[TIDK] 33 – Come Back To Dumfelt

After a while, he spoke.

“I wish you could come back to my house.”

“What?”

“You.”

At Viktor’s words, Scarlett furrowed her forehead.

“Me? Why?” She asked, confused.

Viktor’s eyes scraped their surroundings.

“Why? You live like this.” He said, amused.

Scarlett paused as Viktor chuckled at her workbench. Then she looked up at Viktor and asked.

“Do I look more unhappy now than when I lived with you?”

There was indignation in her tone.

“Are you serious? Do you think living here compares to the Dumfelt home?”

“I was unhappy at Dumfelt!”

When Scarlett, who was always calm, raised her voice, Viktor narrowed his brows in response.

“You said you were happy.”

“I was happy to have someone I loved. Having parties or luncheons every day with people I didn’t like, pretending I was all right in front of people who ghosted and ignored me from beginning to end, never made me happy. I clung to our marriage so desperately, I acted like a happy wife, and you....” Her voice faded.

When he heard those words, Viktor’s expression crumpled.

“You mean I didn’t even try?”

“Are you joking?” She retorted.

“I think I tried hard enough,” Viktor sighed.

Scarlett’s expression drooped. “It was an effort to become a wife fit enough for you to introduce to others,” she spoke sadly.

Viktor was silent for a moment.

The light obscured his face, but perhaps he could not comprehend that Scarlett was happier living here than in the glamorous life at Dumfelt, working with small parts that were invisible to the naked eye without a magnifying glass.

“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.

“....”

Viktor continued.

“Yes, you were lacking. You weren’t enough to meet my standards, so you tried to improve. Is that not effort?”

In response, Scarlett looked at him with a blank expression. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she remained silent.

She lost her motivation upon hearing him say she was lacking. 

It seemed impossible to convince him that she wanted to be loved the way she was.

“....”

“....”

There was silence for a while.

Viktor was silent as she did not answer.

In the end, he looked down at Scarlett leisurely, who raised her head and stared back at him. Scarlett was the one who broke the silence.

“Any other questions?”

“Street gas lights come in through the window next to your bed.” Viktor cocked his head to the window, not removing his gaze from her.

“I know.”

“But you like this place better?”

“Yes.”

For Viktor, who had lived in a mansion surrounded by a vast garden, it would be unthinkable for him to hear street noises or see lights from inside the house.

Scarlett spoke, looking out the window.

“I am always anxious to meet strangers. It’s nice to have Andrei, who is also an employee, welcome guests here.”

“Then you should have told me.”

“How should I have phrased it?”

Scarlett chuckled and walked to her sofa. She buried her head in the plush comfort.

“You told me, all I had to do was help you succeed. How could I tell you that I couldn’t do any of that?”

In the early days of marriage, she could not sleep because she was afraid of gatherings of such nobles. On such nights, she hugged her knees in bed, trembled and waited for the sun to peek through the curtains.

Scarlett opened her mouth.

“Could you please stop? You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“I am no stranger.”

“You’re not someone familiar.”

She pulled her knees up on the armchair to soothe her anxiety, buried her

face and muttered.

“Not even the one I love.”

After curling like that for a while, she heard the sound of Viktor’s shoes moving away.

“....”

A wooden door creaked, and she could hear Viktor going down the stairs.

As soon as he left, Scarlett got off her chair. 

If one cog were crooked, the watch would not work. Scarlett’s occupational disorder meant she’d been under immense stress lately when things were out of order.

She tried to push the armchair back into place, but it wouldn’t budge. She sighed.

“How did you move this?”

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