“Your Highness, have you fallen for Fiona?”
After Elius recognized his feelings a day later, the chamberlain naturally noticed his heart.
In a way, it was to be expected.
Humans who realize love tend to change.
Having rarely experienced the feeling of love in the nearly twenty years of his life, Elius couldn’t help but show signs.
“…!!”
Elius trembled in surprise, his shoulders shaking.
Could it be that he was discovered?
The attendant thought that would indeed be a ridiculous notion.
“How did you know?”
“How could I not know? You didn’t say a single word to Fiona today.”
“…”
As she mentioned, Elius had asked the attendant to take care of matters with Fiona today.
Since they had been alone in the same room, he hadn’t been able to face her properly.
Every time he saw Fiona’s face, his concentration faltered.
Just standing there in a daze made him aware of the piling tasks he had to do.
That’s why he had avoided looking at her.
“The other attendants probably have some inkling as well. Your Highness’s words have decreased by over fifty percent compared to yesterday.”
“…”
“At this rate, it won’t be long before rumors start spreading, so please try to return to your usual demeanor as soon as possible.”
It was at that moment.
“Your Highness.”
Elius’s shoulders jolted, and he turned his head.
“I have a question.”
Fiona approached Elius briskly and continued speaking.
“You’re avoiding me a lot today, aren’t you?”
The attendant gasped in surprise.
The once oblivious Fiona had noticed Elius’s change!
It was a moment that shone brightly after six months of grueling training to make Fiona a capable attendant.
“…Me? I haven’t done that.”
Elius pretended not to notice and looked away.
This action surprised the attendant once again.
What a blatant lie!
He thought he would see Fiona’s face when he broke the dish.
Momentarily shocked that it was none other than Elius showing such a face.
Today, Fiona’s perceptiveness had skyrocketed, and she quickly saw through Elius’s lie.
“Don’t lie! You haven’t spoken a word to me today!”
“Well… it just happened that way…”
“Look me straight in the eye!!”
Elius looked into Fiona’s eyes.
And then.
He subtly turned his head away, causing Fiona to shout.
“See! You keep avoiding my gaze! Do you have something against me?”
“…….”
“Then, do you perhaps like me? No….”
“Cough cough!!”
“Why are you like this, Attendant? Are you catching a cold?”
“…No. Please continue with what you were saying.”
While coughing, the chamberlain gestured to Elius.
It was a sign to speak clearly if he had something to say.
Seeing him, Elius fell into contemplation.
He liked Fiona. He hoped she would stay by his side for a long time.
That much was certain.
But was it right to confess here?
He had too many burdens to act on feelings alone.
Elius recalled the days of his past.
After his mother passed away, love had been absent from his life.
He had focused on the citizens of the Empire, making them his target.
Finding things he could do and putting all his effort into solving them filled his heart.
In the search for a small place of rest where he could find solace, he had settled on Fiona.
In the end, it comes back to Fiona.
“Anyway, you don’t actually like me, do you?”
Elius opened his mouth in a daze.
“It seems that way.”
It wasn’t a conscious thought.
“Somehow, I guess I like you.”
It was the first impulsive thing he had done in his life, words spat out without a second thought.
“…………Huh?”
Fiona blinked her big eyes twice.
“When I look at your face, it makes me smile. Every time I drink the tea you’ve made, I feel at ease. Whenever you do something silly, I find myself laughing rather than sighing now. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is.”
“…”
“I wish you would become my lover.”
“…”
A long silence stretched on for several moments.
Elius recalled the words he had just spoken.
His heart began to race uncontrollably, and he swallowed hard.
It felt like an eternity, yet also a fleeting moment, and he wondered if he had ever been this tense before.
“…I’ll go take care of some work.”
*****
Just a moment ago, Elius’s face had been clouded with uncertainty, but now it was dark, as if cast in shadow.
I must be insane. I’ve lost my mind.
Muttering such things, he kept his head down for a while.
“Your Highness. Remember this: love is poison.”
“…”
“You might not understand my words now, but when the time comes that you need this advice, you must remember it.”
“…I understand.”
