Weren’t You the One Who Was Dying? Chapter 81

I watched Ehit rejoin Ridel and walk toward the carriage, then turned around and leaned my back against the window.

The cold temperature of the glass seeped into my body.

“……”

After keeping my eyes closed like that for a moment, I started preparing to work again.

 

 

****

 

 

 

Evening.

Ehit’s gaze kept drifting toward the window.

Even while working, every few minutes his eyes turned outside.

That was when he saw the figures of two people on the street, already darkened after sunset.

A woman in a neat blue skirt, and a man in uniform with dark brown hair.

Dapflen and Dellers were walking toward the naval base.

As they drew closer, he could make out their expressions.

Whatever Dellers said made Dapflen burst into laughter. Her smile glowed, tinged with the afterglow of the sunset.

And the moment he saw that smile, Ehit was already on his feet.

There had been no prior arrangement, no reason for him to go meet her.

But the instant he realized Dapflen was right outside, his feet were already carrying him out of the office.

He wasn’t thinking about anything. It was pure reflex, his body moving on its own.

It wasn’t leisurely or composed.

It was fast, quick, urgent.

Like someone anxious that something precious might be taken away.

“Ehit?”

“Colonel?”

The two who had been talking in front of the base spoke at the same time when they spotted him.

Ehit’s brow creased. He didn’t even like the fact that they had spoken simultaneously.

What kind of bizarre irritation was this? He felt as if he’d gone mad.

Of course, he knew no one could control their emotions perfectly.

But no matter how he thought about it, what he was feeling now couldn’t be explained by rational thought.

“What did you eat?”

Forcing down the irritation, Ehit asked Dellers.

At the tone—like that of an instructor managing diets—Dellers answered with a sly grin, calling him “Colonel.”

“I made sure she ate something good, so don’t worry.”

And then he tossed the question of the menu to Dapflen instead.

“What was the best thing again?”

“Hmm, the panew with figs, and the oven-baked cheese-and-honey sandwich……”

“……”

Dapflen earnestly searched her memory and told Ehit about each dish one by one.

“Everything was really good. The cheese had salt in the perfect golden ratio, so when you eat it with honey it’s sweet and salty—seriously, wow, I want to eat it again.”

Her green eyes sparkled with delight. Ehit couldn’t take his eyes off Dapflen as she vividly described the food with her characteristic lively expression.

That look of pure joy made Ehit feel strangely warm as well.

But there was another emotion that overwhelmed even that.

“We were lucky. It’s a restaurant you can’t normally get into without a reservation, but someone canceled theirs, so we got in.”

“I told you it was worth trying, right? There are people who cancel sometimes.”

Dapflen spoke with a proud look, unaware that the very person who had canceled was standing right in front of her.

“Thanks to that, it was a really satisfying meal. You should try it sometime too, Colonel.”

“……I will.”

His voice dropped an octave lower.

Unaware of that, Dapflen and Dellers continued chatting about the restaurant.

He felt bad.

The fact that the restaurant he had reserved, thinking of going there with Dapflen, was instead visited by her with Dellers Bright.

No—if he was being honest.

It wasn’t just that he felt bad. An unbearable emotion surged up so strongly that the veins on the back of his clenched fist bulged.

Could this be—

‘No. That can’t be.’

He was good at controlling his emotions.

Ehit loosened his clenched fist and spoke calmly to Dellers.

“Major, you may go now. I’ll take Dapflen with me.”

“Yes, then I’ll be on my way.”

Dellers replied without objection and departed as if this had always been the plan.

That only made Ehit’s mood more complicated.

Major Dellers—Dapflen’s close friend—walked away, leaving behind nothing but unwarranted anxiety and questions about his own heart.

Only Dapflen and Ehit remained.

And the inexplicable emotion he felt while looking at her remained as well.

“Are you done with work? Are we leaving now?”

“……Please wait a moment.”

After bringing Dapflen into his office, Ehit hurriedly finished his remaining work.

Meanwhile, Dapflen looked around his office.

His wooden desk and bookshelves, the window draped with white curtains, even the sofa by the window where he often sat.

