For Your Failed Unrequited Love

Lucy felt somehow disappointed when she saw Felix and Rosé arguing. In addition, she became depressed when he remembered that Felix had previously asked Rosé to be his partner.

Well, Rosé is very beautiful and has a nice family… If she had to pick one, Rosé would be better suited to Felix than her… 

Why am I comparing myself like this?

Lucy came to her senses and turned away from them.

Coming out of the boutique, Lucy peeped at Felix’s shopping bag in his hand. It must have been the hat. It looked pretty even in his eyes.

Rosé thought about whether to buy it or not but put it down again.

Are you going to give it to Rosé-sunbae? I guess you were sorry for arguing with her.

Lucy sighed deeply. Felix didn’t appear to be, but he seemed to care a lot about Rosé’s mood.

……I was mistaken to think you were interested in me.

Lucy thought, looking at the back of Felix and Rosé, who kept bickering while moving to the restaurant.

It was a ridiculous idea in the first place. That senior is interested in me.

Lucy somehow felt a bitterness in her heart. Whenever she saw Felix and Rosé side by side, and when she saw the two of them joking around, talking to each other, and comfortably dealing with each other, Lucy was heartbroken as if she was poking her heart with a needle.

* * *

Maybe that’s why she was so surprised at the moment.

On a dark autumn night, Lucy heard Mr. Fred’s footsteps, holding her breath under the bushes. Thinking hard about why her heart is beating so fast.

Maybe it’s because she’s afraid she’ll get caught by the gatekeeper, or maybe it’s because she’s with the same sunbae that she thought she would never be with like this.

She tried to hold her breath with unknown tension, but she could only feel her pounding heart even better.

Then she felt something gently wrapped around her head. It was a hat.

Felix put a hat on her head and pretended he didn’t. Lucy touched the hat on her head. She could tell by the touch. It’s the same hat that she liked at the boutique.

“It’s my reward for making allergy medicine. Don’t hesitate to accept it.”

Felix’s low voice sounded like a dream.

Oh… You bought the hat for me.

Not for Rosé, but for me.

At that moment, she wondered why she felt relieved.  Lucy seemed to have an untimely spring breeze in her heart. She was happy.

And she realized.

It wasn’t him who was interested in the other person, it was her. Her face turned red every time she saw him, her heart was racing, her eyes were constantly twitching. The time she agonized over every word and action of him. Every time he looks friendly with another girl, her heart throbbed like it’s being pricked.….

It was all because she liked this sunbae.

Maybe from a long time ago.

* * *

Near midnight, Lucy sat in front of the closet with her hat. The breathing of Jemima, who was in a deep sleep, flowed slowly in the room. It was dark everywhere, and only the moonlight flowing from the window dimmed Lucy and her hat.

Lucy stared at the hat in her hand. As Felix put the hat on her, the autumn night air that passed by seemed to be still there.

The smell of autumn at the tip of her nose made her feel as if she had returned to that moment, and a slight thrill came to Lucy’s mouth.

But for a moment, Lucy took off the hat again and looked distraught.

She knows it won’t work anyway.

When she first met Felix Berg at the Evergreen, she thought he was just a mischievous, selfish boy.

A young gentleman from a noble family who she will never see again. Just like that.

The same was true when years passed and unexpectedly reunited at the academy. He was the heir to the Duke of Berg, and she came from a commoner family far below him. He and she had no connection, no excuse to be connected.

So, Lucy was embarrassed the moment she realized she liked Felix.

Me to sunbae? 

She will never be connected to the Duke of Berg. Lucy couldn’t believe that she had started such an absurd feeling.

The excitement was only for a moment, she had to be aware of the reality.

I shouldn’t expect anything.

Her feelings for Felix deserve to be kept hidden. But as always, Felix shook Lucy’s mind with his unexpected behavior. He visited Lucy first, talked to her first, and suggested studying together first.

Lucy was dumbfounded. She was confused by her sunbae’s behavior, which had always felt like a riddle. But when she came to her senses, she was spending time with him.

Studying together, eating together, and going back to the dorm.

At one point, she was distracted by the sweet time and unknowingly looked forward to it.

Maybe……… It’s a miracle that he and I get along well.

Felix might be feeling the same way. Maybe that’s why it hurts more during that day. 

* * *

“Felix, you have to go back to the academy right now!”

“What’s going on?”

“The Duke of Berg is here. He’s waiting for you in the principal’s office.”

With the sudden visit of the Duke, Felix left the garden. He briefly looked back at Lucy before he disappeared from the garden. There was anxiety and worry in his eyes.

The comfortable smile he had just shown to her had gone away.

What are you worried about?

The peaceful and enjoyable time has been shattered. Lucy remained alone in the open space and paced around for a long time.

After a while, she left the garden feeling empty without Felix. It was around the time when the academy building was visible that she heard a rumbling sound from somewhere. It was the noise of students sitting on the bench behind the bushes.

Lucy lowered herself and hid behind the bushes. This is because Felix’s name was mixed in their conversation.

“I heard the duke’s expression in the principal’s room was very bad…….”

“It’s obvious. He came when Felix was alone with the commoner girl. Perhaps the Duke has seen it.”

Lucy took a deep breath. The commoner girl they were talking about must be her. 

“Felix is unlucky. He’s just having a little fun with the girl.”

“If he were caught with Rosé Millard, things might have been better.”

“But how did he change his taste from Rosé to such a girl?”

Lucy clenched her fists as she listened to their laughter. Deep fingernails were stamped on her soft palms. Her face was hot.

She was angrier at what they said to Felix than at what they said to her. They were rambling about Felix. They have no idea what he really is.

“But the Duke might overlook it. He must have been messing with this and that woman when he was young.”

“No matter how hard it is, a commoner girl is a little…….”

Their words flew into Lucy’s chest like a sharp arrow and stuck. It was her first time to go up and down in the mouths of people who she didn’t even know their faces, so it came as more shocking.

Lucy got up from her seat and walked away, thinking she would not be able to bear it any longer.

I don’t need to worry about that.

Lucy repeated over and over again, as if casting a spell on herself.

They don’t know what they’re talking about. 

But their words kept ringing in her ears like annoying flies.

Felix was by no means the sort of person who discriminated against people by status. At least Lucy was well aware of that. So, she doesn’t have to worry about those words. It’s a bad thing to talk about.

But what if being with me really had a bad effect on Felix?

Lucy stopped sharply.

It was a question that she had never thought about because she had so much fun spending time with Felix.

What if people continue to talk bad about Felix?

What if they mocked him, the successor to the Bergs, because of me?

Such bitter thoughts came to her mind out of control, and for the first time, Lucy begins to seriously consider her identity. When she was casually joking around, laughing, and chatting with Colin in Brom, she never had a problem like this before.

Even on the day of the entrance ceremony, when Eric Roman took away the opportunity to take the oath of a freshman, she just felt empty and bitter, but her heart was not as broken as it is now.

For the first time, she felt like she was facing a cruel world. She felt as if she had seen the wall between herself and the nobility that she had forgotten for a while right before her eyes.

At that moment Lucy felt ashamed and funny about herself. She thought she had a slight possibility in her relationship with Felix.

Her foolish self-thought she could stay with him.