Chapter 37: Both Got Dumped But No One Did The Dumping
Kishin still looked confused. Classie’s small burst of courage was immediately halved by his reaction.
“Is it about money?”
He asked again, as if to confirm.
“Yes…”
Classie wanted to crawl into a hole. But she managed to continue speaking, remembering that Dernick had surprisingly been easy to talk to.
“I already have five nieces and nephews. And Sir Kishin, I’m sure you know our country’s inheritance laws—since I’m unmarried, I have to divide my inheritance with them. My older sister and brother got married when there were no nieces or nephews yet, so they got their full shares. But I have to divide mine.”
“……”
“And now, my second sister is nine months pregnant, so soon there will be six nieces and nephews. A few months from now, I’ll have to split my inheritance with six instead of five. And that’s not all. Both my eldest and second eldest brothers have good relationships with their wives, and they’re still young. They both want two or three children. So the more time passes, the more my share of the inheritance shrinks.”
The more Classie spoke, the more she felt like a selfish, materialistic person.
In fact, she had never brought this up with her family.
After all, weren’t all of them benefiting from this law? Everyone except Classie.
If she voiced her dissatisfaction, they’d probably accuse her of being calculating within the family.
She had been close with Anna, but Anna was still a Kalashi by blood. She couldn’t be expected to take only Classie’s side.
“So I want to protect my inheritance before it’s too late. Before a seven-way split turns into an eleven-way one.”
As she finished, Classie glanced at Kishin from the corner of her eye.
Would he understand her situation, like his friend Dernick had?
“So in other words, Miss Classie, you didn’t propose to me because you like me.”
But Kishin’s reaction was completely different from Dernick’s. He looked openly disappointed.
Feeling flustered, Classie quickly tried to explain.
“No, no! That’s just the reason I proposed quickly. The reason I proposed to you is obviously because I like you, Sir Kishin. It’s just… if I was going to do it, it seemed better to do it sooner, you know…?”
Her rushed explanation slowly turned into a mumble.
As she spoke, Classie began to feel a little wronged.
Yes, she had done a bit of calculating to protect her inheritance. But wasn’t that what noble marriages were all about anyway?
People compare each other’s conditions and, once they judge the match will at least preserve the family’s prestige for the next generation, proceed with the marriage.
Most have guardians arrange all this, but Classie had to do it herself—her parents were abroad, and her siblings, after marriage, were only concerned with their own families.
But Kishin seemed to think differently. He spoke coldly.
“If that’s how you see it, then I don’t have to be the one, do I? As long as it’s someone from a family your parents would approve of.”
Of course, that was true. Classie had always thought that way.
And besides, her true goal wasn’t exactly marriage—it was inheritance. So even if they divorced three years after getting married, it didn’t matter to her.
But Classie wasn’t foolish enough to respond with something like, “Of course, of course.”
“If I’m going to have a political marriage anyway… I’d still prefer it to be with someone I like.”
“No. If it’s a political marriage, there’s no reason for us to be doing this. Our parents would handle everything. Why would we be exchanging letters and flowers?”
The colder Kishin’s voice became, the calmer Classie felt.
No wonder—she had felt an odd sense of foreboding since this morning. Things going smoothly with someone as outstanding as Kishin was the truly strange part.
Fortunately, rejection was something Classie was familiar with. She had even preemptively cried about five minutes’ worth earlier.
Having sorted her thoughts, Classie spoke to Kishin calmly.
“Alright. No matter what I say, you won’t understand me, will you?”
“No. I believe marriage should be between people who love each other. No other reason is necessary.”
“Understood. We have different values. Then let’s consider this matter void.”
“From where? The proposal?”
“From the part where I said I liked you.”
“!”
Kishin looked at her in shock. What Classie had said had hit him squarely.
‘Why is he acting like that when he’s the one rejecting me?’
Classie thought to herself, then gave Kishin a polite farewell and turned to leave.
‘Today was my mistake. I got careless because things seemed to be going well. From now on, I’ll never mention inheritance as a reason for proposing again.’
* * *
‘Did I… get rejected?’
Unlike the excitement he felt on the way there, the walk back was far from pleasant. Kishin walked past the small garden toward the main gate, occasionally glancing back.
There was no sign of Classie.
As soon as Kishin got into the carriage, the coachman drove straight toward the guard station.
Inside the rattling carriage, Kishin frowned and went over what had just happened, again and again.
He hadn’t dated personally, but he had often watched his subordinates in relationships.
They used to say, “Sometimes, you end up breaking up over ridiculously trivial things.”
Kishin had never understood that. Why would you fight over something small? And even if you did, couldn’t you just make up afterward?
He never imagined it would happen to him. But by the time the carriage arrived at the station, Kishin slowly began to feel something had gone wrong.
To his own surprise, a sense of injustice began to rise within him. It was an emotion he rarely felt.
‘What exactly did I do wrong?’
True, he had wronged Classie in the past. When their misunderstandings piled up, he had said cold and harsh things to her.
Strangely enough, back then, Classie had brushed it off with surprising composure. She hadn’t even offered any explanation to clear up the misunderstanding.
But this time, her reaction was completely different.
Because of their previous falling-out, Kishin had made an effort to talk things through this time.
He had genuinely tried to understand her sudden proposal and unexpected tears.
But instead, Classie had thrown out painful words on her own—and then even took back her confession of liking him.
By the time he reached his office, Kishin’s feeling of injustice had turned into a faint anger.
He glared at the pink cushion he had prepared especially for Classie, and unable to hold it in, he shoved it into the wardrobe.
Just then, his aide Phils walked in and caught the scene.
He asked, “Huh? Isn’t that the cushion you prepared just for Miss Classie? Why are you putting it away?”
“I got rejected.”
“Already?!”
Kishin sat down at his desk without a word.
Phils was so shocked that instead of handing over the report, he went over and hugged him.
* * *
Meanwhile, Classie was in the first-floor music room, pouring her emotions into the piano. The booming, intense sound of the music echoed through the room, and the louder it got, the more relieved she felt.
After playing five pieces in a row, it felt like the knot in her chest had loosened by about half.
‘That’s enough. There’s no reason to blame Sir Kishin for what happened. I’m the one who got carried away and proposed after asking him to stay with me. It was my mistake. We had only just started to develop good feelings for each other, and I proposed out of the blue. And I even spilled all the messy details about my family situation—of course he’d be startled and run away.’
Classie closed the piano lid and stood up. When she went to the kitchen, the chef kindly asked,
“Would you like me to prepare a snack for you?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Carrying a snack made of bread and apples, Classie headed back to her room.
She ran into Meren in the hallway at a bit of a distance, but Meren gave a scoffing laugh and disappeared into her own room, clearly upset.
It seemed she didn’t yet know that Kishin and Classie had fought and that he had gone back.
‘Thank goodness. If she knew, she would’ve had a field day tearing into me.’
* * *