[TKOSINM] 263 – I Love You More Than Anyone In The World

If I say that, will Noel really accept it?

There was a strange sense of silence. Noel glanced at the still hesitant Irene. With his gaze on her, he embraced her.

Suddenly feeling Noel locked her in his arms, Irene froze.

“No, Noel?” Irene stuttered in bewilderment and called out to him.

“Yes.”

“Suddenly so….”

“It just seems like you’re trying to take on too much by yourself.”

“I won’t ask you what you’re holding on to. I’m not going to force you to talk. However, no matter who you are or what you choose, I will respect your will and always be with you. I just want you to know that.”

 ”Ah ....”

His voice was low, and his tone was calm. Hearing those words, Irene bowed. She touched her forehead to his chest.

That’s right. Noel is such a person.

-Like a quiet lullaby, like a ripple in a calm lake, a man who gently dug deep and embraced her.

I forgot for a moment.

Irene smiled at him as she buried her face in his chest. It felt like her messy head was calmly organised.

And...

Noel already knew everything.

Seeing Noel talking to her, pinpointing her own difficulties, Irene realised he already knew it all. So she didn’t hesitate any longer.

Having made her decision, Irene raised her head. 

Noel’s dark brown eyes were looking down at her. She made eye contact with him, and Irene carefully spoke.

“Noel, the truth is….”

She confided to him everything she had learned about her spirits and the new secrets she had gained. Noel listened quietly to her, until Irene finished her words.

Irene told Noel everything she knew. It was not Mulliman’s power that healed Snow Tree, but her own power and the contract with the Snow Tree was the trigger. After finishing the story, Rivena’s identity was the former empress and her own mother.

As Irene confided to Noel, the complicated thoughts in her head seemed to clear up little by little. She gained a little closure. Irene was now closer to the ‘truth’, the one she’d not wanted to believe in the past. The people she’d believed were her family for over twenty years weren’t her real family.

‘Family’ was not defined by a shared bloodline.

Furthermore, they weren’t even connected by blood.

That truth saddened Irene.

Did you hate me so much because I wasn’t your real daughter?

Fortunately, they did not give themselves to the emperor. She would not have saved her life if the emperor had known the secret of her birth.

If that were the case, I wouldn’t have met Noel.

But the reason they didn’t do that was probably not for herself. It must have been because they feared harming their own family and their living sister, Viscountess Friedan.

And Riel needed me.

Riel, in her childhood, really liked Irene. She called her Older Sister and followed Irene everywhere.

The more she stuck with Riel, the more she felt that separation, and she didn’t like the situation where she was stuck with her Riel. But she nevertheless tried to do her best as her older sister. 

Tried.

Giving up and yielding all the time for her ill sister... even if no one acknowledged her, she had to try. But all of those...

It was meaningless.

Irene’s gaze fell to the ground.

It feels like betrayal, twice.

When she first found out she was Riel’s older sister, she was nothing more, and she was nothing less. And the second time was now she found out that they never considered herself part of the family at all.

But it doesn’t mean that the former emperor and his wife feel like my family either.

Irene had never heard of the ex-emperor couple in her academy history class. She only knew former emperors and former empresses, who were saints, loved their people more than anyone and constantly clashed with the greedy aristocrats.

She learnt this from an aristocratic academy professor who was busy blaming the former emperor and his wife under the guise of class. However, Irene thought they were better than the current emperor, who exploited the people of the empire. To have these two people as her parents... 

Some would be surprised or proud, but strangely, she didn’t feel any emotions. Perhaps it was because she held none for them or because they felt like strangers for whom she had never even seen their faces.

Then I really don’t have a family anymore.

There was no one she was connected with by blood, and there were no families with whom she shared happy times. Irene suddenly felt like she was left alone in the world. Cold loneliness flooded her.

“Irene, you’re not alone.”

A familiar voice came into her ear. When Irene lifted her head, she saw Noel solemnly looking at her.