***

[9 years later, Basilinte Main Castle Butler’s Handover Journal]

[Author: Hallik Lockshire]

Kalia proposed to the Prince.

Dear God. Please do not make all siblings have the same type.

……

……

……I heard shocking words.

The first young master says he doesn’t want to become the Prince’s lover. It’s just brotherly affection.

Is he joking?

No. Thinking about it, it doesn’t seem bad.

The Prince might be able to escape the first young master’s madness and build a life with a sensible woman.

……

……

……I heard crazy words.

The first young master says the only woman he would allow as the Prince’s match is someone stronger than himself.

Where would such a woman exist?

……Ah, Your Grace?

Is he encouraging an impure relationship between mentor and student?

Aina closed Hallik’s handover journal with a disgruntled look.

It was thick and seemed to contain detailed notes, so she thought it might contain something significant, but it was a bust.

“What kind of handover journal is this? Isn’t it just a diary…?”

“Aina, what are you doing there?”

A low, beautiful voice came from behind Aina.

Aina put Hallik’s journal back on the desk and turned around.

A beautiful blond ‘boy’ who looked like he had stepped out of a classical masterpiece was leaning against the doorpost, watching her.

It was the ‘Prince’ whom Aina served.

The ‘Prince,’ who was beloved by everyone in Basilinte Castle, narrowed his eyes at Aina, who hadn’t answered.

“What were you doing in someone’s room without them present?”

The ‘Prince’ approached with long strides and reached for the desk behind Aina.

The unrealistically beautiful face that suddenly came close might have been thrilling, but Aina merely shrugged her shoulders.

After all, she was the only person in this castle who knew that inside that fairy-tale prince-like pretty boy was actually a 19-year-old girl.

The ‘Prince’ picked up Hallik’s journal.

“What is this?”

“The butler’s diary of lamentations…?”

“Why were you looking at it?”

“The butler has been observing the Prince a lot lately, so I wondered if he might have noticed something.”

A height half a span taller than Aina. The ‘Prince’s’ long limbs and slender frame were sufficiently boyish.

With the excuse of being a late bloomer, she could probably disguise her gender with a boyish appearance until her early twenties.

But you never know.

“Recently, when the Prince is with Chamuka, the butler has been looking at you strangely. It’s like the look you’d give a thug harassing a well-bred young lady, you know?”

Leticia frowned at Aina’s confession that she had snooped around because of this.

“Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like he’s discovered anything about our ‘Prince.'”

“That doesn’t mean you should go through other people’s rooms.”

“I didn’t actively search. The door was wide open, and the room’s owner wasn’t there.”

Aina grumbled that it had been sitting right in the middle of the desk.

Leticia sighed and put Hallik’s journal back on the desk.

“Touching someone else’s belongings without permission is itself a problem. Don’t do it again.”

“It was all for the Prince’s sake. I’m the only one here who’s truly on the Prince’s side.”

Leticia paused at Aina’s statement.

Her tone was cheerful, but the content was scathing.

Aina, who had been 16 when she first came here, was now a 25-year-old lady.

The brown-haired maid who occasionally did odd things had naturally blended into this castle over the past 9 years, but Leticia sometimes felt uncomfortable around her.

Words that she had dismissed without much thought as a child sometimes struck her as strange as she grew older.

Words like how she was the only one on the Prince’s side or how she was the only one who truly liked the Prince.

“Why only you? Mentor loves me so much.”

It wasn’t just Astrid.

Leticia was loved almost excessively in Basilinte, and she now knew that they didn’t cherish her merely as a ‘tool.’

Only now, after the turbulent adolescence where black dragons surged and typhoons raged within her had passed.

Aina laughed at Leticia’s words.

“Of course. Lady Astrid, His Grace, and Chamuka too— Oh, did you know? The butler is convinced that Lord Chamuka likes the Prince.”

“I like Chamuka too. And Mentor and His Grace.”

