Chapter 98
Concerned that others misunderstand the Grand Duke?
Ruan had also misunderstood the Grand Duke at first. But didn’t he soon clear up the misunderstanding and come to cherish the Grand Duke after learning his lovable qualities?
Moreover, Ruan wasn’t the only one who had become close to the Grand Duke despite initially misunderstanding him. Didn’t other knights, including Joachim who used to be too scared to even make eye contact with the Grand Duke, get along well with him recently? Given the current situation, such people were likely to increase rather than decrease in the future.
So it wasn’t a problem at all that someone who hadn’t properly met the Grand Duke didn’t know much about him.
It certainly couldn’t be the ‘concerning aspect of the Grand Duke’s marriage’ derived from rational thinking.
Realizing what he had been doing, Ruan felt like laughing bitterly.
Looking for problems with the Grand Duke’s marriage?
It was ridiculous.
He was just… trying to find excuses to refute this situation of the Grand Duke marrying someone, because he didn’t like it.
Because he didn’t like the Grand Duke marrying someone else.
With this sudden realization, his rambling thoughts cooled down.
Ruan pressed his brow, smiling bitterly. Ralph, with round eyes, asked,
“Aide? What’s wrong?”
Ruan answered honestly:
“I’m sorry. I just realized I said something incredibly stupid, pathetic, and petty.”
“What? But you’re not stupid, pathetic, or petty!”
The gentle-eyed dog beastman immediately refuted Ruan’s statement as if it was shocking, but Ruan had to acknowledge what needed to be acknowledged.
“No. I was acting like a pathetic sub-character, almost a villain, denying reality after hearing about someone’s marriage, making excuses, and then belatedly recognizing my own feelings.”
How did he not realize this?
Looking back, the situation and emotions always pointed clearly to this.
His heart chilled at the news of the Grand Duke buying a ring to propose to an unknown person.
He was sad thinking he might lose his place by the Grand Duke’s side.
He became anxious when the Grand Duke, looking splendid, received enthusiastic gazes from others.
His heart sank hearing Volker’s words about wanting to attach a ‘Duchess’ to the Grand Duke that would benefit him.
He was depressed learning there were secrets about the Grand Duke that others knew but he didn’t.
And… he was excited by the Grand Duke’s kisses, which only knew how to press lips together. He was unknowingly swept up in the Grand Duke’s heat.
If someone were to ask what this meant, a hundred out of a hundred people would give the same answer. They might even ask why he was questioning something so obvious.
Yet, the reason Ruan couldn’t come up with this obvious answer was…
Naturally, because of his perception of the Grand Duke as a cat.
Because the Grand Duke was a cat, so it was absurd for Ruan to have such feelings.
That’s why when suspicious situations arose, he tried to cover up those feelings by making flimsy excuses. He pulled out unsolicited justifications to convince himself. He hadn’t realized he’d been doing this until now, but thinking about it, that was the case.
But he couldn’t do that anymore.
‘I ended up spewing an incredibly petty line while desperately trying to make excuses, not wanting to accept that the Grand Duke is marrying someone else. This can’t be denied no matter what logic I try to apply now.’
There was only one way to explain this.
With a feeling of resignation, Ruan admitted:
‘I like the Grand Duke.’
I liked him, including romantic feelings.
That’s why I don’t want the Grand Duke to become someone else’s spouse. Why I don’t want to give his side to someone else. Why I don’t want him to share intimate skinship with others.
How did it end up like this?
Did I develop these feelings because the Grand Duke became the one I felt most at ease with, the one I gave my heart to the most, the one I would share my future with, and even the meaning of my life, after being dropped into this strange world? Or is it because of the Grand Duke’s appearance that transcends preferences?
Or did I become strange from not dating for too long?
He couldn’t know why it happened.
What was certain was that for whatever reason, Ruan had romantic feelings for the Grand Duke.
And that the timing of this realization was the worst.
To realize this when the other person is about to propose.
