RSHTV 07

Chapter 7

I had a dream.

From a distance, Bellona watched the female and male leads of the original story—or rather, her two closest friends—having a happy and affectionate conversation.

Bellona, Aiden, and Davien had always been together.

According to the original story, the three of them had grown up together as childhood friends, with Davien, the heroine, at the center. So even though Bellona repeatedly regressed, her connection with them wasn’t erased and reset to nothing.

Davien, laughing brightly at something the male lead Aiden had said, spotted Bellona first and called out.

“Bellona! Why are you standing over there all by yourself?”

“I just thought the two of you looked nice together.”

Which regression was this memory from?

Perhaps it wasn’t a memory at all.

Maybe it was simply an illusion created by her subconscious.

“Davien was waiting for you, Bellona. You’re rather late today.”

His slightly curt attitude was accompanied by impeccable gentlemanly manners as he casually pulled out a chair for her.

Bellona smiled faintly at Aiden’s unnecessarily prickly attitude and replied,

“I didn’t want to interrupt the two of you having some quality time together.”

“If you knew you were interrupting us, you could have just not come.”

“Aiden! Don’t say that. Today is the day the three of us are supposed to have tea together.”

Bellona didn’t remember this conversation, but if the Davien in her dream said it was so, then it must be so.

Bellona shrugged.

“You’re especially prickly today.”

“Like I could ever win against you.”

Bellona was second to none when it came to stubbornly insisting on her point, and she was ready to accept Aiden’s challenge.

But dream-Aiden merely let out a quiet sigh, shook his head, and apparently decided to focus on Davien instead.

“Davien, should I have them bring us fresh tea?”

“Yes. Here, try this. I made these cookies myself. Are you really not going to eat one?”

“You know I don’t like sweets.”

“I made them less sweet. Just try one.”

Aiden, who hated sweets—as befitting the official male lead—wrinkled his nose at the sweet scent of the cookies, but he couldn’t refuse the one Davien offered him.

At the same time, he gently brushed away the crumbs at the corner of Davien’s mouth after she had already eaten several cookies.

His manner was endlessly tender, and his eyes were filled with affection.

A sad smile spread across Bellona’s face as she watched Aiden, who loved Davien more than anyone.

It was difficult not to rely on these kind people or give them a piece of her heart.

Even when she sometimes resolved to keep her distance, the countless memories accumulated over so many years could not simply disappear.

“…Davien, Aiden. I have something to confess.”

“What is it?”

Davien’s beautiful blond hair swayed as she smiled radiantly. She blinked her blue eyes and looked at Bellona as though telling her to say whatever was on her mind.

“I made a choice that you two would strongly try to stop if you knew about it. It might even be a choice that harms you. You might hate it completely, or maybe you would even blame me.”

Every time Bellona regressed, the real Davien and Aiden lost their memories again.

There had already been several lives in which Bellona eventually drifted apart from them because she had shut herself away in a world of her own.

So why was she sitting there in front of them now, rambling like this?

“Is it a choice for your sake?”

“Hm?”

Bellona looked up at Davien’s unexpected question.

Davien was still smiling as she looked at her.

“Whatever it is, if it can make you happy, I’ll understand.”

There had once been a time when Bellona had become so exhausted by regression that immediately after returning, she had grabbed Davien, confessed everything, and poured out all her grievances.

Even then, Davien had spoken kindly.

She couldn’t do anything about the countless lives Bellona would go on to live, but she had asked Bellona never to forget that she would always, forever, be her friend.

“…You’re far too good a friend for me.”

Even though Bellona knew that this world was one she had created herself, a dream, she began to cry bitterly.

She pitied the version of herself in reality, who had become so numb that even her brilliant friendship with these people had faded into a colorless emotion.

The moment Bellona woke up, she realized that she was lying in a soft bed.

She blinked for a while, staring blankly into space as she thought.

Yesterday, I was talking to Deminic when…

Eventually, she had left Deminic to do as he pleased and picked up the book she had been reading.

She had intended to stay awake through the night, since she couldn’t afford to let her guard down around Deminic, who didn’t seem remotely inclined to sleep either.

But it had been the very day she regressed, and she had dealt with far too many things.

Apparently, she had accidentally fallen asleep.

When she woke, the battered state Deminic had been in the previous night was nowhere to be seen.

