10.
“It’s different from the position I remember.”
Goosebumps rose all over me.
All I’d done was move around a little to fluff a cushion, change the water in the vase, and wipe a teacup—she noticed that?
That didn’t even count as cleaning.
“Ah, well… I did do a little cleaning.”
I squeezed out an excuse, pretending to be as calm as possible.
“It didn’t seem… proper to let dust gather on the things you gave me, Miss Chloe.”
Please let that much flattery get me through this.
As I prayed inwardly and looked at her, warmth returned to her formerly chilly blue-gold eyes.
“You mean you’ve been wiping my things every day?”
Her cheeks flushed at once.
“Oh my.”
Her breathing grew rough. Her fingers fidgeted.
“…So you were thinking of me that much.”
“……”
Was that how I was supposed to take it?
I had no idea how she’d reached the conclusion that I was thinking of her from “I wipe your things every day.”
Still, it was clear I’d gotten past it.
With a satisfied expression, she sank into the sofa.
Naturally, I took a seat across from her.
Before she could speak, I gathered my thoughts.
‘Today… let’s not use hypnosis.’
At this point, even I knew.
If things kept going like this, it would be dangerous.
Every time I hypnotized her, the corrected memories created sweet words.
And they kept piling up emotions that shouldn’t exist.
The result was the situation just now, as you saw.
That look glaring at me over the position of a single object.
I got through it this time.
But next time?
Even if I got through the next time, what about the time after that?
At this rate, someday she might turn serious just because I looked at another woman.
That was why I’d made up my mind.
At least for the time being, I wouldn’t use hypnosis on this woman.
Instead, I would rely on this.
[Chloe Levantia]
[Weak to praise]
[Empathizes with and agrees with whatever I say]
[Blushes when our eyes meet]
The behaviors of Lady Levantia that I had organized in my own way recently.
If the way she acted toward me was affection, then if I did the same in return, somehow it would work out.
…Probably.
“Doctor.”
Lady Levantia spoke first.
“What you said just now made me truly happy.”
“……Just now?”
“When you said you wipe my things every day.”
Ah, that.
I thought we were done with it, but apparently not.
She trailed off slightly and watched my reaction.
Her eyes trembled faintly, and the corners of her mouth looked as if they might rise, but not quite.
It was a textbook appeal. ‘I was happy, so I want you to notice that.’
Good. I could deal with this.
I deliberately met her eyes and said,
“They’re precious things you gifted me, Miss Chloe. It’s only natural.”
It was a line I’d put some thought into.
I included praise, met her eyes, and even actively agreed with her.
She had been satisfied with being called Lady Levantia, and now I was calling her Miss Chloe.
Satisfaction should be a given.
“Hehe, as expected, Doctor, you…”
She tilted her head for a moment at my words.
Still, in the end she smiled, so I clenched my fist inwardly.
Maybe this was going fairly well?
“At the tea party the other day.”
Lady Levantia abruptly changed the subject.
Holding her teacup with both hands, she glanced up at me.
“One gentleman kept trying to speak to me.”
“……”
A blatant attempt to provoke jealousy.
She hadn’t said it outright, but it was practically a question with the answer already decided.
So? How will you react, Doctor?
Good. At times like this, I had to play along.
“That must have been uncomfortable.”
When I spoke carefully, her eyes trembled a little.
“As the flower of high society, Miss Chloe, it seems you truly have many things to endure.”
It was a response I’d put some thought into.
First, I empathized by saying it must have been uncomfortable.
Then I praised her as the flower of high society.
Not bad, right? I thought, glancing at her.
But.
Lady Levantia’s smile slowly faded.
The corners of her mouth lowered slightly, and the fingers on her lap twitched.
“……Ah.”
Her voice sank.
“Is that what you think?”
As if that wasn’t what she was supposed to hear.
As if the me she knew would have said something else.
I could feel that something had gone wrong.
But from my perspective, I had no idea what that something was.
I praised her, I actively responded, and I met her eyes.
I did everything.
But apparently, not for her.
Because she asked me with utterly serious eyes.
“Doctor. What do you think of me?”
A sudden straight pitch right down the middle.
Her eyes did not waver.
It wasn’t a joke, nor was it an appeal.
It was sincere.
Because her faith in me was wavering.
Because she felt she needed something that would drive a wedge into her heart, she had ended up saying it.
I suddenly wanted to take back the resolve I’d made earlier.
If I hypnotized her now and went through the routine, she would surely leave satisfied.
But I knew, all the same, that I couldn’t do that.
Instead, what came to mind was the content of my notebook.
First, praise.
“I always think of you as someone graceful.”
And then I was going to answer according to the plan.
But a problem arose.
‘Doctor, what do you think of me?’
There was no room to empathize or agree with anything, was there?
“……Ah.”
When I stopped there, her eyes wavered.
“So I was always… a graceful person.”
Her voice was quiet as she repeated it.
Neither her mouth nor her eyes were smiling.