Isn’t this truly the most terrible timing out of all possible timings to become aware of one’s unrequited love…?
‘No, wait. But is this really the worst?’
Calming his thoughts that were about to run wild again, Ruan thought calmly.
He had been making a fuss as if the wedding was happening right away just because a ring was bought…
Even Ralph didn’t know who the Grand Duke’s intended was. That meant there hadn’t been any special interactions yet. Even if it was a political marriage, it was right to assume they were just in the preparation stage without much progress. Thinking belatedly, political marriages wouldn’t proceed so quickly and easily in the first place.
In other words, there was a high possibility that not much had actually progressed.
‘Then this can be stopped if I want to stop it now, right?’
Isn’t this actually an incredible timing?
Ruan sighed at his own stupidity for only realizing this now.
Had he become unable to think rationally and reasonably about the Grand Duke because he had been living only looking at and relying on the Grand Duke since coming to this world?
Moreover, Ruan’s inability to think rationally and straying onto a strange path wasn’t limited to this issue.
As he cooled his head and thought, the misconceptions he had cultivated while immersed in emotions began to climb up like potato vines.
Ruan reviewed the images that had been filling his mind until just now.
The Grand Duke proposing with a ring to some noble lady for a political marriage. The Grand Duke enjoying a sweet newlywed life after marrying that person. The Grand Duke living happily as a mature family man with two or three children.
Until just now, he had thought these images had tremendous plausibility, as if they could become reality at any moment.
But thinking again…
What kind of cat was that supposed to be?
On the way to the capital, Ruan had observed the Grand Duke interacting with humans from a third-person perspective. He had also seen the Grand Duke suddenly start showing manners like a human noble man.
At the banquet, he had felt how attractive the Grand Duke, dressed up and standing among the nobles, appeared to others. Amidst all that, he had realized that the topic of marriage had emerged and that the nobles were considering the Grand Duke as a marriage partner.
In the process, he had unknowingly come to think of the Grand Duke as very human-like. And not just any human, but as ‘His Grace the Grand Duke’, a noble among nobles, an unreachable existence. As if that was all he had ever been.
But that was a big misconception. Another misunderstanding.
‘Just because he appeared that way for a moment doesn’t mean that the Grand Duke I’ve been bumping shoulders with and experiencing all sorts of incidents with for the past year has changed.’
One might feel like a stranger for a moment when swept up in emotions and seeing an unfamiliar appearance, but isn’t the real person in the time spent together? What Ruan should see and think about was the Grand Duke he had directly experienced.
Not ‘His Grace the Grand Duke’ from the images that had been clouding Ruan’s mind, who goes through a picture-perfect marriage process and forms a picture-perfect family.
Rather, the ridiculous cat Grand Duke who, if inserted into that picture, would make one think, ‘Is this… right?’ Not some cat from another country in imagination, but our house cat who breaks the brush whenever he doesn’t want to be groomed.
That was the Grand Duke that Ruan liked.
And if it was that Grand Duke, the human who could make him happiest…
‘It’s not someone else, but me.’
Because Ruan Daen, that is, Kim Ha-jin, was a prepared companion human who had spent his whole life thinking about how to make cats happy.
“I misspoke. What I should have said wasn’t ‘I know that’, but rather ‘I’m the most confident in making a cat happy’.”
‘What on earth have I been doing all this time?’
Swallowing a sigh as he recalled his recent behavior, Ruan thought.
I need to go to the Grand Duke. Instead of brooding over the Grand Duke in my head that I came up with alone and doing useless things, I need to go meet my Grand Duke.
I should honestly tell him my thoughts and ask for his. I need to talk with the real Grand Duke, not the misunderstanding-filled imaginary Grand Duke.
Instead of nitpicking about the marriage with flimsy excuses, I should gently persuade him that I’m the human who can make him happiest and make him unable to even think about political marriages.
Thinking this way, he felt his head was the clearest it had been in recent times.
