Cry, Even Better if you Beg

✧ The Duke Changed His Mind ✧

Kyle Etman’s presence was no different from the school’s streetlamps as he stood in front of the main gate of Gillis Women’s Academy.
The female students thought so, as they cast an imposing gaze over the young man who waited for someone.
Kyle showed a playful smirk as he looked over the gate. He could see a young lady dragging her bicycle from afar.
The lady’s elegant and gentlemanly walk helped him to recognize her.
But it wasn’t just her walking style that made him notice the girl; it was also her face, which was always full of rich expressions and her gentle and delicate body gestures.
Kyle cherished her whole existence dearly.
After their encounter in the summer, under the shade of the willow tree-he had realized that there was no other girl just like her.
“Leyla!”
When she heard someone call her name loudly, Leyla stalled her steps and squinted her eyes in the direction of the boy approaching her.
Kyle relished those moments.
The moment her steps became faster after she discovered who he was.
The moment she came up to him and smiled at him sweetly.
“Why did you come here again? It would’ve been more convenient for you to meet me at the cottage.”
“Well, I had plenty of time anyway.”
That was a lie, to speak the truth. He had left his tennis club mates behind to return home from school with her.
~Tomorrow’s problems must be resolved tomorrow. It will all be resolved.~
So Kyle was not worried at all. Even if his seniors might be waiting for him the next day with a racket in their hands.

                                  *.·:·.✧.·:·.*

On a busy street, Kyle and Leyla walked side by side. They bought some ice cream when they arrived at the shopping area, then stopped in front of a dusty bookstore.
Leyla was always laughing. Kyle Etman believed that, aside from Uncle Bill, he was the only one in this world who knew how often Leyla laughed and how radiant her smile was.
The wind became colder as they entered the Arvis territory road.
After their conversation turned to the latest school exam, Leyla’s eyes narrowed.  When the topic of geometry was mentioned, her eyes swiftly glowed with a hint of despair.
Kyle paid close attention to the subtle changes in her facial gestures.
Not yet.
He swallowed the heart-fluttering words that were about to escape his lips. Kyle didn’t want his flippant confession to make their friendship become awkward.
He then wondered, whether it was necessary to ask her out when he was already planning to marry her.
‘Leyla Etman. That sounds nice.’
“Why are you laughing?” Leyla asked him as she frowned.
She was grumbling about her low geometry grades until she looked dazedly at Kyle giggling by himself.
“Huh…… Oh! I heard Duke Herhardt is coming back?” Kyle abruptly changed the conversation’s topic to something else. “It’s been a long time. When is he returning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Everyone has been talking about Duke Herhardt coming back, but you don’t seem to care.”
Leyla tightened her grip on the handlebars of her bicycle. She and Duke Herhardt had never had any contact in the last few years. They just exchanged greetings when they ran into each other in the woods or when Claudine called her to the mansion.
Just passing by the Duke made her feel nervous, so Leyla tried to stay away from him at all costs.

To put it bluntly, she didn’t want to see him.
Since the day Duke Herhardt stopped her spinning gold coin with his foot that summer evening, she had never wanted to see him again.
Claudine invited her then abandoned her, but it was the Duke who made her know; how worthless Leyla Lewellin was in that strange, colorful world.
That encounter left a scar that was different from the mistreatment she had received at Lovita.
It was a recollection she desperately tried to erase. But whenever she came face to face with the Duke, he always caused her to remember that awful day.
Leyla despised him.
The Duke’s appearance always reminded her how meaningless she was in that beautiful estate.
Leyla sought to keep her unsteady breathing, at the same timing as a black car drove by

                                  *.·:·.✧.·:·.*

Duchess Norma, the Duke’s grandmother, never rode a car. So Leyla believed it was Duchess Elysse, who had returned from a social gathering.
“Arvis must be busy for a while now that the Duke has returned.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh yes, Leyla. Should I try pursuing a career as an officer too?” Kyle started walking backward while facing Leyla. “Like Duke Herhardt, I’d like to be awarded a medal. Captain Etman, a genius sniper capable of taking out any foe with a single shot.” He pretended to fire an imaginary gun and grinning like a naughty kid.
“Geez, look at yourself, Mr. Etman. You can’t even kill a chicken.”
With a smirk, Leyla walked forward. Kyle was unable to counter her, although his pride had taken a hit.
He boldly insisted last year that he would pay for his meals in the cottage by helping out. Uncle Bill then told him to catch a chicken for dinner, but he couldn’t even get a single feather out when he got inside the hencoop.
And after that, Kyle Etman earned the unflattering moniker of “the gluttonous herbivore.”