Chapter 66
The dinner, which had been an ordeal for Rashid, was finally over.
After that, they drank tea together. Rosetta tasted the new tea, this time from the merchant, and smiled softly.
“It smells so good,” she said, “I can tell this merchant uses good tea leaves, so I can trust his products.”
Tens of thousands of expressions flashed across her face as she drank a mere cup of tea. She laughed, then puzzled over something, then delighted.
Rashid cupped his hand to his chin and watched her, lost in thought.
‘What was that scar?’
The scar he’d happened to see two days ago was clearly the scar from an arrow. The kind you’d expect to see on a warrior who’d spent a lifetime on the battlefield. And an arrow in that spot would have been life-threatening.
I don’t know what it means to not know that it’s an arrow scar, even if you’re so young that you don’t remember it, you’re supposed to learn about it as you grow up.
I don’t know, but I’m sure she’s been raised to be precious, so how could she possibly have been shot by an arrow?
“But why didn’t you show any emotion?” she asked out of the blue.
“Huh?”
“You didn’t seem surprised to see me in the bath last time, and you didn’t get angry when I said something mean to you.”
Actually, I was surprised, more than you realize.
He took a sip of his tea, feeling his mouth go dry for some reason as he remembered her fair skin, her smooth shoulders, and the droplets of water running down the nape of her long, deer-like neck.
For some reason, looking at her made him feel like his throat was burning, especially after the last banquet. He thought that if he avoided sharing a bed at night, it would subside to some extent, but even now, face to face like this, he still felt thirsty.
He had allowed this woman to stay and share a bed with him because it had been proven that there was no harm in being together. But little did this naive woman know that the most dangerous person to her now was him.
“…I’ve been practicing hiding my emotions for a very long time.”
“Hiding your emotions?”
“You just have to practice.”
“And how do you do that?”
“By controlling myself. By throwing away all my desires.”
He stopped thinking about his personal life and only thought about his responsibilities as a chieftain. He gave up his desire to be a husband to a woman and a good father. He had to abandon his family for the sake of the tribe, so he couldn’t be an ideal husband or father.
I thought I had thrown everything away, but I am not sure if I really did. My heart had been impure to begin with, to have this woman by my side when she wasn’t really my bride.
At that, Rosetta tilted her head slightly. “Nonsense. Who in the world doesn’t have desires? You don’t throw desire away, you control it, and from what I understand, desire is actually a person’s greatest weakness. Just like there’s no one without a weakness, there’s no one without desire.”
Rashid thought that was accurate, because the reason he didn’t want to keep anything that was precious to him was so he wouldn’t create a weakness. He couldn’t repeat what his father had done.
“So what is this desire you have? What do you want?” Rashid asked.
He wondered what this woman, who seemed to treat jewelry and money as nothing more than stones rolling down the street, could possibly desire, and certainly not power.
At the question, Rosetta pondered, and then spoke, a little uncertain, “…I just, uh, want to see the sea.”
“The sea?”
Rosetta nodded cautiously. “I’ve never seen one in my life, so I just want to see it once… Now I don’t think I’ll ever get to see it.”
“Even if it’s not now, can’t you see it later?”
Rosetta smiled bitterly at that. “Sure. Maybe someday, if I get a chance…”
Rosetta’s fingers tightened around her teacup. She looked a little lethargic, then looked up again.
“So what’s next, how to hide your feelings?”
“Hide your hands.”
“Hands?”
Rashid gestured to Rosetta’s fingers clutching her teacup.
“When a person has a change of emotion, the first thing that reacts is their breathing, and then their hands, like yours right now.”
When Rosetta quickly hid her hands under the table, he added, “If you don’t want to show your emotions, keep your hands out of sight. Hide them behind your back or cross your arms.”
“Are you saying I lied to you?”
“You didn’t think you could go to the sea.”
Rosetta flinched. “How- how do you know that?”
“Because not only are your hands tightening, but the pupils in your eyes just got smaller.”
“What?”
“People’s pupils get smaller when they’re feeling negative and bigger when they’re feeling positive. If you were really thinking about going to the sea later, your pupils would have gotten bigger in anticipation, but they didn’t.”
“Nonsense. You’re lying, you can’t see that!”
He sighed softly. “Actually, it’s not the size of your pupils that’s the problem, it’s just that your every facial expression and gesture scream lies.”
“And how well do you hide your facial expressions?”
“Didn’t you just say it? I’m good.”
Rashid’s somewhat arrogant response made Rosetta’s blood boil.
“Are you sure about that? You can never show emotion?”
Rashid nodded defiantly.
Rosetta slammed her hand down on the table. “So from now on, no matter what I do, you’ll never show emotion? The loser grants the winner a wish.”
“Good.”
Rashid smiled softly. It was full of confidence that he could never lose.
Rosetta leaned her elbows on the table for once. Then she stared him in the face. Rashid locked eyes with her, his jaw rigidly set. After a while, his eyes stung and hurt.
“If you’re asking to do a game of who blinks first…”
“No, stay still!”
This time, Rosetta tugged on one of his hands. When she tickled his palm, he looked at her with a somewhat puzzled expression.
“Oh, it’s not over yet.”
Rosetta gritted her teeth. How could I break this man?
Suddenly, she was serious about this bet. She was ready to do whatever it took to break this ironclad man.
Then she noticed his hand twitching slightly. It happened right after she involuntarily ran her fingers along the back of his hand.
‘No way…’
Rosetta took his hand and placed it on her cheek. His reaction was distinctly different from a moment ago. The smile vanished from his face and his muscles stiffened.
Rosetta smiled in triumph. This time she reached out and touched his hair. She’d always wondered about the feel of it, but never dared to touch it. His hair was cold and silky smooth. It felt so different from her own slightly wavy hair.
Rosetta lightly touched his cheek with her finger this time, and she could feel the muscles in his face pull taut.
‘You’re getting shaky. Just a little more here…’
Rosetta’s finger moved down to his lips, and he pulled his hand away from her chin and grabbed her wrist.
“Stop, I lost.”
Rosetta stared at him, her eyes wide. Losing meant he’d gotten shaken up.
She realized that losing meant his emotions were stirred. But what does it mean to be shaken…?
Rosetta’s eyes wavered as she realized what that meant. It should have been him who was shaking, but instead it was Rosetta who was shaking.
“Ah…”
This guy, he sees me as a woman.
She held her breath and looked into his eyes. When she was kidnapped, she was angry that he called her a child, but deep down, she was relieved. It meant he wouldn’t treat her as a woman, which meant she was safe, at least by his side.
And now he sees her as a woman. She should be wary of him and immediately throw his hand away and back away, but she couldn’t. Just like that night on the full moon, when she saw the blue-eyed man riding up on his horse, she didn’t move at all, even though she knew that if she stood still, he would take her.
The two stared at each other for a long time without saying a word. As the tension grew, Rashid spoke up.
“Let me guess one more thing about your inner thoughts.”
His voice sounded much lower than it had a moment ago.
“If I kiss you now, you won’t hate it.”
Rosetta was about to say no, but strangely, her mouth wouldn’t part, and she found herself staring at his lips. Suddenly, she remembered the last banquet. Rosetta’s eyes wavered again as she remembered the feel of their lips against each other.
Oh, my God, my pupils must be as big as a cat’s eyes now.
Feeling naked without a single thread, Rosetta squeezed her eyes shut. She was terribly embarrassed, but she couldn’t deny that she was also excited.
In the darkness, a finger touched her chin, tilting her face upward. She felt hot breath and soft lips against hers.