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“Damia, I made a mistake… … .”
It was at the moment when Akkard was about to apologize, albeit clumsily. Damia cut off his words, and gave a quick reply at once.
“Yes, I understand.”
It was the answer he had been longing for, but Akkard realized it the moment he heard it. The fact that something was completely wrong.
In fact, Damia didn’t really care whether he apologized or not. In her mind, Akkard Valerian was already dead.
She was now talking to his shell. Even that, since they still had to deal with each other, she was just pretending.
After everything was over, she was never going to see Akkard again. He was so completely out of touch.
“Thank you for your apology. Then, can I leave?”
“Wait—wait!”
Akkard hurriedly grabbed her urgently. Unable to overcome his strength, she staggered and was pulled along.
If he wasn’t forgiven by her quickly, she might really go for Lessid. He was at his wits’ end with nervousness and anxiety.
So he didn’t know. The fact that the harder he gripped her with his greed, the more she struggled to get out in pain.
“Why are you doing this when I said I understood? Let go of me!!”
Damia, who was pulled, frowned and shook his hand away.
An expression full of displeasure appeared on her face. Akkard’s heart sank when he saw this.
It would have been better if he hadn’t realized this feeling. Because of the little woman in front of him, Akkard was experiencing all sorts of unfamiliar emotions he had never felt before.
‘I’m afraid.’
The fear of being hated by her made the power drain out of his hand.
“No, Damia. You are still angry.”
But I don’t know what happened, Akkard muttered softly, looking down at his hand that she had shook off.
He seemed to be in hell right now. The all-encompassing terror of being really abandoned by Damia, his disgust towards himself for providing the cause for it and his terrible, ferocious jealousy towards Lessid Ferira.
All of this was raging with passion within his heart, and it felt like every second he was going crazy. It was obvious if he went back like this, he would be neither able to eat or sleep.
He knew, what awaited him at the end would be a terrible nightmare. For the first time, he had an intuition that it would be very painful to be abandoned by Damia.
Because of this, Akkard was completely demoralized and desperate. Unable to bear this pain any longer nor confident he could take much more, he very willingly begged for her forgiveness.
“Dami, I’m so sorry… … .”
The apology uttered in a miserable voice was overly desperate and clingy. So it was thrusted a stick to the listener’s chest, heavy enough to cause an upset stomach.
The moment she heard this, Damia realized it. It was already too late to leave the situation ‘moderately’ and pretend.
“Stop it, please!”
Eventually, Damia erased her smile, revealing her authentic face. She grabbed her forehead as if she had a headache and shot back sharply:
“—This whole time, up to now, everything has been according to your whims. You, sir, don’t even care about how I feel, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Am I wrong? It’s just because you feel uneasy. You want to apologize as soon as possible and feel better. That’s why you’ve holding onto me and forcing me to accept your apology even though I don’t want to.”
Akkard couldn’t say anything to that and bit his tongue. He felt dismal and miserable. Damia came out so coldly even though he sincerely apologized. And he was angry that his own sincerity, his earnest plea, seemed to have been ignored.
However, disappointment and misery was only possible when there was affection and expectation for the other person. Damia no longer had any feelings for Akkard.
“And I don’t know what use all these apologies are for in the first place. After all, don’t you think of me as nothing more than a toy? Right, we have that kind of relationship.”
But now, if you only say sorry with your mouth, what’s the point?
Damia was convinced that his honest thoughts of her were closer to ‘a woman with only her body to offer’ as said in front of Heinrich. And when she thought about it dispassionately now, it was also true that it was a ‘body-only’ relationship anyway.
Damia’s piercing gaze didn’t waver as she looked at him. With those obstinate eyes, Akkard screamed silently as he hit a solid wall that would never accept him. And he struggled to gather his shattered heart, trying to somehow patch up his mistake.
“You are not a toy, Damia. I… … .”
“If I’m not a toy, then what the hell am I?”
For the first time, a sneer appeared on her face. With her arms crossed, she looked at him with contempt, as if Akkard was a swindler.
“You’re not going to say you were sincere with me now? Yes?”