Side Story 3: Love vs Stanning (3)
“What? Why are you crying?”
“You really don’t know?”
“What? Who is it?”
“It was you! You keep avoiding me!” I screamed and Hades blinked his eyes looking dumbfounded, then turned his gaze to the side with an expression I could not read.
“I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“You weren’t? Do you take me for a fool?”
“…”
“Don’t do this and talk to me. What’s the reason? Why are you saying that we should use separate rooms all of a sudden?”
I pressed him and Hades was struggling to say something…
then he hid his mouth with the back of his hand and turned away blushing.
“Honey?”
“Forget it.”
“Wait!”
I grabbed a hold of Hades as he tried to run away once more. He seemed unable to say something on his mind even if he wanted to.
“I can understand, you can tell me the truth.”
“What? What do you think I am about to say?”
“I gave it some thought but… no matter how much we love each other, our relationship will not stay consistent forever. There is also a famous saying that love can only last for 3 years…”
“…What?”
Ah, I felt like tears were welling up again as I say it. I was feeling sad and pitiful.
I wouldn’t care if it was any other men but how could Hades of all people act like this to me? After all he said about how he would love me in the next life and even the one after?
Holding back my tears, I continued in a teary voice, “To be honest, I still like you. You are so good-looking, and it always feels new and exciting seeing you. So, I do feel a bit upset that you don’t feel the same about me anymore, but… still, I can understand.”
“…”
“Sob, to be fair we have not rested doing it every other day… well, it’s true…” I glanced over at Hades as I spoke. His mouth was agape and was he was staring at me with blinking eyes.
“Hm, I have… right, I have not considered that you may be sick of me and tired and find it a bother. I haven’t been considerate.”
“What in the world… are you talking about?”
“You can tell me the truth. Sir Barial said so too. He said he is scared of seeing his wife every night.”
“Ha…” Looking dumbfounded, Hades gave out a hollow laugh as he brushed his hair back. “Just who do you take me for? Have I dropped down to the level of being compared to that punk Jax?”
“But you…”
“It’s a misunderstanding. And I am no different from you. No, I find you prettier today than the day before and I would like you more tomorrow than today.”
“Then what’s the matter all of a sudden?”
It didn’t seem like he was lying just to please me… Then what really was the problem?
“It’s just that you…!”
“Me?”
Hades drew his breath and stopped, as if he was about to say something incredible. Then his face flared up at once like a well-ripened apple.
Come to think of it, it was unbecoming of him, as he usually had a leisurely and arrogant look on his face 24/7. And how he reacted in the room yesterday too…
“Just what…”
“Forget it. Anyways, I’m sorry I made you misunderstand. It’s all my…”
Hades being embarrassed looked like a wounded giant beast for some reason.
I was the one who was upset that Hades was out right avoiding me without knowing why, yet I almost felt like I had to apologize.
What could it be?
“My fault…”
“…”
It seemed like… he wanted to say it was all his fault.
Finding that word so difficult, Hades mumbled the end of the sentence for a long while, then shouted like a child throwing a tantrum.
“It’s not my fault!”
Then leaving me dumbfounded with an incredulous look on my face, he disappeared with great speed.
* * *
-It’s not my fault!
There definitely was something up with Hades. Something must have happened for him to feel too embarrassed to see my face and want to blame me for it.
If he could just come clear I would apologize or make excuses, but seeing his attitude from yesterday, it didn’t seem that he would be opening his mouth that easily…
In the end, I decided to visit the person who knows all there is to know about Hades as well as I did.
The competent butler Terrot, who worked with Hades before I came to Louvremont.
‘Terott would know something.’
With a small hope, I was on my way to visit the butler’s room.
There, I found an unexpected face there.
“Roxa?”
Working as the head of Louvermont Magic foundation, he became as busy as Hades. Though we lived in the same castle, it was near impossible to see his face.
With his still silky hair tied back loosely, Roxa was sighing before Terott’s room with a lifeless face.
Noticing me, Roxa got startled, then pulled his face.
“Duchesssss…”
“Roxa, what are you doing here? Is Terott inside?”
“Nay, it seems dat he went somewhere else. I was in a hurry ter meet da butler meself…”
“You too? What do you want from him, Roxa?” I asked and Roxa flinched for some reason.
My intuition reacted to that. I asked once more, “What’s the matter? and why the long face? You look like you’re about to cry.”
“Duchesss…” Roxa trembled tearfully and spoke, “I ended up killing an innocent person…”
“Huuh?! Who? What trouble did you get yourself into? It’s only been a few years since you were removed from the wanted list!”
“Sob… da truth is it wouldna be me bu’ His Grace who would be doing da killing…”
“Huh? No, say something I can understand.”
“Da truth be, I was caught by His Grace reading a novel instead o’ getting ter work.”
“So what? How can a person be working all day? There should be times one take breaks and so,”
“No, da problem is not dat, Tis da book… da contents o’ it… was so impious…”
“What’s it about?”
“Hm, ye know how popular da Dhilde an’ de temple’s Priestess Deborah are in da capital, eh? It seems da novel was written because o’ dat, bu’ it became a big hit. Tis a romance story o’ da two o’ dem doing dis an’ dat …”
“My, there’s such a thing?”
Recalling
With the fame of Louvremont growing day by day, my dear Abel was becoming more and more dashing, and was being mentioned as the best husband material already within the capital.
Even back in the other world, Abel Louvremont had huge number of followers when he was nothing but some text.
Feeling proud, I wiped the tip of my nose and asked again, “But what part of it is impious? Er, is there something lewd in there?”
