/
Dorothea’s rhythm was shaken by the suddenly interrupted chord, but when Ethan winked as if to continue, she smiled and continued playing.
Ethan added splendor to a simple song with a completely different note from Dorothea.
The two hands played side by side on the same piano key, and the sound they made harmoniously made one piece of music.
At that moment, Ethan’s hand, which was playing on the high keyboard, flew between Dorothea’s fingers, pressed a single key, and returned to where his hand had been.
It happened in an instant.
When Dorothea looked at him in amazement, he returned to playfully and repeatedly tapping the keys between her hands.
His hand slid across the back of her hand in a flash.
Her fingertips tingle with nervousness, wondering if she would make a mistake if she collided with his acrobatic movements.
It’s like being a normal person who went up to be a magic assistant at a magic show.
No, this pounding chest is not just because of tension.
The subtle pleasure and ecstasy that comes when the notes she makes are perfectly matched.
She was sitting next to Ethan, breathing in the same beat, becoming one.
Concentrating only on each other’s sounds, as if holding each other’s hands tightly, as if embracing each other tightly.
Not wanting to deviate even a single sound from him, Dorothea focused all her nerves and senses on her first song and Ethan, her partner.
And when the keys were pressed perfectly simultaneously to the last note, Dorothea let out the breath she’d been holding and smiled.
“You memorized it quickly.”
“Isn’t that wrong?”
“It was the most perfect <stand march> I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re lying…!”
Dorothea didn’t think she played it badly, but the piano beginner’s first performance wouldn’t be satisfactory to Ethan’s sensitive ears.
But Ethan shook his head and smiled.
“It’s true, Princess. I was so moved that I wondered if I could listen to this song again in my lifetime.”
The perfection of a song doesn’t come from how well you play it, and how accurately you play it.
Even if it’s a rough and simple song, it’s a good song if it touches people’s hearts.
For Ethan, the song he performed with Dorothea was the most heartwarming song he had ever heard in his life before and after his return.
And during that time playing with Dorothea, Ethan was more immersed than ever and fell into the music as if possessed.
‘It’s been a long time since I felt like I was completely immersed in the song itself rather than playing the piano.’
At that, Dorothea looked at Ethan’s smile and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“Yes…? What?”
“Just this and that. I can fill my life with these times, but it feels like I’ve come back from a long and difficult road. I should have done this sooner.”
Then Ethan smiled and put his arm around her.
“I’m the one who cried because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to come to this place even if I turned around.”
‘How grateful and happy I am right now, so it’s a waste of time to fill it with words of ‘I’m sorry’.’
“You cried…?”
Dorothea asked, surprised by Ethan’s confession.
“Yes. Much more than the princess can imagine.”
All the nights he had to be alone because Dorothea didn’t love her were tears for him.
But now all those tears are in the past, so he smiled lightly as if recalling old memories.
But it was Dorothea whose expression became heavy again.
“I don’t think I know much about you.”
Ethan remembers all of her past that she doesn’t remember, but Dorothea doesn’t remember much about Ethan.
To the extent that he confessed the power of spirits and told her a brief history of the past.
She could remember Ethan as a servant at her side.
He was beautiful, and always seemed to get along with his subjects, and even then, his piano and violin skills were so good that the nobility always complimented him.
‘I didn’t know it was this good.’
‘If I knew this would happen, I would have remembered Ethan’s appearance one by one and captured it in my eyes.’
Ethan’s appearance at that time was only blurry. No, almost all of her memories before her return were like that.
Dorothea had some regrets.
“I don’t even know your childhood.”
She knows that Ethan had been treated as a beautiful ghost by the Duke of Bronte, but she had never heard of what his life was like in detail.
He didn’t seem to like bringing up such a story, especially the four years he spent at the bar with his mother before joining the Duke of Bronte.
Even if he can’t remember because he was very young if it’s after returning…
‘When he opened his eyes after the return, he would have been with his mother, not the Duke of Bronte…right?’
When the thought reached that point, Dorothea’s heart tightened.
What was he thinking when he opened his eyes and returned with his memories?
“Are you wondering how I was until I returned and met the princess again?”
