After walking behind him for quite a while, we arrived at the most secluded room in the corner, among the rooms located one floor below the dining room.

Taking a key out of his pocket, Assel opened the door and finally released my wrist.

At the same time, the door opened with a thud, revealing a well-organized but somehow empty interior.

He entered the room first, and I followed him. Afterward, the door closed, and Assel, standing as if blocking the door, looked down at me and asked,

“Why did you come here?”

The moment our eyes met, I couldn’t give any answer. It was because I could feel deep pain from his ruby eyes.

“Haven’t you… already gotten everything you wanted?”

His voice was deliberately packaged to sound calm, but it seemed like he might cry at any moment. At that moment, I realized. He hadn’t forgotten me, but he was deeply hurt, and just looking at me stirred up that wound.

Perhaps coming to find him was selfish in itself.

Nevertheless, I was already standing in front of him, and I couldn’t let him go like this. I knew it was selfish. But.

“I wanted to see you……”

I wanted to see him. Simply because I missed him so much, I ran non-stop from the imperial palace to here with the paper containing his address.

As my current unbearable appearance proved.

“Assel, I missed you so much……”

Assel’s gaze, which had been wandering in the void, rested on me, and soon his eyes, stained with wounds, wavered violently.

But soon his face hardened coldly. The next moment, an even colder voice than before flowed from between his lips,

“How did you know I was here?”

It was like drawing a line. That he wouldn’t allow me even the slightest chance.

It tasted bitter, but perhaps it was thanks to knowing I would have to endure this much, or even more, when coming here, and having practiced in advance.

I could pretend to be calm and answer,

“Well… your brother told me.”

“My brother…?”

Assel made an expression of complete surprise, and soon bit back a laugh.

“My brother wouldn’t do that. You’re lying.”

But something was strange. Why was he asserting that the Emperor wouldn’t have revealed his whereabouts to me?

Moreover, listening to the Emperor’s words, the emotional rift between the two brothers seemed quite deep for trust to build.

Furthermore, the unusually friendly manner in which he had treated Elysion earlier, unlike his usual self, kept circling in my mind.

Because of this, as I kept delaying my answer, he brushed up his bangs as if having a headache.

Then, along with a sigh, a deflated voice flowed from his lips,

“It’s a pointless question anyway, so let me change the question.”

“……Pardon?”

Before I could be flustered by his sudden change in attitude, he began his question,

“Then, what about the mansion? Didn’t you become the family head?”

Was it my imagination? His voice asking this had a strange tremor embedded in its firmness.

‘Somehow it feels like I shouldn’t say I quit…’

A momentary ominous sensation swept over me, but I deliberately ignored it and carefully opened my mouth,

“Ah. The mansion? Actually……”

“……”

“……I gave it up.”

“……?”

And at my answer, Assel’s eyes expanded indescribably. He asked with a tone implying if I was serious,

“What did you just say……”

And I added with an “oh well” attitude,

“I quit being the family head.”

“What on earth……”

“Of course, not completely, but temporarily. It will depend on what I do from now on. Depending on my abilities, I might become it again, or I might live like a kite with its string cut.”

“……”

“And right now, I want to focus on something more precious than business or being a family head.”

“Something more precious?”

I nodded and carefully uttered,

“……You and Elysion.”

For a moment, deep puzzlement clouded Assel’s eyes.

It was a gaze that seemed somewhat shocked.

Assel’s surprise lasted for quite a long time.

Of course, there are types of surprise. His gaze, which seemed close to bewilderment, gradually became tinged with confusion.

Finally, after a few seconds of facing him as he stared at me with a gaze that didn’t understand me, Assel’s lips opened, and a voice with a strange tone flowed out.

“I don’t know why you made such a decision… but it’s unlike you.”

Was he angry, relieved, or just testing me? It was a voice with various entangled emotions that I couldn’t discern.

Perhaps there was no emotion at all, and I was just imagining it.

But somehow, I strongly felt that he was confused.

Originally, our relationship, which had been progressing well, went awry like a stone thrown into a river because of a significant trust issue.

Despite being hit countless times by the stones I threw, he probably couldn’t even scream in pain. In fact, even though I knew, I closed my eyes, covered my ears, and pretended not to know because he didn’t appeal to me.

Those years piled up and led us here.

And for me, who had been like that, to approach him like this now. It’s understandable that he would be confused.

“……”

Perhaps that’s why. I couldn’t rashly utter even a single word. Lest I might say something wrong and be deprived of the chance to see him again.

