~Chapter 23~
“Ugh, aaaaaaah!”
Along with a sound like meat sizzling on a grill, smoke rose from John’s hand that I was holding.
“I… I’m disappearing, I’m going to disappear!”
He struggled madly to pull his hand away.
The figure who just moments ago was trying to kidnap me with a rope was completely gone.
“Let go, let gooooo!!”
I gripped his hand even tighter.
“Why?”
I tilted my head with a smile at John, who was now pale and trembling in horror.
“You said you wanted to go together, didn’t you?”
“A-ahhhhh…”
Realising he couldn’t escape my grip, John collapsed flat on the floor, one hand still held tightly by me.
“P-please… spare me, please… if this continues, I’ll really disappear… please—”
“Then promise you won’t lay a hand on anyone ever again.”
John nodded his head frantically.
“I promise! I’ll do anything! Just please spare me this once, my lady… sob…”
Seeing John begging and crying with tears streaming down his face, I stopped activating my ability.
There was no need to inflict excessive pain on a curse.
‘He admitted earlier he’s the New Groom Ghost.’
But if my ability worked on him, he wasn’t actually a ghost.
He was a curse.
He simply didn’t realise it himself.
‘How did he end up drifting all the way here?’
Damien didn’t seem to know either.
Ah, wait.
‘I forgot about Damien…!’
If he found out that a strange man—or rather, a curse—had entered my room on our scheduled consummation night—
Creak.
Before I could react, I heard the door open.
And there stood—
“D-Damien.”
Damien, wearing a half-open robe that exposed his solid, damp chest still glistening with moisture, stood there, emanating an intoxicating scent.
And unfortunately, John, who failed to grasp the situation, opened his mouth without any sense of caution.
“Ah, sir! Thank goodness you’re here. This woman is hurting me and trying to make me disappear!”
Oh no. Because Damien always wore a mask in front of servants except for the head butler and head maid, John had never seen his real face.
Without knowing that the man before him was the husband of the woman he had tried to kidnap, he was now begging him for help.
I hurriedly tried to warn him before he ruined himself.
“Hey, shut up. If you don’t, you’re really going to die—”
“Shut up! You were just laughing as you tormented me!”
John snapped at me, then quickly turned to Damien and began flattering him.
“Handsome gentleman, if you could please save me right now—”
“You held her hand, didn’t you?”
At those words, spoken like the calm before a storm, John faltered and asked back.
“Pardon?”
Then Damien, looking breathtakingly beautiful, began to—
Crack.
“Hiiiik!”
—tear the door off its hinges with his bare hands.
“Hng, huuhhng…”
John, the New Groom Ghost—or rather, the curse—was devoured by the curse that extended from Damien’s right eye.
Then, like spitting out something unnecessary, the black leg-like curse spat John back out.
This meant John had become subordinate to Damien.
For reference, John continued sobbing like that after being subordinated to Damien.
“Thank you for holding him down.”
Damien wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a sigh of relief.
“Because he only recently became a curse and wasn’t originally under my control, I didn’t sense him right away.”
Damien explained that the reason John was confused about being a ghost or a curse was because not much time had passed since the fear and negative emotions of people had turned his existence into a curse.
He said the ghost story of the New Groom Ghost must have amplified people’s fear, which led to John’s creation.
“No, I was glad to see the protagonist of a trending urban legend.”
I answered while keeping my eyes fixed on John.
“…Hmm.”
Damien, staring intently at me, muttered quietly.
“I should capture the curses related to recent ghost stories.”
“Huh?”
“Ah, it’s nothing.”
He calmly tapped the snivelling New Groom Curse with the tip of his shoe and asked nonchalantly:
“You, how did you get in here?”
“W-what do you mean?”
Swallowing his sobs and wiping his tears with his scorched blackened hand, John began to speak hesitantly.
“I was walking… then I saw a flyer saying they were hiring servants here… and when I came in, many people were talking about me and getting scared… so I thought I’d just stay…”
Curses often gathered at the Maledictus Duke’s estate anyway.
It seemed that since the servants were talking about the New Groom Ghost, amplifying their fear, John had been instinctively drawn here.
“But everyone was scared of me… except for you, my lady… you greeted me and talked to me… so I thought… I’d marry you…”
Damien’s expression instantly darkened.
Sensing danger, I quickly grabbed his hand and shook my head.
