T/N: Warning: bittersweet feelings.
“Pretending you don’t know?”
One corner of the Emperor’s mouth crooked upward.
“What do you mean, pretending I don’t know? Really, why are you doing this…!”
It was cute how his eyes darted around as he struggled, but Guien did not wait any longer. He simply covered those lips that kept opening and closing.
“……!”
At what happened in an instant, the brown eyes opened wide. He was so startled that Lev’s mind went completely blank. His body stiffened, and the hand clutching the blanket tightened hard.
The Emperor’s eyes curved softly.
Guien thoroughly savored Lev, who had fallen into a panic, and then pulled his lips away. Seeing the moist red surface made his appetite rise all the more.
Without hesitation, he reached for the tightly fastened shirt. His hands were skilled and unhesitating, befitting a general who had roamed battlefields for many years.
“Y-Your Majesty.”
Lev called out to the Emperor urgently. He tried somehow to stop him, but in an instant the buttons were already undone.
‘Why are his hands so fast!’
Horrified, Lev tried to block himself, but that too was instantly stopped by Guien.
With both of his hands seized and pinned down, he truly ended up in a state where he could not move at all.
Guien looked over the upper body he had already seen once in the office. It was not simply pale. The skin, moderately tanned by the sun, held a healthy wheat-colored tone.
His gaze lingered for quite a while on the flat stomach made lean by a lack of flesh and on the chest where the bones showed clearly.
Before long, Guien lowered his head.
“Ah!”
Lev shuddered and twisted his body. But it was only a feeble struggle.
Instead, the sensation where he was touched became even clearer, and Lev’s face turned so red it looked as if it might catch fire.
‘I can’t believe this.’
Good heavens, he had never imagined something like this. To think a situation like this would happen with the Emperor.
He could not deny that it was real. Even if he lowered his gaze just a little, he could see that head of golden hair moving busily, and that made him feel like he would go even crazier.
While Lev was still out of his senses, the Emperor lowered his hand.
“Wait a moment!”
Lev cried out in alarm. To his utter shock, the Emperor was seated between his legs.
One of his legs was even raised, though he did not know when it had been caught. Lev licked his damp lips with his tongue.
“You do realize you’ve mistaken your partner right now, don’t you?”
Guien, who had not let his eyes leave his lover for even a moment, narrowed them. His gaze stayed fixed on the lips that were even wetter than before.
“Mistaken what?”
“I mean….”
What? Why is he looking at me like that?
Faced with the Emperor’s gaze directed at him, Lev hesitated over what to say next. That look made it seem like if he said the wrong thing, he would not be let off.
“Lev.”
“Yes?”
It was only his name being called. But Lev became even more tense than before. The Emperor’s voice sounded somehow very low and threatening.
“It would be troublesome if you keep forgetting your place.”
Lev bit his lip so hard it turned white.
‘Right.’
That was true. He must not forget what sort of position he was in right now. And what kind of behavior suited that position.
For an instant, his heart felt tight, as if something had seized it hard.
“Haha… Right.”
Bitterness seeped even into the tone of agreement. Guien quietly watched the gaze that had been directed at him slide away.
It felt strange.
It did not feel very good.
He wanted to turn back toward himself the gaze of the lover who was no longer looking at him.
Having finished that thought, Guien deliberately pressed his body closer.
At the unfamiliar warmth, Lev unconsciously lowered his gaze.
What he saw was a sight from which he could guess what was going to happen next. He no longer had the courage to keep watching.
Lev turned his head away. Before long, a hot and unfamiliar sensation rushed over him.
It shook Lev through and through, and at some point it made him unable to think of anything at all. It felt as though he were being swept up in raging waves.
And they were waves that were scorching, dense, and carried a lustful scent.
The Emperor on the bed was skilled, merciless, persistent, and vigorous.
Lev, receiving all of that, could only cry like an innocent fool, beg, pant out ragged breaths, and let out moans.
