“Let go.”
Nigel swatted away Veil’s hand as if annoyed. There was a smack sound, but Veil Khalid’s grinning expression remained unchanged.
“Think about it carefully when you go back later. Prince.”
Nigel just looked at Veil Khalid, who was speaking teasingly, with cold eyes. Thinking there was even a little bit of Nigel’s interest in that attitude, Veil continued to speak.
“This is specialized in protecting the person the wearer is most interested in. That’s why, Nigel, I can quickly notice your body’s condition.”
“……”
Nigel chewed over Veil’s words in his mind.
‘The person the wearer is most interested in.’
When Veil first explained this bracelet, he definitely deflected by saying it was a ‘function to detect people whose condition is unstable nearby.’ But the truth that came from Veil’s mouth now carried completely different weight.
The fact that the artifact had been reacting so violently only to him meant that all of Veil Khalid’s attention was directed toward Nigel Kaiserion himself.
Nigel roughly swept his sweat-soaked hair back with his fingers. He felt like he’d gotten unnecessarily caught up in the guy’s conversational flow, but on the other hand, a strange sense of victory bloomed.
“Veil Khalid.”
As if rethinking the words he’d brought up, Veil, who had stopped short, promptly answered.
“Yes, Prince.”
“Did you just say ‘the person most interested in’?”
The corners of Veil’s mouth stiffened slightly. Nigel smiled bitterly and firmly gripped Veil’s wrist that had been hovering around his shoulder.
Then Veil’s relaxed smile froze like a fossil in an instant.
“Ah, that is, well… that’s magic targeting. Since you cause so many accidents around here, my artifact recognized you as a person of concern…”
“The explanation is different from earlier.”
Nigel smiled bitterly and suddenly reached out to firmly grip Veil’s wrist.
“…!”
Veil’s amber eyes rippled widely with shock. Nigel roughly pulled Veil’s wrist toward himself. Through the thin shirt, the sound of Veil’s madly racing heart was transmitted directly to Nigel’s palm.
As expected, it was fast.
It was an honest beat that couldn’t be hidden.
Because Nigel moved, the blanket precariously draped over his shoulder slid smoothly down to his waist. Then Nigel’s upper body, which had been roughly covered, was completely exposed.
The burning fireplace light surged over his porcelain-white and smooth skin.
The collarbone glistening with sweat from the aftermath of transformation, the prominent ribs, and below that, the line of taut abs without an ounce of fat was perfect like a sculpture.
It was Nigel’s beautiful naked body, usually hidden under his neat uniform, maintained to the point of obsession.
“……”
Veil’s relaxed smile completely disappeared. In the place where his usual brazen mask shattered, a raw expression mixed with confusion and anxiety was revealed. Nigel pressed on more coldly and arrogantly as if he’d seized the upper hand.
“You had quite a cute side, Prince of Brion.”
“…What?”
Cu-cute? Who… At the word that came from Nigel’s mouth, a word he’d never heard in his life, Veil Khalid’s eyes widened slightly.
“All those acts of pretending to hate me, picking fights at every turn, and grating on my nerves were actually pitiful tricks to beg for my attention.”
“What kind of bullshit.”
“But in the Empire, such things are undignif—”
“Stop!”
Veil caught Nigel’s shoulder and roughly pushed him onto the sofa. Nigel’s breath caught from the rebound, but the moment he saw Veil’s eyes, he had no choice but to close his mouth.
His lips were trembling faintly as if convulsing.
‘He’s caught.’
Thinking Veil was flustered, Nigel smiled even more bitterly. It seemed like he could even cover up the fact that he’d been discovered transforming into a frog with this sense of victory.
But Veil’s reaction flowed in a slightly different direction from Nigel’s expectations.
“…Dignity? Do you think something like maintaining dignity matters to me?”
Veil muttered lowly. The guy’s voice was trembling, but it was closer to suppressed anger than shyness. Veil put strength into the arm pressing down on Nigel. The sofa beneath them made a creak sound and sank down.
Veil’s amber eyes were rippling with anger.
“If I had maintained dignity, would you, Nigel Kaiserion, have even spoken a word to me? Of course I tried hovering around trying to win your favor for a few months. But you wouldn’t even look at someone like the Prince of Brion.”
The guy stopped speaking and looked for a moment at Nigel, who was looking at him with a frozen face, having tried to provoke but ended up being provoked himself. Then he twisted his lips into a sneer and said.
“So I changed strategies. Because this way, at least I could catch your attention once more.”
“…!”
“Why, you didn’t know that far, Nigel?”
Silence flowed through the room.
“…It took me quite a while to admit my own feelings, but you figured it out in one go. As expected, the Empire’s perfect Crown Prince is different.”
Veil’s voice was terribly low and heavy. The guy’s eyes rippled with heat as if about to explode at any moment.
“If I had just watched from afar, you definitely wouldn’t have had any interest in me until graduation.”
Veil lowered his upper body and came right up to Nigel’s nose. A few strands of the guy’s red hair fell messily onto Nigel’s white collarbone.
“But you know what?”
Murmuring as if whispering, Veil lowered his eyes. He was sweeping over Nigel’s exposed upper body. His long eyelash shadows were cast.
Though he’d known Veil for two years since enrollment, Nigel only now realized for the first time that his eyelashes were red like his hair.
“I was sufficiently satisfied with this relationship. Until a week ago, that is.”
“So what.”
Nigel said while glaring at Veil Khalid who was looking down at him with a threatening expression.
“You’re going to do as you please? Where did you throw away the Brion Royal Family’s dignity?”
“Yeah. You keep that kind of thing to the end, Nigel.”
“What?”
“I changed my mind after seeing you with Ashfield.”
Ha. Veil Khalid said through gritted teeth as if getting angry again even at his own words.
“For someone who’s the Crown Prince of the Empire to use such a third-rate scandal as a shield. You should have used me instead, Nigel. If you had, at least I wouldn’t have just watched in a daze as you transformed into a frog so many times.”
Veil’s low voice dug into Nigel’s ear. Nigel tried to push away Veil’s solid chest pressing down on him, but Veil’s grip overlapping from above didn’t budge like a rock.
Rowen Ashfield, that idiot. He heard the sound of Veil Khalid muttering lowly.
“……”
Nigel stared at Veil silently instead of answering.
No, to be precise, it was correct to say his thoughts had stopped. The Emperor’s only son and the Empire’s sole heir. Variables like ‘romance with a man’ didn’t exist in Nigel’s life blueprint.
At the appropriate time, to take a bride from a prestigious family and continue the Empire’s bloodline. That was not a choice but a duty and natural order for Nigel.
The rumor with Rowen was just a temporary shield to avoid the situation, but the emotions Veil Khalid was spitting out were on a completely different trajectory.
‘This guy… me? Really?’
A relationship where they’d never once smiled and talked to each other during the two years since enrollment. The moment he faced the longing reflected in such a guy’s eyes, Nigel felt a kind of goosebumps he’d never experienced in his life flowing down his spine. Because he could feel Veil Khalid’s sincerity.
“…If you criticize Rowen any further, I won’t stay still either.”
Nigel said while meeting Veil Khalid’s eyes.
“That guy has already been a great help to me. To be that much help to me, Veil Khalid, you’ll have to work harder. Let go of this arm. First, I’m going back to my room. As long as you don’t forget that you have to cooperate whenever I want from now on since I kept the condition you set, I won’t ask any further.”
Nigel decided to make the best use of this situation somehow.
“…It actually worked out well.”
