“It seemed like you wanted to handle it yourself. So I tried not to intervene.”
Assad said, meeting Cayden’s eyes as Cayden looked at him. He continued in slow imperial language. He erased the kingdom language from his lips in case someone might hear.
“I thought even that man would back off if you rejected him. Since he’s someone unrelated to you now. No, he wasn’t even a proper employer to begin with.”
“…”
“But I… thought too conventionally. I should have prevented him from even speaking to you from the start.”
Assad wasn’t angry. No, he wasn’t angry at Cayden. Cayden belatedly realized something he hadn’t noticed when he wasn’t looking directly at Assad’s face.
“If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed that bastard.”
Assad, who had momentarily hardened his expression, whispered. The eyes of the man speaking those words had darkened.
Cayden remained silent. He sighed deeply in the midst of belated relief and new anxiety. And he felt shame. Self-loathing directed at himself.
“I’m ashamed…”
“…”
“To have shown Your Highness such a sight… no, just, everything about me… is shameful. Why couldn’t I have lived more uprightly… I regret it.”
Cayden’s disjointed words were close to a monologue.
“What he said about me, what he said to Your Highness… it’s all true. Not a single falsehood.”
Cayden made a confession that would give birth to new regrets once a day passed, or even after just a few minutes. He continued speaking words he wasn’t sure whether he was addressing to Assad or to himself.
“But I haven’t sold my body to various people, nothing like that. You don’t need to worry about things like sexually transmitted diseases. The doctors in Helio have already confirmed everything.”
“…”
“I should have told you earlier but couldn’t. It wasn’t that I was trying to deceive you… I’m sorry. I should have told Your Highness before your heat cycle, but though I know it’s already too late…”
Cayden’s voice grew progressively quieter until it disappeared.
“I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t say anything more. Cayden simply closed his mouth.
It was pathetic. Right now, he was begging Assad to forgive him just this once, saying he was reflecting like this… But nothing would change. He was making Assad uncomfortable by speaking unnecessarily and acting subserviently.
“Cayden.”
Assad leaned against the wall, following Cayden. However, he had turned his body to the left so that he could face Cayden.
“I don’t know what you mean by uprightness. Someone looking at me might say I’m disgustingly crooked. They would criticize me for not living uprightly. I live as I please. Look at me now. I’m coming back from having crushed someone’s face.”
“But…”
“Cayden. I don’t know you.”
“…”
“I know even less about the story between you and that character. But I do know that the person most divergent from the uprightness you speak of is that stupid guy lying inside that alley. The person who should regret is not you, but that bastard.”
Assad, who had been lost in thought for a moment, furrowed his brow.
“Cayden. You are not a sinner. So why, why do you… try to impose guilt on yourself, on someone who has done nothing wrong?”
Assad’s voice reached Cayden’s ears. It struck his chest.
“Tell all the bastards who bother you to fuck off.”
Assad put vulgar words in his mouth that wouldn’t even reach the entrance of the imperial palace.
“Because you have no sin.”
Above the brown eyes overlaid with magic, a golden color like desert sand passed. Captured by that brilliant color, Cayden blinked stupidly.
Perhaps he… just once, just once, wanted to hear such words. Perhaps he wanted to hear that he had done nothing wrong.
Heat rose to his eyes. Tears didn’t come. Yet his heart felt choked up, just like someone crying.
“Tell them to point fingers. Those disgusting humans, I’ll find every one of them. Find them and cut off all their fingers.”
Assad’s voice, carrying rough expressions, was incredibly gentle.
Heat rose to his head again. Feeling like tears would truly pour out if he stayed like this, Cayden tried to lower his head. But Assad caught him before he could.
Assad’s hand was hot as always. Hotter than the heat in his eyes.
“It’s over now.”
“…”
“You said you didn’t want to. You said you wouldn’t go back.”
“…”
“That’s all it needed.”
That’s all it needed. What exactly was done, he couldn’t understand. The short, assertive statement from Assad was too difficult for Cayden.
