Aidan noticed Kai’s reaction but pretended not to as he wiped his sweat with a towel handed by a servant. Karina silently followed his gesture to move toward the shade.

“May I ask one thing?”

At Karina’s question, he turned to look at her and nodded slightly as if to say ask anything.

“What kind of person were you originally?”

Though she asked seriously, Aidan burst out laughing.

“Now? After all this time?”

True. Perhaps she should have asked this question earlier. Until now, she hadn’t been curious because it didn’t seem relevant. Largely due to her resigned feelings about everything concerning Aidan.

As she pressed her lips together, unable to respond, Aidan met her gaze and grinned.

“A gangster.”

The content hit a beat later than his cheerful tone.

A gangster? Like a thug? Really?

“You don’t know what your face looks like right now? It’s amusing.”

Aidan laughed while gesturing toward Karina’s face.

“It’s… unexpected.”

Actually, it was far more than just a little unexpected. From what she had observed, he was intelligent and highly adaptable. Though he occasionally used crude language, it was only in front of her, and he could act properly and princely enough in public with decent manners. But a gangster? This was completely unexpected.

“But does it matter now what kind of person I was?”

Aidan asked in return.

“If you’re a villain, you becoming prince, and furthermore emperor, would be a serious problem. It’s a position that holds responsibility for this empire.”

It was ironic that the current Aidan was far more princely than the original. Even so, if he was fundamentally an evil person, she worried about what would happen after he became emperor. Though they would become strangers after divorce and she would cut ties with this imperial family, she remained a citizen of the Griffith Empire and a member of the Hewitt duchy who’s responsible for the nation’s fate. Therefore, if the person inside Aidan’s body was a criminal or villain, she couldn’t let him continue acting as a prince.

“Well, by your strict standards, you might think I’m a villain. But I didn’t choose that path willingly.”

Aidan continued in a neutral tone as they walked.

“I tried hard to live properly. I worked several times harder than others because I hated being labeled an orphan. I even graduated from a top university. But that label proved more persistent than I thought.”

An orphan. That surprised her too. She had never thought he might be an orphan. She assumed he grew up in at least an ordinary family with decent education. Perhaps she too had prejudices about orphans. Realizing this made her deeply ashamed.

“You don’t need to try so hard to understand.”

Seeing Karina’s serious expression, Aidan peered at her face and smiled playfully.

“I can’t say I lived completely righteously, but I didn’t bully the weak or do evil things. I just took from and beat up those who deserved it.”

She wondered what kind of people ‘deserved it.’ She still couldn’t understand by her standards. Yet somehow his claim that he wasn’t completely evil seemed convincing.

‘So you’re saying he cheated on his wedding night right after getting married? He’s completely insane.’

‘You want a divorce because he cheated on the wedding night? That would make anyone furious.’

Moreover, in some aspects, he was extremely sensible. None of the imperial family had openly called Aidan insane for his infidelity.

What defines a villain? In her previous life, Aidan appeared to most people as merely a weak and incompetent prince with a wandering eye, but to Karina, he was the person who caused her the most pain. She had been prejudiced to think he couldn’t be evil because he appeared so weak compared to her seemingly stronger self.

Though Lloyd had beheaded her, Aidan had provided the cause.

As her thoughts deepened, she became unsure whether she could label this Aidan, who claimed to be a gangster, as a villain. At least for her now, he was a better husband and prince than before.

Aidan’s question about whether his past mattered was right. Regardless of who he had been, what mattered more was how he would behave now and in the future. She had only asked about his background because of his unexpected swordsmanship skills; it didn’t really matter much.

“Where did you learn swordsmanship?”

She should have asked this from the start.

“Surely gangsters don’t teach swordsmanship?”

The latter part came from slight spite about being surprised by his unexpected identity.

“Of course not.”

Aidan brushed it off casually.

“It was more like a hobby. Doing nothing but part-time jobs and studying in college was stressful. So I started with a club activity at first, and when I found I had an aptitude for it, I scraped together what little money I had to attend a dojo.”

“Your skills seem too good to be just a hobby.”

“Maybe it’s natural talent. I’ve gotten into a lot of fights since I was young. I had to learn how to win fights since I couldn’t stand losing. Thanks to that, I even served in the special forces in the military.”

He was truly unpredictable. Just when he seemed completely normal, she couldn’t understand his mindset about getting better at beating people up. One thing was certain — he wasn’t entirely virtuous. Well, maybe that’s what it takes to survive in this palace.

When talking with him, unfamiliar words often came up. Especially when asking about his past. These moments really made her realize he truly came from a completely different world.

“Don’t you ever want to return to where you came from?”

At Karina’s question, Aidan stopped and turned around. His lips curved slightly upward. However, it looked more bitter than joyful.

“I told you before. I’m trying to make a life here.”

When he first mentioned switching souls with Aidan, he had said something like that. He needed time to adapt here and needed Karina’s help during that time.

“You must not have been happy in your original life.”

The thought slipped out unconsciously. After saying it, she felt she shouldn’t have.

“This.”

Aidan pointed to his abdomen. The spot where he had the wound from the attack.

“I got stabbed in the same place too.”

His tone was so calm that it took a moment to understand what he meant. So before switching bodies with Aidan, he too had almost been killed by someone? Why…?

“Power struggles aren’t unique to this place.”

Aidan smirked and started walking again. Karina matched his pace beside him but couldn’t ask what had happened. His too-casual tone and quiet smile seemed like a line drawn to keep others out.

“More importantly, have you thought about my suggestion to date?”

Aidan changed the subject. Karina flinched, not expecting the topic to come up suddenly.

“Looks like you haven’t tried it before.”

Aidan assumed from her startled reaction.

“It’s not that I haven’t…”

“Oho.”

He responded, surprised.

“I don’t understand what would be different from now.”

No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t see what would change. They were already married, and though they didn’t live in the same palace, they spent a lot of time together.

“Right now, we’re more like partners than lovers.”

Karina swallowed a sigh at Aidan’s reply. That was true. Their relationship was more like collaborators than spouses. A cooperative relationship to achieve his goal of securing a firm position in the imperial palace and her goal of divorce.

‘I really hate it. Someone coveting what’s mine.’

‘Let’s just say I was momentarily captivated because my consort is so beautiful.’

Those unnecessarily sweet words sometimes confused her. But thinking carefully, even those words and their first kiss were meant to keep Lloyd in check. It was definitely different from romantic feelings.

“If we were to properly date…”

Aidan turned toward Karina. Before she could react to the suddenly closing distance, his arm wrapped around her waist. Then his other hand caught her chin and lifted it. Unable to avoid meeting his eyes, she watched his face slowly approach.

“Your Highness!”

They were in the corridor with many servants following. She tried to push him away, thinking what he was trying to do in such a place, but his arm firmly around her waist didn’t budge.

Unable to escape, she tightly closed her eyes and turned her head away as the distance grew uncomfortably closer. She felt his breath near her ear.

“This kind of skinship would become much more natural.”

He whispered softly before releasing his arms and letting her go. When she carefully opened her eyes, she saw his grinning face.

Was it… just a joke?

“I told you not to react so innocently.”

At his teasing words, Karina glared at him before turning away sharply. Her cheeks burned even though nothing had happened. Her mind was in chaos, unable to tell if it was from being teased by him or for some other reason.

*