Epilogue 2

Bang!

When he grabbed Elise and pushed her into the room, the door slammed with a loud noise. Then again, there was a suffocating silence.

Benji grabbed her wrist, and his breath was running fast. His vast, fluctuating, volatile chest made his white robe swell precariously as if it was about to explode.

He had never been so angry in his life. He glared at Elise, struggling to swallow the ball of fire that shook as if his heart was about to erupt. It looked as if he was going to devour Elise whole at any moment.

Elise’s blue eyes faced Benji without wavering. Her calm gaze seemed to ask what the problem was as he clenched his teeth.

‘Shamelessly turning people inside out like this.’

Unconsciously, he tightened his grip on the hand holding Elise. It was then her fine forehead wrinkled.

“What are you doing?”

Elise twisted her arm and shook him off. As he felt the emotions that permeated those small movements, Benji’s mood plunged down an endless abyss. It was as if he had turned into a worm.

Feeling even dirtier, he grabbed Elise’s thin wrists with even more force. Then he pushed her upper body onto the bed with a move like a beast that drives its prey into a corner.

Her golden hair was scattered across the bed. Elise’s blue eyes grew round. Benji tore off her dress.

Even at the moment when he felt like he was about to die of anger, he felt pathetic for pausing for a moment at the fact that it was Elise’s favorite dress. But the thought of how she was dressed so pretty and uttered so much shit made his grip tighten. And the moment he tried to take off her underwear—

“Get your hands off me.”

A cool, subdued voice emanated from the unmoving body. In an instant, he felt a chill in the depths of his heart. It was a bestial sense of danger.

‘It’s alright. It is not an order.’

Benji heaved a deep sigh and stood up. His eyes filled with cold anger were forged like an ugly, sharp blade.

Seeing him for the first time might be intimidating, but Elise only wrinkled her brow a little more. She got up and sat across her bed, revealing only her displeasure as if witnessing something pathetic. With only her underwear on, she was very relaxed.

‘I’m such a pushover.’

It was a natural result. In the meantime, she was fearlessly busy waving her tail*. [t1v: aka flirting/seducing/as in a fox waving its tail–like a ‘foxy’ lady] 

‘So no wonder you’re talking about such bullshit. Without fear.’

He thought he might be wrong. Maybe his sanity left him while he was eating—if not, how could she say such a heartbreaking thing with that pretty mouth? So he had to double-check.

“Elise Barbier. Say it again.”

“I’m going to sleep with someone else.”

‘Right. That crazy sound. I didn’t hear it wrong. I wish I didn’t ask you to repeat it again.’

Benji closed his eyes with a long sigh. He wanted to pretend he didn’t hear.

Elise fixed her gaze as if she were laughing at Benji and spit out each letter with strength. As if telling him to listen carefully, the urge to bite her small lips, which moved cruelly slow, surged. In an instant, the boiling blood again created acute tinnitus.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Yes. She is such a woman who has a knack for making people crazy in many ways. She had been acting awkward for the last couple of days; he couldn’t believe she had been thinking about such a stupid thing.

Each time she looked up at him and blinked her round, doll-like blue eyes, the muted sound of his teeth grinding disrupted the silence around them.

“I heard that everyone in Faustino is like that?”

“Fuck. Who?”

Her eyes were about to roll back in fury. How dare anyone say such a thing?

Benji’s eyes quickly filled with madness as he tried to guess what crazy bastard had said such a thing to her. If he found them, he would have their head cut off and hung outside the gates for three days and three nights, maybe have some stones thrown at it….

“Why does that matter?”

For a second, her brusque voice dragged him back to reality.

It was not unusual to have a concubine in Faustino, regardless of gender. So it didn’t matter who said it. Everyone bragged about it, so it was something she was bound to find out about…

‘No, you must have already known.’

She just didn’t mention it in the meantime. But Benji desperately needed a place to release this anger now.

‘Damn rutting bastards. At this point, the law needs to be completely overhauled. You won’t be able to talk about your mistress or a lover. Where will you dare be promiscuous?’