princess is alive. Not yet, not dead. Jimin calmed his rapidly beating heart and acted as obediently as usual. No, not like that.
He smiled and greeted the Grand Duke so that he could see.
“Yes. I’ll prepare it right away.”
After hearing Jimin's answer, the Grand Duke rose from his seat with a bitter smile. He opened the door to his office and left, saying:
“I can see the scar.”
“If you see me one more time, you know I won’t let you pass.”
It was a passing remark.
But to Jimin, it was a suffocating, self-recriminating remark.
Jimin's pupils shook as he stammered out his answer.
“Ah..,... that... yes... I’m sorry.”
After the Archduke completely disappeared from his sight, Jimin let out a breath he'd been holding and frantically untied his hair. He usually covered the back of his neck with his hair when meeting the Archduke, but this sudden situation made it impossible. Fearing another mistake might cause trouble, Jimin decided not to tie his hair up anymore. The feeling of his hair against his skin was occasionally prickly, but was that really all that mattered?
The Grand Duke's mood was the focus of Jimin's life every day.
Yeah, that's just it...
I don't know why I feel so uneasy today. I feel like something is blocking me up and weighing me down deep inside. I feel suffocated.
-
It's been a year since I last saw His Majesty the Emperor.
As Jimin approached the Emperor's Palace, he sensed something was off about the Fibrik Palace. It was understandable. The servants were all busy, and the palace was quiet. With the master in the dark, it was only natural that the surroundings were also dark. Following last year's threat, the princess's safety was unstable.
Jimin glanced at his father. His eyes were cold, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned. Every time he realized that his father, who acted as if he could do anything right now, was his own father, he felt the urge to run away from him.Act like the next emperor, but don't act like an emperor.I nodded absentmindedly, but the dark gaze that seemed as if it would devour me made me answer out loud again. The Archduke's words lingered in my ears.
The Emperor welcomed the Grand Duke. "You must be so happy, Princess, to have come running at once upon hearing the news." The Grand Duke, worried that the Princess must be in such dire straits, offered his best wishes for her well-being. The Emperor chuckled at Jimin's silence and continued.
"The Archduke is still blunt. The Archduke and I will have a long conversation, so how about having a meal with Yeon-i?"
The Archduke frowned slightly. "You useless bastard, you deserve to have at least one more word with the Emperor."
“ ....Good, Your Majesty.”
Jimin got up from his seat and walked to the dining room with his escort.
...to act like the next emperor. Me in front of the current emperor? Me, the son of the grand duke who enjoys the tragedy of his niece,
...There's no way that someone like me could dare take what's hers.
From the beginning, it was the princess's place, and it's still hers. There's no room for anyone to interfere in that position. Not even me.
“Second Princess Lee Yeon, please.”
Not long after Jimin sat down, Yeon entered the dining room.
The Second Princess, with her beautiful dark brown curly hair and striking appearance that elicits exclamations of "beauty" from anyone who sees her, shares her bloodline but was born from a different mother. In a way, she is the daughter of a concubine. However, she is currently treated and adored more than the First Princess.
Annoyingly enough.
“Hi, Jimin.”
Yeon greeted me with a bright smile. "What do you want to eat? Steak?"
Or... is there something else you want to eat?
Jimin sighed and said as he looked at Yeon innocently asking for the menu.
“I just need soup.”
“Oh, yeah. .... Hmm.. But since we’re here, shouldn’t we eat something more delicious?”
“The life and death of the First Princess are at stake, so I don’t want to just leisurely cut up meat.”
Yeondo also noticed that Jimin's words had some substance. Yeon's expression hardened for a moment, but then she smiled again and spoke to the chef who was waiting next to her.
“Give me two steaks. You can figure out the rest yourself.”
The chef said he understood and went into the kitchen. Jimin looked at Yeon as if asking what she was doing. She must have said soup, but couldn't you understand her? The moment Jimin was about to open his mouth, Yeon suddenly raised her hand to the maid who was filling a glass on the table.
Crack -
The sound of a slap echoed loudly. The maid let out a startled cry, then held her breath. Even with tears in her eyes, she couldn't say anything. The woman before her was her master. She was also the princess of this nation, so she was helpless against this absurdity. Jimin stared blankly at the scene, but he was a little surprised. I knew she was wearing a mask, but why was she revealing it now, right in front of me? And with such tyranny, all of a sudden.
Yeon looked at the prostrate maid and said.
“Sorry, I don’t like it when you pour water for me to drink.
Without knowing it. But... if you tell anyone what just happened, you'll get your neck cut off instead of your face.
“.....name, I will keep that in mind.. ”
“Just go out.”
Since Yeon had already dismissed all the servants, including the guards, from the moment she entered, the only ones who witnessed this situation were the maid and Jimin. The maid would never tell anyone out of fear for her life, and Jimin didn't have to spread rumors, so the rumor that the Second Princess had beaten the maid would never have spread in this palace.
Yeon smiled. Jimin felt a sense of discomfort as he watched Yeon. From using her status to inflict evil on others to hiding it and being loved by everyone, nothing about her resembled the First Princess's, which made him even more uncomfortable. Jimin brushed his hair back and was about to lose himself in thoughts of the First Princess again when Yeon, with a smile on her face, opened her mouth.
"Just cut the steak. With the princess in critical condition, you'd be the one who'd benefit the most. It's a situation where you deserve a toast."
“...what an idiot.”
Jimin still faced Yeon with a calm expression. Despite bringing up a sensitive topic, Yeon felt a sense of unease at Jimin's embarrassing lack of response. Hearing Jimin's low mutter, Yeon unconsciously raised her voice in anger.
“What, idiot? You’re not crazy, you’d have to be crazy to do that to the princess!”
“Your Majesty,”
Jimin, annoyed by the loud noise, suppressed his desire to immediately storm out of this useless and boring place, and called out to Yeon. Yeon hesitated slightly at the sight of those indifferent, pitch-black eyes staring back at him. He wanted to tell her that the gaze was disrespectful to a princess, but he was afraid that provoking Jimin any further would lead to trouble, so he decided to call it a day and suppressed his temper.
“You seem overly excited.”
But at Jimin's next words, Yeon clenched her fist and glared at Jimin.
“Although I understand that the princess is upset,
Anyone who sees this will think that the source of the poison that has the First Princess gasping for breath, as she teeters between life and death, is the Second Princess. You must be careful with your words and actions so that no impure rumors spread.”
“The words ‘stupid’ were not directed at the princess.
“It’s just that I came to the palace after a long time, and in the fleeting memories, something about me acting out of place came to mind.”
“But that author, as the days go by, his life is getting shorter.”
“Do you know the reason, Your Majesty?”
Jimin's words gained strength. Yeon flinched at the cold, chilling tone. He knew it was directed at him from top to bottom, but since he hadn't explicitly mentioned it, he couldn't really argue with it. I was the one who sat in such a high position, yet I was resentful that I couldn't persecute a man like him. I hated seeing Jimin pretending to be clean, good, and not what he was, even though we had the same goal. In fact, you'd want him dead too. You'd want him to disappear, wouldn't you? You want to sit in an absolute position where no one can look up to you. Don't you? Every time I see the First Princess, I get nauseated. How many times had I faced this man? What was clear was that his eyes always seemed to be digging into his very core, exposing his ugliness. At least that's how I felt, even though there was no direct attack.
The ill will towards Yeoju had spread so far that it was impossible to control it, and it was a case of right and wrong being pushed far away.