Chapter 89
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89.
What in the world was this madness?
Cassian Artez reached out and grasped my hair like a rope, pressing it against his cheek.
"...Thank you."
He even offered his gratitude with such docility.
'This isn't like him at all...!'
I cried out inwardly.
In that same moment, I realized anew that regardless of any circumstances, what the Emperor had done to Cassian Artez was wrong.
The sympathy I had been accumulating for His Majesty over these past few days crumbled away.
Because a seven-year-old child wishing for death made no sense whatsoever.
I spoke hastily.
"No, you will live."
"...Why?"
The child looked puzzled at my words.
Did living require a reason?
Everyone had the right to seek happiness, the right to dream of tomorrow—so why should a mere seven-year-old child question that?
I did not know.
Perhaps it was because I was no great philosopher, no leader with grand political ambitions.
But no matter how noble a goal might be, if it demands the death of a child who hasn't even lost all his baby teeth, should it truly come to pass?
I could only think this way.
Yet my understanding was far too narrow, and only trite words came to mind.
I withdrew a handkerchief and gently wiped the sweat from Cassian Artez's forehead and face, then carefully opened my mouth.
"...Because I need to meet with Your Highness later."
"...With me?"
First a demon, now the Grim Reaper—what am I to you?
But now, as the elder and seeing young Cassian Artez so pitiable, I resolved to be generous.
"I'm not the Grim Reaper."
"...Then what?"
With each question, curiosity and vitality began to kindle above those sorrowful young eyes.
If my faltering, childish words gave him strength, I could speak as much as needed.
After all, being teased by Cassian Artez was nothing new.
"Because Your Highness and I must become demons together later."
Though I could not offer words that were truly grand and hopeful.
Now that I thought about it, telling a seven-year-old that he would become a demon when he grew up seemed only to deliver despair.
"...When?"
Indeed, my future superior's eyes grew even brighter with anticipation.
I'm not sure why I'm happy hearing such words even at a time like this.
"If Your Highness grows healthy and strong, becoming much taller than me."
"...A hundred nights of sleep?"
I only need to endure four more years before meeting my younger self, but there are still fourteen more years before being called the demons of the Winter Palace....
As I thought that, I recalled how Cassian Artez used "a hundred" to mean something very large.
To a seven-year-old, even a hundred nights would be an extraordinarily long concept.
Prince Joel cried asking if he could see Empress Trisha after ten nights of sleep.
I swallowed my pity and, recognizing that the child before me was the young Cassian Artez, decided to tell him a truth that might be cruel.
"After passing through a hundred nights dozens of times."
....
Cassian Artez met my gaze and remained quietly for a moment.
As if his fevered mind was earnestly thinking about something.
And soon he asked again.
"Really, truly will I see her?"
At that earnest question, I nodded while squeezing his small hand tightly.
"Yes, truly and certainly."
The moment I answered, his smile nearly stopped my heart in an entirely different way.
'...You weren't lying, Your Highness.'
It was an achingly, devastatingly lovely smile.
Even more so than Sixth Prince Joel.
At the same time, seeing the space warp, I realized my mistake and hurriedly rose to my feet.
'...At this rate, I'll suddenly appear in His Highness's bedroom!'
This is too much of a condition for an ordinary person like me!
Please nerf the difficulty!
*
To put it simply.
"...Roselita Salice?"
I failed to escape in time.
"...Even if we are betrothed, this is rather sudden."
And became utterly shameless.
The timing of my return was particularly unfortunate—it came right after Cassian Artez had informed the Imperial Palace Guards, and just as he emerged from bathing.
Between failing to escape the room and being treated as shameless by Cassian Artez, or suddenly appearing before his door and bewildering the knights, which was truly the better choice?
Of course, being an ordinary person with no real options, I ended up trapped inside his chambers regardless.
"...Why are you coming out of the bath without being fully dressed?"