Of course, Abel, as the person in question, must feel displeased to know such things were written about him, and I too should be angry as his mother, but…
‘I want to read it too!’
How unsatisfied I was by
My son Abel was my son Abel and the male lead Abel from the novel was the male lead of the novel, so…
Trying to justify, I asked with a wicked face.
Roxa shook his head. “Tis not dat, His Grace dies within 25 pages o’ his appearance. It seemed dat da author killed him in a hurry ter make the Childe into a duke an’ speed up da storyline. I meself, jus’ read it thinking tis nothing bu’ a novel bu’ it is something His Grace may be angry about…”
“…Huh? dying… in just 25 pages?”
“Aye. He seemed ter have read dat book after taking it from me… Looks like he searched through da capital an’ found da author da very day. He jus’ arrived an’ was dragged ter His Grace…”
“C-c-could it be that… he merely makes it in as an additional character passing by in Abel’s reminiscence, already dead inside the story?”
“Ah! Aye! Correct! Could it be that you have read it as well, duchess?”
I stiffened with tension.
“And the story goes as Abel having an absurd ability to wield fire and water and earth and wind elements all at once, his overflowing powers go berserk and His Grace dies in Abel’s place as he protects him…?”
The slits of Roxa’s eyes widened.
“So ye read it as well, duchess?”
Seeing his rare face of bafflement, I asked lastly, “What is that novel’s…title?”
“…It’s
No way.
I went straight to Hades’ room to see the author’s face, the one that was brought in by Hades.
* * *
Shameful.
So shameful
Greatly…
Sprawled on the office desk, Hades was killing time. He rose quietly to open the drawer.
Blam-!
“Gosh, ugh!”
Now he felt all the hair on his body rising even at the sight of the book title.
Closing the drawer annoyed, Hades placed his aching head on his two gathered hands.
“Huu…”
A long sigh escaped between his lips.
‘That damn book… that’s gotta be what Aisha read, right?’
It was truly a shocker.
he thought that he himself would be the protagonist without a doubt, and yet he ended up dead in after the first 25 pages. There wasn’t even a lot mentioned about him, mostly replaced by the ‘real’ protagonist Abel’s flashbacks.
Aisha’s voice from long ago lingered in his head.
-I liked the protagonist of that book…
The protagonist… turned out to be Abel!
“What, she should have corrected me if I got it wrong!”
Feeling ashamed, he forced the blame on Aisha. Though he felt sorry that he sent Aisha away yesterday without being able to give an excuse in the end, he couldn’t help it.
Along with embarrassment, he found Aisha to be a little cruel. In some sense, she was an incredible woman, completely smashing apart perfect Hades Louvremont’s life, when he has never played a side character even once!
Of course, thinking this far felt like a stretch of his imagination, and he knew that it was her brother Procreathor who wrote that damn book, not her, but Hades had to find someone to put blame on in his toe-curling shame.
As he was struggling through shame he cannot get used to, He heard a light knock at the door.
“Your Grace, the man you mentioned just visited. Should I let him in?”
Hearing the butler’s voice, Hades got back to his senses and picked himself up.
He released some men to run through the capital last night.
To find the writer of that damn book.
“Let him in.”
Soon, the door opened and entered a man following behind the butler.
He was a man with a characterless face in his mid-thirties. The way he folded his shoulders in and trembled made him look too insignificant, unbecoming to his clothing and expensive jeweled rings on every finger.
By the look of it he is obviously a man who recently got a taste of money.
“You may leave.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The butler lowered his head to bow and left the room.
The man, left alone, trembled even harder and suddenly prostrated low on the ground.
“I’ve committed a grave crime, Your Grace!”
“…What?”
“P-please spare my life!”
“Huu…”
He wanted to see the author’s face, thinking it may be Aisha’s real sibling, Procreathor. From the way he trembled foolishly, it looked like he wasn’t him after all.
‘What a shame.’
And he was intending on grabbing him by the collar and shaking him off asking why that weird novel took the turn it took when he met him…
“The book that seems to be trending in the capital,”
“F-forgive me…!”
“Enough! Is that really written by you?”
“Y-yes…”
“Where did you see it? Did you come up with it?”
“Huh?”
The man lying low with his forehead against the ground raised his face in surprise.
He couldn’t dare continue to talk with his shaking eyes on Hades.
“I died in just 25 pages…”
“Y-Y-Your Grace, that is…”
“And after that, I didn’t even make an appearance. The protagonist was my son.”
“Forgive me!”
“Forget it. How did you write that? Surely you didn’t come up with it on your own.”
Hearing Hades’ sharp question. the man trembled in hesitation, then opened his mouth slowly,
“T-to tell the truth… I had a dream throughout writing that novel.”
“A dream?”
“Yes, while I wrote it, a man appeared in my dream every day. He said that I would be able to earn a lot of money from selling a book of the story he tells me…”
“Aha.”
“I had no means of living since I have been a nameless writer for 10 years… Though I knew I shouldn’t write what I heard, I…”
Hearing his almost tearful words, Hades sighed with a tired expression on his face, his hand on his forehead.
He was wondering but as expected.
It must be Procreathor’s doing, still alive somewhere.
‘Now, what should I do about this?’
Just as he was musing, he could hear loud footsteps from a distance. Hades and the man flinched.
Soon, standing before the bursted open door, was Aisha.
For some reason she stared at the man, not Hades, with wet eyes for a long while, then shouted.
“Is it you?!”
Then without even a moment to stop her, she flew in and hugged the man tightly.