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Chapter 16.
Adrian, who had been leaning against the door frame looking at Cyril, quietly lowered his gaze. His lips twitched as if to say something, but he soon closed them again.
Starting to speak, then stopping—it was a sight not easily seen in Adrian.
“…Is it that strange?”
“Yeah.”
Cyril even nodded his head in agreement.
Adrian rolled his eyes left and right, as if pondering deeply, and then cautiously began to speak.
“You won’t make fun of me?”
“Huh?”
“Promise me that no matter what I say, you won’t make fun of me.”
Just what kind of major event required such caution was beyond understanding.
And that attitude, as if Cyril was the type to always tease—what was that about?
Cyril was annoyed, but it seemed like if he didn’t promise, he wouldn’t hear what Adrian had to say.
“…I won’t make fun of you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Having received confirmation twice, Adrian went “Hmm.” and carefully chose his words. The time he hesitated was unusually long.
‘What in the world is it?’
Just as annoyance was beginning to creep in, a blush rose on Adrian’s cheeks. His blue eyes shone as always, but they felt different from usual.
To borrow an expression from Reed, who was second to none in sensitivity—they were like “eyes steeped in a dream.”
Almost reminiscent of a girl in love…
‘Love?’
The moment that word came to mind, a sudden uneasiness washed over him. It was an inexplicable anxiety, but because it was inexplicable, it was even more unsettling.
“Actually, I went to the imperial palace.”
“……What?”
The sudden mention of the word paralyzed Cyril’s thoughts.
Imperial palace.
The moment he heard the word, the uneasiness became more concrete.
“I saw His Highness the Crown Prince then, completely by chance.”
After the imperial palace, now the crown prince…
Adrian still had dreamy eyes.
Eyes unfamiliar enough to be seen for the first time in his life. Those eyes slowly drifted somewhere.
Unconsciously, Cyril followed the direction of Adrian’s gaze.
‘Bookmark.’
The protagonist receiving Adrian’s gaze was a dried rose.
“He gave this to me.”
Adrian, with an expression he had never shown before, wore a gentle smile. That smile conveyed one truth.
Love had found Adrian.
And that love was not directed at Cyril.
Cyril was left speechless by that fact.
Thump.
The ball, which had soared into the air, fell into Cyril’s palm. Cyril threw the caught ball back toward the ceiling.
Thump.
The rising ball soon landed safely in his palm.
It was after repeating this utterly meaningless act dozens of times.
‘He gave this to me.’
Thud.
The ball made of wool fell limply onto the blanket.
Adrian’s shy face floated across the ceiling.
Shy Adrian…
Even after seeing it with his own eyes, it was such an unbelievable sight that Cyril even doubted his own optic nerves.
Adrian, who was clumsy, loved to run and play, and seemed like he would live as a child forever, had fallen in love.
And all within the mere month Cyril was away in Tezar.
‘One of us made every excuse to stay here, and the other…!’
Even though he knew he shouldn’t be angry at Adrian, a sense of unfairness surged up violently.
No one knew better than Cyril himself that this anger was unjustified. After all, it was Cyril who had decided to stay in Cacinelle.
But now, in this situation, something seemed to emerge as if it had been waiting.
The ‘real reason.’
The real reason he wanted to stay in Cacinelle a little longer, the real reason he tried to hide with all sorts of excuses—it was trying to pierce through a solid barrier like a thorn.
‘What does he think of royalty? If he really becomes a crown princess, he won’t be able to do anything—hunting or anything else. Adrian might be naive and not know, but what in the world is the crown prince thinking, taking someone so inexperienced…’
But instead of focusing on that reason, Cyril directed his arrows elsewhere.
The target became the noble crown prince of the empire, whose face he didn’t even know.
The crown prince, said to be sixteen this year and not yet officially appointed as crown prince, transformed into a shameless villain in Cyril’s mind.
After pondering the countless hardships and adversities Adrian would face if he became crown princess, Cyril finally stood up abruptly.
‘This won’t do.’
If Adrian didn’t know, he just had to tell him. Knowing the path ahead was a muddy mess, he couldn’t just let Adrian walk into it. They were friends, after all—he should at least do that much.
Cyril set out to find Adrian right away.
Bang.
Smoke rose from the muzzle, and a new hole appeared right in the center of the target.
Turning away from the target indifferently, Cyril approached Adrian directly.
“Adrian, think about it. Looking back at history, under normal circumstances, the crown prince should have already ascended to the position of crown prince long ago. But look at the situation now. Crown Prince Lionel is still just a prince.”
“Well, since His Majesty is still in good health, that must be why.”
“What reason would His Majesty have to delay that? Appointing a crown prince doesn’t mean immediately transferring the throne.”
