The Secret Garden (5)

Before I properly started reading the Marquis’s diary, I asked Hyunbyeol one thing.

“Where did you get this?”

It wasn’t the first time I had seen the Marquis’s diary.

Strictly speaking, it was a book filled with undecipherable coded writing that I assumed to be the Marquis’s diary, but still.

“Why? Do you think I’m trying to trick you with some strange book?”

“No. The problem is that I think it’s real. That’s what makes no sense. How did you manage to get this diary?”

“Are you implying I’m an incompetent woman right now?”

“Uh… no, that’s not what I meant…”

“I’m joking. This is not something you can obtain through skill alone.”

Hyun-byeol laughed at my flustered reaction and continued speaking before I had the chance to turn my bewilderment into annoyance.

“The Marquis himself gave it to me.”

“…Huh?”

“He gave it to me. Right after he forcibly put Countess Phefroc to sleep and confined her here.”

Just because she spoke casually didn’t mean it was easy for the listener to process.

“…You’re saying he just handed you his diary?”

“Well, not exactly for no reason. Marquis Tercerion had been subconsciously searching for someone who could understand the life he had lived, even if only in its simplest parts. Those were his words, not mine.”

“And… that person was you?”

“Specifically, it was for Countess Phefroc. The Marquis told me to give her this diary when she wakes up, regardless of how this ends. He said if a situation arose where it couldn’t be delivered, I should burn it.”

“Still, it’s suspicious that he let you read it…”

“That’s why I say he’s a lonely man. When I asked him what he’d do if I read it after taking the book, he told me to just read it if I wanted to.”

“The kingdom’s second-in-command. The Iron-Blooded Chancellor. The head of the Tercerion family. Whatever people say outside, and whatever kind of person he may have appeared to be to you, oppa. To me, he was simply an ordinary man who loved his daughter. ”

The more we talked, the more I felt that the Marquis Hyunbyeol I knew and the Marquis Hyunbyeol you know are completely different people.

But…

In a way, that was only natural.

Didn’t I treat the Marquis differently from how I treated Hyun-byeol? Everyone has unexpected sides to them. It’s just that the faces we can see are limited by our relationship with them.

“So… are you going to read it or not?”

“I should. This is a chance to read the marquis’s secret diary. Though I suppose I would not be the first.”

“You would not be the second either.”

“Eltora Tercerion. A few days ago he came here snooping around looking for something, so I tossed this book somewhere he could conveniently find it.”

“Oh, the original is this one. There’s a magical tool I often use for administrative work, so I used it to copy a few parts and made a duplicate.”

The reason I flinched wasn’t because I was curious whether it was the original or the copy.

“You showed it to that bastard? Why?”

I tilted my head in confusion, and Hyun-byeol answered calmly.

“Because once Eltora Tercerion learns what the Marquis was really thinking, he’ll definitely betray him. That would help you, wouldn’t it?”

For a moment I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak.

Of course Hyunbyeol’s reasoning was sound. And in fact, that was exactly what had happened.

But still…

“Didn’t you just say the Marquis was a lonely person?”

When I said that in disbelief, Hyunbyeol responded as if she couldn’t understand why that mattered.

“Yes. But I’m a lonely person too.”

I let out a sigh. There was no way I could win against her in a battle of words. As I let out a dry laugh, Hyeon-byeol asked slyly:

“Did I do good?”

I replied:

“You did good.”

Now, let’s get back to the diary.

***

Shortly after I started reading, I realised that the gaps between the entries were very long.

The 16 of the 7th month, the 27 of the 8th month, the 27 of the 9th…

The dates were scattered far apart.

Of course, it was not because he had put it off like summer homework until the very last day, nor because the marquis was the type to diligently keep a diary every day. This diary was simply…

“A compilation.”

He had taken selected portions from his daily journal and compiled them here. It was like cutting out the articles you liked from a newspaper and saving them so you could find them more easily later.

“Can you stop analyzing it and just finish reading, please?”

“Fine, fine.”

Hiding my embarrassment at Hyeon-byeol’s reprimand, I turned my attention back to the pages.

The diary was structured like a collection of essays. However, the story contained within it seemed to belong to the romance genre, with perhaps a hint of thriller mixed in.

[At the royal ball I attended with my father, I encountered that nameless girl.]

The story began with the Marquis personally witnessing the girl from the rumors at the ball.

He immediately ran up to her and asked whether she was the mysterious girl from the ghost story.

The girl, perhaps feeling pressured, quietly slipped away and disappeared.

After returning home, the Marquis debated whether she had been real or just a hallucination.

Eventually, he resolved to find the girl again.

And then…

[On the twenty-seventh day of the eighth month, at the end of summer, when the night winds had begun to turn cold.]

[I found the nameless girl inside a garden maze filled with sleeping flowers.]

[At last.]

This time, instead of rushing at her, the Marquis approached carefully from afar.

He lowered her guard while keeping his distance, using conversational techniques he had learned from a book on negotiation fundamentals to slowly become acquainted with her.