After a long time that felt as if it would never end, Guien got down from the bed.
A humid, heated warmth lingered in the room.
Lev watched the Emperor’s back as he left with exhausted eyes, and when the door closed, he simply shut his own eyes.
The rest that finally came was bitter rather than sweet.
Marco carefully observed Lev, who sat in the chair blankly staring outside without even answering. His face looked languid and full of fatigue.
A faint smile slowly appeared at the corners of Marco’s lips. That was because he knew why Lev looked so drained and worn out.
‘The two of them earlier…!’
While he had stepped away for just a moment, the Emperor had entered the room, and after that how many hours had those blush-inducing sounds leaked out from inside?
Each time, Marco had had to rub down his cheeks over and over in embarrassment. Still, it felt gratifying that the two of them had finally come together.
“Lord Lev.”
Marco called out. But Lev remained quiet. No, in truth, he was in no state to even recognize that someone was calling him.
Lev kept his gaze fixed out the window and tried to think about nothing. But the more he did that, the more tangled his thoughts became.
He knew he should not assign meaning to what the Emperor had done to him. He was the Emperor’s lover, so there was no way there had been any emotional exchange in it.
Even in the original work, the Emperor often slept with the villainous uke. Though he had the protagonist uke in his heart, he could not show it.
There had also been the intention of keeping various nobles in check. A move meant to hide the person he truly cared for and take what he wanted.
It was also meant to keep others from reading the Emperor’s true intentions.
Yes, if he thought about it rationally, he could understand it.
‘But still, it feels bad.’
When he had been reading as a reader, it had felt entertaining, but now that he was the one involved, he could not take it calmly.
How nice it would be if he could think of this as just a contract and a job. But Lev knew he could not.
‘Of all people, it had to be someone like that.’
Because he had gone and set his heart on the worst possible person.
And of all things, that person liked someone else.
‘This really is the worst.’
He had even kissed someone like that first, so what must the Emperor think?
‘He probably thought anything would be fine.’
Perhaps he had already realized what Lev felt. That too was truly the worst in its own way.
It would be better if, like at first, he could simply wait for the contract to end and then quietly leave.
As his thoughts gradually deepened, Lev’s eyes also slowly sank.
“Lord Lev.”
A voice carefully calling to him dug into Lev’s ears. Only then did he realize belatedly that he had been thinking so deeply he had even forgotten Marco was beside him.
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t you hungry? Shall I bring you something to eat? It’s already long past dinnertime.”
Marco seemed oddly cheerful. When Lev had woken after falling asleep from exhaustion earlier, Marco had already been wearing an extremely delighted expression. Knowing the reason for it made something feel bitter.
“Could you?”
In truth, he was not that hungry. Rather, because something had churned him up thoroughly and then gone away, he even felt uncomfortable inside. But Lev nodded instead of refusing.
“I’ll bring something easy to digest. Please wait just a moment!”
Quick-witted Marco said that and hurried out of the room. Only then did Lev lightly pat the waist that felt sore.
“You brutish bastard.”
This was his first time. So what was the point of tossing him around so mercilessly?
Then again, if he had been the kind of person to care about something like that, he would not have chased after him in the first place.
“You beastly bastard.”
Lev cursed the Emperor without restraint. There was no one here anyway, so there was nothing to hesitate over.
May your ears itch! He even felt that way. Though of course, it did not seem likely that would happen.
“Haa….”
After cursing for a while, all his strength drained out of him. Lev stretched an arm out to the window and leaned his body against it.
Once the sun had completely set, a wind colder than in the daytime began to blow. Hoping it would calm the turmoil inside him, Lev let it wash over his whole body.
The next day, Lev could not leave the bed by even a single step and only groaned in misery. Whenever he tried to sit up, he felt dizzy, his body had no strength, and he had no will to do anything.
“Lord Lev, please take some medicine!”