Ethan asked that question, but Dorothea had a hard time answering it.
She wanted to know more about the man she loved, but she didn’t want to dig out the parts that he didn’t want to see.
Dorothea also had a lot of things she didn’t want to see.
“Do you want me to tell you?”
He smiled and asked as if he realized how hard it was for her to answer.
“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say.”
“I want to, so let me.”
“Okay…”
Dorothea nodded her head as if she couldn’t win, and Ethan started talking happily.
“When I first opened my eyes after the return, I was in a wooden box with a bad smell, in a small room behind the bar where my mother worked. the ceiling was probably only about as high as my head is now, because she always crouched down to get in, even though she was short.”
At that, Dorothea grabbed his arm and hugged him tightly.
Dorothea complained that it was an unhappy life, but at least she woke up in a warm cradle.
There was a nanny who took care of every meal, and she never shivered from the cold because she had no clothes.
Suddenly, she wondered if she’d gotten too comfortable in her life and gotten a little arrogant.
“It was my first time returning after signing a contract, and it took me a while to figure out the situation because it was sudden. But I soon thought about it.”
Ethan, who was talking, paused for a moment and looked at Dorothea.
“what were you thinking?”
“I want to see you until I die.”
He kissed Dorothea’s forehead as she slipped her arms around him.
The Heat spread from where his lips touched, making Dorothea’s fingertips and toes tingle.
“I always wondered if you were alive, how you were doing, if you remembered me, or whether you suffered again because you were being compared to Prince Raymond. I always thought about it.”
‘When I woke up in the morning, I wondered if Dorothea woke up safely and happily today.’
‘Around lunchtime, I wondered if she was eating well and what kind of day she would be spending today.’
‘At night, I prayed that she wouldn’t cry and sleep peacefully in a warm blanket.’
Wishing that a cool breeze would blow by her side in summer and a warm light by her side in winter.
On her birthday he would write her an anonymous congratulatory letter that wouldn’t even reach the imperial palace.
Also, he thought about when he would be able to see her again, and how to meet Dorothea with his small body.
“That’s all. What ‘Ethan Bronte’ did while the princess didn’t know.”
Thinking of Dorothea Milanaire. All his life has been devoted to her. So she doesn’t have to wonder. His time she doesn’t know is also full of her.
“Thank you, Ethan.”
‘It is a joy to the point of tears that there is someone who has always thought of me every time I didn’t even think of it.’
‘The fact that there is someone who loves and believes in me more than me, even when I’m having a hard time…’
“Before the princess came down to Cerritian, I also applied for the entrance exam at Episteme.”
“Really? I thought the Duke and Duchess of Bronte were just trying to hide you….”
“Because they didn’t give me the surname Bronte, and they made me take the exam as a commoner. They probably thought I wouldn’t pass, of course, so since I was so young, they let me take it so they could grant my wish.”
They didn’t think Ethan, who had never had a proper education, was good enough to pass the Episteme.
Rather, he would feel the wall and come back and shut up.
“But why…?”
“I was late for the exam because of an accident while going up to Lampas to take the exam, so I couldn’t take it in the end.”
On the way up, there was a carriage accident, which caused Ethan to be so badly injured that he had to stay in bed for a month.
At that moment, Ethan suffered as if Dorothea had died.
‘8 years after returning. When the moment I had endured was futile in vain due to a single accident, I fell into despair as if everything was over.’
‘Even though I knew that there was a future and that I could see Dorothea if I had more patience, I felt like I had lost everything for some reason.’
‘It was a time when even Ethan’s silver hair under the sun looked dark,’ said the Brontes, recalling that time.
“But a miracle happened to me too. Because the princess came to Cerritian.”
Ethan looked at her with sweet and hot eyes that seemed to melt. Things that never happened in the past. an unexpected gift.
When Ethan met Dorothea at the beach, he missed her so much that he thought he was hallucinating.
He had no idea that Dorothea had come down to Cerritian until Bronte and his wife talked about the princess’s recovery.
“At the time, I didn’t know why it was different from the past. I never imagined that the princess would return with me.”
“Then when did you know I have returned?”