#98
“Your Highness, are you awake?”
“……Cough.”
“Here’s some water. Drink it slowly.”
I dazedly accepted the water he offered and drank it sip by sip.
Then I came to my senses.
“Archduke.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“If the first thing I see upon opening my eyes is an angel, wouldn’t that place be heaven?”
“……Ah.”
He looked at me steadily for a moment, then let out a small laugh.
“Does this place seem like heaven to you?”
“Doesn’t it?”
When I tilted my head with a mischievous expression, looking at him intently as if even saying no would be correct, he let out another quiet laugh.
Inside the curtained bed was somewhat dark, so the Archduke, bathed in the light from the room beyond the curtains, glowed even more brilliantly.
It really hit me that I was in his room.
I became a little dazed.
“……Strange.”
Perhaps because my lip corners unconsciously dropped slightly, making my expression look dark, the Archduke tilted his head.
His face still had traces of laughter.
“What is, Your Highness?”
The affectionate question felt like a dream.
I couldn’t find words for a moment and looked down, savoring the lingering sound of that voice.
No matter how much time passes, the situation where you don’t suspect me feels awkward.
But I shrugged my shoulders and slowly acted mischievously.
“I mean being in the Archduke’s bed. Just the two of us in this big, wide bed……”
“Ahaha.”
“My heart is screaming?”
“It’s beating quite comfortably though?”
“That can’t be!”
While we exchanged such jokes with grins, the Archduke set food before me.
Soup and bread. Some vegetable salad. And even some unidentifiable green juice.
“……What’s this?”
Unable to hide my expression becoming strange, I asked, and the Archduke answered:
“You need to eat well in the morning to be healthy. I heard Sercil has been taking care of you, but this is a place he can’t enter.”
“So the Archduke…… prepared this?”
In other words, he’s attending to me.
……Did I misunderstand? No. That’s exactly what it means.
“Yes.”
As if asking what the problem was, the Archduke looked at me intently with a deep smile.
“I prepared things that are easy on the stomach, but perhaps you don’t like them?”
While saying words that didn’t suit him, he strangely looked a little pleased.
Just him being pleased made joy wash over me. It was precious that he was enjoying himself in a place where only I was present, no one else.
“Mm, no.”
Though I couldn’t understand why he was doing this, I decided to play along with this incomprehensible situation as much as possible.
“But what’s in this juice?”
“Apples and kale and this and that.”
“Ah……”
Hiding my awkwardness as much as possible, I took a sip of the juice first. It was refreshing, but, well, it was only refreshing.
‘I can’t taste apple at all.’
When I glanced at him, the Archduke slightly narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.
His eyes seemed a bit dazzling, so I naturally averted my gaze and looked for a spoon.
“Hmm……”
“Ah, are you going to have soup now? Here, say ah.”
“……”
I unconsciously blinked rapidly.
“……Wait, you’re going to feed me?”
“Yes. Come on, quickly.”
When I calmly opened my mouth, a spoonful slipped right in.
It was warm.
“Ahaha. It’s delicious.”
“Mm? Mm. Yeah.”
“That’s a relief. I made it.”
“……What?”
“Here, say ah again.”
“Archduke, wait, ahm.”
“You’re eating well.”
He looks pleased.
It was the neat smile I always saw, but today it seemed particularly varied.
But I couldn’t find any reason to refuse. The option of being sharp with him also felt completely awkward in this situation.
No, actually, it felt like a dream.
A very strange dream.
After being surprised again by the information that he had also made the bread and eating everything clean:
“Thank you, Archduke. I felt like I became a good little animal.”
When I muttered dazedly, the Archduke blinked several times and answered:
“……Not a baby?”
“Baby……?”
Ah, I suppose that comparison could work too.
I passed over those words with an indifferent expression.
“Isn’t the Archduke going to eat?”
“I already ate.”
He didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving.
It seemed like he had already asked everything he wanted to ask earlier. I pondered his intentions for a while, but even after waiting longer, he just continued working while leaning slightly against the bedpost, so I finally spoke first.
“What do the hyungs say?”
“I stopped them from wanting to storm into the half-demon territory.”
Slightly flustered by the answer that flowed out more directly and comfortably than expected, I asked again:
“What about our Fairy-nim?”
This time he slightly raised and lowered his eyebrows before answering:
“He was very worried.”
“About me?”
“He’s always been quite attached to Your Highness.”
As if asking why I had such a reaction, he asked in a voice tinged with laughter.
While looking at me intently.
“That’s true. Hmm, he was worried! Now that I think of it, I should go see him.”
“Where to?”
“To Sercil.”
Would he allow me to leave this room? I needed to confirm the extent to which he controlled me.
