Chapter 05
Kashiyar was completely serious.
If Lerianna’s heart, which he once believed would never change, had shifted in the 11 years apart… if she now saw him as nothing more than one of those disgusting strangers—
Then, he would simply start over.
Time didn’t matter. Faded emotions didn’t matter. What mattered was that he hadn’t changed.
Just like she had once given him warmth when he was just a useless little boy, this time he would do the same for her.
Watching Lerianna come forward to see him off gave Kashiyar a flicker of hope. And he made his decision.
Later, Kashiyar asked his knight, Heshiv, how to deal with people better.
Heshiv was shocked but tried to help. He brought one of his subordinates, Renoa, to Kashiyar’s office.
Renoa, at first speechless, finally said:
“You’re handsome, strong, rich, a duke… but your face is always so stiff. You should smile more. A gentle, kind smile works wonders.”
Kashiyar repeated the words like they were foreign to him:
“Gentle… kind…?”
Meanwhile, Lerianna went to see her mother and told her about the day’s events.
Her mother listened calmly while eating a scone, then said:
“Of course I would never sell my beloved daughter off in a political marriage. I only suggested meeting someone because you’re already twenty-two and still haven’t dated anyone.”
Lerianna was stunned. She had expected something serious, but her mother only worried about her being too distant from romance.
Her mother added softly, “Leri, you don’t need to force yourself into marriage. Your father works so hard so you can live comfortably your whole life. But… dating someone nice wouldn’t hurt either.”
For a moment, Lerianna felt both relieved and oddly disappointed.
But then her mother’s smile changed, becoming colder.
“And besides, since the Duke himself interfered, what could our small viscount family possibly do?”
The mention of Kashiyar made her mother’s expression sharp, almost unsettled.
When Lerianna asked what had happened between them in the past, her mother brushed it off. She insisted she neither liked nor hated him, just treated him politely as a guest.
But in the end, she said firmly:
“Your father and I don’t want you to be involved with that duke.”
Her words carried the same weight her father once used when speaking about “adult matters.”
Lerianna realized something was wrong. Years ago, her family had been close enough to keep Kashiyar in their home for over a year. But shortly after he returned to his own family, her father quit his position and moved them hurriedly to the capital.
Now her parents were trying to keep her away from Kashiyar. Why?
Though she promised to obey her parents, she also reminded her mother:
“I’m no longer a child who must blindly follow every word. Please remember that.”
Her mother’s smile returned, soft and warm, but her hands trembled slightly.
That night, lying in bed, Lerianna hugged her teddy bear, Lulu, and thought.
Her parents were hiding something about Kashiyar.
And Kashiyar himself kept asking if she remembered something.
She tried to recall their past… and then it hit her.
“…Oh no. I’m doomed.”
She remembered the most important fact of all—the one she had somehow completely forgotten.
In the novel she had been reborn into, Kashiyar, the male lead, was the one who killed Lerianna.
Perhaps when he had leaned against her shoulder and asked if she remembered, what he really meant was:
“It’s fine if you forget. Even if you don’t remember, I will—because I’m the one who’s destined to kill you.”
Lerianna whispered into the silence of her room:
“Mother… it seems I can’t escape Kashiyar. I’m fated to be tied to him.”
Her peaceful and ordinary life had been thrown straight into the heart of a storm—
the storm named Kashiyar.
