Chapter 72
He had been so presumptuous to believe he could monopolize her life, that she could live on just the affection he gave.
Without understanding Hermie in the slightest, he had shoved her life into a narrow cage, filled it with shallow things, and thought that was enough.
He had crammed Hermie into a narrow cage and observed her slowly dying. It was an ignorance-bred greed of the worst kind.
“……What would make you stay by my side?”
Holding the suffering Hermie, Froy asked plaintively. It was the first time he had truly listened to her heart.
Thinking it was enough just to have Hermie’s body by his side was a delusion. It wasn’t until he felt the stabbing pain in his chest at each of her tears that he realized it.
Hermie met his wavering blue eyes calmly and asked,
“Do I have the right to be by your side even if I’m not a fairy?”
Stay by his side? Did she have that choice? If she could stay by his side as a person, Hermie would choose him without hesitation. But if what he wanted was a fairy, she couldn’t remain with him.
“……”
At Hermie’s question, Froy’s face paled. He had fallen in love with a fairy, but would he have fallen in love even if that fairy hadn’t been Hermie? His heart still pined desperately for Hermie—did it matter that she wasn’t a fairy?
“Whether you’re a fairy or not doesn’t matter. Hermie, I want you.”
Froy opened his heavy mouth. The fairy was never what was important from the start. In the beginning, his desire for a fairy stemmed from a childish fantasy he’d had since childhood.
He had wanted someone by his side. He needed the warmth of someone to lean on, to love, to share the trivial daily life with. After building the walls of his heart so thick and high that no one could enter, he only dreamed from within the impregnable fortress he had created.
Never thinking to climb over the iron walls, never thinking to open the door to his heart. He had acted like a coward.
“Then why are you locking me up…?”
“I was afraid you’d realize my true nature someday and leave. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Could she understand a foolish person who couldn’t get close to others, all to show only a perfect facade? Would she laugh at that shallow, warped pride?
“Because I felt I had to be perfect…”
He was actually a coward who was even scared of sleeping alone. Due to his circumstances, he had steeled himself and only appeared composed on the outside. He confessed his own wretchedness.
He revealed what a crybaby he had been as a child, a fool who begged his sick mother to read him fairy tales and whined for her to bring him a fairy.
The story of what came after, he dismissed briefly, as if brushing past it. To lay bare all his wounds—he was still too much of a coward for that.
Hermie pulled him into a tight hug as he wavered in weakness. His childlike side, which he had revealed with such difficulty, made her joyful and filled her with affection.
“I’ve seen plenty of your pathetic side. Getting tricked by a stupid mage, acting cute to a fairy every night—what are you trying to hide now, so late in the game?”
Hermie buried her face in his shoulder and let out a small laugh. What she had fallen in love with wasn’t his perfect side.
“It was your foolish side I liked.”
The way he was desperately smitten with a fairy the size of his palm, whined for her affection, chuckled to himself, fretted and worried—it was cute. She found the lovable man endearing not as a perfect noble, but as a clumsy man with a screw loose.
Hermie cupped his face in her hands. A sharp glint of possessiveness flashed in her eyes.
“Only show that cute side to me. Then I’ll stay by your side forever.”
Jealousy and obsession weren’t things only Froy was capable of. Hermie desired him too. She just hadn’t dared show it, being in no position to do so.
If given the chance, she wanted to bind him too. She was determined to be the only one to see Froy’s foolish, childlike side.
“Keep acting like a fool for me.”
“Is that really okay?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I feel insecure, try to bind you, keep doubting you?”
“Do as you please. I won’t just stand by either.”
Hermie was not the type to yield easily. She was confident she wouldn’t tire of him. She brushed her hand down his cheek. Her voice was soft, yet firm, as if taming an unruly beast.
“I’ll go home and come back. Wait here quietly.”
“……I can’t wait. I won’t let you go.”
He breathed heavily, his eyes narrowing sharply as if vowing not to lose her. Yet, even as he complained, he did not hold her back.
Because he now knew he had to trust her and wait.
“I’ll be back.”
Hermie placed a light kiss on his forehead. Froy looked up at her and blinked slowly.
She said she’d return. Even after he had hurt her so much, she said she’d come back to his side.
He realized for the first time that this emotion called trust could be so tender, so overwhelming, and so blissful.
“……Come back.”
Froy opened the cage door for her. Watching her flutter away, he steadied his heart. This wasn’t about letting her go.
It was about trust—trust to be with her, to be happy with her.
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