But nothing changed despite my worries. Rather, feeling like I was going from one mountain to another, I finally decided.

To be honest. To honestly tell him how I felt.

With only the naive thought that if I treated him sincerely, he might respond sincerely, I began,

“Assel.”

As I uttered his name, Assel’s gaze turned to me.

After alternately looking at him and the carpeted floor, I continued,

“That day… I understand that the wounds I gave you with my words can’t be easily healed… and that the situation is enough for you to misunderstand. But.”

“……”

“Still… can’t we start over?”

Sincerity doesn’t mean rambling. But my face burned even after I said it.

Assel looked at me with a puzzled gaze and asked,

“……What do you mean?”

His strangely subdued voice felt like he was testing me.

“I want to go back to how we were before… with you.”

My voice trembled. May this confession, with all my sincerity, reach him.

If not, we would end here.

At the thought that I might be rejected, my vision darkened, and my heart sank coldly.

Assel looked at me impassively.

“……”

His ruby-colored eyes, from which emotions could hardly be felt, remained on me for a while.

What thoughts was he immersed in to have such a gaze?

Too afraid to even guess, I ended up lowering my head. And at that very moment, a cool voice wrapped around my ears,

“Do you know what that means when you say it?”

I raised my head. The same dry gaze as before was staring at me.

Eventually, as I met that gaze, Assel’s lips opened, and the following voice flowed out,

“When I first met you, I thought you were like a tree. I tried to cut you down and make you fall towards me, when you were growing straight up.”

“……”

“I know. That I was selfish.”

His red eyes sank darkly as he murmured in a lonely voice and gazed at me. Soon, dropping his gaze to the floor, he continued,

“Back then, I thought it was okay if I loved you.”

“……”

The moment I heard from his lips the words I had never received verbal confirmation of, my heart raced as if it were a lie.

“But, when I realized that wasn’t love, my thoughts changed again.”

“……”

However, in contrast to that, my heart soon plummeted to the floor.

What is this? Does he no longer love me…?

Then why did he say those words? Why? As I gazed at him with eyes seeking an answer, he let out a desolate chuckle and said,

“What I want to say is that what I considered love then was a more hasty emotion than I thought. I didn’t know what real love was. It was merely me defining the happiness that vague emotion gave me in my own way.”

“……Ah.”

My heart calmed down again at his single word. Somehow feeling a bit embarrassed, I looked at him and then began,

“Then, what about now…?”

My heart pounded wildly as I uttered that single phrase. Assel looked at me with a surprised expression.

After staring at me blankly for a while, as if immersed in thought, he eventually asked in a subdued voice,

“What answer would you like me to give?”

I could understand. That it was an answer with multiple meanings. Because if he admitted that he loved me, all these walls between us would crumble.

That’s what I wanted and why I rushed here, but now standing in front of that wall, fear swept over me. But what’s certain is that even if I step back from here, I won’t be happy.

Having finished my thoughts, I opened my mouth,

“I don’t want you to… blame yourself.”

Assel looked at me with surprised eyes.

“Blame myself?”

“You just called yourself selfish. But love is originally selfish. That’s why it can persist.”

Assel had a look that didn’t understand.

“Why do you think so?”

“Well, that’s……”

“……”

“You know, Assel. How much strength does it take for two completely different people to become one?”

“…I wonder.”

Assel said as if he didn’t know, and I chuckled and answered,

“The answer is two people’s worth of strength. If only one side pulls, they get tired, and if they’re only pulled, they get bored.”

“……”

“But look. I eventually came all the way here because of your pulling force.”

There was a time when I resented Assel.

Because of him, who harbored dark intentions toward me and proposed a contract marriage based on just our encounter at the beach, because of him, who was excessively affectionate and made me unable to resist falling for him.

There was a time when I felt like my life would shatter into pieces.

But as time passed, I realized that wasn’t the case.

‘Levedi, are you happy like this now?’

The question I threw at myself in the mansion after becoming the family head following Father’s death.

To the question of whether I was happier now than when I was with Assel, I couldn’t bring myself to answer.

At that time, I hadn’t realized that my happiness was elsewhere. And that it was because another being, overwhelming wealth and honor, was pulling me with its whole body.

“And that selfish heart that pulls like you, people usually call it effort.”

“……”

“So there’s no need to feel guilty.”

Assel’s eyes sank deeply. After alternately gazing at the void and me, as if immersed in thought, he began heavily,

“I didn’t expect you to think that way.”

“……”

“But… I think this is a matter that concerns your life, so you need to think carefully.”

