By Zephyria 
Unlike the people in the room, who were all crying, the sun was shining brightly outside the window. It was a clear and bright day without a single cloud. The bright sunlight that stretched out beyond the glass window poured down clearly on the top of the man’s head, who had been led to me as if possessed. The man’s shadow was particularly long and dark.
“……”
“……”
He couldn’t say anything more and his chin was just trembling. I forced myself to lift my head, which kept trying to lower, and forced myself to open my eyes, which were filling with moisture. Finally, our eyes met again.
“…Your Highness.”
“……”
“Your Highness, Adrian.”
“…Ugh.”
The man’s shadow, which seemed to have an unusually long tail in my voice that flowed out like a sigh, finally sank. It collapsed. It shattered into pieces.
He reverently knelt before me, on his knees that he had never knelt to anyone in his life, and barely clung to my legs, pouring out hot breaths. I hugged the man’s shoulders tightly. Every time I blinked, tears rolled down incessantly. We were both silent. He, who thought I had miraculously returned from death, was also like that, and I, who had regained my forgotten memories and knew how much I had sinned against him, was also like that.
“I was wrong… I was, wrong… I was too arrogant, you, ah, Noah……”
I thought I had lost you forever, because of my arrogance… because of my greed…… The trembling voice of the Crown Prince was pretended not to be heard by others besides me. As I whispered that it wasn’t true, that you had done nothing wrong, strong arms quickly covered me as if attacking. It was a fierce strength, as if there was no such strength left in his emaciated body. It was probably desperation.
I want to confess my sins to the current Adrian, who knows nothing. That you have done nothing wrong, that if one of us has sinned, it will always be my share……
“Noah… Noah……”
His desperate voice repeated my name like a prayer. I decided not to seek forgiveness that had lost its timing. Instead, I held his tear-soaked cheeks preciously in both hands. I overlapped my lips with his dry and chapped lips. The lips, which were only soft under Carlisle and Lennox’s care, were sinful once more.
But Adrian, who couldn’t have noticed my true feelings, devoured my breath as if even that was too much. I hugged his neck with all my might. His strong arms, like tree roots, embraced me with stability. It was not enough to kiss and kiss again. This man who had loved me and loved me for a lifetime, who had come to love me again beyond countless lives.
“I missed you……”
I really wanted to love him now.
While we were kissing each other madly, forgetting about the others, the surroundings had become quiet. It seemed that those who had expected the reunion to be long had left on their own.
The kiss was salty. It was because of the tears that flowed endlessly and mixed into the lips. Adrian didn’t want to fall off me easily and was still kneeling and hugging my body. If it was normal, I would have slowly stopped him and saved face, but I didn’t want to do that now. I can’t control my emotions well.
…I felt sorry for Carlisle. If I were to isolate this life and look at it separately, it would be right for me to go to Carlisle’s side. I even wanted to. But, I can’t do that now. Carlisle is precious. When I’m with him, I feel like I can imagine a hopeful future. However, now that I’ve regained my memories, the name at the very top of my guilt is always fixed as Adrian Pearson, one person. I can’t hurt Adrian to go to him. I can no longer betray this fragile man who dedicated his whole life to me, was deceived by me his whole life, and eventually lost me forever.
“Ha……. It’s not a dream, is it…. Is it really you standing before my eyes?”
Adrian asked in a weak voice. In his past life, he couldn’t even pretend to be having a hard time in front of me. He was afraid I would feel even more sorry, so he let his insides burn black and tried to endure to the end, pretending to be strong somehow. I remembered his pale face, trying to give me a kind smile as if it was nothing even when I recklessly slept with Lennox or dragged Kyle into the bedroom, but he couldn’t hide his trembling hands, so he tried to hide them behind his back.
“How could it be a dream? I’m here…. Right before your eyes.”
He buries his forehead in my neck and wraps his arms around my back again as if tying me up. But unlike before, he has no strength left. His trembling arms seem like they would all scatter and fly away like ashes even with a light sigh. I mustered strength for his share. I snuggled into his arms and hugged him tightly. If I could soothe the frightened Adrian, I was confident I could become a stone statue for a week or ten days.
His powerless hands groped around my body here and there. There was no sexual implication at all. Adrian just wanted to check and confirm again and again that I was definitely here, that I really existed. I willingly gave him my whole body. The place where his parched hands groped particularly intensely was around my neck and shoulders. The very spot where he thought I must have been bitten by the fangs of a ferocious beast. Without saying a word, I loosened the front ties of the shirt I was wearing. I showed him my smooth skin without a single scar, not only on my neck but also on one shoulder.
“Blood…, there was a lot of blood, how, how…….”
It wasn’t a suspicious tone. If it had been before, I would have had to rack my brains about how to resolve His Royal Highness the Crown Prince’s suspicion, but not now. He was just relieved. The tears that had barely stopped flowing start to flow again. His desperate voice touches my bare shoulder. Oh my God, thank you, God…. Thank you…….
“His Royal Highness the Crown Prince gave me holy water. I used that as soon as I fell off the cliff.”
I couldn’t borrow God’s power anymore, and I didn’t intend to borrow it, so I broke and threw away the holy water that Adrian had given me before he left on his journey as soon as I received it, but it was useful for making excuses.
“You saved me, you…….”
“Ugh…….”
“Thank you, Adrian….”
Adrian cried for a long time again and then fell asleep almost as if he had fainted. Looking at his tired face with clear tear marks, I couldn’t help but feel disturbed. When I heard the rumors that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had been tormenting his subordinates without eating or sleeping to find the missing person, I just thought it was someone else’s business……. But now that I realized it was something that my Adrian, not just a simple Crown Prince, had gone through, my heart ached just looking at him.
I can’t leave him like this, I should call a servant to move Adrian to a proper bedroom soon. I tried to get up with that thought, but I couldn’t straighten my back. It was because Adrian was holding onto my clothes for dear life even in his sleep.
“Ha…. What am I going to do with this.”
It’s not difficult to shake off his powerless touch. However, the problem was that the more desperate and fragile his touch was as he searched for me, the more it became a powerful snare that tightly bound my ankles.
I eventually gave up getting up and sat back down on the cold bare floor. I wanted to stay by his side until he woke up like this. To tell him kindly as the first thing when he came to his senses that it wasn’t a dream, that I had really returned to your side…….
My head was still complicated. The original plan to marry His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, win the bet with Allen, and then return to Carlisle’s side was completely wiped out. Since my marriage to Adrian meant my victory in the bet with God anyway, I wasn’t particularly worried. What should I say to Carlisle now, how should I undo the imprinting of the beastman that you only get once in a lifetime, and if that imprinting can’t be undone forever, how should I compensate for it……. The future was a mess, but strangely, I felt relieved. Looking at the sleeping face of the person who had loved me so foolishly, I strangely burst into laughter.
I was stroking Adrian’s rough face like that when suddenly, the door opened carefully.
“Is His Royal Highness asleep?”
“Ah…….”
“Please wait a moment. I will take him to his bedchamber right away.”
“…….”
Andrew, my eldest brother, whose face was as gaunt as Adrian’s, quietly crossed the threshold and appeared before me.