"...Your Highness. Rosha."

A quiet, settling call. No response came. As Killian slowly withdrew, a thick stream of semen ran long and slow from the entrance, which narrowed like a sleeping bud closing.

He had released so much that it kept flowing for some time.

"Hh... You get me so hard I feel like I'll burst, and then you fall asleep alone."

Quite a sinful master. But Killian was too much of a fool to resent him for it. His heart had been taken by Rosha since they were young, and for a long time he had looked only at Rosha, as blind as a man who could not see.

Killian carefully gathered Rosha's limp, small body into his arms and carried him toward the bathroom. Rosha, unaware of any of it, lay quietly in Killian's hold and sank into the deepest, most oblivious sleep he had ever known.

* * *

His eyes fluttered open, hazy. It was already morning. Rosha shifted under the blankets and groaned, feeling not just stiff but an aching soreness all through his body.

"Ugh. My back hurts..."

Physically, though, he felt clean. Rosha registered that Killian must have washed him before leaving last night, and he lay there blinking in a daze before pulling the blanket up over his head. As the events of the previous night came back to him one by one, heat rose to his face.

'How am I supposed to face Killian now?'

He had been swept up in the mood and done something that felt entirely like what lovers would do. Rosha's thoughts grew troubled. Even after all of that, he still could not say with any certainty what Killian's true feelings were.

'...Why did he do that with me?'

To say that Killian had simply been carried away by the mood of the night was hard to believe, given how many times he had taken the lead. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Killian had created that mood himself. Rosha was the one who had been swept along, not Killian.

And on top of that, Killian had known from the start that Rosha was hiding a woman's body. Could it be that he had simply lost control of his desires and reached out without thinking?

'But that doesn't quite make sense either.'

Women who wanted Killian were everywhere. If he had wanted to, he could have charmed anyone, and it would not have been difficult. And yet it had always been Killian himself who kept his eyes away from the women around him and lived with such restraint.

That he would say such obscene things... that he would show his desire so openly... it was something Rosha had never imagined.

'I thought I knew Killian better than anyone.'

Apparently not. Rosha's expression fell, and he lay there fidgeting before finally throwing off the blanket and forcing himself upright. Perhaps because of how thoroughly he had been worn out the night before, he was much hungrier than usual.

'Ugh.'

His body ached, but he needed to eat. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, steadying himself with that thought, when Killian's voice came from the doorway.

"Your Highness. Are you awake?"

Rosha flinched and glanced over, then quickly looked away again. He could not bring himself to face him and hovered there, uncertain. He was embarrassed and flustered, and his cheeks flushed pink.

"Is your body very sore?"

The voice came from close by, suddenly. The low tone clung thickly to his ear like dark honey, and Rosha's shoulders gave a small trembling jerk as he gripped the blanket tight.

"I, I'm fine..."

"You're not fine."

"Hh."

Killian sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and ran a long stroke down his back, and Rosha, who had let his guard down, startled badly. It was an entirely ordinary touch, just a hand resting on his back, yet a strange, ticklish sensation bloomed from somewhere inside him.

"You still need to eat."

"I, I will."

"Shall I carry you down to the dining room?"

"...! No."

Rosha shook off Killian's hand and shuffled to his feet. Killian rose silently behind him and moved to follow.

Rosha made a sulky face and stuck out his lower lip, then stopped and turned around before leaving the room. Killian wore the same calm, unremarkable expression he always did, like water flowing quietly along, and looked down at Rosha from a full head's height above him.

'There he goes again, looking like someone with no feelings at all.'

Rosha glared at him, pouting, then hesitated, and finally dropped his gaze downward with a dejected air.

"Your Highness. What is it?"

Killian took one step closer. His scent, thicker now with the narrowed distance, filled Rosha's nose, and a shadow deepened above his head. The hand that lightly swept through Rosha's hair was very gentle.

"If walking is really too difficult..."

At that, Rosha could no longer hold back his tangled feelings and his eyes welled up. He did not know what to do. He did not know in what frame of mind, with what feelings, he was supposed to look at Killian and deal with him. He felt as though he no longer knew anything at all.

"Why..."

A voice thick with tears spilled out, plaintive.

