A Practical Guide to Ending a One-Sided Love - Chapter 66 - ᴠɪɪɪ.

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It had already been three months since Leila closed the bookstore door.

Unlike her painful heart, time that felt as though it would not pass flowed quickly regardless of human anguish.

The mansion she returned to after five years no longer felt like her home. She still could not adapt to the uncomfortable and unfamiliar daily life.

Breakfast she had to share every day regardless of her condition, her father’s nagging, and even the convenient yet bothersome attendance of maids…

‘Living alone would be a hundred times more comfortable.’

Even though it was narrow and poor, she terribly missed her room on the second floor of the bookstore where at least her mind had been at ease.

Moreover, today a very distressing schedule awaited Leila.

“This is the first marriage proposal you’ve received. Please behave sincerely.”

According to her mother’s gentle yet suffocating encouragement, Leila had to go meet the arranged match today.

Receiving reluctant grooming only made her mood sink further. Without her glasses her vision was blurry, and her pinned up hair felt very uncomfortable.

The dress the maids chose was made of thin muslin. It probably would not block all sunlight. Perhaps it was just her mood, but her skin already felt swollen and itchy.

After finishing preparation, Leila boarded the family carriage. As it passed the main gate she unconsciously leaned out the window and looked around. But the person she searched for was nowhere to be seen.

He’s not here. He finally gave up.

It seemed Bjorn had at last given up coming to this place.

The strange behavior that had continued for three months had been welcome only briefly, and now relief was mixed with an inexplicable emptiness stirring her chest.

It was good news that Bjorn did not appear in front of the mansion today. It meant he had finally broken his stubborn persistence and returned to ordinary life, something she should be glad about.

‘Then why do I feel disappointed…’

Startled by the fragment of truth that surfaced in her heart, Leila surprised herself. Disappointment was a feeling she should not be having toward Bjorn now.

Pushing him away with her own hands and then resenting not seeing him made no sense at all.

Even knowing that, why did her heart feel this way. Her chest felt tight.

* * *

“I will never make you uncomfortable again. Then, please be happy.”

Three months ago, at Leila’s final farewell, Bjorn suddenly knelt before her. His reddened eyes stabbed at her heart.

“Leila, please give me one chance… Please listen to me for a moment.”

She had offered a plain farewell to spare him as much as possible, and his intense reaction startled her.

“A-Alright. I understand… you don’t need to go this far, sir.”

Barely managing to seat the man who looked as though he were offering a prayer of repentance, she listened to everything he confessed.

His circumstances of cursing his fate, not believing in love, and turning away from the world to become a monk. The process of trying to remove her in order to sever all lingering attachments and sins remaining in the secular world.

“I was foolish and only now realized my feelings. Miss Leila, I love you. I sincerely regret the wrongs I’ve committed. No matter how long it takes, if possible I want to atone to you. So… So please, if you would open even the slightest possibility to me…”

Bjorn confessing in a trembling voice looked desperate and sorrowful enough to stir pity even in a cold person.

Yet for some reason, even hearing that desperate confession, Leila’s heart crouched like a lake blocked on all sides, unable to flow anywhere.

Separate from the guilt she felt toward Bjorn, the shock had not yet faded enough for her to accept his sincerity immediately.

Leila only wanted to disappear from before his eyes as soon as possible. So he would no longer torment himself with such exhausting worries, and so her existence would not cause him any more distress.

“Perhaps that might be a misunderstanding, sir.”

It might have sounded too heartless as a reply to such a heartfelt confession, but Leila truly believed so.