LNU 62

“I’ll be leaving soon.”

“L-leaving…? So, so soon?”

Carlisle asked back, startled as if he had heard something he had never imagined. He was stuttering, perhaps because he was so surprised.

“Soon? It’s already been almost a month since I came to Graham.”

“Then when exactly are you leaving? A, a month from now? Or perhaps, p-perhaps, in a fortnight?”

Carlisle’s voice trembled terribly, as if he couldn’t accept being left in a fortnight either. Seeing Carlisle’s eyes, which seemed almost desperate, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. He may have been trying to look serious, but to my eyes, he was just a crying child, and my heart wasn’t at ease driving a wedge into such a child’s heart.

“If I could leave in a month or a fortnight…, I would be very happy…”

Unfortunately, this schedule was not something I could adjust as I pleased. The day I had to meet the Crown Prince, who would come to the border of the territory to greet me, had been set from the beginning.

“It’s… I’m leaving in the morning three days from now.”

“What? So soon? Three days, three days from now?!”

Carlisle’s expression turned so pale that it looked almost blue.

“It can’t be, how long has it been since we met, that you have to leave so quickly…? Do you have to go? Can’t you stay in Graham longer? If it’s because His Grace the Grand Duke hasn’t given permission, it doesn’t matter. I’ll take responsibility and get it.”

“No, no, calm down first. Calm down!”

Why is this Young Master, who hasn’t even revealed to me that he’s the Young Master of Graham, suddenly rushing like this? Does that mean he’s that sad to part with me? Thinking that way, I felt secretly proud. Hehe, it was worth carefully targeting him for a month.

I couldn’t tell a child who didn’t even know I was a nobleman about the Crown Prince and all the other circumstances, so I used the excuse I had used well for the past month again.

“I’m sad too, but what can I do? I can only move as Young Master Hamilton, whom I serve, commands.”

“Ugh…”

That was to shift all the responsibility to ‘Noah Hamilton.’

“Young Master understands, right? I’ve told you so many times how stubborn our Young Master is.”

While in the Grand Duke’s territory, especially before Carlisle started to open up to me, whether I suddenly appeared in the study and blocked Carlisle’s path, or suddenly appeared in the piano room and greeted Carlisle, all my excuses were ‘Young Master Hamilton.’ “We meet again, Young Master? I’m running errands for our Young Master today!” I would say with an innocent smile, and Carlisle would frown but help me with the ridiculous errands I made up, naturally spending time by my side.

“You, more than me… that Hamilton or whatever…”

“Yes? What did you say? I can’t hear you well.”

“…….”

Carlisle, who muttered something resentfully in a voice so small that it was hard to hear, stared at me intently for a moment, then turned around and ran away without saying goodbye. As if he was running away from me.

I thought about chasing after him, but I stopped. After all, I had already found Jeremy Graham’s diary, which was the decisive flag, and I had nurtured his affection, so there was no need to rush.

“Ufufufufu…, hufufufufu…”

See, I told you he was mine, right? I felt like bragging endlessly, even though there was nowhere to brag. Handing over the diary and saying, “Ta-da, I’m actually Young Master Hamilton himself. I didn’t mean to deceive you from the beginning, but it’s forbidden to meet Graham’s direct line who hasn’t undergone growth with the same noble status, so I couldn’t say it,” was the last goal in this territory.

“Huh? Young Master. Are you trying to play some kind of prank again? Your expression is too sinister.”

I returned to my room early for once, since Carlisle had gone in too. As I was constantly bursting into laughter with satisfaction, Nicole narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Oh, Nicole. What are you saying?”

“Yesterday too, you were messing around recklessly in the closed library? I almost fainted when I saw the dust on your clothes.”

“That’s all over now. I’ll never play those pranks again.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Don’t you trust me?”

“Uheueueueum…”

Nicole crossed his arms in a cautious manner and hummed, then made a big decision and said he would trust me for now. Seriously. Did he need such a big decision to trust me?

“By the way. Nicole, you’re diligently running around too, right? If I just stayed in the room after you begged to come, that would be suspicious too.”

“Suspicious? Of course, the master would think it’s strange, but surely not that much…”

What I was paying attention to was not my father’s reaction, but the eyes of the knights who were personally assigned to me by the Crown Prince, but Nicole, who didn’t know the exact relationship between me and the Crown Prince, didn’t seem to realize that. All Nicole knew was that His Highness the Crown Prince seemed to like our Young Master quite a bit, and he had assigned guards without making it obvious, worrying about public attention.

“Anyway, that play seems to be popular. Other nobles came to see it too, and they even made a course and guided them around?”

“Then that’s a relief.”

“To be honest, I was very worried when Young Master first said he wanted to live in disguise… But seeing Young Master’s expression, you seem to have brightened up a lot, so I’m relieved. There were no accidents either.”

“Thanks for indulging me, Nicole. Now you can relax. When are we going back?”

“In the morning three days from now.”

“Then please take care of me for two more days!”

“Okay. But dangerous things are absolutely forbidden. Can you promise?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

Just thinking about the old diary hidden in my arms made me feel good. I nodded confidently to Nicole without any worries and calculated the timing in my mind.

