#68
As always, he didn’t miss the timing. In the instant the other person inhaled, before they could even organize their thoughts, he moved one step ahead. Not rudely, but not backing down either. That was Skyle’s way.
Blocking the Prince’s words with a small smile, he placed his hand on his forehead, pretending to lightly check his temperature.
Like a natural touch filled with sincere concern. However, there was definitely purpose in those fingertips. A skillful technique that blocked words with light contact, scattered his gaze, and changed direction. Did the Prince know that his restlessness even at this level of skinship was now completely obvious?
The fact that he reacted sensitively had already been grasped through several observations. It was also true that he had wondered what if that small agitation wasn’t just pleasure, but stemmed from some reasoned wound.
“Yes. If Your Highness insists on volunteering as bait in this way again, you should at least have someone to manage that bait.”
His voice was affectionate, and his sentence was logical. Rather than hiding emotion in these words, there were traces of deliberately not adorning them with emotion. That attitude seemed more sincere instead, making the Prince’s eyebrows tremble very slightly.
“Manage……”
Ersen, who had been muttering those words dazedly, suddenly blinked a few times.
He wasn’t insensitive to the fact that he had been objectified by someone with the word ‘manage.’ But what was more bewildering was that he didn’t feel displeasure at those words. Rather, strangely, his heart became a little more at ease. In his history of living as the Emperor’s brother, as the Empire’s bait, as a tool for magical contracts, this ‘manage’ sounded more human than anything else.
And the next moment.
He smiled softly.
The corners of his mouth went up just a little, and his eyes became round. It was a soundless laugh, but it contained loose breathing and unknowable liberation.
“……”
Skyle strangely felt his chest tighten for a moment.
It was a very brief instant. A sensation that quickly disappeared. A complex knot of emotions difficult to describe in words swept past the area around his sternum. That might have been an emotion born from seeing someone’s expression of genuine relief after too long.
It was so momentary that he wondered if it was a mistake.
Before he could figure out the identity of that feeling, Ersen nodded while raising the corners of his mouth leisurely as usual.
As if the hesitation or emotion from just now had never existed from the beginning. He had returned to being the usual Ersen. The Prince who was skilled at passing everything off lightly, letting things flow by like jokes, and hiding emotions.
“Right! Well, for me. It would certainly be reassuring to go together. But whatever we do… um, the Archduke would have to unconditionally follow my words… right?”
A slightly shrinking tone. The habit of unnecessarily putting strength at the end and drawing out words. Awkward glances.
……A Prince who’s clumsy in strange areas.
Even while handling such complex and delicate flows of magic, he childishly hesitated when requesting others’ goodwill. The more precise a person’s calculations are, the more immature they become before the variable called emotion.
He seemed unaware that trying to hide his apologetic feelings made his apology even more obvious to Skyle.
Skyle didn’t need much effort to see through that clumsy disguise. Like an older brother immediately recognizing his younger sibling’s lies, he smiled naturally.
“You speak of obvious things.”
Without a hint of hesitation. That answer was gentle and firm, while simultaneously friendly. There were no conditions or calculations there. The fact that the Archduke would follow the Prince’s orders wasn’t strange enough—the two were already naturally intertwined.
The Prince looked down and smiled subtly. It was a smile that seemed to want to hide something good but wasn’t doing well at it.
That was definitely the emotion of ‘being happy but not wanting to be caught.’ It was the smile of someone who had learned to hide emotions from long ago. But perhaps just for now, he thought it didn’t matter if those emotions were revealed.
Skyle, who had unconsciously raised the corners of his mouth along with him, hesitated.
The moment he was about to smile, Skyle himself was surprised at not being able to control the muscles that unconsciously rose. In that moment, his own reaction was more unnatural.
Because he had thought that expression looked better.
Because he liked that expression, wanted to see it again, or perhaps wanted to protect it… such thoughts seeped in defenseless. When the heart wavers, it’s always like this—results come before knowing the reason.
That’s when it happened. When the door burst open.
“Your Highness!”