With a distressed expression, Marco helped Lev sit up. His face and back were soaked with sweat.
During the night, a fever had risen and his whole body had hurt. Even though he knew morning had come, he had not been able to open his eyes. It even felt fortunate that the Emperor had not come last night.
Since Lev, who always got up diligently, was sleeping late, Marco found it strange, came in, and quickly summoned the palace physician.
The diagnosis was a severe cold. Muscle aches and fever accompanied it, and it would only get better if he rested comfortably for more than a week.
But before receiving that diagnosis, Lev had to endure a truly awkward and embarrassing time. The palace physician told him to pull down his upper clothes to take his temperature, so he undid the buttons and opened his collar.
But instead of examining him, the palace physician simply stared at him blankly.
‘Why did he have to leave marks like that!’
It turned out that traces left by the Emperor covered his whole body. And without even knowing, he had boldly shown his upper body….
Judging by the meaningful look in the palace physician’s eyes as he left, it was easy to guess that another rumor would now spread all through the imperial palace.
‘At this point I really have become the Emperor’s lover beyond any doubt.’
Even while thinking that now it was no longer just a rumor and that he had in fact splendidly performed his role, a bitter smile formed on Lev’s lips.
“Ugh.”
The moment he swallowed the medicine, Lev’s face scrunched up tightly. The medicine the palace physician had left behind not only smelled strong, it tasted awful and was bitter too.
Marco, who had been watching from the side, quickly held out a candy he had prepared in advance.
“Lord Lev, have this.”
“Thanks.”
Lev crunched up the candy and swallowed it, because it felt as though all of this was the Emperor’s fault.
“Lie down, Lord Lev.”
Lev lowered himself without protest and cast a sidelong glance at the door leading to the office.
“His Majesty said you should take good care of yourself.”
Sharp-eyed Marco quickly said so.
‘Well, I don’t think that’s really true.’
Lev thought it was a kindly meant lie.
‘If that had really been his intention, he would have shown his face already. It’s only one door to open.’
For some reason, the situation from when he had first come to the imperial palace came back to him. Back then too, he had been sick for several days, but the Emperor had never once come to see him.
That was his position.
“Lord Lev, you’ve sweated a lot, so you must feel sticky. Shall I wipe you down a bit?”
Marco, who had helped Lev lie down, asked as he wiped the sweat from his damp forehead and the back of his neck with a handkerchief.
“No. If you bring it to me, I’ll wipe myself.”
“You don’t have any strength. I’ll do it for you.”
“No. At least that much…”
Because of the fever, his thoughts were a bit broken up and he felt hazy, but Lev judged for himself that he was not so immobile that he could not move at all. He had always been sick alone. There had even been times when he could not show he was sick, even when he was.
If he said he needed just one day off work, there were many cases where he was simply dismissed on the spot.
Because he was an orphan, he had also had to endure the looks that said he was lazy and that they had expected as much from him. More than anything, there had been no one to look after him even when he was sick, so enduring somehow had been only natural.
Thinking of those times, having someone who looked after him like this and worried over him was such a good thing.
“Lord Lev.”
Marco looked at Lev while clutching the handkerchief tightly.
“Yeah?”
Lev lifted his head and discovered Marco wearing a hurt expression.
“Marco?”
“Are you uncomfortable with me?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Or do you dislike me?”
“No. How could that be? I’m always grateful.”
Lev became flustered because he could not understand why the conversation was going this way.
“Then why do you keep drawing a line?”
“Drawing a line?”
Lev quickly shook his head as though he had never thought such a thing in the slightest. Even so, Marco could not get rid of his downcast expression.
“No?”
“Of course not.”
Lev nodded more firmly. Then Marco smiled brightly and said,
“Then I’ll wipe you down.”
Only then did Lev realize that he had fallen for Marco’s trick. The retreating figure disappearing with light steps looked like a victor who had gotten exactly what he wanted.
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