By Zephyria 
“Why are you calling me in such a scary voice?”
A scary voice. It was just funny. The expression on his face as he asked that question didn’t even try to hide the blatant mockery. Before I knew it, my head was lifted. It was because his hand was holding up my chin. His large hands and rough fingers, which had always hugged and stroked my shoulders, had the power to lift my head without any difficulty. As if asking if I dared to resist without raising my head, with a very strong force.
“Smile, my dear.”
“…”
I pulled up the corners of my lips into a smile. But my expression was still stiff. It was impossible to fix my cold eyes.
What if I hadn’t made a connection with Lennox and had just come to the North to target Carlisle? I would have had to give up this playthrough for sure. In other words, another death.
In the end, I wasn’t hurt and Carlisle awakened safely, but… that was purely a result-oriented story. I understand that he can’t trust me because he grew up wary of everyone around him, but that doesn’t mean I can just stand by and watch him deceive and use me.
“Your Highness. I have a question to ask.”
“Shh.”
Chuckling softly, Adrian Pearson lightly covered my lips with two fingers.
“Whatever you heard in the North, whatever you saw, and whatever calculations are running through that little head of yours.”
“…”
“Don’t rashly speak of it. Don’t try to act smart. You know? There’s only one thing I want from you.”
“…”
“Just wait for me and cry prettily. What I need is a canary to be caged, not an eagle to fly through the sky with me.”
As I chewed and swallowed the cold words mixed with ridicule, I raised the corners of my lips even higher. Along with a melting smile.
“Good. Well done.”
The moment he kissed the tips of his fingers that had covered my lips, the Crown Prince burrowed hotly into my arms. Unlike my coldly cooling heart, my body, which was heating up, was pathetic.
The Crown Prince poured out Pheromone oppressively, as if trying to determine superiority. I pretended to be swept away willingly.
My body, which had been tormented by Lennox until just last night and had barely reached the level of excitement without being exposed to Alpha’s Pheromone, rejoiced and agitated me all at once.
Why are you hesitating so much? Don’t think about anything and just be true to your instincts. The Alpha who wants you and who you want is waiting for you now.
But my mind was stronger than I thought. My Pheromone filled the carriage enough to deceive the Crown Prince, but it didn’t truly plunge my whole body into a crucible of joy.
While accepting his deception, which seemed to make his kisses quite passionate as if he really loved me, I gritted my teeth and vowed.
Instead of focusing on simply raising his favorability, someday I would make him, Adrian Pearson, who seemed to think he was the only one in the world who was good at anything, kneel before me.
“…Ugh, ugh.”
“Haa. Noah.”
Somehow.
After that, the week with Adrian was peaceful without any problems. He treated me with the usual amount of nonchalance and arrogance, coated with lukewarm kindness, and in front of Adrian, I was always his lovely ‘Noah’.
It was easy to smile like a doll. It wasn’t too difficult to make tears well up prettily, as he said, without being too sad.
But the strange thing was that even though I did as he wanted, the increase in favorability was less than I thought, but I didn’t have the mental space to think about other things right now. I was going to carefully consider how to conquer Adrian Pearson after returning to the mansion.
“We’ve already arrived.”
“That’s right, Your Highness. What a shame.”
“Are you really sad?”
“Of course. I don’t know when I’ll see you again after you leave, so how can I not be sad?”
Having gotten out of the carriage in front of the main gate of the Hamilton County residence, I whispered and smiled. The gazes of the knights who were circling around the carriage, guarding it, were focused on my rose-tinted cheeks and radiant smile.
Perhaps because he was conscious of the attention around him, the Crown Prince didn’t get out of the carriage and just stretched out his arm while sitting inside. His firm arm and large palm gently stroked my head. I don’t know if he noticed my shorter hair or not.
“Then please stay well. I’ll be waiting for the day you visit.”
“…”
I don’t know if it was my imagination, but the corners of the Crown Prince’s lips rose slightly and then stopped. He quickly withdrew his hand and then closed the door of the carriage and left. Without even a short greeting saying when he would see me again or when he would come again.
“Hoo, we’ve finally arrived. Home is the best. Right?”
Nicole, who had been watching the Crown Prince leave, approached me and chattered. He, who had taken my luggage and rode with me in the carriage prepared by the County, seemed quite lively while constantly checking to see if there was any luggage he had left behind.
“…That’s right. We’re finally back.”
I don’t even know when I last considered this place my true home, but anyway.
Nicole said he would call the other servants to finish organizing the luggage and then go into the mansion. I nodded lightly and slowly crossed the gate of the mansion first.
“You’re back. I’ve been waiting.”
“…Andrew, brother?”
“Yes.”
I was momentarily flustered and looked around. As far as I remember, our last encounter wasn’t a very good memory… Andrew Hamilton was waiting for me with an indifferent, even more brazen look than usual.
“Why are you here, brother…? Surely, you weren’t waiting for me?”
“Why do you think surely not? Isn’t it the return day of my youngest brother who has been away from home for a month? It’s natural for me as the eldest son to wait for you.”
No way. Is this ‘Andrew Hamilton’?
Since strangling my neck last year, Andrew had been somewhat dazed. No matter how thorny my reactions were, he couldn’t even think of making a proper protest and just waited for my disposition like a sinner.
“Come here, Noah Hamilton.”
“Ah…!”
“I need to check myself to see if my brother, whose conduct is not upright, has tarnished the family name anywhere.”
Just as I thought my wrist was caught, my body was suddenly pulled away. I couldn’t come to my senses at all and followed him as he dragged me along. Andrew was quite tall, but I had never gotten the impression that he was particularly strong because Frederick, who was next to him as a comparison, was so huge, but it seemed that Alpha was Alpha after all.
“Wait a minute, brother. Let go of this…!”
I deliberately called him brother, brother, again and again. When I called him brother like this, his favorability would drop sharply and he would flinch, so it was originally a useful means to calm him down, even momentarily.
Favorability: 0%
But today, something was very different.
Favorability: 1%
“Bro, brother?”
Favorability: 3%
Favorability: 8%
Favorability: 15%
“What are you doing? Suddenly! Brother!”
Favorability: 21%
“You asked why I’m doing this? Suddenly?”
Favorability: 28%
Favorability: 35%
“Are you really asking that without knowing?”
Favorability: 47%
Favorability: 59%
Favorability: 64%
“My damnably clever younger brother.”
“Ugh…”
“Your question is wrong. What you should be asking is, ‘Why only now?'”
His favorability, which had been blocked for a long time, began to surge explosively in an instant, as if a dam had burst. It was true that there was no time to do anything, but there was no time to do anything from the beginning.
“Okay. I admit it. You won, Noah Hamilton.”
A vast ocean was raging in his eyes, which had always been calm and still, like a quiet lake. As a very large wave that could easily devour me and more.
“I have hated and loathed you, who have taken a place in this mansion as my brother, so much that I couldn’t bear it all my life.”
Favorability: 73%
“At the same time, I have loved you irresistibly and passionately.”
Favorability: 79%
“How is it? Does that answer your question?”
“…”
In front of the tidal wave that would swallow me and sweep me away in an instant if I relaxed even a little, I met his gaze, forgetting how to breathe.
“I’m asking. Does that answer your question?”
Now it was my turn to answer.