FMV 12

Chapter: 12

There were many people out in Piana Park.

It was a beautiful day, a leisurely weekend afternoon, with lovely music drifting through the air from various places.

‘It’s the kind of weather that makes it impossible to stay indoors. With so many people here….’

Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be that man?

She almost thought that falling into the water would have been preferable.

Aurelia’s furrowed brow and sharp gaze were directed toward Leonard.

“Is that really the expression you should be making toward the person who picked up your hat?”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sure you won’t deny that saying thank you with that expression doesn’t exactly make it look like you mean it.”

Leonard was just as annoyed.

All he had done was catch the hat that had flown toward him, yet he disliked the fact that its owner was Aurelia, and he disliked her expression even more.

With the same prim expression she always wore, Aurelia approached Leonard to take her hat from him.

“What are you doing?”

But just as Aurelia stepped closer, Leonard took another step backward.

He was an utterly infuriating man, even going so far as to hide the hat behind his back with that crooked expression on his face.

“I’m not giving it back until I receive a proper thank-you.”

Aurelia’s expression darkened further as she reached into the air several times, trying to snatch the hat away.

Clenching both fists tightly to suppress her anger, Aurelia drew in a deep breath.

‘He really is a demon.’

Aurelia once again recalled what Professor Schneider had said.

How could every single thing a person did be so hateful unless they had sold their soul to a demon?

“Stop fooling around and give it to me.”

“I told you, didn’t I? I said I’d give it back once I received a thank-you. You’d be able to have it if you simply said you were sincerely grateful.”

Aurelia reached toward the back of his waist as quickly as she could, but Leonard used his tall stature to raise the hat high above his head, stopping her.

Because of that, Aurelia could only glare at him for a long while, like a kitten infuriated by seeing a chicken perched on top of a roof.

“Thank you for picking it up. I really mean it. Now give it to me.”

After realizing that no matter how hard she thought or struggled, there was no way for her to beat him, Aurelia eventually had no choice but to give in.

Continuing to fight a battle she could never win would only needlessly drain her energy.

“No.”

Leonard shrugged as though deliberately teasing Aurelia, then smiled.

He did not even realize that he was smiling.

“Mr. Deimus!”

Aurelia did not want to bow her head to him, but she could not simply leave her hat behind either, so she had no choice but to bow her head in the end.

Even though she had bent the last shred of pride she had left, Leonard merely looked at her with one corner of his mouth crookedly raised.

He really was a demon.

Not merely someone who had sold his soul to a demon.

He was a demon himself.

“It’s my hat. I already thanked you for catching it.”

Even a seven-year-old child wouldn’t behave this selfishly.

She couldn’t read what emotions were contained in those blue eyes, which made her feel even more unpleasant.

By now, she was not only resentful toward him, but had even begun to resent herself for being so distracted by a duck that she had failed to notice her hat flying away.

“I picked it up, so doesn’t that make it my hat now?”

“Ha, what kind of ridiculous….”

As usual, Aurelia bit her lip lightly.

She hated him.

She wondered if she had ever hated someone this much in her entire life.

“I can make even nonsense make sense if I’m the one saying it.”

Leonard, whom she had met again after their first encounter at the Bernhard Instrument Workshop, had become even more irritating and arrogant.

And now he was greedy, too.

“Now that you have my violin, did you suddenly want something else this time?”

Leonard was someone who received everyone’s hospitality, so if there was something he wanted, he could simply buy it whenever he pleased. And most of those things would probably be far more impressive than anything she possessed.

“I really don’t understand why you always seem to want only the things that belong to me.”

It was infuriating. Of all things, why was he so desperate to take things from someone whose only real possession at birth had been her natural talent?

How much more was he planning to take away?

What annoyed Aurelia most in this situation was having to waste so much time over a mere hat.

“Forget it. My time is too precious. Just keep it. I don’t know what you could possibly use a hat designed for women to begin with.”

This was the first day off she had managed to create after spending several days going back and forth between the conservatory, the workshop, and home like a hamster on a wheel.

At the conservatory, she attended classes, and at the workshop, she worked on writing sheet music whenever she had the chance.

Then, once she returned home, she would play through the pieces she had written and revise the scores.

“You must be happy. No one will say anything even if you insist that everything you get your hands on belongs to you.”

Since her time was too precious to waste over a mere hat, Aurelia decided to give up on getting it back from him.

She thought that since she had decided to give up, he would be satisfied as well.

But the moment Aurelia turned away from him, Leonard quickly grabbed her wrist.

“What are you doing now…!”

Just as Aurelia’s voice rose, having finally reached the limit of her patience, the hat was pushed firmly down onto her head.

Leonard was still holding her wrist.

“You wanted me to give it back, didn’t you?”

The hat sitting crookedly on her head, her wrist caught in his grasp.

And that face still full of a sly, playful smile.

“Forget it. I think it would be better for my mental health if I simply stopped dealing with you.”

Aurelia let out a small sigh, her delicate brow deeply furrowed.

Leonard looked at even that expression on Aurelia’s face as though he found it amusing.

“You seem to be having fun.”

The fact that he was enjoying teasing her so much was plainly written all over his face.

According to the newspaper articles she had read, the genius violinist Leonard Deimus had been holding recitals every day since coming to Zerphium, so perhaps the reporter had lied.

There was no way someone that busy would torment her this much over nothing more than a hat.

“I admit it. This is the most amusing thing that’s happened to me lately.”

Leonard didn’t seem to have any intention of denying it.

The more he behaved that way, the more Aurelia felt whatever little goodwill she had toward him—if she had ever had any at all—draining away.

‘He’s someone I can’t possibly find likable, no matter how hard I try.’

With one hand, she took the hat off her head and twisted the wrist Leonard was holding.

First her hat, and now her wrist.

Leonard was acting like someone who simply had to keep holding on to something.

No matter how much she twisted, she couldn’t free her wrist, and red marks began to appear on her skin.

“After the violin, it’s a hat, and now it’s me?”

Her father had already sold the violin to him, while the hat was a wide-brimmed straw hat with a design that was clearly meant for women.

What on earth was this demon of a man planning to take from her this time?

“What exactly do you want from me?”

At Aurelia’s words, the smile that had remained on Leonard’s lips disappeared.

He had merely caught the hat when it flew toward him, and when he discovered that the hat happened to belong to that young, crazy little cat, he had felt an uncharacteristic urge to tease her.

Why was that?

‘What could I possibly gain from that young girl?’

The violin?

There was no craftsman in the world who could possibly refuse to sell him a violin, no matter which workshop he searched.

So from the moment it had caught his eye, that violin simply had to become his.

‘I’ve already taken everything there was to take.’

The only thing Aurelia possessed that he did not was that violin.

And that violin was already in his hands.

So even if he wanted to take something else, there was nothing more he could take.

More than anything, he was obviously the one who had taken from her.

‘And yet I feel as though I’m the one who lost everything.’

He couldn’t understand it.

A mere woman shouldn’t have been able to step into the world of music he had created.

Yet ever since he had seen her, Leonard occasionally found himself recalling the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes.

Amid the musical ideas that usually filled his mind from edge to edge, that grayish-brown hair fluttering in the wind kept appearing again and again.

He was already a successful musician.

No matter what violinist the world brought before him, there was no one who could possibly be greater than him.

So why was he acting like this, unable to do anything about one such woman?

‘While even feeling this bizarre emotion that I can’t define.’

There was no need to say anything more.

It irritated him.

Meeting that woman again, whom he had thought he would never see again, had caused the emotion that had been tormenting him all along to grow larger and larger.

And now it felt as though that emotion was trying to swallow him whole.