I Think My Fiancé Has Regressed

Chapter 95: Side story – Lonely Gourmet Young Lady (3)

“….Hmph….”

I woke up to a muffled cry in my ear.

It was a cry I’d heard before, but I couldn’t quite place it.

For some reason, even drawing a human face in my head was not easy these days, as if I was surrounded by a white fog.

“Hmph, hmph….”

My brain seemed to have stiffened to the point where I couldn’t think of anything, but my body was aware that I had heard this voice before.

And I don’t know why, but the more I thought about it, the more my heart ached.

I wanted to turn away from the cries right now, even if only for the pain, but for some reason, I had a premonition that the moment I turned away from the voice, even the sensation of it, would be forever lost.

As if mesmerized by something, I stopped in my tracks and realized who the cries belonged to.

Who, who was it?

“Alex?”

Alex. Yes, the first person to call me Alex.

It wasn’t my mother’s voice, but a little younger.

The voice of a girl I’d known since I was a little girl.

I had no sisters, so we weren’t family.

Palace servants don’t show tears easily in the presence of royalty.

So who, then, was the first to call me Alex?

Young Lady Charlotte? She’s Eamon’s fiancée, so I must have known her since childhood.

…No, wait.

If Eamon’s fiancée was Charlotte, then who was my fiancée?

Her face, with its red hair and ruby eyes, came into focus, and I could barely remember her name.

“…Ari, Ana….”

Yes, I remembered.

It was Ariana’s cry.

My fiancée, who had tried to poison the sweet Sierra and failed, and who had done all sorts of nefarious things behind my back.

I was in the middle of acting together to protect Sierra from her.

So why the hell does it break my heart just to hear her cry?

If she’s crying, she’s getting what she deserves.

…Something, something was off.

I’m going to have to talk to her about it.

“Sierra, if you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

“……?”

I stopped walking with Sierra outside and hurried back into the dining room.

Once I see her again and talk to her properly, I’ll be able to clear up this weird feeling I’m having….

“Hey, wait!”

My body reflexively stops in its tracks in response to Sierra’s voice urgently calling after me from behind.

“Sierra, I can’t talk right now….”

-Hiss.

With that sound, something in her hand splattered into my face.

I forgot what I was thinking again.

“Hah, that was a close call.”

“…….”

“Has the effect completely worn off? I thought the 24-hour effect hadn’t worn off yet….”

“…….”

“Is there some kind of drug resistance? Haha, I’ll have to up the potency tomorrow.”

What the hell is this woman talking about?

She was talking about something that I couldn’t immediately understand.

It was like something was swirling around in my head, forcibly interrupting my thoughts.

“Come on, Alex.”

“……Yes.”

I trotted in the opposite direction of the restaurant again, being led by the hand of a country girl with light blue hair.

Yes, today, after a sumptuous lunch with Sierra, I decided to skip afternoon classes and head out to the mall.

There, I’d buy some clothes and jewelry for Sierra’s classy outfit, and before returning, I’d have some fine cheesecake and Darjeeling at a dessert shop….

With that thought in mind, I swatted away Sierra’s hand that was holding me.

“Kaaaak?!”

“Get off me, you piece of shit.”

“Oh, Alex?!”

“Don’t you dare say my nickname out of that mouth of yours.”

Yeah, I remembered everything this damned woman had done to me.

How she had destroyed the glorious kingdom of Leavrov after graduating from the Academy.

And how many tears I’d brought to Arianna’s face.

I remembered it all, every last one of it.

“Ariana!”

I had to see her now.

Maybe it was already too late, but I had to take it back now.

I never wanted to see tears on Ariana’s face again.

Please, please, just one more time.

If you can take my life, please, just one more chance.

I called her name for the first time in a long time as I hurried back to the cafeteria and pushed open the door.

Hoping for God’s sake she hadn’t left the cafeteria yet.

“Ariana!”

“……Alex?”

Calling me by my nickname, she locked eyes with me once before hastily pulling back the handkerchief she’d been holding near her face.