If we’re leaving in the morning three days from now, I should tell Carlisle the truth at least before tomorrow evening. Even if it were someone else, Carlisle, who is only tough on the outside but soft and squishy on the inside, wouldn’t know that I’ve been lying to him all this time.

Well, Carlisle himself hadn’t been honest about his identity either. Seeing that, Carlisle must have wanted to continue meeting me quite a bit.

‘Dartmouth,’ which is now only the name of a popular play, was actually a country founded by beastmen. For that reason, all the high-ranking nobles of Dartmouth, including the royal family, strongly showed the characteristics of animals, not ordinary humans. That was also a thing of the past, and after hundreds of years since the founding of the country, the blood had become diluted, and now most of them were no different from ordinary humans.

Graham, one of the powerful collateral lines of the Dartmouth dynasty, was a rare clan that maintained the characteristics of beastmen. After the kingdom was absorbed and integrated into the empire as the Northern Autonomous Territory, the reason why rumors began to spread that the head of the Graham family was a demon who ate people, or a descendant of the demon race, and why the rumors that the imperial family actively expanded and reproduced were particularly well-received, was all because of that. The direct line of Graham, who had finished growing, were truly half-beast, and even ferocious wolves.

Carlisle’s appearance, which now looks younger than his peers, like a soft and cute mochi, will also disappear without a trace as soon as he finishes growing.

The growth of the Graham clan didn’t simply happen by aging. Their growth begins when they first become aware of ‘love’ and is completed when they decide on a partner who is the only one in their life.

I wondered how the growth conditions of a clan could be so ridiculously romantic, but I decided not to think too deeply about it. This world is a BL game that has completely ruined the probability for Allen from the root.

It was a failed game that was hardly mentioned… But one of the illustrations that received a good response among the small number of enthusiasts was the scene in Carlisle’s single route where he became aware of his feelings and immediately confessed to Allen, and began to grow magically in an instant.

As I finished preparing well, Nicole finally seemed relieved and hurriedly changed back into his original clothes and took off the artifact that changed his appearance from his finger.

“Isn’t it annoying every time? Your room is right next door anyway. Why don’t you just keep changing even when you sleep…”

“Ugh, no. I want to sleep comfortably, at least when I sleep. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to wear clothes that don’t fit… And how nervous I am every time I lie on Young Master’s bed instead?”

“You said it was too comfortable at one point. You even asked me to change the bed in your room at the main house.”

“That’s that. Go to sleep quickly. I’ll come early in the morning tomorrow instead.”

“Okay. Good night, Nicole.”

“Good night, Young Master!”

Only after Nicole left the room did I cautiously pull out the diary I had hidden inside my clothes. The thought of all the time I’d spent searching for this one thin notebook made my hands tremble. It was so good to finally have it, I could look at it over and over and feel full without even eating.

“That being said, Jeremy Graham must have been a really good person…”

Originally, all I knew about Jeremy Graham was a few lines from Carlisle’s character setting. Someone who was universally admired, much older, but met an unfortunate end.

But after actually finding the diary and reading the words he left behind, I felt it was insulting to reduce him to just those few words. He was so clearly kind and just such a good person. It felt strange.

It was just a pre-set condition, one of the countless conditions of the world created so that Carlisle would quickly open his heart to Allen. But it was so, so delicate and kind… Did it really need to make me, who knew nothing of his life, feel such a distinct sense of loss?

“No. Let’s not think too deeply about it.”

I shook my head and put the diary away again, then closed my eyes tightly. Whether Jeremy was a good person or not had nothing to do with my goal. All I had to do was successfully capture Carlisle with this diary.

The place should definitely be the garden where I first met Carlisle. The garden always full of roses and peonies, the garden where Carlisle and Jeremy’s memories were deeply embedded. For a dramatic effect, it had to be that way.

‘Look, Carlisle. Even Duke Jeremy, whom you thought was perfect, needed a place to honestly confide when things were difficult. He was just deeply in love with his younger brother.’

‘Allen…’

‘Someone like me can’t possibly replace Duke Jeremy for you, but still, still…’

‘…’

‘I promise. I will love you as much as Duke Jeremy loved you, no, even more than that.’

Hmm… Saying ‘I love you’ so suddenly in my current situation seems a bit much. Maybe I should change it to something like I’ll stay by your side longer for Duke Jeremy’s sake, or I’ll be your friend? I repeated the plausible words of comfort that Allen had given Carlisle along with the diary over and over in my mind. In the meantime, sleepiness naturally crept in.

The morning was cloudy, and the sun rose lazily. I finished eating with Nicole, who had brought a tray with a simple breakfast to my room, changed clothes as usual, and put on the artifact. Today’s goal was simple: to somehow find Carlisle, who had run away from me yesterday. Find him, reveal my identity with the diary, and greedily collect his affection points.

“Please come back safe today.”

“Okay. See you in the evening!”

He’d be in one of the places we often met. I left the room with a light heart. Maybe because my heart was light, my steps felt unusually light too. Unlike the cloudy weather, I had a good feeling that everything would go smoothly.

“Young Master!”

Bingo. My good feeling was spot on.

Carlisle was waiting for me in the inner palace’s rose garden like a well-prepared feast. His expression seemed twice as serious as usual.

“…You’ve come.”

“Were you waiting for me? Huh? You were, weren’t you?”