You Are Gentle, But You Don’t Love Me - Chapter 5

Juliet finally tilted the teacup in her hand, allowing the warm liquid to flow into her mouth.

“I’d prefer the latter.”

With a relaxed motion, Cassio tossed a sugar cube into his tea as he continued.

“If it’s the former, it might feel a little sad. But if it’s the latter, I think I’d be happy.”

With a soft clink, Juliet set her teacup down and asked, “What if it’s both?”

“Hm, I hadn’t considered that.”

After adding an excessive amount of sugar to his cup, Cassio lifted it without stirring. He quirked his eyebrows and smiled sheepishly, as if admitting he didn’t have an answer.
He truly had an uncanny ability to express himself—intentional or not.

And then, the next moment.

He took a sip of what had to be unbearably sweet tea and smiled in pure satisfaction.
It wasn’t a practiced expression.
‘He must really like sweet things.’

“Either way, I think I’d still be happy.”
“Why?”

“Because happiness always outweighs sadness. Always.”
“Does it?”

“It does.”

Cassio spoke with such clarity that there was no room for doubt. He set his teacup down and reached for a treat. The pastry he chose was a cookie dusted generously with powdered sugar. Turning it this way and that, as if inspecting it, he finally took a bite.

‘Ah. He’s smiling again.’

“And I’d also like to tell you not to read such dreadful books anymore.”

Crunching on the cookie, Cassio reached for his teacup once more.

Now that she thought about it, he used his right hand.
He no longer wore bandages over his clothes, but surely, beneath them, his wounds were still wrapped. She could still catch the faint scent of medicine.

Yet, he moved so naturally. He smiled, spoke kindly to her, as though nothing was wrong.

“Next time, just ask me directly. About the war, or about me. It would be far more accurate.”
Does it hurt? Of course, it must hurt.

But how? Why?

Why did her curiosity about him bring him joy?

‘Why….’
“In that sense, Juliet.”

“……”

“Juliet?”

Caught staring at his hand holding the teacup, Juliet flinched and lifted her gaze.

When their eyes met, Cassio smiled sweetly—too sweetly.
“In that sense, won’t you join me for tea more often?”
As though enchanted by his sugary smile, Juliet nodded before she even realized it.

Cassio laughed again, and Juliet raised her teacup to hide her expression. She couldn’t bring herself to ask.
‘I don’t understand, truly….’

All she had done was nod at his request, yet he seemed genuinely happy.

＊ ＊ ＊
‘I thought “more often” would mean once or twice a week….’
Cassio’s idea of “more often” turned out to be quite different. Juliet found herself sitting across from him the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.

It wasn’t something they had arranged. Juliet simply went out to the garden as usual, and there he was, as if waiting for her.
‘Not that I know if he was actually waiting.’

It didn’t seem like waiting, given how they met in slightly different ways each time.

Once, she found him standing absentmindedly under the gazebo. Another time, just as she sat beneath it, lost in thought, he appeared.

‘And once, we bumped into each other beneath the pomegranate tree.’

Each time, they met in slightly different ways, yet it always felt the same.

One thing, however, never changed. Whenever their eyes met, Cassio always greeted her the same way:
“Hello, Juliet.”

He would raise his eyebrows slightly, as if embarrassed, but then break into a bright smile.

Every time she heard his gentle greeting, Juliet couldn’t help but feel at a loss. So, she always bowed her head deeply in response.

“Your Grace.”

“You don’t have to bow so deeply.”

Whenever she returned his greeting, Cassio looked momentarily flustered but quickly recovered with a smile and helped her straighten up.

Perhaps Cassio truly liked the garden. Maybe he simply encountered her while strolling through it.
If that were the case, they could have easily parted ways then and there. Yet, Cassio consistently walked with Juliet, his boots brushing softly against the grass, or stood beside her under the gazebo, gazing at the sunlight streaming down.
And when the sun dipped low, and the shadows grew longer, he would casually suggest:

“Shall we have some tea?”
“……”
“Together.”
And Juliet would inevitably nod, almost reflexively.
The tea table was always modestly prepared. The tea Juliet liked was always stocked in the kitchen, along with a few light snacks.
“Are you going to eat that? I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Hmm….”

“You see? You don’t even like sweet things.”

“I didn’t realize it would be this sweet…”

“That’s mine. Yours is over here—the unsweetened one.”

Unlike the first day, the tea table between them was simple, and their meeting place was always the same reception room.

Even though it was indoors, the reception room was bathed in bright sunlight every afternoon, almost as if they were standing outside. It was a place Juliet had always liked.