The moment I caught sight of his impressively sculpted and well-defined upper body—well, his torso in general—after so long, I immediately turned away.
I was absolutely not a pervert of my own volition.
"It's not as though I have attendants assist me with bathing."
"...I apologize. In any case, it was unintentional."
I'm genuinely grateful you at least covered your lower half.
I nearly submitted my resignation.
The temperature shift was truly too extreme.
Just moments ago I was looking at a seven-year-old Cassian Artez, adorable as an angel, and now I'm face to face with a fully grown, cunning, devilish yet still beautiful twenty-three-year-old version of him.
Damn this cursed original story....
As I glared accusingly at the scroll, he suddenly pulled me toward him from behind.
"I'm fully dressed now."
"...I apologize."
Even at his casual remark, I apologized once more.
After all, he must be displeased—both by my sudden appearance in his chambers and by having shown him my bare upper body.
"This isn't even the first time. Why make such a fuss?"
"...That was Your Highness who showed me, though."
"And this time Roselita Salice saw me?"
"It wasn't of my own volition."
"It could have been."
In fact, I'd prefer it that way, Cassian Artez murmured something strange.
I nearly asked if he'd developed an exhibitionist tendency, had the situation been different.
As I continued to hide my embarrassed face, Cassian Artez kissed my cheeks and jaw directly.
"Hmm, so Roselita Salice is here. Is this what I think it is?"
"...Yes."
"It wasn't a dream then."
At that answer, he kissed my hair with an audible sound.
"...What?"
"You kept your promise very well."
"Ah...."
I turned my head to look at him with startled eyes at those words.
"This answers one of my questions."
I thought the same thing to myself, but my eyes were growing wider and wider.
So going back to that past wasn't simply returning to the past at all?!
*
"You never told me."
"Because I didn't know you were Roselita Salice?"
After I had calmed down somewhat and we talked through things carefully, I realized that Cassian Artez remembered everything.
For me, it had been mere moments ago, but for him, it was something he should have endured through hundreds of nights, repeated dozens of times over.
"I really thought it was a dream, and I was grateful that such a lovely Reaper came to take me away."
"...But you were fixated on the word demons, Set."
At my sullen remark, Cassian let out a small laugh.
"That's because it felt like a childhood dream was coming true, but wouldn't you have felt the same way, Roselita Salice?"
That reasoning made sense to me as well.
Even if I had met someone as beautiful as Cassian Artez is now during childhood, and especially if that person had vanished like a mirage in an instant, it would have been all the more so.
Looking at me like that, Cassian showed me a smile just as lovely as it had been back then.
"Thank you for not abandoning me."
I had heard similar words several times before.
But the resonance was entirely different.
Just a few hours ago, if I had made a different choice at that moment of decision given to me, what would the landscape before my eyes look like now?
Would Roselita Salice have been able to live peacefully in the Salice Barony?
I reached out my hand toward his face without thinking.
From the gesture of him yielding so readily, his trust in me came through vividly.
He always says that I saved him, offering his gratitude.
"You know, Ian."
"Yes."
The name, still not entirely natural on my lips, came out so naturally.
As if it belonged in this moment.
"It wasn't just me who saved you."
"Then?"
"You found me and came to me."
Enduring and persevering in this Imperial Palace, which was nothing but difficult, lonely, and painful.
You let nine-year-old me save you, and then, bearing such a grueling life, you found me again.
My life now is because I could be here.
"So thank you for not giving up on finding me."
Holding back the words about that fact which had been far too harsh for a seven-year-old child, and enduring it.
"Thank you for waiting through thousands of nights."
*
That evening, Cassian Artez wore an expression I couldn't quite describe.
It was a face so ineffable that I could only say I would never forget it—truly beyond words.
After we finished our conversation, we both felt a little awkward and instinctively buried the moment beneath talk of work.
Yet it was a day when something inexplicably pierced straight through my heart.
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