By Zephyria 
Lying in bed, Aska stared at the ceiling with a serious expression and said,
“I’ve had Hwabyung since I was little.”
“Hwabyung? You?”
Aska seemed to have never heard of it.
“I don’t really know… I sometimes talked strangely in my sleep, but was that because of Hwabyung too?”
“What did I say?”
“Just this and that… But when I think about it, I guess I could have developed such a disease.”
“Why?”
Aska turned to face me. Then, he twirled my hair with his index finger and said,
“First of all, you’re incredibly patient. You keep holding back, so anger is bound to build up inside. You should just smash everything when you get mad, but you can’t because people are watching.”
“……”
Something about what he said was a bit strange, but I kept listening.
“When I didn’t listen to you when I was little, you never got angry. Even when I bit you and drew blood, you just sighed.”
Little Aska… Wasn’t it that I couldn’t get angry, not that I didn’t? It’s okay to bite a little and draw blood. How cute would Aska be when he doesn’t listen, is stubborn, and only whines? Just imagining it made me want to pinch his cheek.
I can remember other things well, but I don’t know why I can’t remember things related to Aska. He must have been very cute.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t heard how you became the Imperial Princess Consort yet. Why does everyone think you’re a woman?”
“Ah, that…”
Aska’s expression twisted at my question. He seemed reluctant to talk about it. After a long pause, Aska started a long story with a reluctant expression.
So, to summarize it briefly, he came to Actan disguised as a woman in place of his sister.
“So everyone thought you were a princess?”
“Only you and Mahir knew my true identity. And Parha…”
“Who’s Parha?”
“A knight who was with Mahir. He taught me swordsmanship.”
“Why did you learn from someone else instead of me?”
Not my knight, but my brother’s knight? It was too absurd.
“He said it wasn’t good to learn from you. He didn’t tell me the details, so I don’t know either.”
“What’s not good about it? Were you two alone in the Training arena?”
“Yeah.”
It was already in the past, so there was nothing I could do, and I didn’t even remember it, so it was hard to get angry anymore. The more I heard Aska’s words, the more I felt unpleasant about my past self.
He didn’t say “I love you” often, said nonsense about only having a face to look at, didn’t kiss, and left him alone with a strange man… I had never seen such a pathetic person in my life.
“But why did you learn swordsmanship? What would you ever need to use it for?”
“I couldn’t control my strength back then… And I wanted to become a knight later.”
“What?”
I jumped up from the bed at the unexpected words.
“A knight? What knight?”
“You always react like that when I say I want to be a knight.”
At those words, I praised my past self for the first time. At least I didn’t say it was okay for the Imperial Princess Consort to become a knight. Good job.
“Absolutely not. Just know that it’s not allowed.”
“Why? Tell me the reason.”
His eyes didn’t look like he would listen even if I told him the reason. I said the thing that bothered me the most out of hundreds of reasons.
“It’s dangerous.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not allowed, even if it’s ridiculous.”
“I’ve never been weaker than you, even when I was smaller than you.”
It didn’t seem like he would listen at all. But I quickly regained my composure. I was a little flustered earlier, so I couldn’t think deeply, but Aska couldn’t become a knight anyway.
Just as I was about to offer some empty encouragement, Aska sighed.
“It’s okay. I don’t want to be a knight right now anyway.”
“Then why did you want to be a knight so badly back then?”
Did his dream change? I was very nervous that he might say he would take a similar job using a sword, but Aska frowned. He looked very wronged.
“You kept not coming home and wandering around alone. And you wouldn’t let me go outside or talk to anyone.”
“……”
I had heard that I wandered around alone before. It was the first time I heard that I didn’t let Aska go outside. But when I thought about the situation I heard, it was understandable.
“Was it because you didn’t want anyone to find out? So you kept staying at home? In that Greenhouse?”
I thought of the Greenhouse I saw in my dream. There were a lot of miscellaneous things and a tower made of stacked stones, so I wondered what kind of combination it was… It must have been all made by Aska because he was bored.
I felt sorry for him because he must have been very lonely. I reached out and stroked his cheeks and nape, but Aska shook his head.
“No, I secretly went out because I was frustrated.”
“What?”
“How can a person just stay at home? Well, I’m not a person, but anyway, I could always find out where you were, so I went to see you. I even secretly stuck a small leaf on the back of your head, but you never noticed.”
