“Isn’t this a bit much?”
Luan leaned his back against the headboard and let out a deep sigh. And for good reason — Kirian, who had seemed somewhat irritated, had promptly and without ceremony made himself at home in Luan’s room as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The goldfish tails that followed him in were an added bonus.
It made sense that Kael the escort knight had tagged along since the Emperor was there. But what on earth was the Northern Knight Commander doing here? Sure, compared to the first two who had been inexplicably occupying the place for three days now, he was relatively new to the scene. Even so, the eyes fixed on the bed were uniformly and unbearably suffocating. Since when did I become the criminal?
“What are you referring to.”
Kirian asked without looking up, peeling an apple with casual indifference. The cognitive dissonance of watching a clearly extraordinary and beautiful dagger being used to peel an apple was something else entirely. On top of that, the technique was such that more than half the apple’s flesh had been carved away along with the skin, raising the genuine question of whether the intended shape had been a square.
“Am I a criminal?”
Why are you barring me from the office, confiscating all the documents, and stationing knights outside the door so not even an ant can pass through? He voiced his irritation, and Kirian answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“You’re a patient.”
“It feels considerably more like criminal treatment to me.”
Kirian did not respond. He simply directed his irritation at the apple skin’s failure to curl into rabbit-ear shapes. There was no point expecting an answer from that corner. Luan turned his head.
“And Lord Harkan.”
Luan’s sharp gaze shifted to the large man standing behind Kirian. Harkan. After that incident a few days ago, he had disappeared in tears — and had apparently already completed his audit and returned. That much was fine. But.
“Hand over that quill pen. I still have approvals to sign.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
“The tip of a quill pen is sharp.”
There is a risk of tetanus should Your Majesty accidentally prick a finger. Luan lost his words at the sight of Harkan delivering this with a perfectly grave expression.
“……It’s been sanitized.”
“Even so, I cannot allow it.”
“……Right. Fine, let’s set that aside. Then why are you using your body to shield the approval documents?”
“Paper is dangerous.”
“Paper……?”
“The edges carry a risk of injury to Your Majesty’s person.”
Harkan’s eyes were deadly serious. He looked prepared to perform seppuku on the spot if such a thing were to occur. Wasn’t this the same beast who had been growling about budget cuts just days ago? What was this ridiculous, excessive overprotection?
He didn’t know the reason, but there was no winning there either. He would have to try clearing away some other annoyance instead. He turned his gaze toward the window this time.
“Lord Kael. And why exactly are you dangling from the window frame?”
Sure enough, Kael was visible with only his eyes peeking through the gap of the window, scanning the surroundings back and forth. This was slowly driving him insane.
“I am maintaining a perimeter watch in preparation for any unforeseen threat.”
“……This is the fifth floor. And the magical barrier means not even a fly can get through.”
“If not an assassin, then one must guard against bird droppings. Dust entering His Majesty’s respiratory tract is something I cannot permit.”
Luan pressed his fingers firmly against his throbbing temples. He was losing his mind. Had they all collectively taken the wrong medication? Perhaps he shouldn’t have told them to clear those medicines away after all. He should have made these people take them instead.
On top of everything, his physical condition was at its absolute worst. Thanks to that blasted time-limited detox, things had actually gotten harder. Having experienced what it felt like to be light as air, returning to his original state felt like dying.
As the sacred power filled back up, his body grew heavy as waterlogged cotton. His stomach churned and a low-grade fever lingered without end. But even so, he could not simply lie here tied to a bed, doing nothing but breathing. No matter how much he had agreed to be the one at fault for the divorce, there were limits. He could not afford to hand over grounds for anything. He refused to watch his settlement get reduced.
“Move aside. I’m going to the office.”
There was work to do. The budget proposal needed finishing, and there was Harkan’s audit report to review. Luan threw off the blanket and moved to get up.
“Lie down.”
