By Zephyria 
“The monster moving suddenly, and that necklace just sitting there in the center… it definitely doesn’t seem ordinary.”
The Wizards hadn’t found anything particularly strange, and Aska didn’t know either, so now the only option was to try and decipher the parchment he’d brought out with the necklace.
“Was there originally no pattern here?”
Aska asked, looking at the necklace’s pendant. It was something I’d also found a bit odd.
“It looks like an unfinished piece.”
Aska muttered, handing me the necklace.
The gold pendant had no decorations or patterns. Not even a single jewel was embedded in the plain surface, making it look like it was half-finished, just as Aska said.
“Should I hold onto it?”
At that question, I looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“This? The necklace? Why?”
“Maybe if you carry it around, you might discover something strange.”
That might be true, but since nothing had been revealed, I wasn’t keen on the idea. If I had some unidentified trinket and something bad happened, it would be a disaster.
“It might be dangerous, so no.”
I put the necklace back in the box, speaking firmly. Aska quickly changed the subject, as if he had no interest.
“Why did you sigh earlier?”
“Are you still on about that?”
“You’ve been doing it a lot lately. And you keep avoiding me.”
At those words, I tilted my head. I knew I’d been sighing, but I didn’t know when I’d been avoiding him.
“Avoiding what?”
“You don’t come back quickly when you go out.”
It was true that I was busy with Aska’s problem and other things, but thinking about it, there had been a few times when I’d left because I felt uncomfortable being with him. Or, should I even call it uncomfortable?
If I recognized that unfamiliar and anxious feeling, which was hard to name, even once, it would ruin my mood for the whole day, so I couldn’t help it.
Still, it seemed like it had been a bit much lately, so I cleared my throat and said, “I’m going to see Fatima later. I’ll just say what I need to say and come back quickly, so don’t say weird things. Why would I avoid you? That’s ridiculous.”
I snapped back, feeling guilty for no reason, but Aska became even colder.
“Why are you going there again?”
“She’s leaving soon, and I can’t just kick her out with nothing but her body. I need to talk about where and how she’s going to live.”
His expression softened, but Aska’s voice was still sulky.
“Why does that kind of thing even exist in the first place? You don’t even go there often. Just get rid of it while you’re at it.”
In fact, I could get rid of the Harem now if I wanted to, but it was better not to do anything that would stand out unnecessarily. And I’d heard that Khalifa’s health had been deteriorating recently. It meant that this was coming to an end.
Still, since I didn’t know what would happen, it was better to let people who could leave go if I had the chance. As I was quietly thinking about that, Aska warned me.
“Just talk and come back.”
“Then what else would I do besides talk?”
“Don’t shower there.”
He was so sensitive to smells that once, I’d gone to the Harem and showered before coming back, and just thinking about it made my head throb. He’d screamed and made such a fuss that I couldn’t sleep all night and had to endure Aska’s annoyance with my bare body.
That’s why I couldn’t help but think of Aska as a beast. That’s also why I was always troubled whenever he brought up my height and talked about mating…
If he was just curious about what felt good, I’d even considered trying it with someone else, but I couldn’t do that either. It was close to a gut feeling, but somehow, I had a feeling that if I even brought up something similar to Aska, something would become irreversible.
It was a problem if he got angry and said he didn’t like it, and it was also a problem if he said it was okay to bring someone else.
“…”
As I was thinking, such a scene naturally came to mind. Just as my chest was starting to feel tight and stuffy, Aska, who had been staring at me, raised his leg.
He leaned back against the armrest of the sofa, put his leg on my lap, and lay down halfway.
Lying down on the sofa was one thing, but where was he putting his leg? I was dumbfounded as I looked at his bare leg neatly placed on my lap, and Aska reached out his hand.
“Give me that again.”
“What?”
“The necklace.”
“Why?”
I didn’t really want to give it to him, but Aska snatched the box away almost as if he was fishing for it. Then, he took out the necklace and suddenly put it around his neck.
“It’d be better if I just kept this.”
“Are you going to give it back or not?”
I smacked Aska’s leg with a loud thwack.
“Go and bring the parchment that came with this too. I’ll keep everything. Then, maybe one of the things you have to take care of outside will be reduced.”
I was about to say that I’d already sent the parchment somewhere else, but I had no choice but to shut my mouth at the words that followed. So, the reason he was suddenly being so stubborn was probably because I’d been running around here and there lately under the pretext of being busy.
“Now that the woman you keep talking about, Fatima, is going outside the castle, you won’t be busy anymore, right? And I’ve been meaning to say this, but I’m not curious about my identity at all, so you don’t have to try so hard to find out.”
As I listened, I suddenly felt wronged. Who was it that was constantly going back and forth between the Greenhouse and the Training arena in the first place? It was ridiculous to argue about this, but if I had to be childish, Aska had started it first.
