“Tear it up…? Why…?”
I asked blankly with my whole body frozen. Then the hissing voice echoed in my head again.
– You’re not going to the birthday party anyway.
Yeah. That’s true. I wasn’t planning to go. I answered the voice in my head without resistance. Everything was hazy. It felt like everything had stopped, as if I’d pressed the pause button on a radio.
– So, that invitation is useless too. Right?
I guess so…. It’s useless…?
I stared blankly at the pale pink invitation in my hand. It smells nice. Did Jaina spray perfume on it?
“But… this is, my heart….”
“What are you saying? Your heart? Do you really like that girl?”
This is my future heart. My heart toward you. Is it still useless?
At my question, the red mana rippled greatly.
– Your opinion isn’t needed. Just follow your master’s words. Hurry and tear up the invitation.
My heart really is useless….
At the suddenly sinking feeling, my eyelids also sank heavily.
“Lionel. Cute Lionel.”
“Mm….”
Seeing my slowly descending golden eyelashes, Cesare gently lifted my chin again to meet my gaze. His pupils with swirling red mana shone with a glossy luster like well-crafted obsidian.
“Tear it quickly. Right now. In front of my eyes.”
– Your master is ordering you. Your master never says the wrong thing. He’s telling you to tear it because it’s useless. You know?
“…Okay. Since it’s useless…. I’ll tear it up….”
That’s right. Since this is useless, it’s right to tear it up. But why does my chest ache so much?
“Good boy.”
The aching chest was brief; when Cesare smiled brightly and gently stroked the back of my hand holding the invitation, the pain subsided for a moment. Though it’s a hand with fair skin, it’s quite a manly hand with veins and straightness. Is it because he’s good with swords?
“Cesare. Your hand is really….”
The prominent contours between the back of his hand are cool. I want to feel those contours with my whole body.
As if possessed by such an impulse, I lowered my head as if enchanted.
“Lionel…?”
My heart pounded greatly at his finger joints softly touching my lips. I took one of his protruding knuckles between my two concave lips.
“Hah….”
A hot sigh escaped between my slightly parted lips that held the groove of his hand.
It’s big. Cesare has big hands. They say if your hands are big, other things are big too. He’s tall, his hands are big, and also….
When I blankly raised my head at Cesare’s greatly flinching hand, I saw his somewhat flustered expression. Still in a hazy state of mind, I conveyed my honest impression to him.
“Your hand is really… lewd…. You know…?”
“Wh-what?”
“It’s lewd. Big. Goes in where it should go in. Comes out where it should come out…. Hehe.”
“……!”
Now, I have to tear this. I put down his hand and grabbed the waist of the invitation. I slowly applied force to my fingers and tore the paper in half.
– Riiiiip.
I overlaid the torn paper again and tore it vertically once more.
– Riiip.
And when my mind suddenly cleared and I blinked, I saw the invitation pieces scattering and falling to the floor. The moment I saw that, I jumped back in shock.
“I, I…! What?! Why is this like this?!”
As I looked around with bewildered eyes, I made eye contact with Cesare. Intuition flashed through my mind and goosebumps ran down my spine.
‘Cesare Yanox…. Did you use brainwashing magic on me again?!’
Not only had he made me arbitrarily damage someone else’s property, but I couldn’t believe Cesare’s dog-like character for making me into such an utterly vicious bastard in front of people.
‘Why go this far?! It’s not like I got a homecoming partner, it’s just a birthday invitation!’
I liked him, but separate from that, I was dumbfounded. No matter how much his pride was hurt because I received advances from a woman first, he has no right to do this.
“Lionel, what’s wrong?”
“This, the invitation….”
“You just said it was useless so you’d tear it up. Don’t you remember?”
I got chills at his appearance trying to wrap things up so nonchalantly. But I had to pretend I didn’t know he could use brainwashing magic. If I got caught, my memories would be erased again.
Unable to say anything and just looking at his face, I suddenly felt a burning sensation down below. When I glanced down….
‘Crazy! Why am I like this again?!’
Heat also rushed to my face along with my body heating up reddishly.
May the East Sea’s waters and Mt. Baekdu wear away and dry up. Please. Lord. Crazy. I’ll pray earnestly from now on. Are you upset because I only donated a lot of money and didn’t pray sincerely? This young lamb. I thought just donating a lot of money would do everything.
Please. Lord. This is the library entrance!
So my social status wouldn’t fall, I urgently crouched down and pretended to carefully pick up and gather the paper pieces from the floor.
“Why are you picking that up? Just leave it for the servants to clean.”
This isn’t about picking it up. Cesare, you innocent fool! It’s a desperate struggle to not show my embarrassing appearance!
Swallowing tears inside like that, I moved my fingers. My fingertips trembled from both embarrassment and fear that people would catch my flushed state.
Like that pine tree on Mt. Namsan wearing iron armor. *Sniff*. The silver flag of Torusian flutters in the north wind. *Sniff*.
