Both my father and I were left completely stunned — it was that enormous of an event. But at the end of it all, I smiled.
It was good for Rozina, who had found her freedom, and it was good for me, since Bert hyung would no longer be getting married. But Bert hyung’s marriage was always a problem that could resurface at any moment.
Just as a new wave of anxiety was beginning to rise in me, my father — dead set on bringing Bert hyung into the family one way or another — turned his sights on pairing the two of us together this time. It was something I could never have imagined. My father wanted a connection to the Kildun ducal house so badly that he was willing to set aside the matter of an heir entirely.
Same-sex marriage was legally permitted, and Duke Kildun — who actually preferred that Bert hyung not continue the bloodline — welcomed the arrangement as well, so there didn’t seem to be any obstacle. I felt as though I were living inside a dream. It was wonderful beyond words.
But I had no idea what Bert hyung thought of it, and that frightened me. The worry that he might dislike it came crashing down on me.
The marriage talk between my father and Duke Kildun was known to me, and to the servants of the ducal estate as well, so Bert hyung must have known too. But I hesitated to bring it up before he said something first.
I was afraid to see his reaction. My thoughts had already been spiraling toward the worst. Even if Bert hyung and I were close, even if I had never once put him in a bad mood — whether he would accept me as someone he could spend the rest of his life with was an entirely different question. He might even feel repulsed by the idea of a same-sex marriage.
Terrified of being rejected, I kept stealing glances at him even when I went to visit him.
That day too, I went to the ducal estate — and still unable to ask the one thing I truly wanted to know, I just kept talking around it, circling everything but the point.
“Stay here. I’ll go get another book.”
We had been sitting side by side in the meadow by the lake, reading, when Bert hyung — having finished his book — stood up and said this. I smiled and said yes without thinking. As I waited for him, I held my book by the spine and fanned it back and forth like a folding fan, not that the words had ever truly entered my eyes to begin with.
Then I found myself staring blankly at a family of ducks drifting across the water. I hadn’t noticed Bert hyung approaching until he was right beside me.
“Rowell.”
“Oh — yes!”
I startled and turned to look, and there was Bert hyung, crouched down on one knee beside me. One hand rested on his knee; the other was held out toward me, open-palmed.
Resting on it was a ring.
A ring I recognized. It was the wedding ring of the late Duchess. It had always been on display inside the ducal estate, and I had found it so beautiful since childhood that I would stop to look at it every time I passed by.
The large, naturally golden diamond at the center of the ring was said to have been gifted to the first Duke Kildun by the Emperor of the time — a diamond of legend, rumored to have been taken from the heart of an ancient sorcerer. Its value was beyond any price.
I had heard that Bert hyung’s grandmother had left it to him, so it wasn’t strange for it to be in his possession.
But hyung was holding it out to me.
Was I allowed to read into this the way I wanted to?
I was so shocked I couldn’t move — couldn’t do anything — just sat there with my mouth hanging open. All I could do was stare at Bert hyung.
Bert hyung, whom I had admired and loved for so long.
He was looking at me with an expression I had never seen on him before.
The sight of Bert hyung with the corners of his lips just slightly lifted, smiling — I had never seen it even in my dreams. Looking into his amber eyes, which shone more brilliantly than any golden diamond, I fell under his spell all over again.
My goodness… my goodness.
My mind had broken down so completely that those were the only words that surfaced. I felt tears begin to well up, overwhelmed as I was.
Bert hyung smiled faintly and spoke.
“Rowell, will you marry me?”
In that moment, a gentle voice spoken for me and me alone.
I couldn’t believe it — that Bert hyung had looked at me and smiled. Had my heart finally reached him after all the years I had spent devoted to him? Had he, perhaps, come to feel even a little of the warmth of what love might be?
I was happier in that moment than I had words to describe — as though every dream I had ever held had come true all at once. Tears streaming down my face, I smiled as wide as I could and answered.
“Yes, yes…! I would love nothing more!”
Without letting his smile fade, Bert hyung took my left hand and slipped the ring onto my ring finger. Even watching it happen, I could not believe it was real.
I kept murmuring “This can’t be real…” over and over, crying and laughing all at once — while feeling Bert hyung’s large hand stroking my hair.
In the spring, when the green grass shone with a living gloss, under warm and gentle sunlight.
No one to interrupt us — only hyung and me.
It was a beautiful moment I would never forget — the moment my world was finally, completely built.
After that, the wedding preparations moved forward quickly and smoothly. Some groundwork had already been laid back when Rozina and Bert hyung’s union had been under discussion.
