I Want To Be Your First – R19 - Chapter 91

Ariel looked at him with widened eyes, opened and closed her mouth, and stuttered out her words.

 

“How…! How did you know that I was thinking like that?”

 

“I took a guess. Now, answer me quickly.”

 

Ariel didn’t know whether she should laugh or not, and responded with an embarrassed face.

 

“…Both.”

 

Berthwald’s smile deepened, and he pulled on Ariel’s arm to link their arms. Just like that, he bowed his head and whispered in her ear softly.

 

“There’s no need to be jealous. Even so, you’re the only one in my head.”

 

Ariel shuddered at the saucy whisper. She raised her head carefully and looked at his eyes, biting her lower lip firmly before whispering.

 

“Actually, I wanted to hear that.”

 

As her neck shrunk and she smiled secretively, Berthwald’s lips also twitched. A blissful atmosphere settled between the two. Ariel and Berthwald walked leisurely through the market with their arms linked affectionately.

 

“Hoho.”

 

Watching them from a step behind, Vion let out a deep sigh with an irked face. For some reason, he thought that it would be warm and pleasant if the two of them got along better, and his mood would be lifted.

 

From the way his stomach twisted, he felt like he wasn’t a very generous person, and became depressed.

 

“Should I get married too?”

 

At his sudden remark, the guards following alongside were shocked, and stared at Vion.

 

“Why are you saying that all of a sudden, Sir? Are you feeling sick?”

 

“Is it due to the winter? Why is a person that had never spoken about women before suddenly saying that?”

 

A huge stature and a blunt face, with a brusque personality and excellent skills to match. He was Vion Syknechid, respected by those around him as a military officer. The fact that he was unmarried due to his bluntness was his only flaw.

 

As Vion watched the back of the Count and Countess with a reluctant expression, he spoke evasively, “Right, it might be because of the winter.” The two married men looked at him with gazes of pity, before hurrying their steps while readjusting their swords.

 

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By sunset, the crowd of people that filled the streets decreased. The absence of merchants and tourists were filled with sailors.

 

The voice of an innkeeper soliciting guests and the sailor’s singing from the pub combined and added to the atmosphere of the setting sun.

 

The sun hanging lowly on the horizon dyed Ariel’s cheeks red. Ariel sat in the cafeteria staring blankly at the slowly darkening horizon.

 

“The sun is already setting. The sunset here… it seems a little different from the sunset at the mansion…”

 

Ariel blinked slowly, and seemed to be familiarising with something, her eyes closed with a serious expression. As there were too many objects, scents and various languages that she had never encountered before, the stimulation to her was too large.

 

Noting the weary expression on her face, Berthwald worriedly took a hold of her arm.

 

“It’s getting dark, shall we return back now?”

 

“…Ah, Ahhh. Yes.”

 

“You seem quite tired. There’s some walking distance to the carriage… Let me carry you.”

 

Berthwald, who got up after organising his seat, held up Ariel in his arms without giving her time to refuse.

 

Although she would normally be quite reluctant, her lack of energy caused her to quietly accept the embrace. Ariel hugged his neck with both of her arms and recalled the day’s events in a languid voice.

 

“When will the items we purchased today arrive?”

 

“The furniture is custom-made, so it’s going to take a while, but the small trinkets should have already arrived at the mansion.”

 

“Wow, really? That’s quite fast.”

 

Ariel’s eyes widened, and she smiled faintly while whispering in a soft voice.

 

“That pair of yellow baby shoes. It was very small and dainty. I want to quickly return again and take a look at them.”

 

At her excited whisper, the corner of Berthwald’s mouth rose into a soft smile.

 

“Ariel.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“On the left side of the vest. Put your hand in the pocket.”

 

‘Here, quickly,’ at his urging, Ariel pretended that she couldn’t win against him and rummaged through his pockets.

 

“Huh? What’s this?”

 

At the place where a handkerchief should be was a small silk bundle and not a handkerchief. When she looked at him with an intrigued expression, Berthwald jerked his jaw at the package, as if asking her to open it.

 

Shaking off her drowsiness, Ariel opened the package carefully. When she undid the ribbon, a dainty cloth bundle appeared in her hand. After feeling the object and trying to determine its identity, Ariel looked up at Berthwald in shock.

 

“Baby shoes! It’s the pair of baby shoes from previously, right?”

 

At her exclamation, Berthwald nodded with a laugh.

 

‘Oh god, what should I do?‘

 

It seemed as though she was about to cry due to the unexpected gift. Ariel looked up at him with eye-catchingly clear eyes and let out another exclamation, “Wow!”

 

“How… Did you leave it out for me?”

 

“Yes. You seemed to like it so much, so I took it with me.”

 

When he answered with a nod, Ariel closed her eyes and smiled, hugging the shoes tightly.

 

Afraid that the shape of the shoes would change, Ariel held the shoes carefully and buried her nose in the portion that has lace decorations. For some reason, it was as though she was already smelling the soft scent of a baby.

 

As per Berthwald’s suggestion, the first store that the two visited was a baby goods store.

 

Within a store containing all sorts of products for babies, including dolls, toys and strollers, the item that caught Ariel’s heart was a pair of yellow baby shoes decorated with white lace. Just looking at the silhouette of the baby shoes, she could tell it was very small and dainty.

 

As Ariel mumbled to herself about whether it was meant for a doll and about its cuteness, she stood in front of the display shelf for a while, fiddling with the baby shoes.

 

She entered the store with a light heart, but when the items were actually before her, she began to second guess her decision to buy them.

 

Her eyes that have never been healed thus far wouldn’t get better easily.