"Why did you touch me... and do, do that? What am I to you, exactly? I thought you were my one and only... precious friend... but now I, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

Rosha sniffled and rubbed at the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. Killian, who had been quietly listening to Rosha's distress, wiped at the reddened corners of Rosha's eyes with his thumb. Rosha had cried the night before and was crying again now.

"Of course you are precious to me."

"..."

"But I have never thought of you as a friend. Not then, not now."

At those words, Rosha's eyes wavered with agitation. By nature, the negative impression tends to linger more, and so the part about being precious did not reach him, while only the part about not thinking of him as a friend lodged itself in his mind. But before the hurt could surge up and break through, Killian said quietly:

"Because I love you."

And those words lodged themselves even deeper than the shocking statement about not thinking of him as a friend. The hurt was swept clean away as if covered over, and only a single bewildered thought remained in Rosha's mind.

"I love you, Your Highness."

"...What?"

"Not as a companion. As a desire."

Rosha's eyes grew rounder and rounder. His fair face flushed hot and red like a ripened apple. He would not have known that even now, looking at that guileless face, Killian was working to suppress a surging, carnal hunger.

"Th, then why... didn't you say anything... until now..."

"I thought I would lose control of myself if I said it."

"..."

"I am a shameless creature by nature. I was afraid I would not be able to hold back and would lay hands on Your Highness before you had even come of age. So until now, I endured. For nearly ten years. I would appreciate some recognition for that."

The audacity of demanding praise in the middle of all this was remarkable, but Rosha was already too overwhelmed simply by learning Killian's true feelings to have any room left for that, and he only stood there stunned.

A long silence followed after Killian finished speaking.

Rosha's lips parted and closed several times, but in the end he could not produce any answer and pressed them shut. He did not know what reply to give to Killian's confession, or how he himself felt about Killian. His thoughts were too tangled.

Killian spoke up.

"Then let us go to breakfast for now. I will help you along. Or shall I bring the meal here and have you wait?"

It felt as though he was changing the subject, dismissing what had just been said as nothing significant. Rosha glanced at him cautiously, thought for a moment, and asked:

"Why... aren't you asking?"

He had considered pretending he had heard nothing and avoiding it, but he felt that doing so would not clear away this unsettled feeling.

"Asking what?"

"Your answer... my answer to what you said..."

After a brief pause, Killian replied.

"I don't mind not hearing it right away. Whether Your Highness's answer is yes or no, my feelings will not change. Even if Your Highness were to push me away, I have no intention of giving you up."

A firm, unwavering voice.

It was natural enough, if one thought about it. For someone who had been of one mind since the day he was summoned to the imperial palace as Rosha's escort knight, waiting another year or ten years for an answer was nothing at all.

As long as he could remain by Rosha's side...

Of course, whether he could endure his desire was a separate matter entirely. He had held back for so long under compulsion that he had reached out so rashly on the very first day of Rosha's coming-of-age ceremony.

In truth, Killian had no confidence he could hold back going forward either. He did not say so, because it was obvious that revealing such a dark inner thought would send Rosha fleeing in alarm.

Rosha's cheeks, as he fidgeted with his fingers and stared at the floor, were still red, as though warmth lingered in them. He hesitated, then finally mumbled.

"...Breakfast, I, I'll just eat here in the room."

"Understood. I'll go and come back, so please rest."

Killian's large, firm palm stroked Rosha's small head gently and then lifted away.

When he left the room, the quiet of the morning finally settled in. Rosha shuffled back to the bed and burrowed himself under the blanket.

"I love you."

"I love you, Your Highness."

Killian's whispered voice kept circling through his mind. Rosha let out a small sigh and pulled the blanket close, hugging it to himself.

'I... still don't know.'

He had thought of Killian as a precious friend who would stay by his side for the rest of his life. If someone asked whether what he had done with Killian had felt bad, he could not honestly say yes. But he had never thought of any relationship beyond that, and his heart was unsettled.

And besides, what would happen if he took a man's cock into his vagina, received his semen, and became pregnant? Could this kind of relationship really, truly continue?

For Rosha, who had lived his whole life in the Seria Palace, a shell of a place that was beautiful on the outside and a prison within, naively, or to put it unkindly, like a fool, these questions were far too difficult and complicated.

"...Hh."

Lying in bed, Rosha wriggled a little deeper under the blanket and decided to close his eyes for just a little longer before Killian returned.