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Chapter 05 …
“……”
Kanis was left utterly speechless.
Unable to even think of a response, he simply stared up at the blue sky beyond the window and thought:
Yenen, it’s your master.
This is all my fault.
I somehow ended up with a child overnight.
And now I have a husband too.
Where are you right now, and what are you doing?
Yenen!
I’m sorry.
Please come save me.
After that explosive declaration, Michael, as if he had expected this outcome all along, was immediately dragged before the Emperor under heavy guard.
Leaving Michael behind, Kanis was led by Jehel’s hand toward the Crown Prince’s Palace.
Sitting alone in an ownerless room, he seriously considered fleeing.
But he was far too angry to do that.
He absolutely refused to tuck his tail and run away like this.
Only late into the night was Michael finally released from the Emperor.
Whatever they had discussed was none of Kanis’s concern.
Kanis had things to say, and so he waited up late into the night for Michael.
When Michael finally came to see him, it seemed he hadn’t even had time to recover from the exhaustion of their journey, as he was still dressed in the same clothes he had worn earlier.
The cold night air clinging to his cloak brushed against Kanis’s feet.
In contrast, Kanis sat perched on the bed in colorful pajamas.
The moment Michael stepped into the room and saw him, a thin laugh escaped him.
Kanis sat there with his arms crossed and a stern expression, clearly radiating displeasure—
But unfortunately, it was impossible for him to appear intimidating.
After all, he was merely an ordinary six-year-old child who had just finished bathing, with soft flushed cheeks and fresh, fluffy skin.
“Michael Klovearn.”
Yet Michael deliberately put on a serious expression, walked over, knelt before Kanis, and met his eyes.
“What is it?”
Kanis wasn’t oblivious.
He knew Michael was merely humoring him.
But that didn’t make him any less irritated.
At the very least, he intended to enjoy seeing Michael obediently play along with a child’s tantrum.
Suppressing his anger, Kanis began in a coaxing tone.
“If your dream is to become a father, then go meet a nice person, get married, or adopt.”
“Well now, I don’t recall ever having such a dream.”
Kanis calmly shot back,
“Then are you just insane?”
“As I said before, it simply seemed like an appropriate way to lure out the Tower Master. I had no other intentions—”
Michael abruptly stopped speaking, then slowly curled one corner of his mouth upward as he looked at Kanis.
At that moment, Kanis saw it—
That irritating red glint in his eyes.
“Could it be… are you actually taking what I said earlier seriously? Did you think I was truly becoming your father?”
Kanis bristled.
“What nonsense! I wouldn’t take a father like you even if you gave him to me. What’s wrong with you?”
“A father like me? I simply never dreamed of it before, but I’m hardly lacking as father material.”
“The fact that you’re so confident already disqualifies you.”
“I’m wealthy, handsome, and young. On top of that, I have a good personality. I’d be considered prime parent material anywhere. You really have poor judgment.”
“Is a kid supposed to survive by staring at their father’s face? What does being handsome have to do with anything?”
“How could it not matter? Do you know how profoundly the things a child frequently sees in early childhood affect their aesthetic sense? Besides—”
“You’re not even my real father.”
Michael’s flowing speech stopped cold.
“Why did you go and do all this without even asking me about my father? What were you planning to do if someone claiming to be my father actually showed up?”
“……”
“You just assumed there wasn’t one. You figured I looked exactly like some abandoned child tossed away by his parents.”
“……”
“That’s rude. You really are… unbelievably rude. That’s why I don’t need a father like you. I’d rather have none at all. Got it?”
“……”
“Did you think I’d just be grateful if anyone became my parent?”
Back then, he would have been grateful.
He had been terrified of being abandoned.
So he had wanted to please them.
He had tried desperately not to be hated.
But Kanis was no longer that little child.
Even if his body had returned to that age, he had no intention of letting his heart return there too.
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
“Will you forgive me?”
It was an honest apology, free of excuses.
Kanis was not so narrow-minded that he couldn’t accept an apology, but—
“If you want forgiveness, then go out there and explain that none of it is true.”
He couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.
“That, I cannot do.”
“You said you were sorry.”
“I am sorry.”
