# 20
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Scarlett felt extremely embarrassed by the situation, but she couldn't help but take notice of Nicholas' comment about his prosthetic thumb not moving. She sat down in front of the table and took out her toolbox from the bag she always carried.
“I seem to be bothering you, miss... I mean, ma'am,” said Nicholas, who sat down and took off his prosthetic arm in embarrassment.
“No disturbance”
Nicholas was very nervous being between a divorced couple, but he could not find a chance to escape.
Scarlett fixed the spring in the prosthetic arm with a wooden stick, and pulled out a stuck gear. She began making new silver gear with skill that made her look like an experienced craftsman despite her age.
After a while, she inserted the new gear and moved the spring carefully, then said to Nicholas: “Try moving your thumb.”
Nicholas moved his thumb in half-belief, and it moved surprisingly smoothly, making his face light up: “It works! Oh my God, this is so convenient!”
Nicholas was very happy, Scarlett smiled, and even Victor, who was watching from behind, smiled.
Nicholas repeatedly clenched and unclenched his hand, surprised, and said, "Thank you, thank you very much! I run an ice cream shop with my wife. Come over and say, I'll give it to you for free for life!"
“Not for a lifetime, but I will pass soon.”
Scarlett smiled and greeted him. Nicholas left after repeating his thanks.
The office fell silent after this loud person left.
Victor took out a cup of tea, put it down, and said: “I didn’t expect you to come by yourf.”
“You were coming to arrest me anyway.”
“No, I was going to avoid you for fear you would kill me.”
Scarlett laughed sarcastically at Victor's rare joke, and asked, “What are you going to do then?”
“I will think gradually.”
Victor looked at her and asked, “Why did you hate the idea of coming back to me?”
"Why do you want to take me back? Is divorce holding you back? Or is finding another woman tiring?"
"because i love you."
His calm response silenced her.
Scarlett stared at him for a while, then asked, “What?”
“I love you, that's why I'm asking you back. Is there another reason?”
His simple words stabbed her heart like a sharp weapon.
She closed her eyes, then looked at him and said: “You always get everything you want, right?”
“Maybe”
“Did the divorce bother you?”
Victor did not answer her cold question.
Scarlett added, "You should have been the one to give up on me, right? Did I hurt your pride because you didn't?"
“I don't think like that”
“Or do you regret the time you spent improving me?”
I expected most people to get angry at this, but Victor listened without changing his expression.
Scarlett mumbled: “If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t get divorced.”
“Isn't it the other way around?”
"No, really. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't expect anything from you. But because I loved you, I expected, and that's why I was let down."
She felt drunk. She tried to calm her breathing and said, “So...if I think about it, the divorce was my fault. Is that enough?”
"Between a divorced couple, how can I humiliate myf more? I loved you madly alone, I felt like I was dying alone. I was running alone until I was exhausted. Maybe I cheated on you because I was tired of you. I had no reason to remain faithful."
“You didn't have to betray”
Scarlett sneered at him: “Anyway... there was no choice but to divorce. You can't forgive me, and I already committed it. It was an ideal choice, wasn't it?”
“If you told the truth from the beginning, that you were fed up with me and betrayed me.”
“I told the truth. I said I didn't remember.”
“Are you still having this conversation?”
Scarlett pressed her chest with both hands, feeling the feelings of that day: “Yes, still.”
“Okay, so be it. What does it matter now?”
Scarlett saw residual anger in his eyes despite his calm face.
Becoming royal was his lifelong dream. She knew that her claim not to remember did not erase what had happened.
Scarlett looked at him and said, “Sorry, Victor.”
“When I think, I used to hate you then.”
Everything I did as an adult seemed like love.
“If someone had told me as a child that foolish love ends in nothing, that would have been fine.”
If her parents had been around, or if she had met Liv earlier, or if she had met someone like Andrei telling her that searching for the four-leaf clover was for her happiness, it would have been better.
If she could tell eighteen-year-old Scarlett Crimson that a marriage without love ends without love, that would be wonderful.
But the eighteen-year-old Scarlett probably wouldn't have listened, too much in love.
Victor looked at her and said: “Then, come back. Don’t live like this.”
“You said you were sorry”
“I'm sorry, but I can't live with you anymore. I expected too much from our marriage.”
“What exactly did you expect from me?”
His voice was getting harsher.
Scarlett said in a trembling voice: “I just… I wanted you to look for me even if you didn’t need me. To miss me. To be happy because I love you and miss you. For me...”
Scarlett smiled bitterly: “My love was precious. The best thing I had. At first, it didn’t matter that it was one-sided love. But gradually... it exhausted me that you were not happy with my love. This is how one-sided love ends.”
Victor laughed in amazement.
Scarlett continued: “I realized during the divorce that I loved you because I wanted to be loved. I wanted love. And you did too. You proposed marriage, so you had to return the favor, even by acting.”
Victor smiled bitterly and said: “Oh, I was a bad actor.”
Scarlett, pitifully, felt her heart shaking.
She smiled hard and nodded: “Yes, try harder when you get married again.”
Scarlett took out a small glass ball from her bag and offered it to him: “I was going to give this to you. Take it.”
It was a glass ball containing a quadrilateral clover.
Scarlett looked at him as he looked at the ball in her hand, and said: “I didn't look for it for you. I realized that looking for clovers on your birthday was the source of my happiness. A hobby.”
“Ah, you probably don't even remember receiving the clover...but keep it.”
Victor took the ball.
Scarlett watched him put it in the drawer, then said: “Is there an interrogation about the plane?”
“Did you draw the plans to make it?”
“Hmm...”
“Silence will harm you. Making weapons may violate military law.”
"Not a weapon, just a means of transportation. Don't you find the suppression of all techniques strange?"
Of course it was strange.
Victor had seen this for a long time. He didn't know how things were in Salantir because of being at sea, but he knew now.
Scarlett added: “The plans...I just remembered them. They were my parents’ projects.”
“You remembered?”
“Yes”
“Your parents died when you were twelve. How do you remember plans you saw before that?”
“Because my memory is strong.”
“Can I go?”
Victor nodded, convinced that there was nothing more to know now: “I will visit you soon.”
Scarlett nodded.
She left the office, and with the warmth disappearing, Victor took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a puff.