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“Aren’t you even resentful of me?”
Anastasia asked, still crying.
“If it were anyone in Your Majesty’s position, he would have coldly thrown me away.”
“…”
“What kind of face did I come back with after I shamelessly left?”
“Did you come back with the intention of hearing that?”
“I came back with the thought that I had to be willing to accept that.”
She was sincere. No matter how much he hated her, she came back with the intention of begging for forgiveness until she died by his side.
Even if he didn’t forgive her to the end, it didn’t matter.
If he only allowed her to stay with him, even if she wasn’t the Empress, she was willing to accept it.
“So it’s okay to hate me. It’s okay to resent and hate me. But now… I will not leave.”
“Are you serious?”
“… Yes.”
Anastasia struggled to answer and dug into his arms.
She was getting choked up, but she didn’t want to let go. Even if she suffocated him like this and closed her eyes, she would never let him go again. Never.
“I will never leave your side again.”
“No matter what?”
“Until I breathe my last breath.”
Anastasia scrambled in his arms and promised.
“I will protect your Majesty.”
At that moment, his strong hold embraced Anastasia.
It was hard to breathe, but Anastasia obeyed him without the slightest resistance.
Even the slightest bit of the pain was enough for her to be happy.
“That’s it.”
Wilhelm whispered in a voice trembling with joy as he hugged Anastasia.
“Never again, never leave me again.”
The substance of those words, which seemed like a request, was a plea. Anastasia realized in that voice that he had forgiven her.
Anastasia nodded her head laboriously, and Wilhelm couldn’t overcome his emotion and shook his hand holding Anastasia.
“… Thanks for coming back.”
Even if he hated her, it was nothing compared to the joy of her coming back.
Hearing that she would never leave his side again, even if he resented her, was nothing compared to his emotions.
She abandoned him once, but it didn’t matter. Now she had promised that she would never abandon him again.
“I missed you.”
So Wilhelm was just as happy at this moment. There was no room for other miscellaneous emotions to intervene.
~~~~
“Are you okay now?”
After that, he patted Anastasia crying in his arms for a long time, and when the crying gradually subsided, Wilhelm asked.
Anastasia smiled and nodded, and Wilhelm grinned and cleaned Anastasia’s messy hair with his hand.
“I was worried that you might faint because you cried so much. Is it okay if I don’t call the palace doctor?”
“I’m fine.”
Anastasia lifted her face, messed up with her tears, and looked at Wilhelm.
Even the tear-filled figure was infinitely cute and lovable, and Wilhelm felt that he had gone crazy.
“Your Majesty seems to need him more than I do.”
Anastasia asked, caressing Wilhelm’s lean cheek.
“Are you eating properly?”
“I almost stopped after you disappeared.”
He said it as a joke, but it was close to the truth. When Anastasia noticed this and her expression looked like she was about to cry again, Wilhelm hurriedly opened his mouth.
“It’s a joke, it’s a joke. Don’t take it seriously.”
“Looking at Your Majesty now, it seems like you weren’t joking.”
“I can eat well in the future.”
Wilhelm hurriedly patted Anastasia to comfort her.
“The two of us are together now. So don’t cry.”
“… I’m not crying.”
As she said that, tears quickly welled up in those big eyes, so it wasn’t a very trustworthy statement.
Wilhelm smiled and kissed Anastasia’s eyes.
“It doesn’t matter if you cry, but only cry in front of me.”
Anastasia stared at Wilhelm at those words, and Wilhelm smiled and gently wiped Anastasia’s cheek once more.
“That way, I can wipe your cheeks like this.”
The fingers that brushed her skin were soft and friendly. Anastasia quietly entrusted her cheeks to his touch full of affection.
“More than anything else, the way you cry is so pretty, I don’t want to show it to anyone else.”
“… You’re overdoing It.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“What’s so beautiful about a face that is red and swollen from crying?”
“Pretty.”
Wilhelm kissed Anastasia’s eyes once more, narrowing her brow slightly.
As Anastasia shivered in surprise, Wilhelm smirked and whispered in a low voice.
“If you’re pretty in my eyes, you’ll be pretty in other people’s eyes too.”
“… Because only Your Majesty thinks so.”
Anastasia blushed in embarrassment, but she didn’t hate it.
In this situation, thinking that these feelings were now completely free, she felt more at ease.
