By Zephyria 
I have someone I love.
When he heard that innocent confession echoing in a clear voice, Adrian Pearson thought that what was coming had finally come.
“Aren’t you going to ask who it is?”
Because the beautiful boy, whom he had never doubted for a moment would be his for the rest of his life, asked him that with eyes that were still clear.
Later, Adrian and I have to get married! But marriage is only between people who love each other… I don’t know yet, the young voice that had been chattering was still vivid in his ears. While Adrian Pearson shed the skin of a towering teenager and grew into a mature man who was perfect in everyone’s eyes, the boy with the young voice also ripened with the same light. The green vine ripened into a blissful state, using the overwhelming affection poured out by the people around him as sunlight.
Love.
Yes, Noah Hamilton was now old enough to talk about love without it being strange at all.
It was as if it was a reward for himself, who had lived waiting only for Noah Hamilton to grow up and come to his side…
The person Noah Hamilton had fallen in love with was naturally Adrian Pearson, himself. From the day he gained the power to have a certain amount of intelligence, Adrian used all sorts of tricks to spread his people around the young boy, and that was no different from saying that he was gobbling up every little thing Noah did.
Under the extreme pampering of his family and the meticulous arrangements of his future spouse, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Noah Hamilton’s social circle was as narrow as a germ-free room. If there was a new figure added recently… it would be Kyle Gray, who defeated Frederick Hamilton, whom everyone had predicted to be the winner at the recent martial arts competition, by a considerable margin, and gladly took the Glory Sword, the title of the Empire’s greatest swordsman. It was only natural that the Empire’s best sword would protect the Empire’s greatest treasure. So, Adrian, after confirming the winner’s skills with his own eyes, quickly snatched him up and appointed him as Noah’s escort knight.
It was an excessive appointment for the escort of a mere Count’s son, but considering that the son would become the Crown Princess in a few years, and then the Empress a few years after that, it was a very appropriate promotion.
“…Are you referring to the youngest son of the Hamilton Family?”
“Yes. Any complaints?”
“……”
Adrian recalled the golden-haired knight wearing the victor’s laurel he had personally bestowed. He had heard that he was just a man barely clinging to a surname, with insignificant status, but the noble face holding the sword seemed more elegant and refined than Adrian Pearson, who had lived in the Imperial Palace his entire life. If he hadn’t been recognized as the partner of Noah Hamilton, who had received the Divine Mandate, and hadn’t solved the issue of legitimacy long ago, the inferiority button would have clicked at the sight of Kyle Gray’s elegant appearance, even though he was just a knight.
“No. How dare I disobey His Royal Highness’s command. I will obey the order.”
Certainly, that was the initial reaction. Kyle Gray didn’t dare to show it openly, but he seemed to have quite a bit of personal feeling about being appointed as Noah Hamilton’s escort knight. And in a rather negative direction.
It was already a well-known fact that the youngest son of the Hamilton Family, who received the Crown Prince’s extreme affection, lived cooped up in his mansion, and assigning the strongest knight as his escort was like wrapping a well-honed blade in silk and throwing it into a warehouse. Even if that warehouse was surrounded by gold, protecting a precious, one-of-a-kind diamond. To a knight who revered martial arts, a place where he had no chance to show his skills was just a warehouse.
However, less than a month after Kyle Gray took on the role of Noah Hamilton’s escort, the noble knight quickly swore an oath of allegiance to the boy, an oath he could only make once in his life. Even listening to the reports from others planted around him, it seemed beyond doubt that Kyle Gray had fallen head over heels for his young master. However, the only reason Adrian had been keeping an eye on Kyle Gray was that the feeling he had fallen into was not love.
Noah Hamilton, with his bright and cheerful nature, also seemed to quickly open his heart to the newly met escort knight and get close to him, but it was just the right amount of intimacy and warmth that a superior bestows on a subordinate. Nothing more, nothing less.
As evidence…
“Ah, is it perhaps Sir Kyle? I’ve heard that he’s quite affectionate towards you.”
“Oh, come on, what are you talking about!”
“Your Royal Highness… such irreverent language is a bit…”
The two masters and servants reacted immediately and quickly to Adrian’s cryptic question, without feeling any sense of crisis at all. The master grabbed his stomach and laughed, saying what nonsense, and the model student, who was still a minor and whose partner had been decided, couldn’t even imagine harboring ulterior motives towards his master and even became serious towards the Crown Prince.
Adrian waved his hand, saying it was just a joke, and the reactions of the two naturally subsided. Anyway, there are really no other possibilities now. The only new person around Noah Hamilton, who had even a 0.1 percent chance, has been excluded from the candidates. It was finally time to check the long-awaited harvest.
He suddenly wondered if there was even a need to be curious, but until then, Adrian was planning to happily welcome the growth of his young partner, whom he had been watching for years. If he bit the cheeks, which were flushed as if he was trying to surprise him, it seemed like sugar powder would fall off. So, he lengthened the end of his sentence as if he was really curious to death, “Well… who could it be… the one my little acorn has in his heart…”
The answer that would come back was determined from the beginning as the name of only one person. Adrian Pearson. It was his name.
“Um, um… I haven’t even told my brothers or parents yet… I’m telling Adrian and Sir Kyle first, so you have to keep it a secret!”
“How great is this name that you’re holding back like this? …Really, I’m dying to know.”
“You promised. If we ever fall in love… we’d tell each other first.”
…The uneasy feeling began to fill him up around that time.
On the soft cheeks, full of happiness and excitement, clear, blue-green eyes sparkled. It was a ticklish gaze, like starlight embedded in the night sky, or sunlight rippling through the leaves.
