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Isabelle often used the method of kissing Riggs to comfort him whenever he came running to her in tears.
That’s because this way of comforting was something she personally experienced.
There were many times when she was squatting down alone at the base of the staircase because she remembered something sad.
When she cried loudly on purpose, the saintesses approached her and hugged her tightly.
The number of hugs she received changed every time, but they always kissed her cheeks as if it was something they’d promised before.
On the day she fell and hurt her knee, they treated her knee and kissed it there.
Whenever they gave her tender kisses, it felt similar to the tranquility she felt as she was beneath the zelkova tree’s shade after having been out in the sun for a while.
So, Isabelle often kissed Riggs.
Because it was the fastest way to stop this baby deer’s tears, when he’s crying like he’s just sprained his leg.
“……”
Isabelle closed her eyes. She knew how Riggs would soothe her.
She could avoid it if she wanted to, but she didn’t because she also wanted to stop crying.
She thought it would feel comfortable if she received his clumsy consolation, which was always so warm.
Even if it meant receiving a kiss from a friend with no attraction involved between them.
“……!”
But that thought was wrong. As soon as Riggs’ lips touched her jawline, Isabelle shuddered.
The place where his lips touched felt so hot as if it was burning.
Her heart pounded even though it was only such a slight touch.
He kissed her closely along the path of her tears.
He also lightly licked those drops of tears.
The hot sensation seemed to go straight to her lower abdomen, so now, she was upset in a different sense than before.
In an instant, Roiqan Pilsburg wasn’t a problem anymore.
It was the intention, but Riggs’s kiss caused a much bigger stir within her.
Every time his lips touched Isabelle,
Riggs realized that what stopped wasn’t her crying, but her breathing.
As his angular face slowly came closer and closer, she had no choice but to hold her breath.
The sniffling that had been flowing helplessly was also cut short as if it had been slashed with a knife.
Perhaps because he was wearing only a towel around his waist, but she could feel his body temperature even though she wasn’t touching his skin.
Isabelle held the blanket with the hand she was tearing off the pillow.
“Riggs, stop…”
She barely twisted away from him as she was still shaking and couldn’t breathe properly. When she managed to move away, Riggs stopped.
Crimson’s eyes, glinting with desire, gently swept down to look at her. Then, he revealed how he could be obedient.
Taking a deep breath because she was unknowingly overwhelmed, Isabelle spoke.
“C-Can you go there and sleep? It’s late.”
The place she pointed to was the sofa.
It was a very cold statement to say to a man who had been comforting her with such gentle kisses until now.
But she couldn’t help it.
She had a hunch that something irreversible might happen to them both if he continued kissing her like this.
For a moment, their eyes met.
Riggs spoke with his uniquely gentle expression and low voice.
“Okay, Isabelle. Call me if you need me.”
And so he lay down on the sofa with his back to her, just as he always did.
His smooth back muscles were revealed beneath the moonlight, not a single sight of body fat on him.
‘Call me if you need me…’
Isabelle sat down, reflecting on his meaningful words.
* * *
However, in the end, Isabelle could not sleep comfortably.
Whenever she closed her eyes, she thought of his lips touching her cheeks, so she would constantly get startled awake.
‘What should I do…’
While contemplating, the moon reached the horizon and the sun rose in its stead.
As though her rationality had returned just as the sun rose, she realized how foolish her behavior was last night.
Didn’t Riggs say he saw her as a woman?
‘Not me. Not me, so… It’s fine.’
Friendship was usually eternal, but love was easily broken. This fact scared her.
The falling out of love was the number one contributor to failed relationships.
Isabelle wanted to eliminate the risk of cutting off her relationship with Riggs, and so she decided to nip it in the bud.
‘Just think of him as a friend. You can’t consider him as a man.’
While thinking this to herself, Isabelle sat up.
Early in the morning, she saw that Riggs was still sleeping on the sofa.
Isabelle intended to be mean to him. Since pranks were often played between friends rather than lovers.
So, she pulled the blanket to wake Riggs up.
“……!”
As expected, Riggs woke up in surprise.
The problem was what came next.
He clutched the blanket while it was still covering his lower body—clutching so tightly that the veins on his forearms became visible.
As if he wanted to hide something badly.
At that moment, the contents of the novella 〈 That Man’s Morning 〉 flashed through Isabelle’s mind.
Her own body was pure, but her mind, which was familiar with the worldly affairs of a man and a woman, betrayed her.
“R-Riggs, I’m not trying to do something like…!”
“…I got it, so just let go of the blanket.”
Isabelle immediately let go of the blanket and practically ran away.
She tried to do a prank now to cover up the strange atmosphere that suddenly enveloped them, but then…
‘Huh? What about the rumors…? That shouldn’t be possible, right?’
She couldn’t believe she was thinking something like this about Riggs.
Isabelle’s pupils shook.
Meanwhile, Riggs just stared at the door that Isabelle went out of.