But this was now my wedding with Bert hyung. News of our engagement spread through social circles, and I was thoroughly delighted.
There were three months left until the ceremony. It had been decided that after the wedding, Bert hyung would come to live at our estate, and I redecorated my room with a fluttering heart full of anticipation.
Not just the room — I was in a mood to overhaul the entire house. My father, pleased beyond measure at the prospect of becoming family with the Kilduns, had grown magnanimous and said nothing to fault my behavior.
That day, wanting to show Bert hyung the newly decorated room, I invited him to the house.
“What do you think? This is hyung’s bedroom — if you’re alright with it, I’d love for us to share it.”
I let a little of my true feelings slip through as I said it. I had always intended this room to be a shared bedroom for the two of us, but I was still too cautious to lay my heart completely bare, so I framed it differently to hyung.
Hyung answered with his usual blank expression, briefly.
“It’s fine.”
Does he mean the room is fine? Or that sharing it with me is fine?
It was probably the former — but I let myself flutter with quiet excitement and indulged in my own private daydreams. I had been watching hyung look around the room, seemingly uninterested, when I hesitated, then spoke.
“By the way, hyung — why did you decide to marry me?”
It was a question charged with expectation. The fact that hyung had smiled and proposed to me of all people was truly something extraordinary. I thought that perhaps his feelings and mine might just be the same.
Even if nothing had changed in him perfectly and completely overnight, at the very least hyung was changing — and that felt like a dream. I even dared to imagine that perhaps, through me, hyung’s curse might one day be broken. Imagination is free, after all.
I gazed at him with hope, and before long, hyung met my eyes and spoke.
“Your father said he would leave me his entire estate.”
I didn’t understand the words immediately, and I blinked. Then I felt my body turn cold. I gaped at him and repeated back dumbly,
“I’m sorry?”
“If I married you, he promised to pass everything — all of it — to me.”
First my body froze. Then it was as if my heart had burst out of my chest — the whole of me began to throb and my hands trembled.
The answer hyung had given was beyond shocking.
The gap between what I had hoped to hear and what he’d actually said was as wide as the sea. It was something I had never even thought to consider, and hearing it out of nowhere like that was like being struck across the head.
Setting aside the fact that this was the reason Bert hyung had proposed to me — not a portion of the estate, but everything? I hadn’t asked for it, but I hadn’t known my father thought this little of me either. Was there truly nothing coming to me at all?
This wasn’t the marriage I had imagined.
It seemed I was merely a means to an end — as though my father had been drawing up a picture of something closer to formally adopting Bert hyung. I was so deeply shaken I couldn’t form words, my mouth opening and closing uselessly. I didn’t know what to say in that moment.
Why hadn’t he told me beforehand? No — why had he proposed to me at all? Which of the two should I demand an answer for first?
I felt as though my body was falling, falling, down and down, as I barely managed to find my voice.
“Is that… the reason?”
“Yes.”
“So you decided to marry me simply because my father offered you his entire estate?”
“Yes.”
“Then what was the proposal? Were you… using my feelings?”
“Well… I suppose you could look at it that way. But from what I heard, you wanted this marriage too — so there’s nothing wrong, is there?”
Bert hyung tilted his head as though genuinely puzzled, and turned the question back to me.
“Didn’t things work out for the better? Is there anything more to discuss?”
I lost my words entirely in the end. Hyung really was a person without feelings.
It was a fact everyone already knew — hardly something worth revisiting at this point.
I had made a terrible mistake. I had hoped for something I should never have hoped for. Having hoped the very moment before and then hearing something like this — it made my heart plummet all the harder.
I couldn’t say a single word in response. But with Bert hyung watching me as though waiting for me to speak, I somehow managed to give a small nod. Taking that as the end of the conversation, Bert hyung looked around the room a little longer, then turned and walked out.
A servant came to tell me that Bert hyung was about to leave, but I remained rooted to the spot, unable to move.
That was the first time I sent him off without seeing him to the door. For two days after that, I shut myself in my room under the pretense of feeling unwell, and I thought.
I turned hyung’s words over and over in my mind. What exactly did it mean that my father had promised to leave him the entire estate? Was he speaking of all of it — properties, money, even the title?
It was possible to pass a title to a son-in-law. However, to do so required proof that the direct heir — that is, me — had some significant disqualifying condition that made it impossible for me to inherit. Every detail of what made me unfit would need to be written out and submitted to the Imperial Palace.
