Normally, he would have looked at her with composure, but now he couldn’t meet her eyes due to nervousness.

Because he didn’t know what Merrien would say.

Will she really forgive me? What if she doesn’t?

…What if she says she’s leaving him?

Merrien looked straight into his eyes and said.

“Ariel. Answer me.”

“…Yes.”

In the firmly fixed orange eyes, Ariel saw himself reflected.

His own image which looked like it might cry at any moment.

Merrien stared at him intently, then let out a sigh.

“Apologize again.”

“…I’m sorry, Merri. I was afraid you would hate me. If I had known this would happen, I would have told you beforehand. I’m really sorry.”

Ariel released his hand from Merrien’s grip. Instead, he held her hand with both of his.

His touch was desperate and his eyes were red. Looking up at her pleadingly, he resembled a slave submitting to his master.

“……”

Merrien looked down at him and bit her lip firmly.

Yes, she had only just returned.

She took out the blue rose she had brought in her bosom and held it in her hand. Ariel’s gaze followed her hand dazedly.

“Then explain properly now. Why were you sick? Why have you been doing all these things behind my back?”

“Merri, then……”

Ariel’s eyes wavered back and forth, as if he didn’t understand the current situation.

“Yes, it means I forgive you.”

“…!”

Ariel’s face, which had been almost lifeless until just now, suddenly came alive.

He slowly placed his hand, which had been desperately holding hers, on Merrien’s cheek. His eyes, filled with joy, curved beautifully.

“…I like you. I like you, Merri.”

At his confession that burst out impatiently, unable to control his emotions, Merrien let out a hollow laugh.

Even then, he was watching her reaction and couldn’t take any further action.

“…Me too.”

Yes, there was no way she couldn’t forgive him.

Such an option never existed in the first place.

Merrien leaned toward Ariel.

***

“The House of Hartez has been a family of magicians for generations. To be more specific, from the first Tower Master, it’s been people from our family.”

The two moved to the sofa.

From Ariel’s mouth, who was sticking close to Merrien as if he would never let go, came the story of the Hartez family that began from a very long time ago.

“In our family, someone with tremendous magical power is born in each generation. We made a contract with the imperial family to help the empire in exchange for the title of Duke. It’s a contract that has continued since the time of the first Emperor.”

“…So the one with tremendous magical power is the Tower Master.”

“That’s right. The problem is that the magical power goes berserk during the day, so I can only be active at night.”

“Then the punishment of the High Priest at the temple…”

“Yes. I said I would participate in the subjugation of magical beasts, and the Emperor helped me.”

Ah, she understood his words roughly. Then, every time things were easily resolved, it must have been with the help of the imperial family.

Thinking about it, on days when news about the Tower Master doing something appeared in the newspaper, Ariel was particularly low on energy.

Was it because he had to pretend nothing had happened in front of her, even though he had gone far away to subjugate magical beasts in the evening?

She felt a bit depressed at the thought of Ariel suffering alone.

As she slowly nodded, Ariel moved her hand to stroke his cheek.

Although he hadn’t intended to seduce her, his eyes, looking down at Merrie,n sparkled like they had stars embedded in them.

“There has never been a case where the magical power going berserk was completely cured. I’m the first.”

“……”

Merrien pulled her hand away because his eyes somehow seemed distant. It was as if he was saying all this was thanks to her.

She placed her hand, which slipped away without any resistance, on his head and stroked it.

And if Ariel was the first to be cured of magical power going berserk…

‘He briefly mentioned his family in passing before.’

She decided not to ask any further.

As she stroked Ariel’s head as usual, he closed his eyes familiarly and accepted her touch with evident pleasure.

Looking at him, suddenly, his silver hair caught her eye, and it felt strange not to be used to it.

‘Maybe it’s because I’ve only seen his black hair all this time.’

But despite being unfamiliar, it matched well with his blue eyes, making him look like the perfect Ariel now.