“This suits your taste better, doesn’t it?”

“Yes… thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, back to what I was saying—can you believe that snake was as thick as my waist?”

Perhaps it was because of this—the way their daily tea time seemed tailored perfectly to her preferences—that Juliet couldn’t help but entertain the idea, or perhaps the delusion, that Cassio might have been waiting for her in the garden.
“The body alone was that thick, and its tail? Longer than my arm.”
At first, the idea of sharing tea with Cassio had felt a bit daunting.
After all, having tea together inherently meant engaging in conversation.

Juliet had always been a person of few words, and the three years she had spent confined to the estate, seeing no one but the servants, had only made her quieter.

Casual conversation, neither orders nor commands, was something she hadn’t experienced in what felt like an eternity.
“I’m not exaggerating. Its tail was really that long.”

“……”

So, she had naturally assumed it would be uncomfortable.
She thought her words would come out awkwardly, that she wouldn’t know how to respond, and that the resulting silences would be suffocating, making the entire time unpleasant.
She worried about all of that.
“I’m telling you, it’s true.”
“…Yes.”
“Juliet, you don’t believe me at all, do you?”
But in reality, the time she spent sitting across from him was unexpectedly comfortable.
Juliet rarely initiated conversation and, as he had suggested, didn’t ask him about the war or his experiences.
She didn’t need to. Cassio would lightly weave his own stories into their time together, unprompted.
“How such a large snake managed to get on board the ship, I’ll never know.”
He spoke about the trivialities of life aboard the ship, mysterious events from his travels on the open seas, the intense sunlight that would beat down on him as he floated adrift in the middle of the ocean, and the distant, breathtaking views of Tenerife.
Cassio’s voice, as he succinctly described these things, was always soft. Though he had lived through war, the stories he shared with Juliet sounded more like travelogues.
“Are there snakes in the ocean?”
“They probably came from the islands. It happened while we were docked. I’d never seen anything like it before, either.”
Because of that, Juliet was able to listen to him without discomfort and even occasionally ask him lighthearted questions in return.
And as she sat there listening, Juliet often found herself wondering again.
‘What exactly did he go through?’
What must he have experienced to be able to extract such beautiful stories from the midst of a war that surely must have been horrifying?
And to share those stories with a wife in name only, someone who had spent those harsh years idly soaking in sunlight.
‘How…?’
“……”
Whenever she became lost in thought, Juliet had a habit of falling silent. But Cassio never rushed her.
Instead, he would casually pick up a pastry, turning it this way and that before taking a bite. Thanks to Juliet’s advance notice, the estate’s kitchen prepared sweet treats for him daily.
Watching him smile blissfully as he bit into a cookie would dissolve Juliet’s tangled thoughts into nothingness.
And then Cassio would speak again, and Juliet would listen.
“Honestly, the soldiers were all terrified—over a single snake.”
That was how their time together passed. Their conversations were intermittent, but the silences in between never felt awkward or uncomfortable.
Cassio didn’t seem to find it difficult to talk to Juliet, nor did he appear unsettled by the occasional lulls in their dialogue. At least, not outwardly.
‘A fascinating person.’

When she thought that, she would invariably find his gaze meeting hers.

Cassio’s light green eyes caught the deepening golden sunlight of the late afternoon, glittering like gold. And the moment Juliet became aware of that glow, his eyes would soften into a gentle curve, as if smiling.

Whether he was holding a cookie between his lips or not.
In short, Juliet didn’t dislike the time she spent having tea with Cassio.

‘…Maybe I even liked it. Just a little.’
But on the fifth day.

The early afternoon, when they would usually meet in the garden, had passed. The late afternoon, when they sat together in the sunlit reception room, had also passed. By the time the shadows had stretched long enough to outgrow their original forms—
Juliet found herself sitting alone in the garden, bathed in the reddish glow of the setting sun.

“Hello, Juliet.”

Every day, Cassio had strolled through the garden, and upon meeting her, he would naturally fall into step beside her.
If she paused by the gazebo, where his chair was always ready and waiting, he would join her, gazing out at the sunlight-dappled garden as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Shall we have some tea?”

He would smile as he asked.

But today, not even a strand of his hair was to be seen.
The sun was setting. Though the season was transitioning into early summer, the true heat of the season had yet to arrive. The mornings and evenings were still pleasantly cool.
For a summer evening, it was rather chilly. Having sat in the shade for so long, Juliet’s fingers had grown cold.
Even so, she didn’t leave her seat. She merely sat there, lost in thought.

‘Yes. This is what my life was like originally.’