Adrian, who had been standing still despite the loud gunshot, covered his ears. Nagging, nagging. The muttering was clearly meant to be heard, but Cyril didn’t even blink.
“It’s not something to take lightly. The imperial palace isn’t the beautiful place you only see in fairy tales.”
“I never said it was. Just hurry up and shoot. You have to finish before I can shoot.”
Letting out a sigh, Cyril stepped back again. His posture, aiming the long barrel at the target, was flawlessly perfect.
Bang.
The second gunshot filled the surroundings. The result was another bullseye.
Adrian clapped from afar. For someone who hated losing even at the cost of his life, he was oddly generous with compliments for others.
Cyril stole a glance at Adrian.
Adrian’s eyes, fixed on the target with a hole in the center, shone with a competitive spirit.
‘Look at that. How does he think he’s going to live in that boring imperial palace when he enjoys things like this so much…’
Given Adrian’s free-spirited nature, the imperial palace was clearly the place least suited for him.
As Cyril prepared to take his final shot, he paused.
Adrian’s gaze had shifted from the target to a cluster of flowers visible in the distance.
Vibrant, colorful flowers, led by red roses, painted the entire field.
Roses.
Cyril recalled the withered rose Adrian had been using as a bookmark.
“Hey, Cyril. Where are you aiming?”
“…It was a mistake.”
Two consecutive gunshots were heard, but this time, the sound didn’t register. Needless to say, no new hole appeared in the target.
The stray bullet must have embedded itself in some unfortunate tree somewhere.
Adrian narrowed his eyes at the utterly poor aim that missed the target entirely.
It was a reasonable suspicion—hitting the bullseye twice out of three shots, and completely missing once.
“I was just distracted for a moment. That’s all.”
“You didn’t do it on purpose?”
“I just didn’t feel like seeing that tomato-like face again.”
Adrian chuckled at the genuine tone in his voice. “See, I told you not to do anything unnecessary,” he replied, and no further suspicion lingered in his tone.
Adrian stepped forward to the arbitrarily drawn line. His expression as he aimed at the target was quite serious.
The gun, with a shorter and lighter barrel than Cyril’s, was Adrian’s most cherished possession.
Cyril still vividly remembered how ecstatic Adrian had been when he first received that gun.
After a short while, having finished his three shots, Adrian put the gun away with a satisfied expression.
All three bullets had landed close to the center of the target.
“How long has it been since I won? Finally.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
Elated, Adrian pulled his right hand forward and bowed as if he were a knight.
Cute.
Unconsciously thinking that, the corners of Cyril’s mouth relaxed slightly.
“Don’t get any weird ideas and just focus on shooting.”
“You’re bringing that up again? Give it a rest.”
“It’s because you keep having such grand expectations.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything. I was just curious. Even if I did have expectations, what’s wrong with that? Why do you have to meddle?”
Adrian, having endured this for days, finally exploded and snapped back. Being bombarded with nagging every time they met was enough to make anyone fed up.
Why meddle?
He had expected it, but the more direct remark made Cyril flinch.
“Didn’t you say we’re like siblings? So it’s only natural for me to meddle.”
“…Even Reed, your real sibling, wouldn’t pester you like this.”
“That’s because Reed is scared of you.”
Adrian fell silent at the retort that implied it was only natural. Cyril’s rebuttal was unexpectedly persuasive.
“If I were to recklessly get engaged to someone, would you just stand by? Important matters like this should be discussed.”
Emboldened, Cyril continued.
Even though he knew in his head that it was nonsense, his mouth wouldn’t stop talking.
Adrian, who had been looking at Cyril with confused eyes, finally spoke up.
“…I stood by.”
After a long pause, the words he uttered held a strange nuance. Not ‘I would stand by,’ but ‘I stood by.’
“It was just a chance meeting. We don’t even know when we’ll meet again, so why do you keep bringing it up? It’s not like I can marry him just because I want to, anyway.”
Before he could even ask what that meant, the word ‘marriage’ that came from Adrian’s lips stunned Cyril.
“Ha. You’ve already thought about marriage?”
“It’s just a figure of speech! You said it yourself when we were kids! That marriage is a union between families!”
The retort to his ridiculous remark was sharp.
Usually not the brightest, but his memory became astonishingly sharp only when arguing…
He couldn’t remember running around the castle as a child with missing front teeth, but he remembered something like that perfectly.
“Anyway, it’s not something I can decide on my own, so you should stop too.”
“…So, what are your feelings? Did you fall for that crown prince or something?”
He could have just said he understood and ended it there, but Cyril finally blurted out the one question he had kept hidden in his heart.
Perhaps that was the only thing he truly wanted to know.
Having already concluded it was love, yet clinging to the pitiful hope that it wasn’t.
