Barmas’s quiet confession melted into the scenery of the blue rose garden. His eyes, gazing at Romei, held neither mischief nor humor.

He slowly closed and opened his eyes, seemingly suppressing a surge of emotion as he spoke.

“I told you before. I’m fixing the barn after losing the cow. The garden is part of that effort.”

“…What’s the point of making me happy?”

“Well. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

Barmas shrugged nonchalantly in response to Romei’s question, evading a direct answer. A smile played on his lips, but complex emotions rippled in his red eyes as he looked at her.

“Maybe it’s the contrary nature you mentioned. Something like, if being with me makes you unhappy, then I should make you happy.”

“…So that’s why you tormented me so much?”

Romei asked before she could stop herself. Looking back, she realized they had never had this kind of conversation before, one that traced back through their emotions.

At her question that had suddenly escaped her lips, Barmas revealed his embarrassing inner thoughts with an expression mixing equal parts apology and awkwardness.

“I’m not sure exactly when you’re referring to, but at first it was curiosity, and then it became competitive spirit.”

“…Competitive spirit?”

“There had never been a human who didn’t succumb to the pleasure I offered, but you remained so composed, responding perfectly normally, it made me want to defeat you.”

Romei had vaguely anticipated this much, so she asked what came next.

Barmas hesitated briefly, then readily answered.

“…I wanted to make you mine.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to, and since I can’t answer when you ask for a reason, don’t ask.”

Having lightly dismissed Romei’s curiosity, Barmas now reversed roles and asked something he had been wondering about.

“How did you think of me?”

“……”

“Besides the obvious ‘complete garbage of the world’ type of thing. I already know that much.”

“I don’t understand why you keep putting yourself down that way. You’re a devil. It’s natural for a devil to be cruel to humans.”

At her words, spoken without malice, Barmas turned his head to hide his face and softly sighed. Though his face wasn’t visible, the back of his head looked quite troubled.

Then he explained why her words troubled him.

“I don’t mind being treated like garbage by other humans. I’ve done things deserving of that treatment, and I wouldn’t bat an eye at being pointed at accusingly.”

“……”

“But the fact that I acted like garbage toward you too, that’s the problem.”

“Why?”

“Because you became unhappy in the end.”

“……”

“You may not believe it, but I never wanted you to be unhappy. I only thought serving me would make you happy.”

Barmas’s matter-of-fact response, laden with numerous emotions, reached Romei.

Just then, a breeze blew past, caressing both their hair. Beneath their feet, waves of deep blue roses undulated.

Romei silently gazed at Barmas, feeling her hair, grown long during her bedridden time, flutter in the breeze.

He avoided meeting her eyes, pretending to look around while walking. Nevertheless, the arms carrying her remained steady without any trembling. Almost protectively.

A profound silence descended upon the garden for a moment.

Before long, Barmas’s steps halted before an elegantly shaped structure. Tower-like, it was so tall that one had to tilt their head far back to see its top.

“It’s an observation tower. There are stairs inside, and when you climb to the top floor, you can take in the entire garden view at once.”

“……”

“There’s also a small space where you can elegantly enjoy tea, though it’s a bit troublesome. Since I can’t use magic, we’d have to travel back and forth to the mansion directly. Still, I can have my underlings handle such matters.”

“……”

“If you’re amenable, how about having tea here next time? I’ve stocked various things just in case, but if there’s something specific you want, tell me in advance. I’ll prepare it.”

While Barmas explained the interior of the observation tower and suggested having tea time, Romei’s mind was elsewhere. Specifically, on Barmas himself.

For reasons she couldn’t understand, she felt that behind his complex emotions might lie the confession he had made to her.

The thought occurred to her that the confession, which she had believed contained not a single shred of sincerity, merely a desperate last attempt because he couldn’t bear to discard her, might actually be genuine.

“…Romei?”

“……”

“Are you feeling ill? You don’t look well.”

Barmas slightly furrowed his brow and reached out to touch her forehead. Then he compared it with his own and tilted his head, finding no significant difference in temperature.

“You don’t seem to have a fever……”

After pondering briefly, he muttered with a serious face.