“……”

“If you’re with me, you might live like a flower in a greenhouse.”

So that’s why he mentioned trees earlier. It wasn’t difficult to grasp his meaning. It was also something I had pondered countless times.

And I had an answer prepared for it,

“I like broken greenhouses too. As I grow, I can break through the roof and rise.”

“……”

“Of course, the repair costs are on you.”

Assel’s eyes widened. Watching the faint expectation nestled within them shake unstably, I clenched my fist. Now only his decision remained.

Assel blinked his eyes. After staring at me blankly for a while with an expression that didn’t know how to respond, he opened his mouth only after some time had passed,

“Even so, you might regret it.”

His voice was much more affectionate than before. My heart fluttered as it seemed to be getting closer to his usual self, which was like sunshine.

I answered, fully capturing him in my sight,

“……Then, so that I don’t regret it, you hold onto me.”

Assel made a surprised expression. I moved my steps closer to him.

Eventually, when we were close enough for our breaths to touch, I intertwined my fingers with his and said,

“Hold on with all your might, and tame me.”

“……”

“So that I don’t even dare think of escaping from you.”

Saying this and meeting his eyes, I smiled provocatively, and Assel stared at me for a moment, then whispered in a calm voice,

“Do you know the story of the angel and the woodcutter?”

“The angel and the woodcutter……”

It was a classic story I knew too.

The story of a woodcutter who fell in love at first sight with an angel bathing and hid her wings.

Afterward, the woodcutter takes the angel as his wife and hides the wings tightly until she bears three children. Because if the angel bears three children with the woodcutter, her body becomes bound to the earth.

‘Could it be.’

Just as I seemed to understand the intention behind his words, a crooked smile settled on his lips.

The ruby eyes gazing at me shone lewdly. That persistent and suggestive gaze made it hard to breathe. Just as I unconsciously took a step back, his hand brushed my cheek.

After gently stroking my cheek with his fingertips as if drawing a circle, he eventually whispered in a low voice,

“From the moment I first saw you, I was tempted. I felt like I would go crazy wanting to have you, even if I had to become a scoundrel.”

It was a voice clearly different from earlier when he lacked confidence. Moreover, at his gaze sliding down from my face to below my neckline, I unconsciously swallowed hard.

“……Assel.”

“That woodcutter fellow seems to have been satisfied with three, but I need to see four.”

“……”

“I want my greenhouse to be filled with flowers I raise.”

Even in the movement of slowly raising his head to gaze into the void and then elegantly returning to his original position to stare at me, elegance could be felt.

His speech was also extremely aristocratic, but perhaps because I knew the meaning hidden within it—

Just as goosebumps were about to rise on my back, his fingers, which had been caressing my cheek, soon moved to my chin and then slid down my neckline, gradually going lower.

Everywhere his hand touched felt hot, as if being branded. My face felt like it would explode from his gaze, which was even more intensely examining me.

Around that time, his fingers went even lower and finally reached my flat stomach, specifically my navel.

As I raised my head at the sensation of him pressing firmly, I noticed him smiling.

Meeting my eyes, he smiled even more deeply and whispered,

“If that doesn’t work… we should at least try, shouldn’t we?”

“……”

“I need to sow seeds in my greenhouse.”

The meaning contained in that explicit gaze and words was all too clear.

……Somehow, I strongly felt that I had disturbed a man I shouldn’t have.

“I, I was wrong!”

I reflexively shouted at him, but he only smiled more deeply.

“Now, where are you trying to escape to?”

His gaze as he said this was like that of a predator who had captured its prey, as if he had desperately waited for this moment.

“I… haven’t washed yet!”

“We didn’t particularly wash the first time either.”

“You were lewd… from the beginning.”

The man who proposed the contract marriage had harbored dark intentions toward me for quite a long time.

“Oh my. Wasn’t it you who seduced me first?”

“Ah, that’s true, but……”

But in the end, it was me who accepted the marriage knowing those dark intentions, and who came back into the tiger’s mouth on my own feet.

“Then, shall I wash you?”

……So now all that’s left is to be eaten?

Just as my heart sank, the door opened with a thud, and a cute voice interrupted,

“Mom, Dad……”

It was Elysion.

“Sion!”

But why? Elysion, who was calling us, suddenly slammed the door shut and left.

That attitude, as if he had already noticed the entire situation. Just as I felt something odd, Assel looked at the doorway with a pleased expression and said,

“As expected, my son is quick-witted.”

“……”

“Now, shall we continue what we were doing?”

……It was the moment I realized there were actually two black masterminds.

<The End>