Hayden’s green eyes showed no sign of moisture, yet he sighed heavily, as if he had made her cry.

Lugh had never shown anyone that she was crying. Not once. But that didn’t mean she never cried.

“Lugh is perfect just by being here. You don’t need anything more, and you’re not lacking anything.”

Hayden tried hard to tell Lugh, his lips urging her to say nothing.

“I sent you to the harbor because I didn’t want you to think at all.”

Being busy reduces thoughts. But why did he come back with even more thoughts? He gently stroked the ends of her hair while mumbling.

“No, there’s no need to speak, Lugh. Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it.”

He slowly lowered his head.

“You’re going to say ridiculous things like you’re lacking.”

Hayden, holding Lugh’s stiffened arm, pleaded.

“That’s also compared to me.”

He laughed as if amazed.

“How can Lugh say that you’re lacking to me?”

But it was the truth. Reflected in Hayden’s green eyes, there was no flaw; he was perfect in every way.

Although he worried that becoming an emperor without any background might make him vulnerable, he was actually fighting well against the eastern nobility. He was different from Lugh, who was clearly lacking, even without comparing her to Hayden.

“Please don’t think like that.”

He shook his head repeatedly, expressing that he knew too well what she was thinking even without saying it.

“Don’t think about pushing me away for such a ridiculous reason. Do you think I would agree and step back because of such a reason?”

In the gray eyes staring straight at her, the fierce determination he had seen during the days of the boy’s illness was frozen. His breath caught. Hayden would never give up.

“Do you know why I crossed the barrier and came up to this place?”

He filled his eyes with the only reason, the one that even now made him unable to stop. Her shoulders hunched. Hayden laughed reflexively as his eyes wandered over her trembling lips, the fingers trembling together, and the pale nape.

Ah, I want to kiss her like this. Does she know how much he is enduring right now?

It was only one night. The first night of a man who had carefully embraced his feelings and waited. It provided a shockingly pleasant sensation that left him unable to regain his composure.

Once more, just once more, he had to nail it down since she wouldn’t pretend to know without him telling her.

“I became an emperor to be with you, to be a fitting man. Why do you think I became an emperor?”

The eyes of Lugh, who had been trying to pass it off as if she didn’t know or had misunderstood, widened in shock. It was something she didn’t expect, but it was true.

“Someone like an emperor should suit you.”

Whispering quietly into her ear, his slightly reddened lips trembled. His gaze wandered over her lips, which were also trembling, and her pale neck.

Ah, I want to kiss her like this. Does she know how much he is enduring right now?

It was only one night. The first night of a man who had carefully embraced his feelings and waited. It provided a shockingly pleasant sensation that left him unable to regain his composure.

“Since I clearly told you not to have any other thoughts, don’t try to deny my feelings. This is my feeling, not yours.”

The face of the boy’s illness, which was full of determination, overlapped in Hayden’s eyes the more he spoke. Although he strained to speak, he couldn’t continue. He quickly wrapped his thumb around Lugh’s chin and stroked her lower lip. In fact, anyone who entered Hayden’s field of vision was almost caught, if not caught, anyway.
“Among the knights who claim to beat me, you were the only one who reached out to me. There, it was by no means natural.”

The boy returned as a man.

“Don’t deny it with the formal words everyone else uses.”

He said it vehemently, as if it made him angry and hurt. Lugh closed her mouth. His fingers touched even her upper lip. The hand was just warm, but the part it touched felt like it was burning.

“You made it impossible for me to live without you, and now you’re leaving. It’s irresponsible, Lugh.”

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how sly he is, how weak he has become, willing to sit her by any means necessary. Is he not skillfully stimulating the sense of responsibility she values most even now?

“I’ve been waiting for the day we meet again since we broke up, yet you don’t remember me and keep pushing me away.”

Getting angry, he eventually hung on to her sadly, lowering his eyelashes.

Kind and gentle Rustica Genus, when he made a crying face, reflexively raised his hand to comfort her from her shoulders. Then, holding only that hand as if to hug her, he would pull her into his arms, not knowing she would reach out like this.

Before those cunning guys who fell for that kind heart cling to her, he has to take her away. He will monopolize her without anyone seeing.

“I’m not asking you to believe. Just let me hang on.”

Lugh’s trust is something he earns with effort; he knows very well that he cannot obtain it by force or coercion.

“Just check if I can stand by your side or not.”