Chapter 106
Sasha couldn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked up at him with a face filled with a strange sentiment she herself couldn’t define.
“I like you, Miss Grayson. You might have simply been swept up in the moment, but I kissed you because I like you. It wasn’t with a light heart. Never.”
It was like swerving to avoid a puddle right in front of him only to fall into a trap far larger. In a manner of speaking that was excessively direct and unflinchingly honest—the hallmark of a soldier—Isaac continued. Each word flew at her, striking her and lodging deep.
When she tried to rise from where she had been sitting, it felt as if something were pressing down on her from above, relentless.
Apart from her mind growing hazy, her chest fluttered. Something heavy had settled inside it, making it hard to breathe. Heat rushed to her face all at once. Yet Isaac’s face was even redder than her flushed one.
As if competing to see whose face could turn redder, Isaac’s face had flushed a deep crimson, far more than usual. But unlike his somewhat ridiculous and pitiable appearance, his mouth poured forth only that burdensome, heartfelt truth with stubborn honesty.
“I’m not contradicting what you said. I merely wanted to correct that I wasn’t like that. You, of course, must have been the one swept up by the mood. So, what I mean is……”
The more he spoke, the more it felt like he was making a mess. But once the words burst out like a breached floodgate, they refused to stop.
Isaac wanted to repeatedly emphasize that his kiss had not stemmed from a fleeting impulse. So that she, a lady, would not feel insulted, and out of the selfish desire for her to simply recognize his sincerity.
“I’m sorry. I must look like a madman.”
“No.”
He hadn’t wanted to confess like this. He hadn’t wanted to make a confession so disastrous that it would have been better not to make one at all.
Even if he couldn’t measure up to the dashing protagonists in the novels she read, he had wanted to at least imitate the gentlemen one might encounter in reality, revealing his heart slowly and with utmost care.
Isaac’s face flushed so red now that it seemed it might burst for an entirely different reason. His confession felt like nothing more than filth. He found himself so shameful and revolting that he couldn’t bear it.
“Sorry……”
“No. Captain!”
Just as he was about to apologize again with a face full of self-loathing, his bowed head was lifted. Isaac stared blankly at her as she cupped his cheek.
Sasha jerked her hand away as if she had been scalded.
“Don’t apologize. What kind of person apologizes for something like this? I said the kiss was fine. If you keep this up, it amounts to nothing more than apologizing for liking me, doesn’t it?”
“……Like……”
The word *like* that he had just uttered came from Sasha’s mouth. Isaac’s blue eyes widened slightly in surprise.
Isaac blankly echoed her words, then swiftly averted his gaze as if embarrassed. And to think, only moments ago he had looked her straight in the eye and hurled a confession like a bomb.
His behavior only made Sasha more flustered. Beneath long lashes, his blue eyes glistened as they looked at her once more. Those blue eyes—the most beautiful part of his face—were entirely filled with her reflection.
“I……”
Sasha barely managed to open her mouth, meeting his eyes.
The bewilderment and shock that had struck her like a blow to the head, leaving her dazed and frozen, coupled with the joy, elation, and exhilaration that she could not bring herself to accept. These things were all mixed together into a quagmire. Sasha struggled desperately to maintain her composure within that chaos and continued.
“First, thank you. I mean…… for thinking kindly of me. Truly, compared to when we first met…… it’s an unbelievable thing, isn’t it?”
Isaac had been staring only at her lips. And when that ambiguous answer—“thank you”—came from them, he lowered his head with a bitter expression, as if already resigned.
It had been too rushed after all. Wasn’t this the natural result of a botched confession? She would reject him.
“There’s no need to apologize. None at all. In some ways, I think it’s a natural progression.”
“……That I like you, Miss Grayson?”
Isaac raised his gaze from the floor and asked her. When their eyes met, she realized her slip of the tongue and smiled, clearly flustered.
She was just like when they first met, Isaac thought.
“I spoke in a way that could be misunderstood. I don’t mean it’s natural for you to like me. Goodness. I’m not so full of myself as that. What I meant was, as I said earlier, we’ve become much closer than we were before.”
Yes. Just like when they first met—her every gesture, every expression utterly devoid of sincerity.
That unmatched artificiality.
“In that process, you trusted me enough to share all sorts of things. What I meant was, viewed through this psychological progression, it wasn’t very surprising.”
He felt as though he already knew without hearing more.
Isaac knew what she was ultimately getting at.
“……After all, neither of us has any experience with the opposite sex. We’ve effectively become each other’s first and closest contact with the opposite gender. So……”
“No. That is not the reason I came to like you, Miss Grayson.”
Isaac’s face, which had been twisted in despair, was now furrowed fiercely in a different way.
“I know my own heart best, Miss Grayson. You think I like you merely because you’re the first woman I’ve grown close to? No.”
“……Captain.”
“Of course, as you pointed out, Miss Grayson, I am inexperienced in such matters. The same is true of human relationships outside of romance. If not for the organization called the army, I wouldn’t have had a single person to comfortably converse with; in that sense, I am indeed far behind you, Miss Grayson.”
Stop.
The more she tried to salvage the situation, the more she felt herself sinking into a quagmire. Sasha tried to cut in and interrupt him again, but stopped herself.
Blue eyes brimming with sorrow were fixed on her.
Yes. He looked sorrowful.
“But I am not such a worthless fool that I cannot fathom my own feelings and confuse them.”
That wasn’t what I had meant to say. Sasha’s excuse died in her throat before it could even emerge.
Because, in a way, he was right. She had been thinking of nothing but using his inexperience as an excuse to somehow break through this situation.
As she always had—speaking down to him as if she were teaching him, as if she were better.
When she had no right to. When she had no qualification whatsoever—she had intended to arbitrarily distort the pure affection of that man, who had lived his whole life with unwavering integrity.
……If that wasn’t deception, then what was?
“……I’m sorry.”
Disgust and contempt for herself crept up from her toes and gripped her chest tightly. Without daring to even guess what expression she wore, Sasha apologized as if she were being strangled, barely forcing the words out.
I’m sorry for daring to try to deceive you.
“……It is I who……”
Isaac couldn’t possibly know what was stirring inside her.
He merely blamed his own pathetic self for botching the confession in his haste, and ran a dry hand over his face in despair.
“It is I who should apologize.”
It is I who should apologize.
For disturbing your heart.
“I suppose separate rooms would be for the best.”
Isaac turned to leave quickly. It was no different from fleeing.
No, it was clearly an act of flight.
“Wait.”
Sasha called out, belatedly tossing aside the soap that had already softened and melted into a shapeless mass.
Without looking back, Isaac was already at the door, grasping the handle.
“No. I, uh…… I need some time to think. I’m terribly sorry to say this after stirring up such a commotion first, but for a moment, I need to clear my head……”
He glanced back at her.
Meeting his desperate eyes, Sasha found she had no choice but to let him go—she couldn’t bear to make him endure this situation any longer.
“I’ll go cool off. Then…… next time……”
“Yes. We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow.”
“……”
Isaac closed the door and left without a word.