Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 27

The words he spoke with a completely dejected face were absurd.

As Cassia stared at him in disbelief, the corners of Whisker’s eyes curved.

Curling his lips into a picture-perfect smile, he pressed a kiss to Cassia’s right temple and asked, “Has your anger eased? Or should I go now?”

“I’m not angry,” Cassia answered as she lightly pushed at Whisker’s shoulder.

Whisker yielded easily, but she didn’t avoid the hand he extended.

Whisker pressed his lips to the back of Cassia’s hand he had taken and smiled brightly, looking satisfied.

Even after they walked side by side back to the bedroom, he kept smiling.

Today especially, he smiled more freely as he trailed right behind Cassia while she got ready for bed.

Because the blank expression Cassia wore as if nothing was wrong looked slightly darker than usual.

He had never learned how to comfort someone.

He wanted Cassia to be happy, but he didn’t even know what made her happy.

So Whisker decided to try what he knew.

After she finished arranging her long hair and lay down on the bed, he wrapped a large hand around Cassia’s shoulder and gently kissed her cheek.

When she didn’t react, he was just about to slowly move to her lips….

“If you touch me again today, it’s a divorce,” Cassia said, glancing at him with slightly lowered eyes.

“My wife. After tonight, we won’t be able to see each other for a while.”

“If you want to never see me again, do as you please.”

Whisker tried whining with the most pitiful expression he could manage, but Cassia remained firm.

Even as Whisker flopped down weakly in place and stared at her endlessly, Cassia simply closed her eyes completely.

Whisker, who didn’t know how to give up, turned onto his side toward Cassia and asked, “Shall I be your pillow?”

“No.”

“Shall I sing you a lullaby?”

“No.”

At his wife’s cold replies, Whisker made a playful sulking face, then propped himself on his left arm and began to look at Cassia.

Like she had done that morning, carefully.

Beautiful. And mysterious.

Her elegant forehead, the round tip of her nose, her small, full lips, and even her long eyelashes. Everything was fascinating.

More than anything, the fact that she had lowered all her guard and lay there with her eyes closed in front of him was the most fascinating of all.

It even made him wonder if he was dreaming a long dream.

Whisker raised his hand and reached toward Cassia.

Just before he could touch her defenseless cheek, a long scar running across his forearm caught his eye.

When he opened his hand, there was a large scar on the back of it as well.

It was a wound left from when his hand had been pierced by a sword years ago.

He had never paid attention to the scars on his body before, but for the first time, Whisker thought they looked grotesque.

Did I hold her with this body?

What had she been thinking when she touched his scars this morning?

When Whisker, who had clenched his fist in midair, withdrew his hand, Cassia spoke with her eyes still closed, “Tell me about yourself.”

“My story?”

“Yes. Your story.”

Whisker lowered the arm he had been propping himself on and lay flat, facing the ceiling.

His story.

“When I was eight, my mother sold me to my father.”

“Sold you? To your father?”

“It’s something that often happens to illegitimate children.”

In their world, it wasn’t anything unusual.

Illegitimate children were as common as stones on the road, and their fates were as varied as the stars in the night sky.

In Whisker’s case, it would be fair to say he was unlucky.

His father bought him instead of accepting him as a son.

His mother expressed regret over the price of her son, but turned away without hesitation and abandoned him.

His father sent the son he’d purchased to the assassination group he ran.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Whisker was a born assassin who could take one lesson and apply it tenfold, and he soon became the sharpest blade of that assassination group.

This was a story from when Whisker had just begun to make a name for himself.

Was it the seventh, or the eighth?

In any case, it was something from ten years ago that he could no longer clearly remember.

In truth, which number it was didn’t matter.

Grand Duke Hamilton Diorent.

It was the name of the target Whisker had to kill.

To a sixteen-year-old assassin for whom success in a mission was the only condition and reason for living, the meaning of that name didn’t matter much.

