Adeline stood on the step where Felyn had just been.
She had changed into a soft blue Chanel-style long dress, and her rose-tea-colored hair was braided neatly over her left shoulder.
Her makeup, too, was no longer light and casual—it had clearly been done with care.
“Did someone bully you?” she asked.
She had repeated the same words Felyn had said just moments earlier.
“No,” Viloti replied.
“Was the concert hall too loud?”
“…Yeah.”
Adeline had deliberately taken a quiet, hidden path back into the venue because she didn’t want anyone to notice she had left to redo her makeup.
But even on that quiet path, she had run into someone familiar.
Her gaze shifted to the jacket on Viloti’s knees. It looked… familiar.
A man’s jacket.
And if Viloti could accept a boy’s jacket, who else could it be besides Felyn?
So during the short time she had been away, had Viloti and Felyn spent time alone here?
Adeline smoothed out her skirt and sat down beside Viloti, curiosity sparking inside her.
“Felyn came by just now,” Viloti said, having noticed the look in Adeline’s eyes. She chose not to hide anything.
“You must be pleased, getting him all to yourself like that,” Adeline muttered.
She still didn’t know how to deal with Viloti. This young lady always went against expectations.
Like now—she could’ve easily kept her encounter with Felyn a secret, but she chose to be honest.
It felt like a direct provocation.
“Was I?” Viloti tilted her head.
“It’s obvious, Miss Viloti,” Adeline replied, her tone tightening.
As Felyn’s future wife—at least in her heart—Adeline felt the need to understand the girls who liked him. She needed to eliminate each threat one by one.
And Viloti, in her eyes, was a serious competitor.
“Viloti, how did you and Felyn meet?”
“We’re classmates.”
“I know that! But you weren’t even in the same class. How did you get to know him?”
Adeline couldn’t shake the feeling that Viloti was showing off her special bond with Felyn.
“He used to take care of me a lot… so we got to know each other.”
Whenever the topic involved Felyn, Viloti’s words always became…
“He took care of you?” Adeline recalled something Linda had once told her. Apparently, Felyn had liked Viloti in the past.
“Mm. But then one day, Felyn suddenly stopped talking to me.”
Viloti then briefly explained how he began avoiding her entirely.
Adeline had also attended Viloti’s entrance celebration when she got into the academy in the capital. She remembered noticing something odd about their relationship that day.
Until now, Adeline had always believed that Felyn distanced himself from Viloti because he had fallen for her instead.
“You made him angry?” she asked cautiously.
She needed to know. She didn’t want to make the same mistake and upset Felyn one day.
Viloti shook her head… then nodded.
“I don’t know.”
She rested her head on her knees, her gaze distant.
“It felt like he stopped caring about me overnight.”
“Overnight…?” Adeline echoed.
“In the morning, we had lunch together. He was really kind. But by the time school ended that afternoon, he’d changed completely.”
Adeline touched her own cheek, deep in thought.
It was odd.
If Felyn had really stopped liking Viloti because of her, there should’ve been some sort of transition—a moment of hesitation or emotional conflict.
He had liked Viloti for years. To suddenly flip a switch like that… it didn’t make sense.
“Was there anything unusual about him before that happened?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“No change in his mood? Expressions? Any little details?”
Adeline gripped the hem of her skirt tightly, throwing out question after question.
“He was completely normal.”
Viloti turned her head, sensing something strange in Adeline’s tone.
“He changed suddenly, stopped caring about you, even avoided you… all at once?”
“Yeah.”
Adeline forgot to breathe for a second.
A terrible possibility crossed her mind.
“Before he started avoiding you… did you think he… might’ve liked you?”
Viloti didn’t understand the weight of Adeline’s question.
She brushed her bangs to the side, bit her lip, and nodded shyly.
“It felt like he did.”
“It really did…”
A chilling thought took shape in Adeline’s mind.
Could Viloti… also have been one of Felyn’s clients?
Until now, Adeline had never asked if Felyn had other clients. In her heart, she had always assumed he was exclusively hers.
But for him to abruptly cut off contact with Viloti like that—it was too clean. Too abrupt.
It felt like… the contract had ended.
“Viloti, did you ever ask Felyn to do something for you? Like roleplay or anything like that?”
Viloti shook her head. “We didn’t talk much back then. I never asked him for anything.”
“You never signed a contract with him?”
Maybe I’m just overthinking it, Adeline told herself.
She didn’t believe Viloti was lying. Her expression didn’t look like someone hiding the truth.
Viloti herself might not even know that a contract existed. What if it had been her father or some other family member who hired Felyn to help her recover from her trauma?
Could that be it…?
“Adeline?” Viloti noticed she had suddenly frozen up.
Her rose-colored braid fluttered in the wind. The carefully done makeup now seemed almost ridiculous under the dim streetlight.
Adeline’s mind had gone blank.
Before that point in time, Felyn had cared for Viloti deeply—and she had believed he liked her too.
But then, suddenly, he had pulled away.
Was everything Felyn did for me… just because of a contract too?
Would he leave me just as coldly when our contract ends?
Her fingers tingled with numbness. She reached her hand out into the air, searching for something to hold on to.
Right now, she just wanted to find Felyn and ask him—
“Felyn… do you really love me?”
All their memories together… were they just a product of the contract?
Adeline couldn’t believe it. No—she didn’t want to believe it.
Maybe Felyn was just decisive. Maybe he had truly stopped liking Viloti overnight.
Maybe his thought process was different from most people’s. Maybe he could simply let go of something he had chased for so long.
Or maybe… Viloti was hiding something awful she had done to Felyn, and that’s why he left.
There was no proof that Viloti had ever been in a contract. Even Viloti herself didn’t know if one existed.
Adeline kept comforting herself, trying to dismiss the possibility.
But…
What if it’s true?
How do I face Felyn then?
Her eyes drifted to the pebble sword Felyn had shaped earlier. Suddenly, it felt like a real weapon—like a sharp blade swinging down on her.
I already love Felyn.
In my heart, I’ve already imagined marrying him… even having children with him.
And now, there was a possibility that everything he had shown her was just business.
Just a fantasy she had wrapped herself in.
The urge to question Felyn, which had just begun to rise, now withered away.
She didn’t dare ask.
Because if she did… what if the answer was the one she feared the most?
Adeline stood there in a daze, tangled in her thoughts.
“Adeline… are you okay?”
It was the first time Viloti had ever seen such a lost and helpless look on her face.
(End of Chapter)