‘Then…’
Should they take responsibility for this freedom? As Anastasia rose from her seat, Wilhelm asked her with her puzzled expression.
“Where are you going?”
“To work.”
Anastasia responded as if she were answering a natural question.
“Since I’ve been away for a long time, I’ll have a lot to look over. I have to be busy.”
“It’s been less than an hour since you came back.”
“Do you have more to do with me?”
Now Anastasia asked with a questioning expression, and Wilhelm looked at her with a somewhat dissatisfied expression and rose from his seat.
Immediately, Wilhelm kissed Anastasia’s cheeks briefly with his hands wrapped around them.
“Ah…”
When surprised Anastasia looked at Wilhelm in her rabbit eyes, Wilhelm smiled and kissed her once more.
This time, it was a deeper kiss than before. Anastasia’s body relaxed naturally at her movement as he gently gripped her mouth.
“Your Majesty…”
Her senses became light with the dimly penetrating voice. The hands that wrapped around Anastasia’s cheeks rode down her neck and down her waist and gradually headed down.
“No more…”
Anastasia groaned, panting with difficulty. However, Wilhelm pulled her closer to him as if it was still lacking.
Their bodies were in close contact, and Wilhelm’s lips were deeply buried in the white neck of Anastasia.
She squeaked softly, as he whispered in a subdued voice imperceptibly.
“Can you feel it?”
He could hear Anastasia breathing deeply. Her voice was startled and bewildered.
“You make me like this.”
Wilhelm smiled softly and notified.
“We still have a long way to go.”
In time, when he made eye contact with Anastasia, Anastasia’s cheeks were more reddish than before.
Anastasia tried to turn away from Wilhelm as if embarrassed, but Wilhelm grabbed her cheek again as if he would not tolerate it and made her look at him.
It was insanely lovely to see her eyes slightly down shyly while shaking her eyelashes.
… How could he have endured without seeing such a woman for more than a month?
It was a miracle that he was still alive. Wilhelm kissed Anastasia as if it was the case.
She was sweet like an oasis that he had barely found before he died after wandering through her desert for an eternity.
Wilhelm sucked Anastasia’s lips deeply and with all his heart, and Anastasia hugged Wilhelm’s neck in response.
“… Ah.”
At one point, Wilhelm felt the limits of his patience and slowly removed Anastasia.
The eyes, nose, and mouth that were red with heat were all lovely.
No other statue on display in the museum would be more lovely.*
*TN: she’s prettier than a work of art
He finally couldn’t hold back and kissed her again and whispered.
“… We still have so much to do.”
But he couldn’t do all that here now. So he had to stop there.
Anastasia nodded with a smile on her face, her cheeks still blushing.
Wilhelm smiled back as if he liked that gentle figure.
“Let’s go out together.”
The two left the banquet hall holding hands. But when they went out, an uninvited guest was waiting for them.
“Lady Hazel.”
Anastasia narrowed her brow and looked at Avelin, who had a nervous expression on her face.
“I thought you went back.”
“I wanted to see Your Majesty the Empress.”
“…”
Anastasia didn’t miss seeing Avelin’s gaze pierce her own lips.
The rouge must have been a mess because of what had happened in the large banquet hall before.
However, that unsightly appearance felt like a medal to the present Anastasia.
“Go back first, Your Majesty.”
“Anastasia.”
… Anastasia?
Avelin heard his worried voice and stiffened her body.
‘… You’ve never spoken to me in a voice like that before.’
It was like calling Anastasia’s name with an expression of love and a friendly voice in front of her.
She was filled with anger. However, while trying to manage her expression, Anastasia answered, staring at Avelin like that.
“I’m alright, Your Majesty.”
When Anastasia spoke again, Wilhelm looked at Avelin with wary eyes and moved on as if he couldn’t help it.
Anastasia caught sight of Wilhelm disappearing until the end, and then turned to Avelin only after he completely disappeared.
The pink hair and olive eyes, which always felt lovely, seemed infinitely heterogeneous.
‘My daughter, go back and find your place. You are the only daughter I truly love.’
The goddess certainly said so.
‘It was always me. From the beginning to the present.’
Then the woman in front of her was not the real protagonist of this story.
A fake. A fake pretending to be real.
“What are you?”
Anastasia’s clear eyes looked at Avelin.
The truth, which had been firmly believed from the beginning without any doubt, was cracking and falling to pieces.