Silver, which seemed like it could be dyed any color. The mysterious and enigmatic atmosphere was Ariel himself.

He, who had been closing his eyes gently, realized that Merrien was staring intently at his hair.

Somewhat embarrassed, he fiddled with the ends of his hair.

“Merri, if you don’t like this hair…”

“No! It’s so beautiful. Stay like this.”

What am I saying?

Seeing the ends of his hair starting to turn black, Merrien hurriedly removed his hand.

While tidying his returned silver hair with both hands.

That action looked so resolute that Ariel stopped using magic.

“…Okay.”

His face, accepting her touch, was shy. So much that his ears turned red.

After tidying his hair for a while, Merrien suddenly let out a sigh.

“Haah.”

Now that she understood the whole situation, she suddenly felt embarrassed.

‘I gave rose bracelets to the servants as farewell gifts.’

Of course, she had never directly said it was a farewell, but the servants must have noticed the change in her atmosphere from a few days ago.

After pretending to be so distant, now she’s going to act like nothing happened? It was extremely embarrassing.

‘I even told Charlotte I was going far away!’

That was the biggest problem.

Like someone who was really going far away, she had skipped all the flowery words and written it in one line, impressively.

Actually, I’m not leaving. Let’s discuss our romance books.

…She couldn’t send that now.

Merrien grabbed her hair with both hands as if to tear it out. Soon, her pink hair was tangled in all directions.

It was clearly different from Ariel’s hair that she had been carefully tidying just a moment ago.

From her sigh to her screaming actions. Ariel, who had been watching silently, opened his mouth.

“Why? Are you embarrassed because you told Saint Charlotte you were leaving?”

“Yes.”

I might die of shame.

She wanted to shed a tear, but contrary to her feelings, her eyes were not only not welling up with tears, they were drying out.

But thinking about it belatedly, there was something strange about Ariel’s words.

Her head, which had been bowed while wailing, shot up.

“How do you know that?”

“……”

Oops. Ariel immediately closed his mouth, his eyes rolling away to avoid her gaze. His head followed his eyes and turned to the side.

“Did you always steal and read my letters?”

“That wasn’t my intention… the butler gave them to me.”

It was something he couldn’t hide anyway. Ariel carefully made excuses while throwing the butler under the bus.

“The butler needs to be dealt with.”

And so do you.

She lightly hit his forehead with her fist. Ouch, even though it didn’t turn red, he pretended to be hurt and drooped his eyes.

Then he grinned. It was the mischievous and playful face he always made.

“Then you can really leave for a while.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Want me to show you the magic tower?”

“…The magic tower?”

“Yes. I’ll show you how the magicians of the tower live. And what kind of research they do.”

Ariel’s face, talking about his other home, looked very excited.

Merrien’s expression, which had been sullen for a moment, soon softened.

Then Merrien suddenly startled and touched her face. Her mouth corners had turned up without her realizing.

‘…Now I’m smiling just by watching Ariel act like this.’

She suddenly realized.

She had already known that she liked him, but she thought she needed to think deeply about returning to reality versus continuing to stay here…

Merrien shook her head.

There was no need to worry about that anymore.

‘I want to keep staying with Ariel.’

She concluded that being here with Ariel was happier than reality now.

Besides, Ariel wouldn’t let her go anyway.

“Alright then. Since the Tower Master is making me so expectant, let’s go take a look.”

She agreed readily, secretly wondering how similar the magic tower that appeared so often in novels would be to her romantic ideal.

“Great.”

The fact that he didn’t look nervous even when she said she was looking forward to it meant he was confident.

Ariel snapped his fingers and created a portal in front of them. Then he took Merrien’s hand.

“It will be really fun.”

When Ariel moved first, Merrien discovered something strange in the space inside the portal.

An enormously huge creature. Roaring with teeth bigger than a human face flashing…

“Wait. Isn’t that Christopher… something?”

Merrien stopped abruptly.

Ariel’s body was already halfway into the portal.