For Sale: Male Lead, Obsession Included - Chapter 157

* * *

What on earth had he meant?

“You don’t know… how long I’ve waited for this day, do you.”

Ever since meeting Declan at the temple, whenever I had a spare moment, I thought of the words Declan had left behind. No, it would be more accurate to say they floated up on their own.

I didn’t want to think about Declan anymore, but was it because of the inexplicable fear caused by his cool voice, which had lodged low in my ear?

Even though this was a time when I should have been busy preparing for the soft opening, I sat there blankly and tried to gauge the meaning of the words he had left behind.

By ‘this day,’ did he mean Declan’s baptism ceremony? Or my baptism ceremony?

Judging by the fact that he had gone out of his way to whisper it in my ear, it seemed he had probably waited for the day I became an adult.

Then… why?

Why would Declan say he had waited only for the day I became an adult?

No, before that, why had he waited for me?

For the past three years, he had never tried to come looking for me, had shown no sign of becoming obsessed, and had been living perfectly well as a Duke’s heir.

‘I naturally thought he’d forgotten me.’

Nibble.

Out of the anxiety rising for no reason, I bit my nail. I couldn’t know exactly why Declan had waited for my baptism ceremony, but it meant he hadn’t forgotten me and lived on.

‘Was him acting like he wasn’t interested in me all an act?’

That suspicion suddenly came to mind, but I soon erased it from my head. Because there was no reason for Declan to go out of his way to act like that.

“Ha. This is driving me crazy.”

If he had simply said it had been a long time and given me a brief greeting, I would have greeted him back happily too…

But those thick red eyes that had been looking at me, his low voice, and his suspicious smile were telling me. That he didn’t think of me as something like a friend he had met after a long time.

If I had to compare it… he resembled a beast looking at prey that had fallen into its grasp. A feeling like he wouldn’t eat me right away because he was full for now, but he would keep me beside him and play with me, then eat devour once he became hungry.

That was why my sigh deepened.

“Then, how about… a different relationship?”

“If not master and slave, could it be something else?”

“I won’t make it difficult for you.”

“Please. Otherwise, I think I’ll go mad.”

For him, who said he felt like he would go mad, I gave him the position of friend as a temporary measure to escape that uncomfortable situation. And even then, it was a relationship of friends in name only.

Because Declan and I could never be connected even as friends due to our status. And because I didn’t want to get involved with him anymore.

But, but why did it keep happening?

Why did this anxiety that I might get involved with him again keep rising?

I pressed my eyes deeply and lamented.

It was my fault for coming up to the Empire with the easy-hearted belief that Declan would have completely forgotten me, and with such complacent thoughts. Who else could I blame?

“Haa.”

After letting out the biggest and longest sigh among the hundreds of sighs I had exhaled, I sprang up from my seat.

“No! It’s too early to say for sure!”

Thinking that Declan would become obsessed with me was getting ahead of myself. They say nothing is more useless than worrying and agonizing over something that hasn’t even happened yet.

Right. It won’t be like that.

I forcefully shook off my anxious feelings and rose from my seat.

The store’s soft opening was tomorrow. Worry and depression were no different from luxuries to me right now.

I put the convenience store vest I had taken off back on and forced myself to repeat hopeful thoughts.

* * *

“Truu!”

What woke me from my focus on preparing the store in order to forget Declan was the clear sound of a bell. When the bell I had attached to the shop door rang, I turned around.

At the door, Feyden, who had become unemployed as of yesterday, and Truu, who looked exactly like him, were entering the store.

I had seen him only a few days ago, but I was so happy to see him that it felt like it had been years. I threw aside what I was doing and hugged Truu in my arms.

Even though I must have seemed scary and uncomfortable running at him like that, Truu spread his arms to greet me with a bright smile.

‘Aigoo. You pretty thing!’

Of course, compared to when I first met him on the bridge, he had grown much taller and the cute feeling had disappeared, but Truu in trainee priest’s robes looked like a little gentleman, and that was explosively cute in its own way.

Perhaps there weren’t any priest’s robes that fit his body exactly, because the four small fingers peeking out from his long sleeves were heart-achingly cute too.

Truu fit snugly in my arms as I hugged him, and I inhaled the scent from the top of his head.

“Eek!”

Truu belatedly tried to cover the top of his head with both hands, but it was already too late.

“Sorry. Truu. You were just too cute…”

Honestly, I wanted to plant kisses all over both his cheeks, but I barely held that back.

At my words calling him cute, Truu quietly blushed. The face he made as he held the top of his head and puffed out both cheeks was truly adorable enough to make me want to bite him.

‘Hey. How am I supposed to hold back from this!’