I sang both the national anthem and the Torusian Empire’s song while focusing on inner peace as much as possible.
But Cesare persistently pulled my shoulder trying to lift me up.
“The invitation isn’t needed anyway. If you really want to go to the party, you can go without an invitation. Hey, Lionel. Just leave it and let’s go?”
“Please just leave me alone!”
– Smack!
I pushed him away with all my heart saying ‘You precious child! Do you want to see someone get caught for indecent conduct on campus?!’
“……What’s wrong?”
This embarrassment was, dare I estimate, such a ‘big’ issue. The heat that didn’t seem like it would subside soon and the paper pieces that had almost all been picked up made me dizzy.
In the end, I stuffed the paper pieces into my crossbody bag, slung the bag diagonally, then looked up slightly with a tearful face. Above, I saw his flustered face.
“Cesare…. I trust you’ll understand since you’re a man too.”
I spoke to him almost sobbing, then immediately ran away as fast as I could. I heard my love Cesare keep calling from behind, but I couldn’t stop since my social dignity was more important for now.
I can’t go to the card game tonight. Because I have to secretly hand-wash. *Sniff*.
* * *
Raise. When Cesare gestured to raise the stakes, Samuel, Cain, and William all nodded in agreement.
“Call.”
‘Fast. It’s definitely bluffing. If I raise the stakes more, they’ll fold.’
“I… call too.”
‘They’re pretending to hesitate. They probably have at least two pair.’
Everyone had confident expressions showing no fear. But whether the cards they were holding were good or bad couldn’t be known until they were revealed.
The cards currently in his hand were no pair to the point where he wondered if it was okay to be this unlucky. It was garbage with nothing, but Cesare showed no sign.
There was no better means than card games for training the poker face commonly required of nobles and reading people’s expressions, so Cesare occasionally joined their games.
Samuel raised the stakes again.
“Raise.”
“Argh. Fold.”
“Call!”
“Call.”
Eventually William declared fold and laid down his cards. One pair. Wise, but the loss is big for dying so quickly. Cesare looked at Cain. He could see small excitement that couldn’t be hidden in his eyes.
After revealing their hands one by one, this time Cain raised the stakes greatly.
“Raise! All in!”
At Cain’s declaration, Samuel hesitated a bit then pushed all his chips to the center.
“…You want to go that way? Me too, all in!”
“Fold.”
Cesare threw down his cards as if he’d been waiting, declaring his forfeit. The flipped hand was no pair. At the no pair, Ban, who had been lying on the sofa eating chocolate, burst into laughter as if amazed.
“What?! You raised the stakes all you wanted and went all in, but you had no pair in the end?! Really Cesare Yanox, your guts are crazy!”
Cesare chuckled and pushed only a few chips to the center as game fee.
“I absolutely don’t die alone.”
“Wow! I won! I won everything! As expected, Cesare! Our duke is so lovely I could die!”
Cain, who opened his cards on the side, jumped around the room, and Samuel flopped backward as if sulking.
“Ah, Cesare Yanox! You made us go all in then slipped out yourself!”
Cain won all the pot thanks to him and would treat Cesare anyway, so in the long run, Cesare had nothing to lose.
The game ended satisfactorily, but Cesare let out a small sigh, unable to shake off a somehow stuffy feeling. Was it because he’d eaten dinner? His chest had been stuffy since earlier.
“But why didn’t Lionel come? I didn’t see him at dinner time either.”
At the suddenly heard name Lionel, Cesare unknowingly turned his head that way and perked up his ears.
“I stopped by before coming to Samuel’s room, but he said he was busy.”
Busy? In Cesare’s thinking, there was nothing Lionel would currently be busy with. The exam period was still far off, and recalling his schedule, there were no reports or difficult assignments yet.
He would know that he was also participating in the card game, so he was the type who would come and hand him peanut snacks or help count chips and more, but Lionel had run away in such a hurry earlier and there’d been no news at all.
“But Cesare. I heard something strange while eating dinner, is it true? That Lionel thoroughly tore up Jaina Fellox’s invitation?”
“Right. We also found it strange and were going to ask Lionel when he came.”
At Samuel and William’s words, the students sprawled on the floor or sofa all gathered around him in surprise.
“What? You mean the one he received earlier? Rye tore it up?! Why?!”
“I don’t know either. Weren’t you with him, Cesare? They say he completely tore it to shreds in front of people. I said it must be a false rumor because no matter how rude Lionel is, he wouldn’t do such a thing.”
Recalling earlier, Cesare openly frowned. Lionel who had giggled over what was just a love letter, and with a dazed face under the spell, rubbing his lips on the groove of his hand.
Lionel’s long golden eyelashes and deep verdant eyes. The light-colored lips that gave an impression of being delicate though not that small, and his hot breath were still vivid in his mind.
‘A man, to a man…. Even if he’s under Addiction… isn’t it disgusting…?’
But what actually made him angry wasn’t that.
