Obsession... What's That? I Just Wish Someone Would Help Me Escape - Chapter 61
“What is it? Just say it.”
“Actually, my last name isn’t Meister.”
“Wow, what a surprise.”
I replied with a soulless expression as I continued my heavy steps.
He continued in a serious tone.
“Meister is my relative’s surname. My real last name is Menardo.”
Menardo? That familiar name made me stop in my tracks.
“The Marquess of Menardo’s family?”
“Yes.”
A former officer and a member of the Menardo marquess family…
I turned around to look at him fully, my mouth hanging open.
“You’re… my former fiancé?”
Before I was engaged to Enoch, back when my parents were still alive, I was betrothed to the only son of the Menardo family?
What an incredibly random confession.
It wasn’t unusual for noble families to promise engagements for their young children ahead of time.
Of course, it didn’t always lead to marriage.
It was more like a way for families to show off their closeness and solidify alliances, with the understanding that “our children might get married.”
Naturally, after my parents passed away, the engagement dissolved on its own, and I became engaged to Enoch of the Mare family when I was ten, due to my uncle’s insistence.
Seeing my startled expression, Damian furrowed his brows in mock seriousness.
“Why did you get engaged to another man and not me?”
“It wasn’t my decision. Childhood engagements often fall through, don’t they?”
“I’m hurt you didn’t recognize me sooner.”
“I’ve never seen your face. How could I know?”
“You’ve seen my portrait.”
We did exchange portraits, but we were too young to recognize each other now that we were grown.
Two people who were once engaged as children, now meeting as prisoner and guard—what a delicious enemies-to-lovers dynamic.
Of course, it’s only delicious when reading about it in a novel as an uninvolved third party.
Experiencing it firsthand just feels like a cursed fate.
“So, am I really pulling a cart while my former fiancé is sitting on it? Why don’t you take over?”
“You weren’t going to actually marry me anyway. It was just a formal engagement.”
“If we did get married, would you cover for me and sneak me food? Marriage is a business arrangement, after all.”
“Marrying a criminal is a bit much, don’t you think?”
Damian, that bastard… Not only did he not offer any engagement benefits, but he just declared the engagement void.
“I’ve taken good care of you, haven’t I? Provided medicine without restrictions, gave you only the easiest jobs.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Since you’re serving a life sentence, being tied to me as your guard for life isn’t much different from marriage. In a marriage, the husband is a prisoner, serving his wife forever, after all.”
How is being stuck in prison the same as marriage?
What kind of nightmarish view of marriage is that?
I would rather have a spiritual wedding at this rate!
But there’s no way he’d say something like this without a reason. What’s his real intention?
I tipped the cart, dumping the bricks, then collapsed onto the ground.
“Hah… ha…”
As I tried to catch my breath, another guard approached, dramatically cracking a whip.
He looked like he was skipping rope in an X with it as he walked toward me.
“Hey! Pink hair! Stop slacking off! Want to taste the sting of my thorned whip?”
“No, no… I’m sure it’s very spicy without having to try it.”
I forced my shaky legs to stand and got up.
“Josef. Am I invisible to you?”
Damian tilted his chin toward the whip-wielding guard.
The guard, Josef, suddenly looked sheepish.
That rookie guard Josef had always been hard on me. I’ll get my revenge someday.
“Captain? I was just scolding this one for being lazy…”
“I was already punishing her. Don’t you know children get confused when their parents use different methods of discipline?”
“Uh, are we married or something?”
Damian had a knack for pushing strange logic convincingly.
Damian adjusted his glasses and gave me a stern look.
“Carry on. Remember what I told you.”
“…Yes.”
I had no idea what I was supposed to remember, but did he just save me from a whipping?
I shuffled off, muttering to myself.
“Crazy… I’m not grateful at all.”
Life as a prisoner means that even if you escape today’s punishment, you might get twice as much tomorrow.
Now that I think about it, I’ve seen plenty of prisoners get whipped, but I haven’t been hit once.
“How can anyone be worse at their job than me? Just how incompetent are they? Tsk.”
One thing’s for sure—Damian has been making things easier for me.
* * *
After a lousy lunch, I went back to hauling bricks.
Dragging an empty cart and walking as slowly as possible, I heard someone call me.
“Kido.”
It was Clara, Prisoner Number 7.
She dropped a towering stack of stone materials onto the ground with a thud.
Is she a human forklift? She was carrying all that by herself?
“I didn’t think I’d see you again, but you’ve survived.”
She was still dressed like a biker, her sleeveless top showing off her muscular arms and shoulders.
“What? I’m tired, don’t talk to me.”
I answered indifferently and tried to walk past her, but she grabbed my shoulder with one hand.
“I’ll call you by your name now, as promised. You survived the island, after all.”
Her expression briefly seemed to say, “I knew you could do it!”
I grimaced and hunched my shoulders.
“If I survive the Winner’s Tournament, will you even add ‘-nim’* to my name?”
(T/N: -nim is a suffix used to refer to people with more formality in Korean.)
“I don’t want that. I’ve spent my whole life treating you with respect, and now that’s not enough?”
Clara clicked her tongue but didn’t let go of my shoulder as I tried to turn away.
“How about acknowledging me as your friend?”
“Whatever.”
I responded coldly, but inside, I was rejoicing at the fact that I had finally made Clara mine.