[The more we spoke, the more things about the nameless girl didn’t add up. She lacked common sense, and because of that our conversations often drifted strangely. But the curiosity shining in her pure eyes told me one thing.]

[The nameless girl is not a ghost.]

[The mystery that tormented me for a month has been solved. Yet a new mystery has appeared. Who is this girl? And why did she walk such a strange path?]

[As dawn gradually colored the sky, the girl disappeared without a word. Like a man possessed, I wandered home in a daze and only realized something when I found myself standing before the mirror.]

[My eyes shone with the same light as that girl’s.]

Driven by an even greater curiosity, the Marquis started visiting the palace at every opportunity.

And then…

[The twenty second day of the ninth month. Our third meeting took place.]

The Marquis succeeded in his long-awaited third encounter.

Their conversation wasn’t anything special.

Mostly the girl asked questions and the Marquis answered them.

But he never asked her why she didn’t know such things.

In fact, he asked no questions at all. He feared that she might disappear into thin air just like before.

He was careful not to frighten her away with questions, and when dawn finally broke, he asked her one for the first time.

[At that time, there was a question more important to me than learning the name of that nameless girl.]

[Will I see you again?]

[I asked. The nameless girl looked slightly surprised, thought for a moment, and answered hesitantly.]

[Probably.]

Right then, Hyeon-byeol spoke up.

“Sweet, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to feel the sweetness when I keep imagining the Marquis’s craggy face.”

“Then look at the desk over there. That portrait is the Marquis when he was young.”

“……Are you serious?”

He was ridiculously handsome. I suppose he had to be, for the nameless girl to blush a little when he asked to see her again.

“Anyway, I won’t bother you anymore, so hurry up and read. The content at the end is the real deal.”

Something about Hyun-byeol’s tone felt unsettling.

Almost like she was thinking, You should experience it too.

I didn’t question it and continued reading.

Summer passed into autumn, winter, and spring…

As the seasons changed, the Marquis continued meeting the girl, and their relationship slowly shifted.

[The girl sat at the edge of the fountain as she spoke, but the sound of the running water made it difficult to hear her clearly.]

From the faraway entrance to the edge of the fountain.

From the fountain’s edge, a little closer.

The distance between them during their conversations continued to shrink.

[See you next time.]

At some point, their meetings became a part of everyday life.

[I think I’ll be able to come out in the morning during General Arkan’s inauguration ceremony.]

They even started setting specific appointment times, and naturally, the intervals between the diary entries shortened.

But the Marquis knew nothing.

He knew nothing about her: not her name, her age, or her story.
And yet he didn’t care.

Because those moments were so peaceful and precious, he never dared to ask first.

He would wait until the day she chose to tell him.

At least, that had been the plan.

[19th of the 7th month.]

A year passed, and summer came once again.

[The girl disappeared.]

One day, the marquis arrived early at the palace garden where they always met, but he was greeted by nothing but the wind.

Something must have come up. She probably just couldn’t make it today.

Thinking that, he visited the palace whenever official events occurred.

But the girl never appeared.

[I once read in a book that all emotions arise from loss.]

[Only when something is missing do we realize our true feelings. At the time I didn’t understand it. Wouldn’t it be better to cherish things while you still have them? I thought people were simply foolish.]

[Yes… that’s what I thought back then.]

The Marquis finally realized his own feelings.

But by then, it was already too late.

He asked everyone if they knew anything about the girl.

He forced his way into the palace on any pretext he could.

But he never found the girl.

And then…

“Do they meet again?”

“You think they wouldn’t?”

Well, judging by how many pages were left, the story was far from over.

Suddenly I remembered a dilemma I once saw on the internet.

Which was more terrifying when reading a novel? When much of the story remains, but the pages are running out? Or when the story feels like it should be ending, yet there are still many pages left?

I found the latter more frightening.

The fact that so many pages remained meant the story’s genre could still change. An unexpected twist might be waiting.

Like this

[When I finally met her again, she was no longer a girl or a teenager. The girl who had grown up just as I had imagined in my dreams had become a beautiful woman.]

[However, rather than joy, the weight of the passing years pressed down hard on my heart.]

[Six years had passed since I last saw her.]

The Marquis had crossed six long years before finally reuniting with the girl who had become a woman.

He had imagined this moment countless times.

He would confess his feelings.

He would ask her name.

In his imagination she would cry and embrace him.

[Then she would confess the shocking truth about her past, something I might not be able to bear. She would ask if I could accept it, and I would smile and say it didn’t matter, that we could overcome it together.]

[I had imagined that moment hundreds, thousands of times every night.]

[But on that day… I did not ask her a single question.]

[Because I had a pregnant wife.]

After reading the final line on that page, a curse escaped my mouth without me realizing it.

“Wait… what the fuc…”

It seemed like this story needed another genre added to it.

“Was this a cheating story or something?”

At my muttering, Hyun-byeol shook her head.

“No.”

“It’s a tragedy.”

For some reason, I suddenly felt afraid to turn the next page.

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