Kirian’s voice dropped low. Simultaneously, Harkan stepped in front of the bed like a human wall. Having an unwanted wall of massive muscle block his view was nothing short of maddening. He was too flabbergasted to even speak.
“Your Majesty. Work is both my right and my duty. Preventing me from doing so would be an overreach of authority——”
“Your duty is to rest.”
“Surely there are limits to how much rest one is expected to take.”
Luan snapped back. If he didn’t get through those wretched reports quickly, the frustration alone would make him collapse again.
“Are you seriously telling me to do nothing but breathe? What do you think I am, a vegetable?”
Kirian set down the apple he had been peeling — now reduced to something that was essentially just a core — onto the plate and looked directly at Luan. His crimson eyes gleamed with an eerie light.
“Yes. Do nothing.”
“……”
“Don’t lift a single finger. Don’t think. Don’t use your head. Just lie there and breathe. That is an order.”
Kirian’s tone was absolute. His words made clear he would tolerate no further argument, and Luan shut his mouth. He had neither the physical strength to overpower that stubbornness nor the energy to talk him around. And since it had been declared an imperial order, defying it would be an act of insubordination.
“Ha……”
Luan buried his head in the pillow, drained. Irritation surged through him. He had work to do.
……Did he, though?
But the more he thought about it, something felt off.
Wait.
The calculator in Luan’s mind began to run. Was the Emperor’s order actually unreasonable?
Don’t work. That’s a dream come true.
Just lie here. That’s everything he’d ever wanted. But as Empress, all his rights and treatment — the bedroom, the meals, the attendants — would be maintained, wouldn’t they?
Luan’s eyes took on a different gleam.
Hm?
Come to think of it, there was nothing bad about this. No — it was actually great.
The divorce agreement had already been submitted anyway, and the deliberation period was ticking by. Whether he dragged his ailing body through grueling work or took medical leave and recuperated in luxury, the result in six months was the same: divorce either way. Wasn’t it actually more profitable to do no work, collect his living expenses, eat well, and walk out the door in comfort?
His heart began to beat faster. A legendary phrase he had never once experienced, owing to his reflexively work-focused nature, came to mind.
So this is what they call…… a salary thief?
Even just the phrase was beautiful. It was something like paid sick leave — but better. Luan cheered inwardly.
If this isn’t the life of a loaded layabout, what is?
This was a preview of the wealthy, work-free life God had promised him. And the Emperor had even given the order himself, so the justification was perfect. If anyone asked later why he hadn’t been working, he could just say: “His Majesty told me not to.”
This is perfect.
He forcibly suppressed the smile that was trying to creep onto his face. He could not let it show outwardly. Based on his read of the Emperor’s personality so far, the moment Kirian realized he was pleased, that contrary man would turn around and find a way to interfere out of sheer spite. He had to appear as resigned as possible — pitiful, helpless, reluctantly going along with it.
Luan wiped his expression clean. He let his eyes go hazy and loose, and responded in a voice drained of all strength.
“……Understood.”
Luan slipped slowly beneath the blanket. Truly, imperial bedding was something else. He rested his head against the plush pillow and stared blankly up at the ceiling. A self-deprecating remark fell from his lips as a finishing touch.
“If that is what Your Majesty wishes, then I shall do so.”
At those words, Kirian’s gaze moved to Luan.
“Doing nothing, only breathing……”
As Kirian watched the resigned look on Luan’s face, he had the feeling that something had gone wrong.
“Just as I did for the past five years. I will lie here as though I were already dead.”
!
In an instant, the air in the bedroom froze. Kirian’s hand faltered. Harkan sucked in a sharp breath, and Kael, who had been by the window, stumbled and nearly toppled from the window frame.
Luan had simply been thinking of his days of doing nothing back in the Empress’s quarters — but to those listening, it landed entirely differently. To Kirian in particular, the words carried not only resignation, but resentment and pain.
So you intend to confine me again, just as you left me to rot for the past five years.