She could still see her turning away while her cheeks were bright red, jumping up like a surprised little rabbit.
‘…Why did you run away’
He buried his equally heated face, though his ears were also burning red.
Isabelle’s embarrassed face came to mind, and the blood within him circulated quickly.
It wasn’t just morning wood.
Isabelle’s reaction to him was significantly different from what he’d always seen before.
Making him sleep on the sofa was proof enough that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with him.
If she had still felt comfortable with him, she would have used him as a pillow—kept him by her side and tangled her legs together with his.
‘Isabelle, towards me…’
He couldn’t even form a coherent thought because he was so flustered.
Was there anything out there that could affect him like this as much as Isabelle starting to think of him as a man?
Riggs couldn’t get up from the sofa for a long time, as though he had fallen ill.
It was worthwhile that he’d constantly have his shirt off and refused to wear the soft pajama set with a bonnet and fur lining.
There was one thing that he didn’t know while he was sleeping in his warm canopy bed.
That there was a considerable draft coming into the room.
Now, it was fixed because he had ordered the reapers to repair it.
The first few days he started sharing the bedroom with Isabelle, he had a difficult time falling asleep because of the scanty clothes he wore with the draft coming in.
This was a huge victory, on his part. With this brilliant Cardiago mind, he analyzed Isabelle’s taste based on all the underlined parts in her novels, and this victory was the fruits of his patience and perseverance.
‘But why would you pull away a man’s blanket in the morning when you know everything?’
Riggs recalled Isabelle’s reaction, which changed from playfulness to a whole heap of embarrassment.
Her pupils shook tremendously, and the way she quickly moved her gaze from his face to his lower body was not subtle at all.
‘What would you have done if the blanket got taken off and everything got revealed, seriously.’
It couldn’t be helped. There really was no other choice but for him to take care of her for the rest of their lives.
* * *
Meanwhile, in another part of the Cardiago Castle, there was another man who couldn’t get out of bed.
“Uuugh…”
Roiqan Pilsburg suffered from nightmares and breaking out in cold sweat all throughout the night, and it was now way past his usual wake-up time.
It wasn’t because of the carriage he rode yesterday which shook like crazy.
“Look at that. Isn’t he holding up for a long time?”
Kiel, who was sitting on the ceiling of Roiqan’s guest room, giggled as he threw something at the other man.
Upon reaching Roiqan, he groaned again, tossing and turning in his sheets.
The reapers brought a breakfast platter for Kiel, who was in such a good mood.
As he ate his ham sandwiches and drank his chocolate milk, Kiel didn’t stop throwing the same thing at Roiqan.
“Lord Kierkegaard, what are you throwing?”
“Ah, I’m throwing nightmares at him.”
Kiel had no doubt that he was a fair and impartial underworld king.
However it kept coming to his mind, the sight of the three-syllable woman crouching down after hearing this man’s voice yesterday.
“I heard that the Madam had been attacked not too long ago. It’s such a pity.”
He had deployed the terrene forces like that and acted so shamelessly as though he knew nothing about it.
She endured it because the three-syllable woman spent her entire life in a temple. But if it were Kiel, he would have hit this old coot to death’s door.
‘Making a fool out of the Madam of House Cardiago means making a fool out of my Hyung, and making a fool out of my Hyung means making a fool out of me.’
The pats that the three-letter woman felt nice, so for that, he was getting revenge for her.
Roiqan, who had been on the receiving end of nightmares upon nightmares all this time from Kiel, suddenly sat up.
He slept not a wink since last night, and so his mood had gotten incredibly sensitive.
“Damn it! Why am I having nightmares like this…!”
During business trips, it was important to manage one’s physical strength and condition.
The Imperial Conference wasn’t an easy event to navigate, even when he was in tip-top shape.
He changed his pillow and adjusted his sleeping position.
But that didn’t mean he could avoid the nightmares Kiel continued to throw at him.
In a situation like this, all he could do as a Pilsburg man was to pray.
Roiqan couldn’t sleep, and so he closed his eyes and clasped his trembling hands together.
A surprisingly reverential prayer flowed through his lips.
“Oh, Goddess Isis who created heaven and earth with thy almighty power…”
Usually, reapers tended to step back and complained of the itch that came with prayers.
But today, Kiel was unbothered.
“Kierkegaard, who throws pretty good, don’t stop for even a second and keep those nightmares coming.”
This was because Isis herself was the one handing over the nightmares to him.
A wicked smile graced his features as he read the goddess’ true feelings.
“Roiqan is praying quite hard to you, Goddess. Don’t you need to listen?”
“Playful Kierkegaard, I’ve already decided to be Isabelle’s God. Didn’t I just witness that thing over there making my Isabelle cry?”
Isis looked at Roiqan with a ruthless stare, then she continued speaking.
“Besides, Roiqan’s prayers do not contain any sincerity in worshiping me. So, don’t hold back.”
She smiled benevolently, handing over a solidified spherical nightmare to Kiel.