Not only had he suddenly covered my eyes and asked what food was laid out on the dining table, he had even said I did not look all right.
What was this about? I should be fine.
Very, very, very fine, at that. So why were both Hwaya and Sohwi saying I was not all right?
But Sohwi gave no reply to my request that he move his hand. Only the rustle of his clothes and the sense of his presence made me feel that he had settled himself behind me.
“My lord. This prank has gone too far. Stop it now.”
I felt a slight force enter the hand covering my eyes. At that touch, my body slowly tilted backward. Before long, I had ended up lying back against something solid.
But Sohwi still did not remove the hand covering my eyes. I still could not see a thing.
“My lord? Please move your hand first. All right?”
“I will, once you look a little more all right.”
“I’m perfectly fine. Hehe… I don’t know why you think that.”
Since I had no idea what the problem was, I answered with a needlessly foolish little laugh.
I wished he would hurry up and move this hand. It was dark.
“I clearly did as you asked. So why are you suddenly in such a hurry?”
Sohwi said something hard to understand. Me, in a hurry? If anything, hadn’t I calmed down?
I had amnesia, after all. While that excuse worked, there was nothing to worry about—I had probably thought that.
Had my suddenly affectionate response bothered him?
“In a hurry? I don’t understand. I can be affectionate toward you, my lord. Can’t I? That’s normal. A woman can come to like a man who treats her well, can’t she? Right? That’s true, isn’t it?”
I didn’t know what the problem was.
It had been normal.
It was normal to feel goodwill toward the male lead I’d met in person after possessing this body.
Then my reaction had been normal too. So why was he doing this?
“Why are you acting like this? Just tell me clearly instead. Is it really so strange that I don’t know what food was served for today’s meal? That’s… yes. It was because I was happy to see you, my lord. So the things on the table…”
“Enough. It is worse than I thought.”
Sohwi cut off my desperate self-defense, as if he would hear no more.
He would not tell me what was bad or what was strange, yet he said I was bad. I could no longer stay still.
I raised my hands and tried to pry myself free from Sohwi’s grasp, but he did not budge.
I tried to lift my reclined body, but his other arm wrapped around my shoulders as if to keep me from rising.
“Let me go. I don’t know why you’re doing this. Please let me go.”
With my head and body both held in place, all I could do was flail my legs and plead with Sohwi to release me.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we talked while looking at each other’s faces? Like this…”
“Are you uneasy because you cannot see my expression?”
At Sohwi’s words, my mouth clamped shut.
Like a child caught in a lie, the voice that had been spilling out without pause until just a moment ago snapped off and stopped.
My struggling body froze stiff as well, and it felt as if my blood had chilled in an instant.
“Let us do this. If you can answer what I ask, I will move my hand at once.”
I nodded gently. Answering questions was simple, after all.
“Then tell me where the mole on my face is.”
“That’s a strange question. Is it under your eye?”
I could just give vague answers to what I didn’t know, and answer what I did know.
“What is the name of the maid who brought the meal today?”
After the first question about where the mole on his face was, he did not ask anything particularly strange.
“Do you remember the color of the clothes I wore today?”
Questions that I should surely be able to answer at least one of.
“Conversely, what color are the clothes you are wearing today?”
Surely, I could answer…
“Then… can you tell me the color of Hwaya’s hair?”
“That’s…!”
… I could not say it.
I had thought they were simple questions, but strangely, I could not answer even one. Even the color of Hwaya’s hair was something I naturally, very naturally, should have been able to answer.
Hwaya had nursed me all day, and whenever I went anywhere, she had always come with me. Yet I could not say what color her hair was.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know what color Hwaya’s hair was. Had I ever paid attention to it in the first place?
What if he thought I was strange because of this? No, wasn’t this situation happening precisely because he already thought I was strange? Since when had it become a problem? Was going out the problem, or had he noticed signs even before that and been watching me carefully? Maybe I was the only one who thought the convenient excuse of amnesia had worked, because I don’t know what opinion that physician gave behind my back…
“Madam. Do not be so frightened.”
“Hng…”
Since my eyes were covered, my ears had grown sensitive; Sohwi spoke to me as if whispering. The faint breath touching my ear tickled.
“You woke in a place unfamiliar to you, so you must be afraid and mindful of everyone’s reactions. Our first meeting was not very good, either.”
I felt the tips of his fingers carefully touch my hair.