Because I was gradually realizing that all these uncharacteristic behaviors were to keep me here.
“Hmm. Well, if he sees Your Highness directly, he won’t worry anymore. Shall we go together?”
Together?
“Hmm, but the Archduke has to work, right? You’d spend time on me?”
You’d go that far?
When I tilted my head with that nuance, he answered without wavering:
“Your Highness is an important person.”
Being called a ‘person’ in his voice felt really strange. But since it was also a strange feeling to express, I just smiled enigmatically.
Pretending to be as relaxed as possible, as if I knew exactly what he was thinking.
“More than that, Your Highness. There was something I needed to convey, but I had forgotten.”
There was no way he had forgotten, whatever it was.
He must have been holding onto it to change the subject like this.
“Mm. What is it?”
I smiled with narrowed eyes, going along with his attempt.
But the words I heard were unexpected.
“They’ve changed the date of Your Highness’s demonstration ceremony to two weeks from now.”
“……Who did?”
“His Majesty, of course.”
“Why so suddenly?”
“Since Your Highness is currently ill, His Highness the Crown Prince made the request.”
“I’m not sick though?”
“Hmm. You don’t seem pleased?”
At his leisurely question, I hugged my legs and rested my chin there.
And said indifferently:
“What’s there to be pleased about? The result won’t change anyway.”
“What kind of result do you think it will be?”
“I’ll lose my succession rights.”
“I see.”
He neatly organized his documents. Whether he had finished all his work or decided to stop, I couldn’t tell, but when he put the papers on the table and turned his gaze to me, our eyes met, and I could tell this situation was what he had been aiming for.
“You weren’t planning to prepare for it.”
“Mm. That’s right. Ah, but I’ll lift all your curses, so don’t worry. It’ll just take a bit more time.”
“It seems you have things you want to do outside.”
How fearless.
When I stared at him after his quietly added words, he smiled gently and continued:
“……Your Highness, as expected.”
“As expected?”
“Do you have problems using mana?”
After a brief silence, I slowly narrowed my eyes and answered:
“You knew.”
Actually, I was flustered for a moment.
But now, unlike when I first saw him, I immediately shifted my thinking that this wasn’t a situation where I’d be branded a useless existence due to mana depletion syndrome.
Along with the thought that perhaps this could be an opportunity to lift his curse a little faster.
“There are some problems. The reason is a secret though.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer if you shared it with me?”
“Why?”
“If you’re planning to lose your succession rights at the demonstration ceremony, you’ll need a place to stay afterward.”
It was a statement drawing the line that entering half-demon territory was not allowed.
‘It also means I can’t move alone.’
I let out a small laugh, then slowly took in everything from his head to the hem of his clothes below the bed, as if gauging something.
And said languidly:
“If I could see the Archduke often, that wouldn’t be so bad either.”
Throughout the time I looked at him, he quietly gazed into my eyes as if searching for something.
‘……What?’
Just for a moment.
He drew his usual gentle smile as if nothing had happened.
“You’re always welcome.”
“How naive.”
I muttered while slightly lowering my eyes to avoid his gaze.
“You’ll regret it.”
“I doubt it.”
While making a proposal he could never want, acting as if he truly welcomed it, he was unbearably pitiful.
‘I’m sorry. I won’t refuse.’
Let’s just lift his curse at his mansion and leave immediately. Then go to half-demon territory and lift Marcus hyung’s curse.
And after that, I am.
Would my death still be good news to you all? If I die after being helpful, perhaps you might feel some regret.
‘I need to be useful to the very end.’
If I don’t make mistakes, that’s how it will be.
I calmly organized my thoughts like that and, right, changed the subject.
“Archduke, I forgot to mention something earlier because of my mother’s matter.”
“……? Yes.”
“The ritual that took place there. It was targeting the four of you.”
The Archduke paused.
“Curse intensification? You could say it was a ritual to accelerate the progression of the four people’s curses. That’s what it was.”
“How do you know what kind of ritual it was?”
“That’s a secret.”
The Archduke looked down in thought, then looked at me again. It was a calm gaze without the subtle look from before.
……He’s not getting angry.
I should have become a good tool long ago. Regret about the time that had passed washed over me again, but his words came faster.
“Then we need to hurry with lifting the curses too.”
“Correct!”
Already catching on to the impact that the Crown Prince’s lifted curse would have on the half-demons.
“In that sense, let’s go to Sercil right away. It needs to be lifted over several sessions, so there’s no need to delay, right?”
When I playfully responded and coaxed him, the Archduke looked at me with narrowed eyes.
Then he relaxed his expression, stood up, and lifted me while I was still wrapped in the blanket.
“……Archduke?”
Confused by the suddenly changed eye level, I called out to him, and he answered gently:
“Stay still.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