Clack—
She set down her teacup.
“Doctor.”
“Yes.”
“……Did I do something wrong?”
My heart dropped at her wounded voice.
“That’s not it.”
“No. I know. As I thought, I must have done something wrong.”
Her shoulders trembled as she lowered her head.
“No. It truly isn’t that……”
Before I could continue, she stood.
Her eyes were red.
Then, without another word, she bowed at a precise angle.
A graceful, beautiful gesture.
I tried to say something, but the door closed first.
***
I looked out the window.
She had run out. Her back was turned as she headed toward the carriage, hiding her face.
Helen, who had been waiting inside the carriage, must have realized something was wrong, because she quickly came outside.
Her gaze rested on the young lady for a moment, then turned toward me.
‘Just what did you do to my lady?’
There was no way she would look at me like that under normal circumstances.
She must have been crying after all. Lady Levantia, who was so good at hiding her emotions, to the point where she couldn’t endure it.
Helen soon withdrew her gaze and helped the young lady into the carriage.
The last thing I saw was her wiping the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.
***
The consultation office had gone quiet.
A table with cold teacups on it.
A heart-patterned cushion left with an indentation.
“Haa…”
I stared blankly at the seat where she had been sitting.
Slowly, I went back over the situation.
A count’s daughter had run out crying from a shabby consultation office in an alley.
If that became a rumor?
No, there was something even scarier than a rumor.
In her memories, I was a man passionately devoted to her.
But all of a sudden, I had only shown reactions unlike that man.
What if she felt she had been abandoned here?
What if her feelings toward me turned into resentment?
There was no way the fourth son cast out of a ducal house could endure the resentment of a count’s daughter.
In the end, that was the problem.
The me inside her head and the me in reality were too different.
The me she remembered was the kindest man in the world when we were alone together.
But the real me?
A pathetic fool who merely recorded the actions she showed me, then did the same in reverse.
She had felt that temperature gap.
And because the kind version of me would never act like that for no reason, she believed she must have done something wrong.
…There was only one thing left.
If I wasn’t going to use hypnosis to prevent problems caused by hypnosis.
Then, in the same way, I had to prevent the problems caused by not using it.
“By acting like the person she wants.”
I would act as the “imaginary me” that existed only in her memories.
Without hypnosis.
With my own mouth.
Saying the words she wanted to hear, at the intensity she wanted.
To say “my Chloe” with this mouth of mine…
Just imagining it made my whole body cringe.
“…Still, I have to do it.”
I wasn’t asking for much.
I just wanted to live while running a consultation office with my perk.
If there was a price to pay for buttoning the first button wrong in that process, then I had no choice but to pay it.
Even if I wasn’t confident, it was something I had done.
***
The next morning.
When I opened the door, the woman who had become all too familiar was there.
“……Good morning, Doctor.”
Levantia… no.
Chloe.
She was dressed so neatly that it was hard to believe she was the same person who had left crying yesterday.
Her blond hair was arranged down to the last strand.
Her clothes were flawless as well.
But there were things she couldn’t hide.
Her darkened eyes.
The makeup around her eyes, applied more heavily than usual.
Her slightly swollen eyelids.
She clearly hadn’t slept.
No, maybe she had cried herself out and barely fallen asleep.
In any case, despite that, she had come again.
Like an abandoned puppy looking up at its owner, her eyes said she would try to believe one more time.
Good.
I had prepared myself for this.
To leap into her arms.
I drew in a small breath and faced that shining blue light.
“……I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“…Pardon?”
“Because it looked like you left in tears, Miss Chloe.”
A silence as if her breath had stopped.
Her eyes shook.
She probably hadn’t expected to hear those words at all.
She must have come prepared for today to go wrong like yesterday.
I couldn’t stop here.
Because the me in her imagination would never stop here.
“I don’t want you to show me that face ever again.”
I forced down the tremor in my voice.
“……Because when my Chloe makes that face, it hurts me too.”
My ears burned.
My face was hot.
I hadn’t known it would be this embarrassing.
After hearing my words, she froze.
Still, as if even breathing was difficult.
In the meantime, I saw it.
Her trembling eyelashes.
The tip of her nose turning red.
The sob trying to escape through her tightly pressed lips.
And then, as her eyes crumpled as if she were collapsing, she opened her mouth.
“……That’s unfair.”
Her voice was damp.
Her eyes were even redder than yesterday.
“If you say something like that… what am I supposed to do?”
Her hand rose to cover her mouth.
But there was no point in covering it.
Because a line of tears had already flowed from her eyes.
She was crying, and yet she was smiling.
Then she looked up at me with wet eyes.
“……My Isaac.”
……What did she just say?
Before my mind could interpret her words, she continued.
“Because when my Isaac makes that face, it hurts me too.”
With a face where the tears had not even dried.
Without even trying to hide how bright red her cheeks had become.
She returned my words to me exactly as they were.
“How is it? Now you feel the same way too, don’t you?”