“……”
The pitiful image of Aska waiting for me alone in a cage turned into something like a wild monkey escaping a building. I was a little embarrassed, but I didn’t mind that image either, so I stroked his head.
“You’re smart and have good execution.”
“……”
“Good job, good job.”
“……”
Even though I praised him, Aska’s expression was still sullen. But his cheeks were a little redder than before, so he seemed to be in a good mood.
“But what does that have to do with being a knight?”
“I heard that if you become a royal guard, you have to go everywhere together.”
“Because of me?”
It was an unexpected reason. When I widened my eyes, Aska avoided my gaze and looked elsewhere.
“There’s that, and I also needed a title. If you become a formal knight, you can get a peerage.”
I enjoyed the wave of emotion spreading throughout my body, but then I paused.
“You’re already the Imperial Princess Consort, what peerage are you talking about? Being the Imperial Princess Consort is your peerage and status.”
“That’s Aegis’s.”
“Aegis?”
What was Aegis? After racking my brain for a while, I barely remembered the identity of that name. Suddenly, thunder and lightning struck in my head. I widened my eyes and asked, just in case.
“Is that why you told me not to say Imperial Princess Consort?”
“I’m a bastard, so if you think about it, I’m not even royalty. Even if I have some blood mixed in, I’ve never been formally recognized. No one knows me, so I’m a non-existent person in that country, and after I disguised myself as Aegis, even the traces that were there were erased…”
My good mood plummeted in an instant. The more I heard him speak calmly, the worse I felt. I recalled the story Aska had told me and asked.
“Where is the capital of Calderia? Is it close to here?”
“The capital? You have to go further inland.”
“Is it close to the Nora River?”
“It’s on the opposite side. Why?”
It was a real shame. If it was close to the capital, I was going to go to the royal capital and take a look at their faces. But since we’re in the same country, won’t there be a day when I see them someday?
“Just because. Anyway, I’ll create a status for you, so think about what you want to be.”
“I have a status… I got it here.”
“What? So you’re a Calderian now?”
Aska smiled when I widened my eyes. He had the expression of an excited child.
“I paid taxes for the first time then too.”
“……”
“The guild gave me a house at first, but there was no furniture inside, so I bought a table and chairs. I bought that with the contract money I received that day, and…”
As I watched Aska excitedly talking about this and that, my heart felt tight. He was clearly enjoying it, but why did my heart ache so much? I couldn’t even tell if it hurt because I was happy or because I was sad.
“You were so happy to pay taxes and buy a table?”
“It was the first time I bought something after earning money. I only bought food when I bought something, but I bought furniture for the first time. And when I paid taxes, I felt like I had become an adult.”
“……”
I still felt sorry for Aska and thought he was cute, but it was too much, and my lower abdomen throbbed. Am I really trash? I’m getting an erection looking at a kid who says he feels like an adult after paying taxes. You crazy bastard…
“Why did you only buy a table and chairs? Don’t you have a lot of money? Didn’t you have it back then? You gave the kids a lot of jewels too.”
“Kids? Ah, I just picked those up in the mountains, I didn’t buy them.”
Even if he picked them up in the mountains, a gift was still a gift. I smiled as naturally as possible so as not to look awkward.
“Why all of a sudden? You’ve never even talked to them, have you? You haven’t even seen them for long, but you wanted to give them to them because they were pretty?”
“I gave it to them because I was grateful.”
“What are you grateful for? Did you get something delicious to eat? When? When I was sleeping?”
“What are you talking about? What did I get to eat? I gave it to them because they were so good to you all this time.”
I was shocked as if I had been hit hard on the head by those words. I curled up and let out a long sigh. I was completely erect, and my skin was stretched. Aska reached down and groped the inside of my thigh as I groaned.
“If you’re going to do it, do it in my mouth.”
Isn’t he crazy? I was dizzy at the vulgar words he uttered so casually.
I could already feel that my underwear was wet, and the tip was already sticky. And I don’t know how he knew without even looking, but that wasn’t important right now.
“No…”
“Why?”
“Your lips are torn, so it hurts.”
I said that and took a breath to calm down a little, but Aska suddenly stood up. Then he spread my legs and sat between them. Aska looked down at me and said softly.
“I like the tingling sensation every time you touch it with your tongue…”
“Ah, crazy.”
In the end, I couldn’t even take off my underwear and came in it as it was.