1. Dirty Girl 

Capital backstreet. The poor lived together in this shady and dark place.

Their lives were terrible.

Children with thin and pale faces wandering around without their parents, a skinny girl selling flowers, and gangsters who earn money from violence.

Among those who lived in poverty, women who sold themselves to survive are scorned by others.

The women in the streets, wearing heavy makeup and an awful amount of perfume with their chest exposed, were beautiful, but they were in a lot of pain.

Sally was a girl who worked in a store where those ladies were.

With a face covered in dust and hair which was tangled up in a disastrous mess, dressed in rags that nobody would wear, she was frowned upon by people.

“Where is that nasty smell coming from?”

“It’s coming from where Sally is standing.”

“Can you get leave? This place will never be clean with you here.”

Even the maids who work with her in the store constantly mocked Sally. Sally did not get angry and left the room.

They sneered at her over the door, but Sally said nothing.

“I don’t smell.”

Sally murmured, leaving the door. She does try to stay dirty, but she’s such a neat person that she couldn’t stand it and washed herself to get rid of the smell. That’s just how she is.

Sally picked up a broom and headed to the empty warehouse. She crouched down in the dusty warehouse and closed her eyes. Then she sank into her past, which she couldn’t tell anyone.

* * *

Sally was one of the young maids doing chores in the back alley.

She had hair which had a very deep red color, raised eyes and the small dot under jewel-like golden eyes. She was tall, but her slender waist and neck looked very delicate.

It was when she turned 17 that the coy cat-like girl turned into a very enchanting woman.

Her waist became more narrow, while her chest and hips gained more volume. The cat-like eyes became more wild. As she lost her baby fat, her face developed a beautiful shape.

She became an attractive girl that any man would turn their head to look at.

Despite being a maid, she was so beautiful and the store’s madame was greedy. Others’ opinion was not important to madame, who sees women as a source of money.

By the age of eighteen Sally had become a street woman. She couldn’t say that she didn’t like it because she was afraid of the madame’s sharp gaze.

Before long, Sally became the most famous woman in the back alley. There was a flood of jewelry and gold coins offered by men to Sally. The madame could no longer treat her harshly.

A lot of people wanted her. Numerous men courted her to be the only one in her heart.

“Sally, I love you.”

One of them expressed his sorrow. But Sally couldn’t feel any emotion from such words.

She had always put on a beautiful smile for those men, but that was just something that needed to be done.

Since she had never accepted any man into her heart, Sally became more and more like a flower on a cliff and conceited, it made their hearts ache.

By the age of twenty, Sally’s main clients were mostly prestigious nobles.

The men took Sally to the aristocrats’ party as if to show off their beautiful possessions. Every time she appeared with her hand on a noble man’s arm, the people would make a commotion..

“Dirty whore.”

“How could such a lowly whore be here?”

“I smell something vulgar here.”

All sorts of terrible insults came at her, but Sally didn’t mind them.

She was born in the back alley and lived there as a child so she heard worse insults than that. She didn’t mind it because they didn’t approach her and slapped her.

It was one night when such party was held.

Even though she came with her partner, the men flocked to her. She responded to numerous temptations made towards her with a robotic bright smile.

After hours of dealing with that, she was overwhelmed with fatigue. To relieve her fatigue, she closed her eyes tightly and opened them.

‘Huh?’ 

Sally almost believed it was magic. All the men who were chatting loudly around her disappeared and now she only saw one man in front of her.

A man was entering the banquet hall with elegant steps.

His silver hair combed neatly, his eyes dark blue like the deep sea, with a nose that seemed like God sculpted it, and his jawline was perfect.

The body under the broad shoulders looked very firm. It was clear that there was hard and artistic muscles hidden under those tightly fastened suit

I’ve seen hundreds of men, but I’ve never seen a man like that before. No, that man didn’t seem to be the same kind as the men I knew.

The man was so beautiful I thought I was dreaming.

“Oh my God, the Duke of Esteban actually came to a place like this.”

Then, as if the magic had been lifted, people’s voices came back to my ears. He was famous enough that all the aristocrats and even some commoners knew his name.

The young Duke of Esteban, the most prominent of the empire’s founding out of all the noble families.

He rarely shows up to these events unless it was a banquet hosted by the royal family. Furthermore, it was surprising to see him attend a small party of such average nobles.

“Duke of Esteban….”

Sally repeated his name as if she were chanting a spell. At that moment, the man and Sally’s eyes met. Sally’s heart began to beat like it was hit by an arrow.

The Duke of Esteban looked at Sally gently and turned his head away cold-heartedly. Sally stood up and put her hand on her chest.

Sally, age twenty, a haughty flower that gives her heart to no one.

Her thumping heart screamed.

I fell in love. 

Sally wanted to see him again. But he is the Duke of Esteban.

He was a man that even nobles could not easily meet. He wasn’t the kind of man that some famous woman in the back alley could meet.

Is there any way I can meet him using all my savings? Should I try asking the noble guests? No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

An incredible thing happened to Sally, who was drying up day by day with longing for him. The Duke of Esteban sent someone to her so they could meet.

She checked it several times because she couldn’t believe it. Duke Esteban, not just anyone else, actually sent someone to pick up Sally.

Sally’s eyes were filled with joy at the miraculous event.

Her closet was overflowing with the finest dresses, but none of them stood out. Eventually, she spent all her money to buy a new dress and did her best to dress herself from head to toe.

She felt exhilarated and delighted as she dressed up for the man. It was completely different from when she had to do this for her job.

In front of the store was a carriage bearing Duke Esteban’s coat of arms. I arrived at the majestic mansion by carriage.

She should have walked calmly and gracefully, but I kept walking faster. She wanted to run for him right away.

creak

The beautifully decorated door opened and he was seen standing upright in the room. Under the darkened night sky, silver hair was shining beautifully in the moonlight.

‘It’s him! It’s really him!’

I almost lost my mind in the joy and excitement of seeing him again. I ran and barely held back my desire to hug him.

Sally lifted the end of her dress and bent her knees as she heard her heartbeat.

“Greetings to the Duke of Esteban. I am Sally.”

It was the first time she was ashamed of not having a surname. But Sally felt thrilled, getting to tell him her name.

Unlike her, whose eyes were full of emotions, the Duke Esteban’s eyes were frighteningly cold. Sally became nervous as the Duke Esteban stared at her in silence for a long moment.

She couldn’t wait to hear his voice. She wanted to get close to him and warm up in his arms.

As the silence lengthened, Sally eventually gained courage. Sally raised her head and smiled brightly at him.

“Would you like to start the night?”

She didn’t know what else to say to the man. But unlike before, she was filled with sorrow. At that moment, Duke Esteban’s expressionless face wavered.

That day, the two of them spent the night together. Sally was so happy that tears came out.

Her heart beat like it was going to explode, and everywhere she touched him, it felt hotter.

It was the first time she spent the night with someone she loved.

She hoped that this night would continue, but sadly, the morning came. It was a dreamy one-night stand. It’s something that has to disappear in the morning.

She felt suffocated thinking about breaking up with him again. The moment she is apart from him, she will die like a fish pushed out of the water, unable to breathe.