After reading the last document, he closed the folder, locked it in a drawer, and looked up.

He heard Dapflen, gazing out the window, murmur,

“It’s pretty.”

Ehit’s gaze was on Dapflen, while hers was on the sea.

“What is?”

“That. The shimmering water.”

Dapflen pointed out the window. At that, Ehit looked at the sea.

The night sea beyond the glass sparkled under the moonlight.

And Dapflen’s eyes, reflecting that sea, sparkled just the same.

Beautiful.

The thought came to him. And the emotion carried by that word struck him more vividly than ever.

“I didn’t realize it,” he said. “That it was this beautiful.”

“What? You live by the sea every day, and you didn’t know it was this beautiful?”

Dapflen smiled playfully. Ehit’s gaze lingered quietly on her.

The moment he met her green eyes, his gaze shifted back beyond the window.

The deep blue of the distant sea, the moonlight scattering across it.

As he watched, Ehit slowly closed his eyes.

In the space behind his closed eyes were filled with the soft laughter and scent of the person standing beside him.

“……”

He didn’t want to admit it.

But it was becoming clearer by the moment.

A truth that had once lifted its head above the surface was steadily rising higher.

 

 

****

 

 

 

They returned to the estate by carriage and talked for a while in the study, sitting side by side where he often fell asleep.

Ehit spoke about the newly arrived admiral. Dapflen seemed to like her quite a lot.

It was late, and Dapflen must have been tired. He wanted to keep her there with a topic she enjoyed.

“So then, the admiral said—”

But perhaps the story couldn’t fight off her drowsiness. While listening, Dapflen fell asleep.

Her head slowly tilted onto his shoulder. In the quiet stillness, Ehit’s gaze turned to her.

He looked at his sleeping fiancée—her delicate nose, her eyes, her lips—then closed his own eyes.

Countless thoughts, musings, emotions that refused to settle filled the silence.

‘You didn’t even know it was that beautiful?’

“……”

He let out a rough breath, tangled with complex emotions.

Perhaps he had already known.

That no matter what he did, this feeling was growing clearer by the day.

That no matter how much he denied it, it was becoming an undeniable fact.

He went out to sea every day, yet had never once thought it beautiful.

But today, standing beside Dapflen, watching it shimmer along with her laughter, Ehit realized for the first time that the sea he had always known was a beautiful place.

“Cold……”

Dapflen murmured in her sleep, burrowing closer into his shoulder.

Was she very cold?

His hand wrapped around her arm. His hand wasn’t particularly warm, but even so, Dapflen’s expression relaxed slightly.

How much longer would Dapflen live?

How long would she be able to wear such a peaceful expression?

He recalled Dapflen’s smile.

And over that smile, the words spoken by the healer that day overlapped in his mind.

‘Depending on the person, it can take their life.’

The night Dapflen collapsed after the landslide. That was what the healer had said.

That her divine power was condensed in a somewhat abnormal form, and that how one accepted it differed from person to person.

Ehit had asked if it could eat away at her life, and the healer had answered that for some people, it could.

He remembered the words Dapflen had murmured on the night of the ball, when he first learned she was terminally ill.

‘If I’m lucky, half a year. If not…… three months. To end my life like that……’

Depending on the person—then was Dapflen one of those cases?

If so, there really wasn’t much time left.

“……”

At that moment, Ehit’s gaze fell to the back of his own hand, the veins standing out harshly.

He closed his eyes and swallowed.

His hand was still wrapped around Dapflen’s warm body.

Yet for a brief moment, the absence of that warmth—the already familiar, hollow absence—was sharply felt before fading.

With a sensation like his heart being crushed, his grip around Dapflen tightened.

He couldn’t understand it himself, but this was already the truth.

Just imagining Dapflen’s death hurt unbearably.

He had thought it was for the best—after all, it was a political marriage, something that could be broken off without much effort.

He thought he had nothing to lose.

“……”

But Dapflen had already come too deeply into his life for that.

What should he do?

“……This is driving me crazy.”

He murmured softly while looking beyond the window.

He had something to lose again.