By Zephyria 
The force choking my neck weakened at my question. A brief silence followed. No matter how hard I racked my brain, I couldn’t guess what kind of answer would come.
It was problematic whether the answer was yes or no. If I said no, it would mean that I was the one who doubted it wasn’t a cure.
If I said yes…
“Yeah…”
Aska’s answer escaped like a sigh. It was so faint and hazy that it could be dismissed as an auditory hallucination. Maybe it wasn’t an answer but a groan in his sleep. Shouldn’t I just pretend I didn’t hear it?
“Because you get flustered.”
“…”
As soon as I had that thought, Aska’s voice reached my ear.
“You get flustered when you get a kiss.”
“Not a kiss, a cure.”
“Wasn’t that a kiss?”
“…”
At my silence, Aska chuckled, his body trembling slightly. As soon as I heard him laugh, I flopped backward. Aska fell on top of me, making a strange groan.
“Ack.”
The arms and legs wrapped around my neck and waist naturally loosened. I got up and straightened my crumpled clothes.
“I’ll be back, so sleep.”
“Hehehe.”
“And don’t laugh so weirdly. You keep doing it since earlier…”
As if teasing me, Aska clutched his stomach and rolled around on the bed. I should just ignore him and leave, but my feet wouldn’t move.
After laughing for a while and rolling around on the bed, Aska looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“Does it bother you?”
“…”
“You only get bothered at times like that, that’s why I do it. You don’t otherwise.”
It was a sentence I couldn’t understand even after hearing it. Aska, lying flat on his back, spread his arms and muttered, looking at the ceiling.
“I think I like it a little when you’re bothered.”
“…”
“Not all the time, just sometimes… Not every day… Just really occasionally…”
Aska’s voice grew softer as he slowly closed his eyes. And before long, he fell asleep like that. I quietly watched his chest rise and fall with each breath, then approached him.
He usually sleeps with his mouth closed, but today his lips were slightly parted. His complexion had improved a lot, but his eyes were still red, probably because he had been crying earlier.
As I was stroking near the corner of his eye with my fingertip, I suddenly got angry and aimed a fist at Aska’s head. No, I was definitely going to, but in the end, I hesitated in the air and relaxed my clenched fist.
“Haa…”
I sighed and sat on the bedside, and Aska, who had been tossing and turning, turned towards me. Looking at his face, sound asleep, my inner violence flared up again.
I wanted to flick Aska’s smooth forehead, or pinch his nose tightly so he couldn’t breathe, or wrap him up in a blanket and throw him out the window…
Throwing him out might be too much, so maybe just dump him on the floor… Anyway, I’m going to make sure he never drinks a drop of alcohol again.
I didn’t have the confidence to do this twice.
“…”
Maybe it was because I was looking at a sleeping person, but I started to feel tired too. Or maybe the aftermath of putting up with all of Aska’s drunken antics was finally catching up to me.
I wanted to lie down and sleep with him like this, but I couldn’t. I knew it in my head, but my body wouldn’t move easily.
I really didn’t want to go.
I really, really…
Thinking that, I unknowingly lay down next to Aska. I lay on my side, just looking at his face right in front of me. After a while, I finally sighed inwardly and put my hand on the bed.
As I gave strength to get up, Aska opened his eyes, as if he felt the blanket sinking down. Before I could even think, my arm moved on its own.
When I came to my senses, I was already kissing Aska’s eyes.
“Are you going?”
His voice was so small that I felt an unusual sense of guilt. It was nothing special, but it was hard to answer, and as my lips parted, Aska fell asleep again.
“…”
Can’t I just not go? Should I just say I got drunk and passed out too? But people who know me already know that I don’t get drunk no matter how much I drink.
Then what about being attacked by a monster? Or fainting from overwork? Or going out to the garden for some fresh air and tripping and falling? If I broke a leg, no one would suspect anything.
“…”
I seriously considered it, but it was too much. I only had to be gone for a few hours, there was no reason to make such a big deal out of it.
It seemed better to just go and come back quickly, so I forced myself to get up. I spent a lot of time putting a pillow under Aska’s head and covering him with a blanket before quietly leaving the room.
