Chapter 230
She’d speculated about his title in private but never asked outright. She’d trembled at the thought of him being royalty, yet never brought up his family.
She’d chosen not to know.
And now, the weight of that choice crushed her.
I didn’t want to dig deeper into it. It wasn’t because I disliked him. Rather, it was because I liked him that I was afraid to open Pandora’s box.
If I untied the ribbon, tore off the dazzling wrapping paper, and peered inside, my instincts would scream that something was in there—so I’d rather never know what it was, if possible.
One side desperately turned away out of some unknown fear, while the other had already given up on being loved, as if guilty of some unforgivable sin—a twisted relationship.
How had things come to this?
Had we never truly opened up to each other?
If so… then—
“Then why are you acting like this? It’s like you think you are disqualified or something.”
Jaha counterattacked in a trembling voice. Her vocal cords, even her lips, quivered from tension—but maybe this was a chance that wouldn’t come again. A chance for both of them to lay bare their true feelings. So she mustered every ounce of courage and asked:
“You’ve already decided on your own that I can’t love you. As if me liking you is impossible. As if there’s some reason I can’t love you.”
Like a thief with a guilty conscience—
Wasn’t this exactly how an unforgivable sinner would act?
“Did you do something wrong to me?”
Caught off guard by Jaha’s counterattack, he froze, defenseless, if only for a brief moment.
That might have been the first crack she’d ever seen in him since they’d met. A flaw in an otherwise meticulous man who never let his guard down, not even at home—never relaxed, never unkempt. But it was so fleeting, and he recovered so seamlessly, that Jaha couldn’t be sure if what she saw was real or just an illusion.
“No. Nothing like that.”
His tone was firm, though his face seemed slightly paler.
No—his skin was always so fair to begin with. Maybe he looked the same as always, and it was just her own subjective perception.
“I’ve never done anything wrong. That’s not it. It doesn’t even exist.”
Seeing him emphasize it over and over, his voice shaking as if deeply wronged, Jaha realized she had stepped on shaky ground. His manner of speaking was a little different than usual, but at the very least, he didn’t seem to be lying.
As the conversation lulled, silence settled between them.
Jaha, already exhausted from a long day, debated whether to just sleep like this. Half-drowsy, she murmured slowly:
“The prince… was just someone I happened to meet. We won’t see each other again. He means nothing.”
Though their unexpected encounter had shaken her, it was already a thing of the past. And if by some chance this was a parallel universe, then they had never even met to begin with.
What Jaha felt upon seeing Cedric today wasn’t romantic affection—it was bitterness, like facing ruins or a faded relic. She had no idea what absurd delusion this man was under.
‘The only reason I even noticed Cedric in that way was because of that dream where we kissed. If not for that, I wouldn’t have even thought of him as a…’
Her flickering thoughts continued until, at some point, exhaustion overtook her and she fell asleep. And for the first time in a long while, she dreamed.
“I told you not to be bewitched.”
The girl sobbed bitterly, her face buried in both hands so that her features weren’t visible—yet a sense of déjà vu washed over Jaha. She had seen this girl before, sometime, somewhere.
“I told you not to be fooled. I warned you, so why didn’t you listen?”
Her tone was unmistakably scolding. Though Jaha didn’t know why she was being reprimanded, she grew anxious, as if she’d made some unforgivable mistake. The sound of her pulse throbbed near her ears. A bad premonition clouded her mind.
Others might lie to her—but not this girl. She could never mean her harm. Because this girl was…
At that moment, the hands covering the girl’s face slowly lowered. A pair of crimson eyes shot toward Jaha like arrows, piercing straight through her heart.
“Yoo Jaha—you’re going to regret this. You’ll really, really regret not listening to me!”
Overcome by dizziness, Jaha staggered backward.
The girl, now screaming like a curse, tears of blood dripping down her face—was none other than her younger self.
Jaha opened her eyes and placed a hand over her chest. Her heart was pounding wildly.
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