When the One-Sided Love Female Lead Loses Her Memory - Chapter 6

Volumes 1 & 2 of OSFLLM are available uncensored on ko-fi! Support on Ko-fi

She hated that. Diana squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head vigorously.

“Then will you bathe quietly?”

This time she nodded her head hard. At this, the man reached his hand toward her head. Diana was reflexively closing her eyes and hunching her shoulders when—

Pat—

A large palm settled atop her head. Stroke, stroke. At the caressing touch, Diana cautiously opened her eyes. The man was stroking her head.

“You look much better when you’re not thrashing about.”

The man chuckled softly and sat her upright. At the gentle touch she was feeling for the first time, goosebumps somehow rose all over her body. When the man’s hand had come toward her, she’d thought she was about to get beaten for sure…

Diana swallowed hard and glanced at the man’s arm. Below the man’s rolled-up white sleeve, thin scratches marked his thick forearm. They were the wounds she’d inflicted when leaving the tower earlier.

‘Why is this person not hitting me?’

When she’d injured the crown prince’s body during his visit to the tower, she’d been kicked until she was truly on the verge of death. Kicked relentlessly in the abdomen, she’d thought her organs would burst and spill out. Every time the crown prince and his brothers visited, she’d had to curl up amid beatings and verbal abuse. So naturally, she’d thought she’d be beaten like that this time too…

Flinch!

At the chilling touch brushing her shoulder strap, Diana clutched her collar tightly and glared at him.

“Don’t touch me!”

“I’m not trying to hurt you.”

The man coaxed and soothed her with a gentle voice, as if taming a wild beast.

“You can’t bathe without removing your clothes.”

“I-I don’t care…!”

“Do you plan to walk around looking this filthy?”

The man raised one eyebrow as he looked down at her body. At that gaze seeming to sweep up and down, heat somehow rushed to Diana’s face.

“People outside the tower don’t go around looking like beasts, as you do.”

“…….”

Diana pressed her lips together tightly and turned her head away sharply. But unlike her thoroughly annoyed expression, the strength gradually left the hand clutching her collar.

The man glanced at her old dress, torn and soaked, no longer serving its function. Through the ripped sleeves and hem exposing parts of her body, old scars were visible everywhere. He clicked his tongue inwardly, recalling how Diana had defensively curled up the moment his hand touched her earlier.

‘I heard the royal family’s scoundrels frequently came and went from the tower to abuse her.’

Some of them would be hunted by his subordinates by now, and others would be undergoing torture in the palace dungeons.

His large hand lathered soap onto a sponge and began washing the woman.

Splash, splash. Amid the unfamiliar sound of water, Diana obediently let him tend to her. It felt strange. Warm… and soft… This was the first time anyone had treated her without causing pain.

‘But I… hurt him…’

The wounds on the man’s forearm kept drawing her gaze. An unfamiliar emotion bloomed within her. A strange feeling that made her restless, like a rough thorn embedded in tender flesh that needed to be pulled out quickly. Without thinking, Diana stroked the wounds on the man’s arm—a habitual action, like how she’d always stroked her own painful spots whenever her body hurt…

The man’s expression suddenly shifted subtly. Meeting his eyes, Diana felt an odd heat rising in her chest under that direct gaze. Unable to bear that strange feeling, she quickly turned her head away and feigned indifference.

Once again, only the gentle splashing of water filled the bathroom.

* * *

In the luxurious room, Diana blinked her eyes open atop the bed. Sniffing at the fragrant smell, she crawled to the bedside and discovered soup and bread laid out on a tray. For over two weeks now, she had—for the first time in her life—eaten and slept in a warm room, never going hungry and wearing clean clothes. She’d also learned for the first time that a person’s body could smell this good.

Having filled her belly to her heart’s content, she rolled around on the bed and thought of the man who had brought her to this place.

‘You…’

‘Viern. You can call me that.’

‘Vi—er—n?’

The man with black hair and blue eyes had introduced himself as Viern. The man, who only showed himself once every three days or so, had last been seen yesterday evening.

Last night, even though her wariness had lowered a layer, Diana—who still bared her teeth and claws sharply whenever other people approached—had injured the body of a maid who’d come to bathe her. She’d been caught by the man while running through the corridor and stuffed back into the bedroom.