He had somehow found a black shirt and was now sitting perfectly fine in a chair beside the window.

“You…”

He had casually propped his chin on the armrest and picked up the book Bellona had been reading, flipping through its pages without much interest.

At the sound of Bellona’s voice, he looked up.

Their eyes met directly.

Deminic tilted his head slightly and, instead of offering a morning greeting, asked an utterly unexpected question.

“Who is Davien?”

Hearing Davien’s name from Deminic’s lips was brief, but more than enough to throw Bellona into confusion.

The feeling was almost chilling.

It took her quite some time to recover her composure before she managed to ask,

“What… did you say?”

“The name you were muttering in your sleep along with the name of Marquis Aiden Satten. Davien.”

Apparently, she had been talking in her sleep.

Her voice felt particularly hoarse, so Bellona cleared her throat and sat up.

Her head was pounding.

When she brushed a hand over her face, she felt traces of tears.

Really? Everything at once?

She had thought her emotions had become rather dried out.

Yet apparently she had cried not only in the dream but in reality as well.

To shake off the remnants of those emotions, Bellona deliberately ignored Deminic’s question about Davien and decided to ask him what she herself wanted to know first.

“Did you go outside? If you could leave, why did you come back here?”

Deminic didn’t answer.

Instead, he smoothly rose from the chair and approached the bed in one fluid motion.

He rested one arm against the headboard and slowly leaned toward Bellona.

After quietly studying her face, he reached out and brushed his fingers across her cheek.

“Are they close enough friends to appear in your dreams?”

“…Yes.”

Bellona backed away from his hand.

Then she suddenly remembered that, just before she had fallen asleep, Deminic had been sitting in the chair where he had been earlier.

Unless he had somehow walked over to the bed while she was half asleep, Deminic must have moved her himself.

It was an oddly considerate thing for him to do.

“Aiden and Davien are both my friends. We probably had some interesting conversation in the dream.”

Bellona pushed Deminic away, climbed down from the bed, and stood up.

She poured herself some water from the pitcher on the table and cleared her throat.

“Davien… must have something very special about her.”

Exactly.

Even from this alone, Deminic had noticed that Bellona was reluctant to mention Davien and immediately deduced that there must be something special about her.

I shouldn’t have played along when he was sarcastically calling me a saintess and all that.

She had carelessly said that she knew who would become the saintess, and now she had practically trapped herself with her own words.

Bellona decided to play dumb.

“Even if she does, you don’t need to worry about it. No, don’t worry about it.”

“Stop reacting like a cat with its fur standing on end. I won’t pry.”

Still leaning against the headboard, Deminic raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.

When he met Bellona’s eyes, he simply shrugged.

“I don’t particularly want to do something you would dislike.”

His tone sounded exactly like someone soothing an offended cat.

Bellona glared at him and deliberately responded to his earlier remark.

“…And who was it that came into someone else’s room like a cat?”

Deminic seemed pleased that Bellona had played along with his wordplay, because the corners of his lips slowly lifted.

“Ah, I can’t deny that. But I’m a charming cat.”

“I should just stop talking.”

Bellona rolled her eyes while drinking her water and sighed inwardly.

It was probably a blessing in disguise that even though Deminic had noticed something, he deliberately backed off instead of showing much interest in Davien.

But before they could continue their conversation, there was a knock at the bedroom door.

“My lady, are you awake?”

Bellona froze in surprise.

Meanwhile, Deminic moved toward the door with an agility that made it impossible to believe he had been so severely injured the previous night.

Who is it?

My maid.

They exchanged whispers so quiet that they barely moved their lips.

As Bellona slowly approached the door, she spoke louder.

Deminic was so close that Bellona could hear his faint breathing beside her ear as he warily watched Rose outside.

“Rose, I’m not feeling well, so could you leave breakfast outside the door? I want to rest a little longer.”

“My lady, are you very ill? Are you all right? I’ll take a look at you myself before I leave. If it’s serious, we need to call a physician or a priest.”

Rose really was an exceptionally kind and devoted maid.

How nice would it be if she could simply put the breakfast down and leave, happily thinking that her workload had been reduced?

I have to open the door and at least let her see my face.

No.

When Bellona reached for the doorknob, a large, firm hand covered hers and stopped her.

Bellona frowned and looked up at Deminic.

His calm red eyes were fixed on her, carrying an emotion she couldn’t decipher.