So truths couldn’t be swallowed no matter how hard you tried.
“I don’t hate you.” Evelyn said.
Fabian’s eyes shook as he stared at Evelyn’s trembling lips.
“And Your Majesty now has done nothing wrong to ……you never did.”
Two years had passed since Evelyn left Fabian at the age of twenty. He was a very busy husband, and he was terrible at showing his emotions, but that’s all.
“Then, why?” Fabian looked at Evelyn with sore eyes. But Evelyn couldn’t tell him, because that misfortune hadn’t happened in her life yet. “What has made us like this? He asked with a voice filled with emptiness.
“Your Majesty, It’s all over now.”
“It’s not over yet. It’s a painful thing that’s constantly repeated for now.”
“Still.. …you promised.” Evelyn tried to shake off his hand, but Fabian held her wrist tighter. “Even if Your Majesty knows the reason, our future won’t change.”
Fabian ended up saying it out loud, laughing, “I thought so. That’s why, I said I was wrong. “When he felt that Evelyn’s love for him had completely disappeared, he witnessed the truth.
“The child’s eyes were full of love. When you begged to save him, you was so desperate that you felt like dying.”
“That’s…”
“You love him, my child.” he said.
Evelyn’s heart dropped with a thump.
“You used to look at like that child.”
She thought she would be fine now. Evelyn thought that her feelings beca dull, and her love had faded.
“Isn’t he the child we’ve got because of love?”
When she beca a mother, Evelyn thought that her woman’s heart would disappear.
“At least, he exists because you once loved …… Isn’t he that child?”
Evelyn always thought Fabian was a strong man. She felt that he could forget everything because being in pain wasn’t his job. Sadness was sothing that only Evelyn could swallow. She felt that her misfortunes and sorrows were all her own.
But, Evelyn was wrong.
“Now I have nothing left to give up. Can’t you be honest with for a while?” Fabian caught Evelyn’s tired look. He had been patient with it so far and had endured it well. But as soon as he saw her face turned so pale, Fabian was overwheld with emotion.
“We’ve been through a lot of hardships.”
Fabian said “we.”
“Even though our reason might be different, the hearts will be the sa.” His hands gently covered the back of Evelyn’s hand. It was the sa touch as when they first t, and it was as hot as being embraced in his arms.
Evelyn couldn’t bear it, and she kept crying. “You still say….. we?” If Fabian spoke to her so kindly like this in her previous life, Evelyn wouldn’t have made this choice. No, if the one in front of her right now was Fabian of the past, then she could hate him.
“It’s because it’s ‘we’. It’s hard for each other….don’t you think?”
Evelyn had a complicated mind now. She felt so confused. Which was the real Fabian? If this was his true self, why did Evelyn lose her child twice, get sick and die at 30?
“I can’t help it. I won’t change my mind. Once tied up together by a relationship, I couldn’t be with anyone else…….What about you?”
“……Yes?”
“Don’t you always have a hard ti looking back at the past?”
The undeniable words pierced Evelyn’s heart. She couldn’t disagree with him. Fabian clearly saw Evelyn’s eyes trembling at that mont.
“Have we been honest with each other until this mont, even once, since we broke up under the golden wood tree? ….. I don’t rember that.”
“Divorce has no future,” she said.
“I’m talking about now. Every mont we’re living and seeing each other. It exists no matter what you say.” Fabian told her. It was also at this very mont. Evelyn, trapped in the past, didn’t want to admit it, but the two had co this far.
“Now, just as our child exists. I’ve changed. Just as you’ve changed, Evelyn. It wasn’t a short ti.”
The promise to keep a secret didn’t work between the two. Fabian already knew, so Evelyn couldn’t go back. And indeed everything that Evelyn rembered had changed from the previous life.
“Your Majesty, I can’t give you anything or any answer.”
Fabian slowly closed his eyes, “But you still don’t resist . That’s enough for .”
Evelyn avoided his gaze in embarrassnt. As if he didn’t care, Fabian leaned his head back on Evelyn’s lap like what he always did in the past, when he spent ti alone at the Empress’s residence. “Just for a mont, let stay like this.” Fabian’s voice seed so tired that she couldn’t push him away. As he said, they already had a hard ti.
“So things don’t change.” His voice rang softly. Only Evelyn’s body scent and warmth didn’t change. Just her awkward movents and her thin body that hurt his heart. “I … … have I changed a lot?” asked Fabian.
“Yes.” Evelyn answered him in silence. Fabian had changed a lot since they t again after the divorce. He did sothing that Evelyn couldn’t have imagined before, and he no longer hid his feelings. It was all enough to say that the present Fabian was a different person.
“Yes…..” Fabian responded in a low voice. A gentle night wind blew, passing through his tired and scattered hair. “You too…..” With his head still buried, Fabian stretched out his hand and touched Evelyn’s cheek. Then, he put his hand on her head. It was the sa old habit.” Alone… …you must have a hard ti.”
He was jealous of Evelyn’s bright smile. Fabian hated her because she looked radiant and happy.
“You alone … have raised my child so well.”
Fabian’s heartfelt words made Evelyn tearful.
“You must be struggled a lot while did it by yourself.”
Evelyn shook her head, “I wasn’t alone.” If she were really alone, she wouldn’t have been able to co this far. Apart from Fabian’s pain, the ti she gave birth and raised Adrian was full of happiness.
“I was happy to have Adrian. I an it.”
