By Zephyria 
I arrived at Mahir’s castle, dazed and stumbling. I couldn’t even remember how I got here.
The guard, who often saw me coming and going without notice, recognized me and simply greeted me without announcing my arrival. But when I staggered, he rushed over, startled.
“Are you alright?”
“Uh…”
“Kyle?”
“Uh, I’m fine…”
I listlessly raised my arm and flicked my wrist, and he stared at me with worried eyes. Regardless, I walked through the hallway and up the stairs. After walking for a while again, I arrived in front of Mahir’s bedroom and reached for the doorknob, but the door burst open.
“Kyle.”
“…”
Mahir was visible through the wide-open door. When I met his kind eyes, which were looking at me with concern, I suddenly felt sad.
“Brother…”
“What’s wrong?”
His expression turned serious when I started to sob. But only for a moment. Mahir gently took my hand, which was still clutching the doorknob, and patted me as if to reassure me.
“What happened?”
“I’m getting married.”
“What?”
Mahir’s eyes widened in surprise at my sudden words. I looked at him, who was speechless for a moment, and said with a tearful face.
“My birthday is in a week, so they want me to do it then.”
“Your birthday is in a week?”
Mahir, who knew when my birthday was, tilted his head and asked, but that wasn’t important right now. Khalifa rarely went back on his word. Besides, I didn’t even show any sign of disliking it in that spot, so unless a natural disaster occurred, the wedding would definitely take place in a week.
Should I have asked him to reconsider? No, if I had, I might have been stabbed by the knife Khalifa was holding.
My energy drained and my shoulders drooped. Mahir, who was looking at me in dismay, grabbed my hand and gently pulled me. I entered his room, dragged my feet to the sofa, and collapsed on it.
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You don’t even know who you’re marrying?”
Listening to his voice, full of bewilderment, made me feel even more disturbed. Mahir sat next to me silently and patted my back, and all I could do was groan.
After a long silence, as if choosing his words carefully, Mahir cautiously said to me.
“I’ll look into it, so don’t worry too much. Your Majesty wouldn’t choose a strange person as your partner, would he?”
“…”
Mahir, who was deeply devoted and naturally kind, seemed to think so, but I didn’t. Khalifa, who left all the state affairs to Crown Prince Mahir and spent his days addicted to drugs and women, couldn’t possibly make a proper decision.
It would be a relief if he was just a strange person. What if he was a five-year-old child, or an old man who was about to turn sixty? Could it be that Khalifa was throwing away someone he was tired of playing with? Khalifa was capable of anything.
“I don’t want to marry someone I don’t even know.”
And marriage was about choosing a life partner to spend the rest of your life with. I couldn’t make such an important decision, perhaps the most important thing in my life, in this way.
Seeing me so dejected and gloomy, Mahir looked at me with a pitiful expression. At that sight, I suddenly thought that maybe Khalifa hadn’t impulsively decided on my marriage because he had a mental breakdown.
The marriage of a royal family member was not just a promise between two people to meet and spend their lives together. For example, Mahir’s future spouse had already been decided before he was even born, purely for political purposes.
Thinking about that, maybe I…
No, still, isn’t it a bit strange to marry someone I don’t even know in a week, as if I’m just getting rid of pending work?
“Sigh.”
I couldn’t help but sigh. It was something I had to do eventually anyway. There was no point in complaining now that it was too late to back out.
“Ah, really. I hate it. I totally hate it.”
Still, I rolled around on the sofa and continued to whine. The more Mahir pitied me, the more my fault would be diluted.
“It is a bit too sudden.”
“Waaah…”
I buried my face in the sofa and pretended to be gloomy at his muttered words.
“I told you, I’ll ask Your Majesty for details and see what’s going on.”
As expected, Mahir was the only one I could trust in this cold and desolate castle. Mahir, who sighed and smiled as he looked at me with my hands clasped together and my eyes filled with emotion, said, “Ah,” and continued.
“Don’t cause any trouble for a while and stay put.”
At those words, I quickly nodded.
“Okay. I’ll stay put.”
“And don’t sneak out of the castle like you did yesterday.”
He knew after all. I’m glad I pretended to be upset.
I pursed my lips and nodded. Then Mahir’s large hand touched my head. As expected, kind Mahir wouldn’t get angry at a poor, pitiful groom who was being forced to marry in a week…
“I told you to tell me when you go out, right? What did I say would happen if you sneaked out by yourself without telling me?”
“…”
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
The hand on top of my head began to get heavier little by little. I opened my mouth because I felt like I would be crushed if I didn’t answer.
“…You said you’d never let me out of the castle again…”
I mumbled softly in a heavy voice, and Mahir closed his mouth. If Mahir’s eyes were weapons, I would have been pierced to death a long time ago.
“Kyle.”
At the sound of him calling me, I slowly raised my eyes, which had been looking down. His face was still stern and scary, but his voice was a little softer than before.
“It’s not that I’m telling you not to go out. Outside is different from inside the castle. The environment, the people, and the level of danger. I’ve always told you that.”
“I know. But I’m being careful too…”
I wanted to go outside to have some free time alone, not to be protected and see the outside world. And if I went out with the escort that Mahir had assigned to me, everything I met, heard, and experienced would go into his ears.
Even if it was nothing else, I had one or two things that I definitely didn’t want to tell anyone.
“I heard that another woman in your Harem died a week ago.”
At those words, I flinched again and subtly avoided Mahir’s gaze.
“Two months ago, I heard that three people died suddenly from a strange disease, and this time, I heard that someone was burned to death for displeasing you.”
“…”
He didn’t just hear rumors, he investigated it himself. Mahir was good in every way, but this was the problem.
No, what kind of brother in the world investigates what happens in his younger brother’s Harem? Or did he notice something strange?
As I avoided his gaze with an uneasy face, Mahir looked at me for a long time with a troubled expression and muttered to himself.
“What on earth are you doing…”
“…”
It was best to keep my mouth shut if I was suspected, but I couldn’t help but say something because his sigh was full of worry.
“I didn’t do anything bad.”
Mahir raised his eyes at my hesitant words.
“Isn’t burning people to death a bad thing?”
“That’s… No, it is, but…”
“What I know means that other people can know this well enough. Do you understand?”
“…”
I felt like I knew what Mahir wanted to say to me. I had handled it as quietly as possible, so how did he find out?
“If you make people misunderstand you like that, no one will believe you later, even if you say it’s not true. Kyle, do you understand what I’m saying?”
“…”
“And you were wrong to sneak out, so you’ll be punished.”
At the word “punishment,” I made the most pitiful expression I could and drooped my shoulders.
“What punishment? I’m already so upset about getting married in a week, and suddenly I have a headache…”
“Write sixteen pages of reflection.”
“What? No, I’m almost seventeen now, and if you keep telling me to write a reflection…”
“If you don’t write it this time and run away, you’ll get spanked.”
“Just punch me in the face instead…”
I said with a tearful face, but Mahir only looked down at me with a solemn face that seemed impenetrable.