“Are you hungry from walking?”

Romei smiled slightly at his flawed reasoning, which seemed to forget that she couldn’t even stand properly and had been carried by Barmas all the way from the bed.

“You’re the one who’s been walking all this way, not me. If anyone’s hungry, it would be you.”

“Still, you never know. It’s been a while since you’ve been out in the fresh air like this, so you might be tired.”

“That might be true, but I’m not hungry right now.”

“Then why did you look unwell earlier?”

“I was curious about something.”

“What is it? If it’s something I can answer, I will.”

“I saw that book in the bedroom.”

At Romei’s words, a look of dismay briefly crossed Barmas’s face. Then, like someone whose shameful secret had been discovered, he awkwardly averted his gaze.

His ears turned bright red. In his near-eternal existence, he had never felt so embarrassed.

“I’m curious why that book is in the bedroom.”

“……”

“It doesn’t seem like your taste.”

“……”

“Don’t tell me… it is your taste?”

When he continued to avoid answering, Romei asked in surprise.

His avoidance of the question and the way he shyly avoided her gaze, it seemed exactly like the reaction of someone whose secretly hidden preference had been discovered.

However, Barmas strongly denied any such possibility.

“How could that possibly be my taste? Look at my appearance. What do you think?”

“…Strong, wicked, and sensual.”

“Exactly. Do you think someone like me would childishly enjoy humans’ trivial love stories?”

His denial was so adamant that Romei found him even more suspicious.

“That may be true… but denying it so strongly makes it seem like it is your taste, at least to me.”

“……”

“It’s okay. I’ll keep it secret from your other familiars. I hardly interact with them these days anyway since I rarely get up. So tell me honestly.”

Faced with Romei’s gesture suggesting she could understand and accept whatever his preferences might be, Barmas had no choice but to honestly reveal the truth to clear up the misunderstanding.

“…Actually, I read your diary while you were asleep.”

“What diary?”

“The one you wrote.”

“Ah.”

Romei remembered something she had completely forgotten, that she had made a bet with him to get paper and pen under the pretext of wanting to write a diary.

And also how she had thrown those papers into the empty fireplace with her own hands.

She had thrown them along with the inkwell, causing ink to splash everywhere, making it difficult to read the contents properly. Even if he had seen them, she had written in code, so he shouldn’t have been able to decipher them.

Barmas answered her unspoken question.

“Of course, I couldn’t read everything. The stained parts were unreadable from the start.”

“…But I wrote in code, so you shouldn’t have been able to decipher it.”

“The code used by holy knights is quite obvious.”

Barmas replied to her objection. His eyes gleamed with a hint of arrogance and pride—a familiar look she hadn’t seen in a while.

“Given how long I’ve been dealing with those fellows, I can quickly decipher their codes. No matter how complex, they need to be readable by the writers themselves, and they wouldn’t have created entirely new codes.”

“……”

“Anyway, I read some of your diary, and you said I resembled the prince in that novel? You thoroughly criticized me for being extremely arrogant and selfish.”

“That’s……”

At Barmas’s playful accusation, it was now Romei’s turn to avoid his gaze.

Since she had written honestly, thinking he wouldn’t be able to read it, she had no excuse to offer.

“You have quite a mean streak. I’ve known it since I first brought you here.”

Taking her silence as confirmation, Barmas pressed her lips with his index finger repeatedly, looking thoroughly displeased.

Unlike before, there was something oddly affectionate about the gesture that showed his annoyance with her lips.

Romei found it truly strange.

Despite having felt nothing for months, sinking into a pitch-black sea of emptiness and wishing only for death, she now felt affection from him.

“…So why did you look for the book while keeping me here?”

“I thought I might find a way to keep you by my side.”

“……”

“Like how that arrogant prince was eventually accepted by the maid, I wondered if I could be accepted by you too. That’s why I read it.”

“……”

“To tell you the truth, it took quite some time to find that book. Since I didn’t know the exact title, I read every novel featuring a maid and a prince that I could get my hands on.”

Barmas paused. After briefly considering whether to continue, he finally spoke.

“…And I think I’ve learned a little about how to love.”