Bang—the door opened. At the slightly louder sound than usual, Skyle blinked lightly. Ersen only turned his gaze toward the door, and as if recognizing who it was without being told, raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Sercil?”
Entering while holding a tray, he smiled brightly without noticing the subtle atmosphere between the two people.
Sercil’s appearance, entering with the sunlight behind him, was exceptionally bright. His still tender-featured face was full of bright color, and his eyes blinking between long eyelashes held no reservations. His lightly bouncing steps, his clothes briefly swaying in the air, and along with them the gentle aroma of soup spread.
“It’s time for soup! I brought medicine with it today too.”
“I already took medicine though.”
When Ersen muttered matter-of-factly, Sercil looked down at the tray in his hands. Then, discovering the medicine bottle placed on the table, he pouted and made a tearful face.
“Ah!”
That reaction was so transparent that even Skyle ended up chuckling. Though he was skilled at managing expressions, in this moment he didn’t hide the line of his lips. Instead, with that characteristic quiet smile, he soothed Sercil’s bewildered expression.
When Sercil made a tearful face upon discovering the medicine bottle, Skyle smiled gently and said.
“This is different medicine from what you take daily, so you may proceed as planned.”
At those words, Sercil felt relieved like a child who had received permission. He raised the corners of his mouth prettily again and nodded as if relieved.
“Oh! That’s a relief!”
At that bright reaction, Ersen muttered low as if sighing.
“Fairy-nim… oh my.”
The response sounded like pouting, but the ending was soft. His shoulders had relaxed a little, and the corners of his mouth were slightly raised. Seeing that, Sercil frowned and interrupted.
“Again, again! You’re trying to say I’m kind! I told you I hate that word, Your Highness!”
His tone was mischievous, but his cheeks were red. Like a cat that cried ‘stop the compliments’ while weakly reacting to those words. Seeing that, Ersen slowly shook his head with a smiling face.
“It’s wrong that your reaction to saying you hate it is so cute.”
Instantly, Sercil’s face became a little redder.
“What kind of mean thing to say is that!”
His eyes shook busily, and he set down the soup bowl he was holding while protesting in a slightly off voice. His cheeks were dyed bright red, but there was no effort to hide it at all. Ersen looked at that appearance and playfully spat out his words.
“Calling me mean…… Really, I have so many worries because of our Fairy-nim……”
Even while saying that, his voice seemed more like someone excited.
“Stop changing the subject and hurry up and eat, then take your medicine too!”
Sercil placed the soup on the table with practiced hand movements.
Each motion was steeped with skilled carefulness. He subtly adjusted the angle so the broth wouldn’t overflow, aligned the spoon direction properly, then quietly placed the medicine bowl beside it.
When Ersen watched that scene without saying anything and twitched his fingers, Skyle’s gaze quietly turned toward the Prince.
To Skyle’s eyes, it felt like Ersen was strangely tense throughout that entire series of processes.
Small gestures, eyebrow movements, trembling fingertips, the flow of his gaze. From all of that, he read signs of discomfort. The person who was more shameless than anyone and accustomed to jokes was now stiff like a nervous child.
‘What could it be?’
The reason he acted shamelessly toward the rough Marcus, toward Skyle who had a reputation for gentleness but whom no one could easily approach, toward that ice-like Crown Prince Theodore, yet felt nervous around Sercil who acted like a mountain village boy.
Was it because of the nature of emotions? Or because of the direction of emotions?
“Fairy-nim should eat too.”
“Attendants don’t do that.”
It was their usual conversation. Sercil blinked and shook his head with a typical reaction.
“Fairy-nim isn’t an attendant but Fairy-nim, right?”
At those words, Sercil trailed off. Though he’d heard this at least ten times, it was still an expression he couldn’t get used to.
“……As long as you’re staying in this palace, Your Highness is my responsibility. Remember that!”
He spoke decisively and straightened his back. As if he could only avoid crumbling by firmly establishing at least those words. Ersen didn’t hide his slightly hurt expression at that attitude.
“Calling it responsibility is disappointing.”
It was a small sound. But somehow it seemed like something said to be heard. It was transparent mischief.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