“I’m investigating your identity not simply because I’m curious, but because it seems to be related to how you came to this place. And if you don’t want me to go outside, then you shouldn’t go to the Greenhouse and the Training arena either.”
Even as I spoke, I was so disgusted with myself for being so childish. But I had no choice because it seemed like I couldn’t communicate with him otherwise.
“Why do you always make such a fuss about the Greenhouse? You’re the one who told me to go there. And I have to keep going to the Training arena if I want to become a knight.”
“Why do you want to become a knight anyway? Did Parha tell you that? That you can become a knight if you keep training at the Training arena?”
If that was really the case, I was going to go there right away and severely punish him for saying unnecessary things, but Aska shouted.
“You said you don’t have a knight with a title, right? So that’s why I’m trying to become one.”
So why on earth? And strictly speaking, it just didn’t exist in Actan, but it did exist. There was only one, though.
I hesitated to tell him the truth. Because then he would ask questions like why it didn’t exist in Actan, or where it was and what it was doing.
Explaining that would require telling a very long story, so when I closed my mouth, Aska punched me in the shoulder.
“…”
It didn’t hurt, but my brow furrowed automatically at the sudden violence. I looked at him with a look that asked why he hit me, but Aska silently punched my shoulder again.
This time it hurt quite a bit, so I grabbed the spot I’d been hit and protested.
“Why are you hitting me?”
“You hit my leg earlier.”
Anyone could tell that it wasn’t because he’d been hit in the leg, but he was saying strange things. I gently stroked Aska’s leg that I had hit a little while ago and said, “I’m telling you, you can’t be a knight. It’s not because I don’t want you to, but think about your status. What Imperial Princess Consort in the world can become a knight?”
“Your Imperial Princess Consort is Aegis. I’m Aska.”
I couldn’t understand what he was saying. In the first place, Aegis and Aska were the same person to me.
“Why do you suddenly want to become a knight?”
I asked, trying to go back to the beginning and talk about it step by step, and Aska mumbled with a sulky expression.
“The Emperor has over a thousand knights.”
How many of them actually performed the duties of a knight? He had just given them titles indiscriminately to keep them by his side, so probably half of Khalifa’s knights had never even held a sword.
When I kept my mouth shut, Aska hit my shoulder again. Still, this time he hit me with his palm instead of his fist, so it was just loud and didn’t hurt.
“Say something if you have something to say. Don’t just roll your eyes.”
“…What does it matter how many knights your brother and the Emperor have?”
I remembered that Mahir had said he had thirty knights, so I asked.
“You don’t have any, do you? Do you?”
I didn’t want to say that I did, but if I said that I didn’t, it would be a lie… It wasn’t that I didn’t want to lie because my conscience was pricking me, but it was closer to the fact that Aska was quick-witted and I couldn’t.
Even if I lied, he would find out anyway. When I just closed my mouth, Aska hit me again.
“Why do you keep hitting me? Am I a drum?”
“You do have a knight. You said you have one!”
“Where did you hear that?”
Aska shouted when I frowned.
“Is that the problem right now? Why don’t you ever tell me anything! I let it slide when I was little because I was small, but now I’ve grown a lot taller!”
Looking at Aska, who was throwing a tantrum with a dissatisfied expression, I couldn’t understand what this had to do with height.
“You always have that problem. Whenever I ask you something, you change the subject, suddenly go out, and just say irrelevant things… Even if I ask Parha and Mahir, they don’t answer and just look at each other! Why don’t you tell me anything!”
“When have I ever changed the subject whenever you asked me something?”
I tried to argue back, but Aska listed the topics I had been avoiding all along as if he had been waiting for this.
“Why can’t you taste anything! Why do you keep sending the women and men in the Harem away! Why didn’t you look for a doctor when you were little and cut out the festering wound yourself! Why is your only knight in a foreign country! Why do you keep sighing lately! Where are you going every time you sneak out! You have someone by your side…!”
I reached out and covered Aska’s mouth because it felt like it would never end if I left it like this.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“Move! Don’t think you can just apologize and get away with it. Don’t try to gloss over things like that!”
Seeing him bring up things that had happened years ago, it seemed like everything that had been building up had exploded. I patted Aska’s leg soothingly.
“It’s not a good story, so that’s why. It’s not like I didn’t tell you on purpose. Well, some of them I didn’t tell you on purpose…”
“So what if it’s not a good story? Do you think I only want to hear good things from you? You were talking about knights with Parha a few days ago too, and you two made eye contact and looked at each other. You were rolling your eyes and keeping it a secret from me!”
“…”
Looking at Aska, who was feeling wronged like someone who had been ostracized, I was speechless. I had scolded Parha for saying unnecessary things, but he was mistaking it for some kind of secret story.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, just say you don’t want to talk about it. Don’t just look at me and avoid me like that. That’s more annoying. I don’t care if everyone else knows and I’m the only one who doesn’t, and I live like a fool.”
“…”
Are you telling me to talk or not…?