Chapter 43
“I’m just glad I was at least able to choose my wife myself…”
At Lucian’s words, tinged with relief, Noctis nodded. Then Lucian suddenly glared at him with sharp eyes and muttered,
“Though it almost got ruined because of someone.”
“You’re really…”
At the blaming tone, Noctis waved his hand exaggeratedly and shook his head. Whenever he stepped out of his role as Lucian’s double, he deliberately spoke more casually and acted more loosely.
As if to say, this is who I really am.
“Still the foolish Lucian. Birds of a feather, you and Elaria suit each other perfectly.”
“Noctis.”
“If I hadn’t told her to break up back then, do you think Elaria would’ve accepted your proposal?”
“……”
Noctis repeated the same thing he had said to Lucian when he came running in shock after the breakup.
“You still don’t know how to handle people. Is it because you were born noble?”
“…Even so, you shouldn’t have hurt her like that.”
“I admit that part too. But Elaria is unbelievably dense. If we hadn’t pushed her that hard, she’d probably still be thinking, ‘I’m just the daughter of a mere Baron, someone who could never suit the noble Lucian.’”
Noctis said this while imitating Elaria’s tone. Lucian let out a quiet laugh without realizing it. Whenever the weight of being the family’s heir pressed down on him, Noctis had a way of making everything feel lighter like this.
It hadn’t begun as something they wanted, but now they had become irreplaceable to each other.
“I was more desperate than you back then. I couldn’t even chase after her. I can’t leave this manor… so I had no choice but to take a hard approach.”
At Noctis’s words, Lucian’s gaze darkened. The sense of debt he felt toward Noctis made its presence known. Meeting his eyes directly, Noctis continued.
“I told you before, didn’t I? Do you know the worst way to handle someone? You give it to them, then take it away. Then even if they didn’t truly want it, they can’t stop thinking about it.”
Lucian listened quietly to the words he had already heard once.
“That bastard did that to my mother. He whispered love like he’d give her everything, but once she had me, he started keeping his distance. He still sent support for a while, acting like a father, then one day he cut it off completely.”
He continued, recalling a past he could never forget.
“My mother, who had lived on nothing but that man’s love, changed the moment the money stopped. Well, anyone would lose their mind if there was no food to eat. From then on, the positions flipped. Before what she’d received could be taken again, she became the one clinging to him emotionally.”
Noctis finished, his expression tightening at the bitter taste of it.
“And I fell from a poor commoner to a bastard not even treated like a human being. Honestly, that’s partly your family’s fault too. You turned trash like that into a noble.”
As if frustrated, Noctis ran a hand through his hair and suddenly stood, heading to the annex kitchen. When he returned with a bottle of wine, he didn’t even ask Lucian, he simply lifted the bottle to his lips and drank straight from it.
“Ah, that’s better.”
“…Anyway, Elaria is our wife now.”
At Lucian’s low voice, Noctis’s eyes widened slightly as he replied.
“Yeah. She is now.”
“Then she has the right to know.”
“You might be fine. But… what if she ends up hating me?”
Lucian had already noticed that Noctis had been uneasy for some time. More than anyone, he wanted to be acknowledged, yet at the same time he feared revealing who he really was.
That fear wasn’t Noctis’s alone. Lucian felt it just as strongly.
“…Even so, we can’t take it back. I have no intention of letting any woman into my life except her.”
At Lucian’s firm words, Noctis roughly wiped the wine from his mouth with the back of his hand and murmured,
“Same here. She’s the woman we chose, Lucian.”
“Right… the first choice you and I ever made together.”
The two men’s eyes glinted in silence. To bind their wife, who would no longer be able to escape so easily, they would join hands once more.
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