By Zephyria 
After his first heat cycle, Noah Hamilton began to collapse uncontrollably. If the direction or manner in which he was collapsing had been like other aristocratic sons, indulging in extravagance and causing extreme harm to others, then the identification of the problem and efforts to resolve it might have been made quickly.
However, unfortunately, the collapse of Noah Hamilton as an individual was limited to thorough self-destruction and self-loathing, so no one noticed the signs until the extent became irreversible.
Even Adrian Pearson, who was more closely connected to Noah Hamilton than anyone else at the time, was only watching the abnormal signs with his eyes open, so perhaps it was only natural.
It was no longer a big secret that Noah Hamilton, who had not yet had an official engagement but was regarded by everyone as the future Crown Princess, often stayed at the Crown Prince Palace after his cycle. Since both were dignified adults, it couldn’t be a flaw anyway. Only Noah Hamilton’s family occasionally expressed dissatisfaction that the time they spent with their precious youngest son was decreasing.
While staying at the Crown Prince Palace, all Noah did was pull Adrian into the bedroom when he returned from work, or languidly lounge around while being attended to by Adrian. He ate the meals that the attendants brought in on time and then slept like the dead again.
“You’re awake now, sleepyhead?”
“Uhh…”
“You’ve been sleeping a lot, but why are you losing so much weight… Is the food at the palace not to your liking?”
“It’s not that. I just… I just want to sleep more.”
Gently coaxing and waking Noah Hamilton, who had finished his tiring day and was occupying his bed, had become Adrian Pearson’s most gentle and supreme happiness. He had heard that he had been napping all day, but he was just lovely to see the small head complaining that he wanted to sleep rather than eat dinner again. He even felt secretly proud when he thought that the fatigue was the result of the ecstasy he had inflicted on him last night.
Adrian was not so foolish as to forget Noah Hamilton’s shocking confession that he had come to love someone other than himself, but only that reckless optimism always made people’s hearts flutter more than sharp directness…
“Alright, but you’ll sleep a little more and then get up and have dinner with me. I even brought the Count’s chef just in case.”
“Okay, thank you…”
He couldn’t help but see even the ghostly face, which was becoming increasingly pale and deeply sunken, as lovely.
Adrian easily became optimistic. He was occasionally seized by a strange sense of foreboding, but he tried to dismiss it as just his mood and turned his attention away.
Noah’s lover, who was said to have the name Allen, could not be found even with the Crown Prince desperately trying to find and kill him using all sorts of means, let alone kill him. Since he didn’t know the reality, Adrian’s optimism grew more and more. He didn’t feel a sense of crisis. In Adrian’s mind, he thought that Noah had ended his clumsy first love and finally opened his body and mind to him. It seemed certain just by looking at the slender arms and legs that never refused Adrian’s touch and rather pulled him in as if he were lacking. He had never told him that he loved him first…, but he did nod to Adrian’s confession that he loved him. He even smiled back with a tearful expression. Adrian swallowed the rising anxiety like that.
Unlike Adrian’s confessions, which poured out frequently every time they made eye contact, the common words of love never flowed from his tightly closed red lips, but it must be because he was just shy. Otherwise, there was no way he could cling to an Alpha he didn’t love so desperately.
The reaction of those around him was similar. Noah’s family, who were always eager to exaggerate anything related to Noah, only watched his overnight stays at the Crown Prince Palace with squinting eyes because they thought that Noah had come to truly love the Crown Prince. They thought that he had become particularly sensitive in the past few years because of puberty, and that he had become quiet and quiet because he had become more mature. If you think about it that way, the pieces fit together perfectly, don’t they?
In reality, Noah Hamilton himself was just escaping into his dreams, unable to bear the feeling of being parched to death in the middle of the ocean where the drinking water had run out.
As mentioned above, Noah Hamilton’s daily life at that time consisted mostly of sleep. Sometimes he had dreams, and other times he turned his back on the world as quietly as death without even dreaming. From Noah’s point of view, the latter was more welcome, but the former wasn’t bad either. The dream he escaped into from reality was always a paradise. It was a bit unfortunate that shadows didn’t fall even when the sun shone, but anyway, paradise was paradise.
The artificial paradise drawn in his head was largely of two types.
In the first type of paradise, Noah Hamilton’s beloved God would appear in person and passionately love his human body. Flowers bloomed, leaves fell, snow fell, and rain poured, but God did not disappear. They were together all day long. In the way that Noah loved him, in a human way, he desired and wanted him as if Adrian desired Noah. Noah in the dream was happy, and he became more miserable after waking up.
For that reason, the second type of paradise was more comfortable. The second paradise was exactly the same as the world he lived in. He was still the beloved youngest son of the Hamilton family. The difference was that he was not receiving the Divine Mandate or the love of God, but was simply living a typical, boring life as an ordinary aristocratic son.
Not receiving the Divine Mandate, not receiving the love of God, and therefore not the Crown Prince’s fiancé, nor a Dominant Omega. Just a simple and ordinary Noah Hamilton.
He had never imagined or thought that he wanted such a form of life, but why? In another dream that unfolded as concretely as a long-held desire, Noah was finally free.
Whenever the Adrian in the dream passed him by with an indifferent gaze, he felt something was lacking, but that was all. The dream was addictive. He finally felt like he could breathe.
No one except his family treated Noah specially. Therefore, there was no affection that Noah had to repay.
The obvious and supreme affection of an unspecified number of people was always a gift that was given to him, but it didn’t feel like it had no weight at all… He didn’t know how light and refreshing a life without unprovoked love was.
After falling deeply asleep like that and having a dream, or experiencing a short death, the day passed quickly as if it were being cut off. The day passed incredibly quickly, but the week, the month, the year felt like they were crawling incredibly slowly. It was strange.
When he slept so much that he couldn’t fall asleep even when he was lying down, he burrowed into Adrian’s blanket and spread his legs wantonly.
Since opening his body had long ceased to have any special meaning to Noah Hamilton after he learned that his body had no value to the person he loved so much, there was no great meaning in only seeking Adrian either.
It was a manifestation of a self-destructive desire that he himself was not aware of, and at the same time, it was like change that he was giving back to Adrian, who had poured out so much affection that he could not repay.
“Ah, Noah…!”
Every time he saw Adrian kissing him with a touching expression and burying himself deeply in his body, Noah thought. Ah, it’s a relief that at least one person can be happy through this worthless body.
After being shaken madly under Adrian, sleepiness soon washed over him like a wave. The shortcut to falling asleep was quite convenient.
God, as always, came from time to time, or never showed himself as if he would never see him again.
He was most surprised when he was shaking under Adrian again to fall asleep. He revealed himself semi-transparently from the wall behind Adrian and kindly sent a telepathic message into Noah’s head, who was startled and tried to push Adrian away. He even moved Noah’s resisting arms and legs himself to fan Adrian. Then he smiled mockingly as if it were funny.
‘How can humans… be so unable to resist the pleasure of the flesh? It’s funny no matter how many times I see it… Ah. Don’t worry, lovely Noah. You’ll be able to shed that vulgar form when the time comes.’
He thought there was no more expectation to collapse, but the human Noah Hamilton had to slip down again. It felt like he was rolling down relentlessly from a distant cliff. He couldn’t tell where the bottom was at all.
Would the fall have been a little less steep if he had been a human who could feel sorry for himself? He didn’t know that either. Noah Hamilton did not think of himself as a pitiful and pathetic being, but rather loathed and hated the weak appearance that had been ruined like this even though he had received everyone’s love.