“Yes. I thought you would, which is why I mentioned it. For the time being, I will say that you’ve caught an unknown illness and will be unable to handle state affairs.”
“…Thank you.”
It seems he swallowed poison.
Elius thought he would need a few days to recover.
“…Honestly, I didn’t expect Your Highness to confess your feelings so quickly.”
“I didn’t expect it either.”
“What prompted this confession?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to convey my feelings a bit faster, I guess.”
“So, you wanted Fiona for yourself.”
“That’s right.”
Once the royal family sets its heart on something, it can bulldoze through anything, often without regard for the consequences.
Elius had never thought he would possess such a trait.
*****
Just like Elius, who had only received love from his parents, Fiona had never truly experienced love either.
In fact, one might say she had experienced even less.
Elius had at least received some love during his mother’s lifetime, but Fiona, having been raised as an orphan, had only heard kind words from the teachers at the orphanage.
Because of this, Elius’s sudden confession hit Fiona with considerable shock.
She wasn’t unaware of the feelings of liking and love.
Having experienced a slight hint of it and having read about it, she could tell that Elius’s confession was genuine.
She didn’t dislike Elius. Though they had only spent half a year together, Fiona liked him.
He was a hundred or even a thousand times better than the attendants who subtly ignored and ostracized her.
However, she couldn’t discern whether this was a feeling of “liking” or “loving”.
Until now, Elius had been like a close friend to her.
Because they were close friends, she could speak freely and feel at ease with him. Thus, she couldn’t be sure if she could accept Elius as a man.
There was also the issue of status.
Elius was a prince. She was a commoner.
Though not a slave, the treatment of commoners in the royal family was not much different from that of sl*ves.
No matter how she thought about it, accepting Elius’s confession couldn’t be a trivial matter.
After a long, arduous contemplation, Fiona made her decision.
“Why not just go for it in life!”
It was a somewhat rational conclusion (?).
She had never truly loved anyone before. It was true that she liked Elius, but she didn’t know if this feeling was love.
So why not test it out! She would consider whether she could see Elius as a man, and whether she could be his woman, later on!
Isn’t it better than not trying and then later thinking, “Ah, I should have thought about it just once more back then!”?
Fiona, who had been concerned about status and the future, had forgotten her past self.
This was always how she lived her life. Having nothing to lose, she threw herself into the great gamble of life at every moment, and that’s how she arrived at the present.
People should live as they have always lived.
Fiona had no intention of discarding the way she had lived up until now.
*****
The Prince’s office.
After Elius broke his three-day seclusion, Fiona immediately went to find him.
As usual, she placed a teacup on his desk and calmly called out to him.
“Your Highness.”
“What do you want?”
Though she didn’t know what had happened during his seclusion, his expression was very grim.
Fiona was too busy thinking about what to say to notice his expression.
“It’s about the confession you made a few days ago.”
“…”
With no response from Elius, Fiona became slightly anxious.
Could it be that she had misunderstood? As she observed Elius, her heart raced.
Bzzzzz
“So… my answer is…”
Seeing her trembling ballpoint pen, she was relieved to realize she wasn’t trapped in some strange delusion.
“For now, I’ll accept it halfway.”
“…!! Then…!”
“I’m not finished yet.”
“…”
“Actually, I don’t fully understand my own feelings. I like you, Your Highness, but I don’t think that liking is love.”
Elius’s expression was surprisingly calm.
He looked as if he had expected such an answer, his gaze serene.
“However, I haven’t accepted Your Highness’s feelings with the lighthearted intention of just having a romantic fling.”
“…”
“I want to understand my own feelings too.”
“…”
Elius subtly turned his head.
His bright golden eyes stared directly at Fiona.
“I will say this: I didn’t confess lightly either.”
“I like you. I confessed because I like you.”
“So I won’t hide it anymore. I will make you see me as a man.”
“Prepare yourself.”
Elius gently took Fiona’s hand.
It was rough for an ordinary woman’s hand.
Her hand was rough, unlike that of an ordinary woman.
Having worked hard as an attendant, there were many scars on it.
But he didn’t hesitate. Elius pressed his lips to the tips of Fiona’s fingers.
For a very long time, and then some.