“Ariana, I did wrong!”

“What…..?”

“I’ll never let you down again, please just give me another chance!”

“Well, if that’s what you mean….Why don’t you just calm down, Prince Alexandros?”

Ariana stood up from her seat to calm me down and slowly walked towards me.

I opened my arms and hugged her, unable to control the emotions that came over me.

“Ariana!”

“…….”

But for some reason, Ariana, who I thought was clearly in my arms, became a reverberation and dispersed into thin air.

“……Ariana?”

While I panicked at the sight, the cafeteria went completely dark, plunging me into darkness.

Ariana’s voice echoed back at me from the void.

“…There’s no such thing as a second chance, is there?”

“…Ariana?”

“You’ve already been tricked by that stupid woman into wiping out an entire country, and you think you can make it up to me?”

“Ariana, where are you?!”

“You’ve already carved a bunch of scars I can’t remove into me, and now you’ve come to your senses?”

“Ah, Ariana….”

Ariana’s voice, which seemed to come from everywhere, gradually disoriented me.

“Don’t you think it’s funny that the man who is in a position to inherit the throne is being used by a mere woman?

Do you have any idea how many nobles have turned against the royal family because of your judgment to belittle even a duke’s daughter?”

“Kael would have been a good treasurer if you hadn’t made me cry.

And what did you do with Charlotte, the only one who disagreed with you? You accused her of treason and locked her in the palace dungeon?

You do remember that Prince Eamon defected with her to a foreign country, and all the diplomacy he was in charge of went to shit, don’t you?

Did you really think that Alex had achieved everything he had up until now all by himself?

There’s no way to go back to the past from the future, and if there was, I’d love to go back to before I got engaged to you.”

I buried my head in my hands at the sound of Ariana’s voice, relentlessly berating me in the darkness.

“I know….I know, I know….”

“It’s too late to realize that, Alex.”

Already, too late.

At the same time as those last words, dozens of Ariana’s with ice-cold stares appeared in front of me in a blur.

Their mouths uttered the same words in unison.

““How long have you been dreaming, Alex?”

My vision faded.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎

“……hhhhh!!!”

When I finally managed to lift my eyelids from my dazed state, I could no longer see the dozens of Ariana.

The first thing I saw was the view of a bedroom in a royal palace, my own body, drenched in sweat, and a comforter.

And then I saw Ariana sleeping next to me in her pajamas.

Not dozens of Ariana’s, just one Ariana.

I was relieved to see that she was still as beautiful as ever, even years after graduating from the Academy.

“……ha.”

Another dream.

I hadn’t had it in a while, and I thought I probably wouldn’t have it again.

Apparently, I was destined to live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life.

I wouldn’t argue that I deserve to have nightmares like this every day, considering what I did to Ariana.

And the memory of the cafeteria was better. Compared to the other nightmares, they were less intense.

At least it was on a much more benign scale than my memory of the end-of-year dance in my sophomore year.

The sight of Ariana in my first life, when I broke off our engagement, still felt like a bludgeon to the chest.

“Ariana, as punishment for the crimes you have committed against Sierra, I am breaking off my engagement to you and expelling you from the Academy.”

“Yes, sir, I understand, and may the future of Prince Alexandros and Miss Sierra be full of bright stars.”

“……what?”

“I have been truly happy to be Prince Alexandros’ fiancée until now, so please forget about me and find happiness for you.”

At that moment, Ariana, who I thought would be upset and retort to the breakup of the engagement, left me without the slightest hesitation as soon as she heard my words.

I still can’t forget the dejected look on her face as if she had dropped everything.

I was stupid enough to think that I had abandoned her.

In fact, it wasn’t her that was abandoned, but rather me.

I realized it only after it was too late, as she said in my dream.

It was a less painful memory than seeing that look on her face again at the end-of-year ball.

Maybe this moment, when she became my wife and now sleeps beside me, is also a dream.

No punishment would be more fitting for me than to be reminded that all this happiness was fleeting.

Still, if this is all really a dream, I could only hope that this dream would last a little longer.