The sparkle in those eyes had always gently and tenderly rippled through Adrian’s heart, but the direction of that gaze was subtly off. Noah looked at Adrian once with that lovely face and smiled, then slightly turned the angle of his head.
Damn it, the still-sparkling eyes groped vaguely through the air.
“I don’t want to be forced into a relationship because of the Divine Mandate. So, if we fall in love, we’ll be honest and wish each other well.”
He had made such a promise. He had already fallen in love with the precious person who could only be his partner from the first time he met him, so that his one and only partner would choose and accept him not as a simple sense of duty or a beautiful reason like a fate determined by the heavens, but… just like Adrian Pearson himself was feeling. Only, only with love… with the only excitement that made his heart flutter.
So, he willingly wore the mask of a nice person that he had never worn in his life. Except for the Hamilton Family, who could never exist as lovers to Noah Hamilton, and him, the Crown Prince, he artificially created an environment where he couldn’t even form proper human relationships, and just waited for him to grow up quickly, to grow up quickly and fall in love with him. He was afraid that he would just return the words “I love you” like a parrot without even knowing what love was, so he had said countless times that he was pretty and liked him, but he had never been able to confess that he loved him.
Adrian Pearson had been waiting for the day when he could confess to Noah Hamilton, that he loved Noah Hamilton, that he had always loved him, so much that no one in the world could even guess.
“Actually, I’m not telling you right away either. I thought a lot about when I should tell you. I’m sorry.”
So this moment, this moment is clearly the very moment that Adrian has been waiting for. It must be.
“Adrian.”
The lips, still believing in the Crown Prince’s deceptive promise, drew a calm arc. It was a smile full of confidence. Adrian felt like he was being strangled. Noah Hamilton’s voice was choking him.
“Still, I know that I have to tell Adrian, not anyone else… I’ll have to find other Crown Princess candidates besides me.”
“……”
“Thank you for everything so far. Even though I received the Divine Mandate, it must have been hard to play with a kid like me, but you never did. Ah, now that we’re not friends or fiancés anymore, I shouldn’t be so informal.”
Looking at Noah Hamilton’s expression, which was still as cheerful as a lark, it seemed that Adrian Pearson’s facial muscles were moving well. He knew very well how Noah had thought of him until now, but when he was once again branded as a fiancé who was like a close friend who cherished him like a brother, it felt as if a chilling wind was tearing through the center of his chest.
Where did it all go wrong? Should he have kept him locked up in the Crown Prince Palace from the beginning, unable to even meet his family, and raised him to only see him? Or should he have not let his free nature go and brainwashed him to love Adrian Pearson, to have to love him?
“…So.”
“Huh?”
“So who is it? The person you love.”
Adrian smiled as relaxedly as possible. It was a smile that looked so cheerful that Noah Hamilton wouldn’t be wary at all. Even in this situation where his heart was collapsing, his mind was spinning. If Noah Hamilton, who had noticed something strange, hid the existence of the lover that he hadn’t even grasped forever and he didn’t know the identity of that ruthless and wicked person… a more terrible situation would surely continue than now.
He could never give up Noah Hamilton. It was a love he had devoted his whole life to. It was truly so for him.
So, wouldn’t it be better in many ways to comfort Noah, who would be saddened by the absence of a lover who died in an unexpected accident that had nothing to do with the Crown Prince, and naturally continue the relationship, rather than forcibly holding Noah Hamilton, who was crying and refusing, by his side?
“We’ve been engaged for so long. I should at least know who I have to give my acorn to.”
“Ah, I was going to tell you right away…!”
Haha. He spat out a laugh as if chewing it. His cheeks flushed and he twisted his body. He was shy. And very lovely.
“I can’t tell anyone else yet… Adrian has to be the only one who knows?”
“Of course.”
Noah Hamilton glanced around, then pulled Adrian’s shoulder towards him and pressed his lips close to his ear, as if he was going to keep it a secret from the other servants or his escort knight, Kyle Gray.
“Actually, I don’t know what his real name is. He wouldn’t tell me. He’s not an ordinary person. So, I gave him a human name… Allen.”
Not an ordinary person. Of course, that would be the case. Seeing that he had broken through the Crown Prince’s tight net and reached Noah Hamilton in secret without leaving any traces until now, he must be a great Sorcerer or an assassin… Anyway, he must be someone who has the ability to enter and exit the high walls of a precious place as he pleases. He didn’t even reveal his real name and identity because he was afraid of being caught.
He fell in love with such a person. The person you fell in love with… is just that kind of human?
He couldn’t understand Noah Hamilton, who was talking excitedly as if he was a fairy in a fairy tale. Why did you, who are so smart, get so foolishly deceived? Did love cover your eyes so sweetly? Just like Adrian’s love for Noah was supposed to be.
“You’ll bless us, right? Him and me.”
“……”
The voice, which confessed the betrayal to the fiancé who had not promised love, was full of the excitement of first love. Only then did Adrian realize a little that he himself wanted to cry now.
“Huh? Adrian.”
At the innocent voice and eyes that had no suspicion towards him, Adrian folded his lips into a brighter smile with a feeling of vomiting blood.
“Of course. Of course, I’ll bless you.”
He would have to wipe out the seeds of Sorcerers and assassins in the whole country. Adrian vowed so, while still pretending to be a gentle and kind person on the outside. He had always been like that in front of Noah Hamilton, so it was an act that was not much different from usual, except for the fact that his heart was a little sore.
It was the summer of Noah Hamilton’s fifteenth year.