Chapter 26 – Dangerous Deal

Lucien began to slowly retrace the problem that had never been answered until now. He wondered when he started to obsess over the idea that he and Serenia were just friends. As he carefully rewound his memories, Lucien faced a moment that was far from pleasant.

It was the moment he realized Serenia liked Serion, and the memory of the day she had so easily broken a promise to him for Serion.

There was a long gap between those two memories, but for Lucien, they were almost engraved as one. Both events had left him with unforgettable feelings of betrayal.

Betrayal? No, perhaps it was the first time Lucien ever felt hurt by someone else.

Lucien had always believed that his relationship with Serenia was the most important, above anyone else. Just as he had decided on his own to join the navy for Serenia’s dream, without asking his family or anyone else, he believed that he would always be her first priority. Yet, as if mocking that belief, he was pushed aside so easily—by Serenia’s feelings for someone else.

“Ah…”

His fingers, which had been stroking Serenia’s hair, trembled slightly.

The realization came in an instant. That was why he insisted so much on being friends rather than lovers.

He couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t bear the fact that he had been pushed aside by Serenia’s affection, that he became second because she loved someone else. So he wanted there to be something greater and more meaningful between them than mere affection—an absolute, unique relationship that wouldn’t be overshadowed by anyone’s love.

Because Serenia liked someone other than him, and because he couldn’t be her lover, he decided that affection was just a fleeting emotion, and that what they had must be something special and unchanging, unlike love.

Staring blankly at Serenia’s face, Lucien soon let out a laugh mixed with a sigh of resignation. His shoulders shook as he held back his laughter so as not to wake Serenia.

“How foolish.”

Stupid fool. Wasn’t he just sad because Serenia didn’t love him?

It was like the fox and the sour grapes. Serenia’s affection, which he couldn’t have, was dismissed as nothing special, while he insisted that their relationship was something even more unique. But what he craved from her was no different from what lovers wanted.

To embrace, to kiss, to share warmth, to become one.

Maybe his body was being more honest than his mind, which was busy denying reality. From the beginning, he had always desired her, always wanted her. Even when that intense longing appeared in his dreams, he hadn’t realized it.

‘I like you, Lucien.’

Of course he was excited by those words. They were the words he’d wanted to hear most for so long.

He didn’t even need to search for when he started wanting her. Ever since he heard a new person was coming to the mansion, he’d been excited, waiting for someone whose face he didn’t even know.

Lucien had always been an odd, unusual presence in the mansion, and despite being the beloved youngest son, he felt a sense of isolation because he was different from the majority. Being unable to participate in things everyone else shared and enjoyed, even if it wasn’t intentional exclusion, made Lucien fundamentally lonely.

It was a question Lucien had asked since childhood. He couldn’t relate to the things his mother and brothers enjoyed. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. People are just different, with their own tastes.

But in this mansion, what was ‘normal’ for most people was never normal for Lucien.

So the arrival of a new outsider to the mansion was exciting for Lucien. Someone as different from the mansion’s norms as he was. He hid his trembling heart behind a calm face, waiting every day for that child to arrive.

When he first met her, he liked the subtle discomfort on her face. His mother and brothers kindly told her to settle in as if she’d always been family, but she didn’t seem able to do so. No matter how much affection was poured in, some things just couldn’t blend.

Serenia’s sense of burden, discomfort, awkwardness, and the subtle guilt from not being able to become one of them.

Ironically, Lucien felt a sense of kinship with those feelings.

<Why? Don’t want to be my sparring partner?>

<It’s not that…>

Even as he spoke bluntly, Lucien was focused on her hesitating fingertips. She didn’t know it, but in the mansion, picking up a sword meant something special. It was proof of being an outsider, not fitting in with the Delaroz family. Lucien desperately wanted that child who resembled him.

I need you.

Maybe his desperate wish reached her, because when she finally gripped the sword properly, Lucien felt liberated. One person was enough. Having just one person in the mansion who understood Lucien, not Delaroz, melted away all his loneliness.

Not Delaroz, but his own understanding companion. His friend. His…

“My Serenia.”

When he kept it in his heart, he could bury it quietly, but the moment he voiced it, the feelings grew too strong to handle. When the unseen feelings became sound and substance, Lucien could no longer ignore the true form of his emotions.

The words he heard so many times in his dreams.

He bent down to Serenia, who was sleeping, and kissed her on the head. At her ear, he carefully whispered, syllable by syllable, the feelings he had hesitated to confess.

“I like you, Serenia.”

And the words he couldn’t even say in his dreams.

Until now, he had hidden his feelings deep inside because she didn’t love him.

But once he spoke them aloud, Lucien no longer knew how to hide his heart.

***

Nervously waiting for Serenia at the back door of headquarters, Lucien checked his clothes several times. Unlike what he usually wore, his outfit was plain and simple, making him even more self-conscious.

“Is this right?”

He wondered if he should dress up more to impress her, but Derkan had said absolutely not. To close the gap created by their family differences, Lucien needed to show Serenia that he didn’t care about status or wealth, and that he was just a down-to-earth person.

The outfit was chosen based on Derkan’s advice, given on the day Lucien asked why Serenia hadn’t confessed. She had once trailed off, saying Lucien lived in a different world and should find someone who fit that world. So, as a special measure, Lucien tried to strip away his arrogant noble image to emphasize that he was just an ordinary, approachable man.

But not knowing all the details, Lucien wasn’t convinced this shabby outfit would actually work. If Derkan wasn’t a married man who had succeeded after a long one-sided love, Lucien would never have listened to his advice.