 

There was a conflict between her negative thoughts that buying something like this would only become torturous hope, and her affectionate thoughts that she wanted to keep it with her even if it became old and worn out.

 

The former leaned towards reason, while instinct followed the latter. These shoes may never be used for the rest of her life, but she can’t help but be drawn to their loveliness.

 

It was Berthwald, not Ariel, who put an end to her agnoizations.

 

“Here, all the pink and blue items that are on the shelves of this store.”

 

“Ah, yes, My Lord.”

 

“Pack up everything except for those.”

 

The confusion only lasted for a moment. The owner of the store couldn’t contain his excitement, telling his employees to pack all the items. Although Ariel looked at Berthwald with an absurd expression, and later tried to dissuade him, but she wasn’t able to defeat his stubbornness.

 

What’s even more embarrassing was that that was just the beginning. Starting from the stores selling baby products, Berthwald splurged huge amounts at the jeweller’s, the dressmakers, and furniture stores.

 

Ariel refused, saying she didn’t need this much, but she could only watch dazedly as he signed the blank check.

 

One strange thing came to mind later.

 

When she asked him for the reason he excluded pink and blue items at the baby goods store, the reply she got was that he chose neutral colours for those items as he didn’t want her to be upset about buying them for no reason when they still didn’t know whether the unborn child would be a boy or a girl. His blunt yet delicate answer left Ariel more surprised.

 

“Just organising alone would take a long time.”

 

As Ariel whispered with a smiling tone, she buried her face in the vicinity of Berthwald’s neck. As she thought about remaining in his embrace like this without letting go, she peered at the backwards scenery. Gray buildings, and people in a colour darker than that, flitted past her pupils.

 

Just then, as she was looking around aimlessly.

 

“Count, w–wait a minute!”

 

As her gaze fixed at a spot between the buildings, Ariel suddenly sprang up.

 

Getting away from Berthwald, uncaring of the dissuasions, Ariel pulled up the hem of her dress and ran into the gap between buildings. The way she ran uprightly despite faltering was endlessly anxiety-inducing.

 

“Ariel!”

 

Berthwald ran, hot on her heels. The escorts and Vion followed behind with tensed expressions.

 

Her usual sluggish appearance disappeared without a trace, and Ariel quickly rounded a corner and ran towards a certain direction.

 

He followed her into the gap between buildings, where Ariel stood breathing heavily in a narrow alley.

 

Perhaps due to her haste in running, the hem of her white dress was stained with splatters of black mud. Ariel disregarded the state of her dress, and stared straight in front of her with narrowed brows.

 

Berthwald, who stopped hastily, grabbed Ariel’s arm and shouted.

 

“What on earth…! What’s going on all of a sudden?”

 

“Over there, the person that’s over there.”

 

The gray eyes that were staring straight ahead wavered to and fro. As she stared in front of her blankly, Ariel spoke.

 

“The colour… it’s different.”

 

She replied and raised her finger, pointing right in front of her like she was possessed. At the sudden appearance of an absurd topic, Berthwald rolled his eyes and followed Ariel’s gaze.

 

The direction her fingers were pointing towards had a person clad in messy robes roaming the alley at a slow pace.

 

…What do you mean his colour is different?

 

Berthwald raised a question with a low voice.

 

“Didn’t you say that up till now, there wasn’t any other person with a different colour other than me?”

 

“That’s right, but… It’s different from the Count. That person is very dark… blue. It’s blue.”

 

Tears were forming in her eyes as she had opened her eyes too widely. With a trembling hand, Ariel wiped the corners of her eyes and she moved a step forward.

 

That blue colour, this faint feeling.

 

She once had a similar feeling before.

 

When her father searched for shamans and wizards to fix her eyes, one of them emitted a light bluish colour. Just like a drop of blue had been added to the gray, although it was hard to notice and barely discernible, it was definitely different from the others.

 

…He was the only one that brought up the story of the curse.

 

Maybe that person was similar to him…

 

No. It can’t be. The person that spoke about the curse had a lighter colour, and in the end her eyes weren’t fixed, so it didn’t mean anything.

 

Doubts crept into her mind.

 

‘Why did I follow him? Just because he has a different colour?’

 

It wasn’t that important.

 

Even Ariel herself didn’t understand why she chased after him. It was just an instinctive thought that she should follow that person, so she followed him like she was bewitched.

 

Perhaps he had noticed her presence, and the person dressed in the robe turned in Ariel’s direction slowly.

 

The slightly bent stature of the man made it difficult to tell whether he was an old man or a middle-aged man, giving him a mysterious atmosphere.

 

A man that was both unusual in dressing and atmosphere. The strangest of it all was his eyes.

 

The man’s eyes were gray like Ariel’s. No, they were a pair of dark blue-gray eyes that looked even more clouded than Ariel’s.

 

Unlike Ariel’s eyes, which gave a blurry impression, the man’s eyes gave off a disturbing atmosphere for some reason.

 

The man looked around with his slanted focus, before approaching Ariel. The man scanned Ariel like he was looking at a rare creature, before chuckling.

 

“Goodness. I had a bad dream last night, but I never thought that I’d see a servant in my life.”

 

“…Servant? Are you talking about me?”

 

“Yes. Who else is there other than the lady?”

 

“…”

 

“When they meet, they would immediately recognize whether they are of the same race… hoho. Those words were the truth, it was the truth.”

 

As the man mumbled to himself, he tugged on his pale beard roughly. Just as Ariel was about to speak, the man opened his mouth first.

 

“Lady, you’re perhaps… someone similar to me.”

 

His dark gray eyes flashed curiously. The man continued with an extinguishing voice.

 

“Have you ever heard that you’re cursed?”