“Even though you’ve beco so thin?” Fabian raised his head and looked at Evelyn. For a mont, he felt a little annoyed with Adrian when he saw Evelyn was so thin. But Fabian actually knew it. That the biggest cause of Evelyn’s hardship was him.
“Is he more precious than your life?”
“Yes.”
Fabian smiled bitterly when she answered without hesitation. “That’s sothing I envy ……” It seed that at so point, Fabian’s tough side seed to be softened. It might be the affection of the past or similar warmth, that settled in this place.
“I will live for that child. I’ve already decided that way.” Evelyn said as calmly as she could. “So…..I can’t be by your side. I’m sorry.”
“I see…” Even though Fabian had heard it a thousand tis, still, her rejection was so painful. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. It was a taste he had never known before.
“Your Majesty….are you going to take the child away from ?” Evelyn mustered up her courage to ask. She wanted to hear Fabian’s answer instead of always feeling scared and anxious.
“Why do you think like that?” he asked.
“That’s….. It’s Empire’s law.”
And because until now Fabian still hadn’t let go of Evelyn. There was no better bait than a child to capture Evelyn. How could a brilliant Emperor like Fabian miss such an opportunity?
“Evelyn…… you’re not good at lying.” Fabian stared at Evelyn, then gave a long sigh, “And…. Don’t make that face.” His low voice resonated like a calm consolation as his fierce atmosphere disappeared. “It’s like I’m tornting you….. If I intended to take that child as a hostage to take you back, I have done it long ago.”
Again, the man in front of her was unfamiliar.
“If I wanted to take you by force, I wouldn’t have been waiting for two years, with or without a child.” Fabian laughed bitterly as she watched Evelyn blinked her eyes as if she couldn’t think of that.
“Why. Do you still see as a bad guy?”
“No, I don’t an that……”
Fabian took a deep breath. He had a lot of things to tell, but he couldn’t say it, so he just kept sighing as he was disappointed. “I’ve already accepted the reality that you’re unhappy with , and that you don’t want to be with .” He didn’t know why, but that was for sure. “Maybe, that’s my fault.”
Fabian’s heartless words made Evelyn’s heart broke.
“Maybe, marriage wasn’t right for from the beginning. No, it’s not maybe but it’s will.” Only now did Fabian pour out his late feelings. “Looking back, my mother also used to say that she feels uncomfortable breathing when she’s beside the Emperor. You said that Imperial n are worse than stone floors. Even then I couldn’t understand what that ant.”
The Empress Dowager always disgusted when talking about her Emperor-husband. The reluctance expression on his mother’s face was so vivid that Fabian quickly realized that he wasn’t the fruit of their love.
“Perhaps, I had a side that caught your breath too.”
Evelyn also rembered the Empress Dowager. She was a nervous and cold woman. And she was a bad mother. Now, after she had a child, Evelyn could see it more clearly.
“No.”
Fabian’s eyes were shaken by her unexpected answer.
“It’s not.” It wasn’t a foolish regret. Evelyn just thought that so facts should never be blurred. “I’ve never minded Your Majesty. And I’ve never been reluctant to do it.”
She loved him. It was love at one ti.
“Adrian was born on my wish.” Evelyn must not spoil that precious fact because such a mistake was irreversible. “He was a child that was born because of love. That fact doesn’t change.”
Fabian should have known that, as he found out the child’s existence.
“I know…..” His voice sounded relieved, “That child…. He’s happy.” Fabian never had such happiness. Now, he could understand Evelyn’s story in the garden of the Felice Kingdom. At that ti, Evelyn asked about his childhood who grew up as the Emperor’s heir. And she looked at Fabian with sorrowful eyes.
“Evelyn…. Do you really think I won’t be able to protect that happiness?” Now Fabian started to put together Evelyn’s puzzle-like reasons little by little. As an Emperor, there was no such thing like incompetence. He wasn’t a man who couldn’t protect his own children.
“Your Majesty, it’s not your fault. But… …yes. and Adrian can’t be happy in the Imperial family.”
Fabian no longer answered. He only looked deeply at Evelyn and closed his eyes again, unable to hide his tiredness.
“But, isn’t it too much to not give a chance.”
Evelyn lowered her head at his depressed voice. It was very unfair to Fabian right now, but both of them knew what it was like to grow up as heir to the Imperial family. Fabian never realized it was a misfortune, but it would be different for Adrian.
“Forgive …. but the fact that you’re an Emperor remains unchanged.”
“So, what you said to in the Felice garden was sincere.” he said.
Evelyn admitted her mistake. She wasn’t supposed to be an Empress. That was her fault.
Only
“So, that’s what you ant when you asked for a divorce and would quit the Empress.” Whatever it was, Fabian was frustrated that he was late to realize it. If he had known Evelyn’s thoughts from the beginning, he wouldn’t have let her go this far.
“But, Isn’t it too an to think and decide it on your own?”
“I know, but…….” Evelyn felt sad. “I know, but Your Majesty can’t quit.”
It was the only thing the Emperor couldn’t do. It was a law that the Imperial Emperor couldn’t abdicate until the end of his life. Once Fabian was crowned, he couldn’t live another life other than as an Emperor.
“If you’re so sorry, you should stay by my side.”
Evelyn smiled bitterly when she heard Fabian’s sad words.
It was ti to end this position. As if he had an inkling about it, Fabian rose to his feet reluctantly. And the ti they could stay by each other’s side was over.
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