It took quite a while to call a Servant, tidy up my clothes, and return to Sa Dillin. As expected, as soon as I entered the banquet hall, Mahir, who had spotted me, approached.
“Why are you only coming now? Your Majesty was looking for you.”
I suddenly felt thirsty and drank a glass of wine in one gulp before asking. Come to think of it, the person who should have been there wasn’t.
“Where is Your Majesty?”
“There was a speech a little while ago, and he was definitely there until then…”
Mahir handed me another glass of wine and spoke. He was saying something long, but I started to lose focus rapidly. Seeing his face naturally reminded me of the late King.
If Mahir was really the late King’s son, what would our relationship be? Of course, it was a far-fetched assumption with no basis, but once the suspicion started, it didn’t go away easily.
I couldn’t ask him outright…
“Are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded, took a sip of wine, and asked.
“How does he seem today?”
Mahir didn’t open his mouth for a long time, as if he was wondering what to say. His expression made me uneasy, and I frowned involuntarily.
“Why are you reacting like that? Is it that serious?”
He seemed okay earlier, though? His eyes were clear, he wasn’t staggering, he wasn’t talking nonsense, and he wasn’t acting sadistically…
“It’s not that, it’s that he seems too good…”
“Good?”
I paused, repeating the unexpected words. Come to think of it, Khalifa had seemed unusually normal when he came to Talim a while ago.
Compared to ordinary people, it wasn’t normal, but compared to the usual Khalifa, it was like heaven and earth. His eyes were clear, he didn’t kill anyone, and above all, he let me, who had talked back to him, return in one piece…
When he spoke, he jumped back and forth between the past and present and rambled incoherently, but it wasn’t to the point where I couldn’t understand him.
“He came to Talim a few days ago, and he seemed a bit strange then too.”
“I heard. He came to see me the next day without any notice.”
“To Jihad?”
Mahir nodded at my words. He usually doesn’t step out of the castle, what’s gotten into him these past few days?
“He’s been going to the office since around then too.”
“He worked?”
Mahir nodded again at my bewildered expression. His face was the same as usual, without any particular emotion, but I somehow felt that Mahir’s mood was sinking.
“Why did he come to Jihad?”
“Well…”
What kind of bad things did Khalifa say in Jihad to make him like this? Or did he perhaps tell Mahir to marry too?
Mahir had already promised Nadia when he was young that he would not marry anyone else. But if it was a royal order, Mahir couldn’t help it. That might be why he’s in such a bad mood.
However, contrary to my expectations, Mahir said something completely unexpected.
“He read me The Study of Kings.”
“…What?”
For a moment, I wondered if I was drunk from the glass of wine I had just drunk. I put down the glass I was holding and asked calmly again.
“What did he do?”
“He read a book to me in the garden all morning.”
“…”
I hadn’t misheard…
Mahir sighed, seeing me gaping and in shock.
“Close your mouth. Do you know how many people are looking at you right now?”
Of course I knew, but even so, I couldn’t close my mouth. Rather, Mahir, who was maintaining his composure, was even stranger. How could he be so calm, even if it was a few days ago?
As if reading my expression, Mahir muttered.
“It’s happened before. It was the first time since I became an adult, though.”
“…”
It wasn’t even the first time…
While I was disgusted, a scene flashed through my mind.
‘How do you know all that?’
I had asked Mahir that once when we were children. Mahir had taught me a lot, when making mistakes, failing, and not being able to protect things, eventually breaking and losing them, was my daily life.
We lived in similar environments and lived similar lives, so why were we so different? Does just living 10 years longer make such a difference? If I get as old as Mahir, will I be able to distinguish between people who should be killed and people who shouldn’t be killed?
I asked with many questions, but Mahir never gave me an answer. He just smiled at me, and at that time, I was stupid and simple, so I thought he just didn’t want to tell me the answer.
“Your Highness.”
A Servant quietly approached and whispered to Mahir.
“He’s not in the lounge.”
At those words, Mahir paused. It seemed Khalifa had left the banquet hall. Mahir didn’t show any signs of panic and ordered the Servant to search the area around the banquet hall.