“Not in that sense, but in the sense that he wants to have a relationship like the one between Lady Astrid and Her Grace.”

“…A relationship where we fight every day?”

Though she responded jokingly, there was a moment of silence before those words.

Actually, it wasn’t wrong. Astrid and Ferik fought almost every other day.

It’s just that when you dig deep, all those fights were just love quarrels.

Aina chuckled and nodded.

“Yes. The kind where they fight when the sun rises and sleep n*ked together in bed when the sun sets.”

“…You, how can you say such…”

Leticia’s face turned red.

Aina exaggeratedly opened her eyes wide and asked.

“Did I say something inappropriate? Surely you don’t believe that Kalia was brought by a stork?”

“You really never back down.”

Leticia shook her head and fanned her face with her palm to cool down. After a pause, she added.

“It must be Hallik’s misunderstanding. Chamuka doesn’t like me in that way. Aina, you know too. How much Chamuka wants to adopt me as his sibling. Who would want to become siblings with someone they like in that way?”

“Hmm. According to the butler’s journal, if that’s brotherhood, then he has no brothers.”

“No, what does Hallik know!”

Aina clicked her tongue at Leticia, who was now shouting without any logic.

“Honestly, you know too, Prince. That Chamuka’s attitude toward you is a bit strange.”

“…Chamuka is just naturally strange.”

“That’s true, but I saw it.”

Though she only said she saw it, without specifying when, how, or what she saw, the ‘Prince’s’ shoulders already flinched.

Aina swallowed the question of how many guilty things there must be and proceeded to tell what she had seen.

“The day before yesterday in the afternoon, in the garden, Chamuka’s lips on the Prince’s cheek…”

Thwap. Leticia’s hand, faster than the wind, covered Aina’s mouth.

Leticia’s face was now beyond red; it was burning.

She quickly made an excuse.

“There was a reason for that.”

Her voice grew progressively softer, as if she was embarrassed even while explaining.

“Tan woke up from a nap and was about to accidentally lick my cheek again. Chamuka saw that.”

Aina lowered the hand covering her mouth and calmly thought, ‘Ah, so that’s why the second young master was lying unconscious on the ground at that time.’

The second young master getting beaten by the first young master for approaching the Prince was now such a common occurrence in this castle that it wasn’t surprising at all.

“He was wondering why Tan still acts like a dog and…”

“Did he lick the Prince’s cheek?”

“He just briefly touched his tongue to it! If he had known someone was watching, he wouldn’t have done something that could be misunderstood like that!”

No, that’s not true. He was practically biting and sucking. He was telling me with his eyes to get lost when I was watching from a distance.

Aina decided to bring Leticia back to reality as she stubbornly maintained her ridiculous excuse.

“Prince. Siblings don’t kiss each other on the cheek.”

Feeling pity for the Prince who was denying reality, she refrained from adding that the first young master had been half-embracing the Prince at that time.

“That wasn’t a kiss. It was just pure curiosity.”

“What kind of curiosity makes someone put their tongue on someone’s cheek? Well then, I’m curious too, can I lick the Prince’s cheek?”

Aina asked incredulously.

Leticia flared up and retorted.

“Go ahead and try!”

Leticia lowered her head and thrust her cheek toward Aina.

At the face that suddenly came close, Aina reflexively moved backward, bumped into the desk, and staggered.

It was at that moment when she grabbed Leticia in front of her to avoid falling.

Thud.

There was a sound of something dropping behind Leticia’s back.

“Prince…?”

At Hallik’s voice filled with shock, Leticia turned her head.

She made eye contact with Hallik, who had turned as pale as if all the blood had drained from his body, and wondered why he looked like that.

“With a maid…”

However, at Hallik’s subsequent mutter, Leticia realized she was in a position that looked like she was about to kiss Aina and became serious.

“This is a misunderstanding, Hallik.”

That night, Hallik, trembling with fear, scribbled a few more words in small letters in his handover journal.

The Prince must like women, right? The probability that he likes men is…