There is No Key to His Cage - Chapter 22.1
8:30 AM.
It’s breakfast time.
Whether in her past life or current one, she had rarely eaten breakfast, so it felt awkward to her.
Due to eating so well lately, her face seemed to have gained a bit of weight.
She fidgeted in front of him who was dressed neatly as usual.
He wears that uniform every day, doesn’t he ever get tired of it?
Someone might mistake him for André Kim.
T/n: André Kim was a famous South Korean fashion designer known for always wearing distinctive all-white outfits. This comparison humorously suggests that Decarus’s habit of wearing the same uniform daily is so consistent that he might be mistaken for someone with an iconic, unchanging style like André Kim’s.
But looking at him like this, he’s incredibly handsome.
A flawless white face with red eyes, like a vampire.
Seen this way, he looks like a pitch-black demon.
Originally, her ideal type was black hair with red eyes, but that jerk ruined it all.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
His voice, breaking the silence, tickled her ears.
“Yeah.”
She opened her mouth while cutting into a young lamb’s hind leg steak with mushroom sauce.
“You look a bit haggard. Were you thinking about the book you were reading yesterday?”
Decarus said with a smirk.
She wanted to just punch that face of his.
“Shut up. Why don’t you just eat?”
Just thinking about yesterday made her heart race uncontrollably.
So she tossed and turned all night, her dreams filled with schemes to tease Decarus.
His face tormented her everywhere throughout her sleep.
“Or are you upset because I didn’t give you what you wanted last night?”
Why is he being so flirtatious from the morning?
She felt like slapping him hard.
“Please just eat your meal, Your Grace.”
“I like it when you call me that. Say it again.”
She pressed her temples with both hands, her head throbbing. This must be an acupressure point, she mused.
“Why, still thinking about it? Is that why your head hurts?”
The crazy person in front of her kept grating on her nerves.
It felt like she was about to explode soon.
“It’s all your fault, you know! Can’t you just be quiet?”
Elena angrily grabbed her spoon and fork.
As she was about to scoop up some salad noisily, he delivered the final blow.
“Then shall we do it tonight?”
“What?”
For a moment, she just blinked, wondering what on earth he was talking about.
“You said it’s because of me.”
“Ha…”
She couldn’t close her mouth at his insane words.
This man definitely needs urgent treatment.
“Isn’t your type ‘well-endowed duke’?”
He casually buttered his bread.
Elena closed her eyes tightly, chanting inner peace to herself to calm down.
Then, gritting her teeth, she spoke deliberately.
“…Shut up.”
“I’m not too shabby myself, you know.”
Decarus, eating his meal primly, put a piece of cut meat in his mouth as if nothing was wrong.
She had no words for his nonchalance.
Elena put down her fork and knife and stared at him blankly.
“You can just say I’m handsome if you think so.”
“Crazy…”
The thoughts she had been harboring internally suddenly burst out. This was genuine.
She truly believed the person in front of her was a lunatic.
“I’m happy that you seem to have become more intimate with me lately.”
He spouted nonsense again in the middle of eating.
It was impossible to know when he would stop.
“Stop talking nonsense and just eat.”
Intimate, he says.
She had never once thought of being close to him.
It must be thanks to his excellent imagination.
“Look at this. At first, you barely even spoke to me.”
“……”
She put down her fork and knife and sighed at his ridiculous words.
She hated his eyes looking at her fondly with half-closed lids.
And to think he was snorting while laughing.
It was unbearably irritating.
“Ah, you know the wedding is approaching, right? I heard your dress is already fitted. In 3 days.”
“Huh… yeah.”
She uttered in a monotone voice.
She seemed to be feeling conflicted at the thought of the approaching wedding.
“Oh, and I’ve instructed Jane to teach you court etiquette, so make sure to learn it.”
She widened her eyes and frowned.
“We’re just having a wedding, why do I need to learn court etiquette?”
“Later, much later, there will come a day when we greet His Majesty.”
“Well… okay…”
But that won’t happen.
If they get married, she too will gain power, so there will be more ways for her to leave this place.
She answered like that, but she will absolutely, absolutely never see the Emperor.
***
And so, the long yet short meal came to an end.
“Ah… I thought I was going to choke.”
Having to see that unlucky face so early in the morning.
It was a terribly awful morning.
Perhaps because it was nearing early summer, the sunlight was harsh.
Elena, walking inside the mansion, covered her face with her hand and looked up at the sky.
“The weather is disgustingly nice.”
The water from the fountain, adorned with a large baby angel, sprayed out in a refreshing burst.
The cool mist splashing her face momentarily soothed her flushed skin.
Elena settled on the bench facing the fountain in the center of the mansion, stretching her arms and legs.
“What should I do today?”
Was it because she stretched too hard?
Elena, hearing a cracking sound from her bones, patted her waist and made a sound with her mouth.
“I must be getting old.”
There wasn’t much to occupy her time here. Her options were limited: sipping tea and gossiping with Jane, sneaking peeks at risqué novels in the library, or, like now, soaking up the sun during a leisurely stroll.
No matter how big the mansion was, to her it was just a tiny toy world.
“I want to go outside…”
Even though this place had everything, it was a different dimension from the outside world.
The sound of children playing, the voices of people.
Who knew that enjoying ordinary things would be this difficult?
Indeed, they say being ordinary is the hardest thing.
This place was no exaggeration to call a free prison.
She needed new things.
Should she whine to him?
It seems like she’s starting to know how to train him.
Elena got up from the bench with a groan and headed towards his office.
“Why is this mansion so damn big.”
The distance from the fountain to the mansion’s main entrance was quite close.