“Looking at this, it really seems like you’re just trying to smooth things over with words.”
“Kanna.”
Michael placed his hands on either side of Kanis on the bed.
Kanis stared back at him with a sullen expression.
Michael’s reddish-violet eyes were right in front of him.
This time, his serious expression didn’t seem fake.
After living for three hundred years, Kanis had long since reached the point where he could practically read a person’s thoughts or intentions just by meeting their eyes.
Sometimes it was so vivid he thought he might never again be able to form ordinary relationships.
But strangely enough, Michael was difficult.
So difficult that Kanis occasionally felt the urge to crack open his skull and see what was inside.
Still, if he was human, then surely he was capable of reflection and sincerely accepting another person’s words.
And right then, in a voice more earnest than ever before, Michael said:
“So that you can forgive me… I’ll become an amazing parent.”
After a long silence, Kanis barely managed to ask:
“What?”
“An amazing parent—”
“Wait a second, did you… not hear what I just said?”
“I listened very carefully. You said you don’t need a parent like me.”
“……”
Kanis’s face twisted into a curse-filled expression.
Literally.
Then a thought suddenly struck him.
“Don’t tell me… this was your plan from the start?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You were planning to use this chance to win points with me until Kanis returns.”
“Win points? I’ve never used such vulgar phrasing in my life—”
“If it’s someone who treats his child well, then he might reconsider at least once.”
“…An interesting hypothesis.”
“And if you officially become the real father in the process, then you won’t have to deal with the headache of explaining or cleaning this up later.”
“……”
“Do you seriously have some kind of grudge against Kanis Riventi?”
Enough that you wouldn’t even mind suddenly having a six-year-old child at twenty-seven?
Had this lunatic never been rejected in his life, so after that day he completely lost his mind?
To begin with, Kanis still couldn’t understand why Michael had proposed in the first place.
That event—when the young Crown Prince had confessed to someone over three hundred years old, someone who now felt more like a being from another world than a human—
It was like an isolated island.
A singular event with no beginning, no cause, and no conclusion.
But Kanis knew very well that nothing in this world was truly like that.
There had to be a reason.
A context.
The only plausible guess was that the Imperial family had ordered it—
To bind Kanis Riventi to the Imperial bloodline and eliminate an unpredictable risk.
In truth, it wasn’t even the first time.
Such discussions had always existed among previous Emperors.
And yet Michael made Kanis question that assumption.
Were all of his words and actions truly nothing more than the responsibility of a Crown Prince acting as a member of the Imperial family?
For some reason, Kanis felt as though he was trying to force the wrong key into a lock.
As though there shouldn’t be any hidden intention Kanis Riventi couldn’t read—
And yet there was.
“Of course, I said it because I wanted your forgiveness. But if, later on, you happen to tell the returned Tower Master what an excellent father I was, I certainly won’t stop you.”
“……”
“You might even cry and throw a tantrum because you don’t want to be separated from me. Or perhaps—”
“Alright. Fine.”
Kanis cut him off, clutching his throbbing head.
So this lunatic actually had a plan.
A lunatic’s plan.
Kanis hopped down from the bed and stepped closer to Michael.
“But can you really do it?”
Michael raised one eyebrow, waiting for what came next.
Standing right before him, Kanis grinned like a mischievous little devil.
In that case—
It might not be so bad to become the saboteur of that plan.
“Do you really think you can make me say, ‘It has to be you and no one else’?”
Without a word, the corner of Michael’s mouth slowly rose.
Then, with a shamelessly calm expression, he answered:
“Of course. I’m confident.”
Judging by expressions alone, the two already looked like the perfect pair of partners.
“However, I have a condition.”
“Name it.”
“Let me bathe alone.”
“Alone? That sounds dangerous.”
“For me, being attended by servants is far more dangerous. I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
He wouldn’t understand.
The psychological trauma of a fully grown adult having their clothes stripped off, being washed, dressed again by other people—
All while being showered with exaggerated praise like “Your patience is incredible,” or “You’re so mature.”
Kanis Riventi was certain he had lost part of his dignity that day.
“I have a condition too.”
“Say it.”
“Do not call me insane.”