— He had never said that aloud — but the implication of the words turned the tip of his tongue bitter.
In that image of Luan turning his back, Kirian felt the weight of the wounds that had accumulated from years of existing as someone who meant nothing to anyone.
“……Luanisiel.”
Kirian’s voice trembled faintly. Just as I did for the past five years. Those words became a sharp blade and dug into Kirian’s chest.
Five years. The time he had neglected him.
Those years of leaving Luan to languish in the Empress’s quarters with no support, no attention, no acknowledgment. Luan was feeling it now — that Kirian was forcing that same terrible loneliness and despair upon him once more.
He regretted it. He had not thought it through. What he had thrown at Luan was not consideration. It was cruelty. It was something that called back the memory of that confinement.
What have I……
Kirian’s eyes shook violently.
He had said it out of worry, out of wanting Luan to rest, just for a little while. But to Luan’s ears, it had sounded like a cruel command to erase his own existence. Guilt crashed over Kirian in waves, swallowing him whole. He couldn’t breathe.
“That wasn’t what I meant……”
The Emperor of all people found himself at a loss for words. The atmosphere turned sharply frigid. Harkan’s eyes were already reddening as he clenched his fist tight. In a desperate bid to break the suffocating silence, Kael hurried to intervene.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. What a sense of humor, Your Majesty!”
Cold sweat was streaming down Kael’s back.
“Surely it simply means you feel at ease by His Majesty’s side, yes? Ha. Ha. A figurative expression for resting deeply, without a single care in the world~.”
Kael was working frantically to reframe Luan’s words in a positive light.
“Deeply moved by His Majesty’s profound consideration, such that all the loneliness of the past five years is forgotten, and now you shall rest at last……”
“No.”
Luan pulled the blanket up to his chin and cut Kael off flatly.
“I am simply saying I will be quiet and do as I’m told.”
Kael’s mouth snapped shut.
“Since Your Majesty finds my presence irksome.”
“I never said you were irksome!”
Kirian called out urgently. Any semblance of composure had been shattered long ago.
“I said the counting of days was irksome — I never said you were! Stop twisting my words!”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Luan turned over with an air of disinterest and presented his back to the room. It was a back that looked unusually small.
“I’m tired. Everyone please leave. I need to sleep as though I were dead.”
A perfect shutdown. Beneath the blanket, Luan had to bite down hard on his lips to hold back the laughter threatening to spill out.
Perfect. Looks like I’ll be spending the next six months lying around before I make my exit.
But the expressions of the three men left behind were wretched. Luan’s back looked so terribly lonely, so desolate. And yet, in the end, not one of them could find a word to say — they had no choice but to file out of the room as if they were being expelled.
“……Your Majesty.”
Kael drew in a slow, deep breath and let it out.
“……It seems he has closed the door of his heart entirely.”
“I know. Shut up.”
Kirian rubbed his face with dry hands. He was burning inside. The words he had spoken had come back as a boomerang.
Five years of indifference could not be covered over with a single apology or an expensive gift. He called to mind the image of Luan lying on the bed, his back turned away.
He says he’ll lie there as though he were dead? Over my dead body.
He would not allow it. He would make Luan live — not dead-still, but as the most vibrant and radiant person in the world. So that those words of resignation, those words of the past five years, would never leave those lips again.
He said it coolly.
“Kael.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Summon every head chef in the imperial palace. Have them prepare the finest restorative dishes — ones that can be swallowed even without an appetite — no, bring every delicacy on the continent.”
Kirian’s eyes flashed with something bordering on mania.
“Harkan.”
“Speak. If you need me to shave down the northern mountains, I will shave them.”
“Do it then. Contact the North and bring everything that might catch the Empress’s interest. Knight order training? Forget it.”
“I will carry it out.”
The Emperor and the knight commanders steeled themselves with grim resolve and dispersed. They looked, for all the world, like generals marching off to war.