But Assad’s face and voice as he uttered those words were so light and free that it brought relief. His lightness flowed into a corner of Cayden’s heart and drove away the anxiety.
“Even if I end up sleeping on the streets, I won’t go back to work under the young master.”
Only now did Cayden recall the words he had spoken to Alex.
Cayden had rejected Alex. He had conveyed words he couldn’t have uttered even in his dreams. He had accomplished something he hadn’t dared to even think about.
If it hadn’t been for the time spent in Helio, if he hadn’t had the belief that Assad wouldn’t leave him like this… could he have put those words in his mouth?
No, he couldn’t have.
What he had believed in wasn’t some hope that at least one of the guards would prevent him from dying. He had believed that Assad wouldn’t leave him like this. It was a belief he had pretended not to know, trying not to expect.
Looking at the sparkling eyes of the man standing before him, Cayden came to look at his true feelings. He realized it.
“Did you think I would reproach you?”
At Assad’s question, Cayden couldn’t readily provide an answer. It was a hesitation that troubled Assad.
“I’d be disappointed if you put me in the same position as that trash.”
“No, that’s, that’s absurd… I never thought such a thing.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“…”
“Never again. You will never again encounter that human. For the rest of your life. I guarantee it.”
Assad’s body drew closer.
“Because I will make it so.”
The low voice that reached his ear contained a certainty that Cayden couldn’t understand. On Assad’s face, which had been somewhat sullen, a smile suddenly blossomed.
How could that be possible?
But Assad’s words didn’t feel like lies. Cayden came to believe that Assad was whispering only truths to him. It seemed as if nothing would be impossible for him.
“Cayden. I will protect you.”
“…”
“No one, absolutely no one, will dare to treat you carelessly.”
Caught by Assad’s eyes, Cayden felt a strange sense of déjà vu. Amun’s voice flowed into his mind.
“His Highness will protect you, Cayden. So that no one, absolutely no one, can treat you carelessly.”
Amun’s words, which had felt like a joke, were overlaid with Assad’s voice.
Facing Assad, who was saying he would protect him, Cayden remained silent. The loud beating of his heart repeatedly turned his mind white and then black. Eventually, everything became a tangled mess.
“Do you dislike it?”
The time remaining between him and Assad wasn’t long. He knew that the “lifetime” Assad had spoken of didn’t mean a literal lifetime.
Even so, it was good.
It was okay even if Assad’s promise to protect him was a shabby lie that would be forgotten tomorrow. Because it would remain for his lifetime, at least in this moment. Because it would remain eternally in his memories.
“…No.”
“…”
“I don’t dislike it.”
Cayden, who had hesitated for a long time, answered.
Assad, who had been staring at Cayden, soon detached himself from the wall. Assad extended his hand to Cayden once more.
“Let’s go.”
“…”
“If you don’t want to get lost, you need to hold my hand.”
The surprised Cayden ended up grabbing Assad’s hand in a daze. Was it because of the sudden contact? His fingertips tingled as if he had put cold hands under a blanket on a chilly day.
“We’re leaving the memory of meeting trash here and going back. From outside, just think about me.”
“…Think about Your Highness?”
“Never mind if you don’t want to.”
“N-no. I will.”
Cayden, noticing Assad’s irritated mood, hurriedly answered. His mind was in disarray.
“Now, I should call you senior again. There are many people outside.”
“…”
“Right?”
Assad’s hand holding Cayden tightened.
There was a cute playfulness on Assad’s face as he looked at Cayden. It was such an innocent expression that it gave the illusion that the time spent in that alley had been nothing.
The hand caught by Assad no longer trembled.
“Let’s go outside.”
“…Yes.”
Cayden followed Assad’s lead. He took steps following Assad, who was one step ahead of him.
The red sunset just before dusk was drenching people. The two men moved toward that red world. Not once looking back at the alley immersed in black darkness.
* * *
“Son of a bitch.”
Alex, recalling the young alpha who had swung a fist at him, spat out a curse. A terrible smell of alcohol seeped through his lips as he panted.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