His touch, rubbing the ends of my hair between his fingers or twirling them round and round, was not unpleasant.
“Even so, if your surroundings fail to enter your eyes properly to this extent, it is too much. Though I had resolved to watch over you, when you struggle this much, my heart aches after all.”
“But…”
“As I thought, Madam needs to act a little more like a person. If you are so concerned about how things were before you lost your memories, how will you live from now on?”
Hwaya had also told me about the position of the lady of the house. She had told me to know my place and act accordingly. How could I not be concerned?
That was what I thought.
Yet lying in a man’s arms, hearing a man’s voice by my ear, receiving a man’s tender touch—
None of it was entirely unpleasant.
Was there perhaps some sensation engraved into this body that I did not know about still remaining?
Strangely, I began to feel that it truly did not matter.
“If you naturally regain your memories later, it will be resolved then. Is there any need to buy yourself suffering? Live a little more comfortably.”
“But… if I’m too different from before.”
“That is only natural.”
Or perhaps it was because the matter I had been silently agonizing over since the first day was, even if only in part, finally being spoken of with someone.
Perhaps that comforted me more than I had thought.
“You have no memories, and no memories with us. How could you be the same? But is there any need to trouble yourself over it? We are in the midst of building different memories with you, Madam.”
At his consolation,
“You need only live as you please as ‘Ryu Sua, who lost her memories.’ Be a little stubborn, and say more of what you want to do.”
from my covered eyes,
“If problems arise, you can solve them after you regain your memories. You are allowed to do that.”
tears flowed down.
“This is your home, after all.”
They were the words of a fox, so gentle they seemed to bewitch a person, as if he knew everything about my circumstances.
I was so grateful for his words telling me not to force myself to live like Ryu Sua, not to torment myself because I could not live like Ryu Sua, but simply to live as myself.
It was not the answer to all my worries, but it felt as if the lump building inside my chest had seeped out a little with my tears. Only then did the hand that had covered my eyes and refused to move gently fall away.
“Sniff… Is it really all right?”
“Of course.”
The words that affirmed me,
“What if I regain my memories later and resent you for letting me act as I pleased?”
“Use me as your excuse. Say I told you to.”
the words that took my side,
“Madam. Can you see your surroundings a little now? Can you see where your husband’s mole is?”
and even his teasing, full of mischief,
“Pfft… What is that? You don’t have a mole on your face.”
were truly pleasant to hear.
***
Only after I had spent a long while crying and laughing did I realize that I was still lying in Sohwi’s arms, and I hurriedly tried to sit up.
“Mm. I wanted to stay like that a little longer.”
“I didn’t.”
“Though those were my own words, I feel a little hurt.”
But as if he still had no intention of releasing the arm around my shoulders, Sohwi held me firmly and looked down at me with an expression that seemed satisfied, contrary to his words about being hurt.
“Um… Shall we finish eating first?”
For some reason, it was hard to look directly at Sohwi like that, so I averted my gaze and changed the subject.
“Then let us eat like this. I shall personally feed my exhausted-looking wife.”
“What? It’s fine. I’ll eat by myself!”
But as if he had no intention of letting me go obediently, Sohwi reached out and picked up the chopsticks.
Then he skillfully picked up a small, beautifully pan-fried jeon and brought it to my mouth… skillfully?
“Your chopsticks… Why are you good at using them? Don’t tell me you were doing that on purpose all this time?”
“Whoops… I made a mistake. Who will attend to my meals now?”
“Eat by yourself!”
To think that the awkward chopstick usage he’d shown since the first day had been an act—I was shocked. I had been doing it because I was concerned that he could not fully enjoy the meal prepared with my own sincere effort.
If not, would I have carefully picked out fish bones for him and all that? I suddenly felt wronged.
“So, are you not going to eat? My arm will fall off at this rate.”
The fox who, until a moment ago, had seemed to know my heart to an uncanny degree had vanished, and only an insensitive man remained.
As if telling me to open up, he kept tapping the jeon he had picked up against my firmly closed lips. The oil lightly seeping from the jeon smeared around my mouth, and the distinctive aroma of meat jeon tickled the tip of my nose.
With no other choice, I opened my mouth and accepted the jeon. The juices from the perfectly cooked meat spread through my mouth.
“How about one more piece?”
Without a word, I parted my lips slightly. The jeon was too delicious for me to keep my mouth firmly shut.
There was no other reason.