About Your Pride and My Prejudice - Chapter 112

Chapter 112: Her Cosy World That I never Knew

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Eternal moments soaked two people all night. The flood poured in without a break like waves constantly rush in and out, as deep and distant as if to swallow each other.

Early in the morning, there was still time before dawn. The lovers, who had gone against the passionate current together, lay leaning against each other. In a rusty aftertaste like melted sugar, the two chests that went up and down at the same speed had a non-stop conversation.

“……I didn’t know you had known me for such a long time.”

Melissa murmured softly with a dazed look while clinging deeper to his damp chest. She doesn’t seem to want to create any gaps between them.

“Of course.”

Alan hugged Melissa tenderly as he smiled gently.

“How could I not know when you looked at me so openly?”

Melissa’s heart thumped again at the words. The fact that there was nothing left to be ashamed of and nothing more to show him gave her a happy sense of futility.

After being overworked all night, she decided to spare her words and focus on Alan’s voice to rest her fluttering heart.

“……But the gazes…….”

Alan became morbidly repulsed by the gazes people after being declared the sole heir to the Leopold family.

Unpleasant, dirty gazes groping and crawling on his skin. Whether it was envy, awe, longing, or any other emotion, underneath it all was something nasty and repulsive. Without exception.

Thus, he hated people. And it was scary. He felt the same way about himself.

But out of that boring group of humans, a presence had sprung that grabbed his attention. One day at a glorious royal ball, taking the role of the only son and decoration of Ian Leopold, the pillar of the kingdom.

There was a little girl. Her brown eyes, which were staring at him with a blushing face, were very explicit and had an undeniable excitement. Alan knew this kind of look very well.

But those mysterious eyes that contained a terrible combination had a sad glow. 

‘It’s not a bad feeling….’

Her eyes, which were like droplets of water, gave a strange resonance to young Alan’s heart.

Of course, the other person would not have imagined that she got discovered. Alan was a truly wicked child, with a gift for stealthily recognizing and feigning ignorance.

Ever since then, without fail, their eyes have secretly met among the people. Among the many glances, it was the only one that was not unpleasant, with a soft and fluffy feel. He didn’t want to admit it, but he did feel that way. 

It was true that the presence of the person giving that gaze began to bother him, but nothing changed in reality. The fact that the other person is not from a well-known family is not an issue for him.

Alan did not know what love is.

To be exact, he didn’t even want to know. Such a trivial and soft thing could never be his concern, nor should it be. His feelings were just a slight curiosity or annoyance about something unfamiliar. That’s all it was going to be.

But the owner of those mellow eyes was clearly in love with him. There is no way that persistence and bluntness are not what the world refers to as ‘Love’.

Nevertheless, she didn’t come close once. She had just been watching him for years with silent yearning.

It was a mystery. Women who watched him like that would have come up to him and talked to him, or else they would have spilled their drink or dropped their handkerchief in front of him. It was without exception.

Alan despised such a thing, but the fact that the droplet-like girl never came to him was strangely unsettling.

It was refreshing, yet at the same time, it bothered him. However, Leopold’s daily life was more important and urgent than that. So he just tried to cover it up.

Then one day, the woman finally approached. Late enough that the little boy and girl grew up and became adults. Years had passed, and it was autumn after he first noticed that droplet-like gaze.

No, he couldn’t say she came close. It would have been a coincidence. She didn’t know he was going to pass the boulevard in the early evening that day.

Disillusioned as usual amidst unwanted people, he snuck out of the meeting. Secretly without a single attendant. For him, it was a rare occurrence.

Was he doing all this just to meet that woman? A grass-like woman with a book in her arms opened the door and bumped into his chest.

Alan was greatly astonished by the ridiculous coincidence, but he was a man who was very good at concealing emotions.

However, the book she dropped touched his nerves strangely.

{When love has become a thing of the past}

Could it be that love has already become a thing of the past?

It was just the book title, but he strangely felt stuffy. So, now that it has been a past, she won’t come close? Did she find the right person?

Right. She’s now an adult, so she must have already been looking for a man who suits her. A man who resembles her, glistening and gentle. Not a monster like him.