Only then did he retract his hand and looked down at John with eyes full of disdain.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean to hurt you… I just… like everyone else…”
Tears like chicken egg yolks rolled down from the New Groom Curse’s eyes.
“I wanted to find someone I love, get married, and have a family…”
Generally, curses could only say a few words or couldn’t use human language at all.
Damien explained that for a curse to take on a human form like a twin curse, possess feelings, thoughts, and speech, it had to carry an extremely strong grudge.
In John’s case, his grudge must have been dying without ever fulfilling his wish for true love and marriage.
“Do you think that counts as an excuse?”
The curse’s round blue eyes rolled anxiously.
“You said you loved me, yet you tried to drag me away by force.”
Hearing my words, John lowered his head deeply.
“You don’t do that to someone you love.”
True love.
It was a common phrase, but even I had never experienced such a grand, abstract thing.
However, there was one thing I knew for sure.
“You don’t treat someone you love like that.”
“…You’re right.”
The New Groom Curse replied in a powerless voice.
Now, he wore the expression of someone who had given up everything.
“That’s why everyone hated me.”
The curse lamented, his drooping eyes full of gloom.
“Will I never… be able to love someone in my life…?”
Damien silently looked down at John.
For a moment, I thought he was glaring at the curse in anger.
“Um, Damien—”
But unexpectedly, he slowly knelt on one knee to make eye contact with John.
“Approach them slowly, so they won’t be scared. As slowly as you can.”
At first, the curse didn’t understand Damien’s words and just stared blankly at him, but then he snapped to attention.
“Yes, I will.”
Realising that Damien was giving him advice, John straightened up and looked up at him respectfully.
Damien, seeing the curse’s earnest gaze, began to give him several pieces of advice.
“Once you’re able to talk to them, find out what they like. Do lots of things they like. Make sure there’s nothing that makes them uncomfortable or hurts them. And if there is, think hard about it with them.”
John even took out a notebook from his pocket and started writing down the advice.
“And…”
Damien paused briefly.
In the silence, I turned my head to see his deep purple eyes filled with a gentle light, staring straight at me.
“If that person accepts your feelings, tell them often.”
His gaze remained fixed on me, strangely intense.
“Tell them you love them, that you like them a lot.”
Even though it wasn’t a real confession, I could feel the heavy sincerity in his words.
It felt as if… there was someone he had once loved very deeply.
“Got it. I’ll do that.”
“Good.”
Damien grabbed John’s right wrist, the one he had used to write everything down.
John’s right hand, burned by my ability, had turned pitch black.
“Your right hand will never heal. Let that burn remind you of what I’ve told you today.”
John bit his lip.
But it wasn’t out of anger or resentment.
“Yes.”
He was regretting his actions.
“My lady, I’m truly sorry for earlier…”
John bowed deeply, pressing his forehead to the ground as he apologised.
“It’s fine. Just follow what Damien told you from now on.”
“Yes. But… um, the two of you…”
The curse spoke in a small voice.
“If I do as you told me… then, will I really…”
After hesitating for a long time, the curse finally asked the question he wanted to ask most.
“Will I be able to… become like the two of you?”
For a moment, silence fell in the room.
Hearing his desperate, wishful question, I gently smiled and answered.
“Of course. You will.”
“It’s already three in the morning.”
While dealing with the New Groom Curse incident, time had flown by.
“Well then, looks like I’ll have to just sleep right away instead of consummating tonight.”
“…Mm.”
Damien let out an awkward sound that wasn’t quite agreement or disagreement.
“Anyway, if we stay like this, the servants will probably assume we did, right?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Damien nodded, his half-open robe exposing his solid, fragrant chest.
“Even that curse was fooled earlier.”
“Ah.”
Now that he mentioned it, that was true.
The curse, who had longed for love and marriage, had asked if he could become like us.
“Did we look like an ideal married couple to John?”
“Probably.”
I see.
In reality, we were just a contract couple.
‘Still, I guess to John, it seemed like we had a good relationship.’
Thankfully, to others, we seemed like a real married couple.
“That’s why…”
Damien’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Yes?”
Wait. Hold on.
‘What’s with this position?’
Before I knew it, Damien had come close and trapped me within his arms, looking down at me from above.
‘This… this is the kind of pose you only see in certain adult novels—’
What’s more, his robe was loosely tied, his hair and skin still damp, emitting an irresistibly seductive scent.
“We are husband and wife after all…”
He gently touched the ends of my hair and whispered languidly into my ear.
“I think we should at least do something befitting a consummation.”
