Chapter 120

"I have no intention of having an heir."

Kaywhin didn't plan on having any children. More precisely, he didn't want a child who resembled him to have to face the world.

He had decided this very early on, and his decision had never changed since then.

"If you wanted to become my wife for that reason... I'm really sorry about that."

He thought that this would be how everything ended.

But his wife surprised him.

He thought that since her plan failed, of course she would want to end their marriage. But she sought out Kaywhin, who had tried to nullify the marriage, ablaze with anger.

"I'm not divorcing you. I don't want to. The same goes for the annulment."

And so, the marriage that Kaywhin thought would end continued.

After that, there was a time when Kaywhin's wife flustered him greatly.

Kaywhin was hit with a sudden fever and prohibited everyone except for Ben from entering his bedroom while his fever cooled down.

"...Yelena."

He sensed a presence outside and suspected an intruder. Upon going to the balcony, he was barely able to grab onto his wife, who was about to fall off the railing.

He acted before thinking.

After pulling his wife up and bringing her into his room, he belatedly grasped the situation. He was dumbfounded.

That day, Kaywhin learned what it meant to be rendered speechless. And... he was angry too.

"Is it okay if you break an arm or a leg as long as you get better? Don't be ridiculous."

Truth be told, he himself didn't even know why he was angry, but he was.

"Are you angry?"

"..."

"...I'm sorry. I did something wrong. So don't be so angry."

He didn't know what to do in front of his frowning wife. His emotions were in disarray.

In the end, he had his wife, whose efforts to enter his room were unbelievable, nurse him instead of Ben.

In order to lower the fever, he had to show his back to his wife so that she could wipe his body with a wet towel.

Old scars densely embedded his back. He explained how he got them without much thought.

Seeing his wife's tears greatly flustered him for a second time.

He was only half-conscious due to his high fever, but the tears his wife shed were imprinted in his mind.

He tried to get up because he was so startled and flustered, but his wife stopped him. Then, she went back to tending to his body with great care.

"It must have hurt a lot."

"It's all right now."

"It wouldn't have been all right back then."

It was very strange. All she was doing was wiping his sweat. She wasn't wiping his scars.

But to Kaywhin, it was almost as if the old scars faded when his wife brushed over them with the towel.

***

Kaywhin gradually got used to the fact that his wife was his 'wife.'

His wife was surprisingly a steadfast person.

The part that was steadfast about her was that she always found a way to surprise him when he least expected it.

"You know. As far as I know, there's a lot of knights in the duchy, so would it be okay to send one person out?"

It seemed like she was not satisfied with just stepping on the knight's foot; she wanted to send him out of the castle completely.

Kaywhin was slightly fascinated by that.

The knight's misdeed was simple: he spoke rashly about Kaywhin.

Truthfully, Kaywhin didn't get bothered even when he heard people whispering about his patches and the rumors about him.

The only reason he wore a mask when he went outside was to avoid bothersome situations. There was no other reason.

So he was surprised and fascinated by his wife's anger at the situation, as if she was the subject of the knight's insults. It reminded him of Ben.

But Ben had been with him for more than 20 years, while his wife had only been married to him for a couple of months.

"..."

His wife briskly walked ahead of him as if trying to suppress her disappointment at her failure to get the knight expelled. Kaywhin briefly gazed at her as she did so.

He might have been imagining it, but he felt a part of his heart throb slightly.

***

If one was to ask Kaywhin what kind of person his wife was, there were plenty of answers he could give.

His wife was a good person.

He was grateful to her and sometimes fascinated by her.

And yes, she was also beautiful.

Kaywhin's beauty standards were not much different from the average person's. But he was never interested enough in anyone to have applied those beauty standards.

The first time he thought someone to be pretty and beautiful was when he saw his wife.

In many ways, his wife was more than he deserved, but...

Want to read more chapters and support us? Please consider becoming a patron to read up to 4 chapters in advance!