At that moment, the woman said.

—Can you pick it up for me?

Then Alan froze uncharacteristically. A woman dropping something and him not picking it up is an act of insulting herself. He was embarrassed that he had forgotten that common sense and had just stopped.

The moment he belatedly picked up the book and handed it to her, the woman said again.

—I’ll be at Antress’ coffee shop all afternoon tomorrow.

Haa. He silently sighed. Women are the same, it was clear. He laughed at himself because he had held secret expectations for many years.

—Let’s pretend I didn’t hear it.

That doesn’t make any sense to say that he didn’t hear. But he thought it would be nice if he could do that. In a life that would not be strange for him to give up at any time due to suffocation and hatred, he had always regarded this woman as a small but dazzling  pleasure.

If she hadn’t said anything, he wouldn’t have lost his old pleasure.

It was the same for him who couldn’t approach her first, but if only she had just remained a distant and mysterious being. The thought made him laughably resentful.

Disillusioned, Alan turned coldly, but he unknowingly looked back at her behind him.

And the eyes of the woman, Melissa Collins, had not changed at all, and were still fluttering with the same soft waves as that day eight years ago.

Alan was seized with an unbelievable feeling of fascination as he hastily departed that place. He persuaded himself even more.

She’s a special woman. Still, that gaze of hers isn’t unpleasant. On the contrary…

It was then that he began to observe her as someone other than Alan Leopold, hiding himself in a red wig that he found somewhere in the spacious mansion. He stayed as close and stealthy as a shadow, not knowing what she would do to him or what he wanted from her.

Alan was ecstatic just by doing nothing and just merely watching silently. Not because it was an unacceptable deviation but he wouldn’t have enjoyed it this much had he been with someone else. Not unless Melissa was involved.

The world she lived in was so small and cozy. Alan was surprisingly new to her peaceful routine, and the more he knew, the more he wanted to know.

He thought she was closer to art. In other words, she was like literature, painting, and music. A small world that gives him an indirect glimpse into a dimension he has never experienced.

He had never had a hobby like this, but she quickly became his treasured and secret habit.

[Dear Sir Alan Leopold]

The letter that he received shortly after that…… It was dense and exceeded expectations. He couldn’t believe that the red-faced, shy woman secretly had this kind of heart. That’s why he was trembling to return the letter back to her.

It wasn’t his will to dance with the innocent woman, but he thought it would be good for her too. But looking at her terrified, tender face that seemed to hold back tears throughout the dance, Alan knew how hateful his existence was.

Ha. He brought this upon himself.

Late at night, in the carriage back to the mansion, Alan burst out laughing as if he was embarrassed. At the same time, he couldn’t take his eyes off the love poem filled with clumsy but unmasked yearning contained in the envelope. Sparkling under a dim light for a long time.

He questioned himself whether it was not absurd or unpleasant. Rather, he felt the soft tide fill his empty heart. The sensation was so amazing that he sometimes read it aloud and pondered it before he went to sleep.

* * *

“Nonsense……. You hated me, Alan.”

Melissa, lifting her head off his arms, muttered slightly.

“The day I bumped into you in the street, you had scornful eyes…….”

“Scornful?”

Alan chuckled softly.

“That’s a great imagination.”

“Well, what about the ball? You were angry that Prince Bentley asked you to dance with me. What about that?”

“I wanted to keep you to myself.”

“What…?”

He reached out his arm and stroked Melissa’s  head.

“I didn’t want you to be known.”

His hand went down to the cheek and soon swept her delicate neck as if to drawa smooth line.

“I should be the only one who knows. It’s upsetting.”

“What kind of….”

“And it’s you who gets in trouble if Alan Leopold shows his favor.”

Suddenly his cold hand naturally gripped Melissa’s soft chest, and as if she were used to it, she took it off and fell into thought.

‘Well, I’ve been harassed by fierce women just because I danced with Alan…….’

Alan murmured like the wind, as her heart was about to tingle with the still vivid memory of the day.

“I don’t know if it’s Troy.”