Chapter 1
SLAP!
My cheek... it's burning as if a hot iron has been pressed against it! Then, the taste of rust spreads through my mouth... Did my lip split? I'm dumbfounded by this.
And the left half of my face is throbbing with numbness, I can't even feel the hand I'm pressing against it anymore. What's happening to me? Why is this...
"W-What... do you think you're doing?"
I mutter in a trembling voice and look at my husband before me. He's a solidly built man, a head taller than me... If a man like that slapped my cheek, it would be no surprise if I was sent flying and injured. But I somehow managed to keep my posture. However, my legs are trembling with anger and fear, I can barely stand. Did you hold back a little? Even if that's the case... I'm overwhelmed by deep despair. A dark emotion wells up inside me... it swirls around and shows no sign of disappearing.
Why? Why is this happening to me...
What did I do? Am I truly the kind of person who deserves to be punished immediately like this, without even being asked the reason? And by my husband... As my husband, aren't you supposed to be the one to protect me first and foremost?
In frustration, I bite my lip hard, nearly biting my tongue due to the numbness. And that peculiar rusty taste fills my mouth, I want to spit it out quickly. But I somehow manage to restrain that impulse... If I did that in this situation, I might get slapped on the other cheek too. That fear rises in my mind.But I somehow manage to restrain that impulse... If I did that in this situation, I might get slapped on the other cheek too. That fear rises in my mind.
Then, looking up with dazed eyes, I meet the gaze of my husband, who glares at me hatefully and looks down on me coldly. Roberto, the legitimate son of a ducal family, who recently inherited the ducal title. Moreover, he is the Crown Prince's chief aide. My husband runs his fingers through his silver hair in annoyance and turns his pitch-black eyes towards me. Is this... really the look a husband should give his wife? I'm stunned. And what confuses me even more is...
Due to the shock of the violence from my husband, I am remembering something astonishing. If I told anyone about this, they'd probably think I'd gone mad from the shock. It's that unbelievable...
This world is a novel!
In my previous life as an office worker, I used to read novels to relieve work stress. Because I had no friends to confide in about my unfortunate circumstances, I found solace by immersing myself in characters and worlds different from my own. The exhilaration felt as if I were experiencing it myself. Sometimes I was a princess... and other times, I was a knight, running around despite being a woman. And what colored those stories were loving and being loved...
I, who didn't know love, empathized with the characters in the stories, thinking that someday I too would be loved like the heroines in novels... but that was an impossible dream. I despair at that... but I don't even know how or when I died. Was it an accident or illness? Or did I live longer, not that I remember, and die of old age? I have no way of knowing that now, but I understand that where I'm living now is a completely different world. Moreover, it's within a novel I once read...
Surely it was one of the many novels I read... but I don't remember the details. What I remember are just the names of a few characters and the rough outline... but why this world of all places?
And on top of that, I have been reincarnated as that character of all people. Ugh...
"Apologize immediately, Christine! Apologize to Karen right now. Otherwise..."
Otherwise... what will you do?
In the first place, I haven't done anything! I want to shout that out loud. But I swallow the words hard, thinking they probably wouldn't believe me anyway. And as I clench my fists tightly...
Clink!... Thud.
Something I was holding without realizing slips from my palm. I had clenched it too tightly in anger, and a sharp pain made me drop it. There lies a brooch shaped like an iris flower!
Gold, with platinum petals... and a large, sparkling diamond at the tip of the pistil. You can tell at a glance it's expensive... Th-This is?
"So it really was you... Isn't this what I gave to Karen! Were you that envious? Enough to steal it? And on top of that, when you're caught, you throw it away..."
My husband says this scornfully, but I just listen, dumbfounded. I only picked up this brooch. Moreover, the facts that it belongs to Karen, and that my husband originally gave it to her, are things I'm learning for the first time here and now. Yet... it's my fault?
Then my husband picks up the brooch and gently hands it to the woman peeking over his shoulder. His expression has completely changed from before, now wearing a gentle smile...
That woman is... the protagonist, Karen. With fresh jade-green hair and lovely coral-red eyes. A beauty that someone as plain and dull as me, with my brown hair and navy-blue eyes, couldn't possibly compete with. And after thanking him, Karen repeatedly pleads with Roberto to calm down. And there are many people watching us from a slight distance, keeping their circle.
Just two hours ago, I went to the Imperial Palace to attend a tea party hosted by the Empress. Karen was also there as a fellow guest...
Karen, the Empress's favorite, sitting right next to her, while I, supposedly the Duchess, had my seat arranged a little further away. So we hardly spoke...
Then, midway through the tea party, Karen exclaimed that her brooch had disappeared, and the place fell into an uproar. Palace staff and all the participants searched, but it wasn't found, and the tea party ended in confusion. The participants began to leave one after another, and I followed suit. Then, rolling at my feet as I walked alone was Karen's brooch. Just as I picked it up, my husband and Karen happened to appear, and as I was about to tell them I'd found it, what came flying was, of all things, a slap from my husband.
Why? Why is this happening...? Such thoughts race round and round in my head.
"I've given you a brooch before too, haven't I? See, aren't you wearing one on your chest today?"
He says this, and though dumbfounded, I look down at my own chest. Indeed, what glitters there is a brooch my husband gave me. Not very large, but intricately carved with a woman's profile. I liked it and wore it everywhere I went, but...
'I wonder if that's the only brooch she has?'
'I heard that was a gift from her husband! And she's worn it ever since...'
'My, isn't it a bit plain as a gift for a Duchess? It doesn't even have any jewels...'
'But having only that one gift from her husband... doesn't it seem a bit pitiful?'
Of course, I was aware of all this ridicule. But I never stopped wearing that brooch. Because... I loved my husband!
I know that this feeling is mine alone. But still, could I ever let go of the first thing that person ever gave me? Even if it was just a whim, or given out of guilt for not being able to love me, it was my one and only treasure. But...
"Heheh, how pathetic..."
"What did you say? You... Christine?"
I can no longer hear even my husband's words. My heart had already shattered into pieces. Our marriage was held together only by my own faint, one-sided hopes.
But...
Hey, did you know? That person you're so desperately in love with will never choose you... because that's how this novel ends!