It was a sweltering summer.

Whisker infiltrated the Grand Ducal residence as a servant to assassinate Hamilton, slipping past the tight security.

No one suspected Whisker, who was smaller and gaunter than his peers due to harsh training.

Except for Cassia, who saw through his red eyes with a brilliance more dazzling than the sun.

“Don’t do it.”

On the day of execution, which came after a long wait.

Whisker, hiding a dagger and waiting for the right moment, had his dried killing intent discovered by Cassia.

Instinctively covering the dagger at his chest, he asked,

“What is it?”

“Anything. Don’t do it.”

It was dazzling.

That gold that seemed to see through everything.

Unable to face it, he lowered his head and thought.

Failure is death.

For an assassin, failure was not permitted.

If the Grand Duke’s daughter had noticed the assassination plan, she would’ve already told others, so either way, it meant death.

Sensing the end of his short life, Whisker ground his teeth and said,

“Don’t order me.”

And he heard an answer he’d never even imagined.

“I’m asking you.”

At that moment, Whisker knew.

That all the days ahead of him would be for her.

And so, for the first time, he wanted to live.

Whisker fled the Grand Ducal residence as he was, yet even after failing the mission, he didn’t die.

Though the threat of death filled every day, he clung on and survived.

He killed those his father told him to kill, killed his father, and then killed those the Emperor told him to kill, and in the end, he survived.

Because he wanted to give the most brilliant thing to that brilliant girl.

So, it wasn’t a story suitable to tell that brilliant girl.

When Whisker couldn’t continue after starting, Cassia asked instead, “How did you live after leaving the mansion that day?”

Whisker let out a faint laugh and answered lightly, “I lived diligently. Because I had to meet you again.”

“Is that how you caught the Emperor’s eye?”

“I made a deal. In exchange for becoming his dog, I asked to be allowed to kill those I wanted to kill.”

“Who was that?”

It wasn’t a question Cassia would normally ask.

Even knowing that asking about his past would hurt him, she asked with a chilled heart.

Suppressing her anxious feelings, she waited for the answer that would come from his lips.

“My father.”

At the answer that left Whisker’s lips, her heart turned even colder.

And at the same time, she felt relieved.

Hating herself for feeling relief after hearing his painful answer, she quickly apologized.

“I’m sorry. I asked something I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s alright,” Whisker answered indifferently.

He had never told anyone before, but it wasn’t a story he particularly needed to hide.

Even so, it wasn’t something Cassia needed to apologize for.

After a brief silence, Cassia’s voice came again.

“Can I ask one more thing?”

“Anything.”

“Why didn’t you acknowledge me when we met again six years ago?”

“Because I was nobody”

At Whisker’s answer, Cassia turned her head to look at him.

Whisker also turned his head and met her gaze.

Meeting his red eyes, Cassia thought about what his words meant.

Six years ago, he hadn’t even acknowledged her, yet three years ago, he suddenly declared his love.

If there was any difference between him six years ago and him three years ago, it was that Bureau Chief Whisker had become Duke Whisker Mastiff.

“So you didn’t speak to me because you didn’t have a title?”

Cassia asked, her eyes widening in genuine surprise, and Whisker let out a small laugh at how cute she looked.

“I also didn’t want to attract the Emperor’s attention.”

The next reason he gave was understandable.

It was the same reason Cassia had pretended not to know Whisker.

Turning her head forward again to avoid his gaze, Cassia closed her eyes.

Even though she’d decided to trust him, she hated herself for being cowardly the entire time, and found it hard to face him.

Whisker didn’t speak to her anymore.

A lowly, filthy illegitimate child. A patricide who killed his own father. A hideous assassin.

Cassia was a sun that shone too high, and he’d only longed to reach her, never considering how he himself might appear to her.

He had been born like this and raised like this, so what could he do?

A kind of ugliness he couldn’t even excuse seeped into his bones throughout the night.