A few glowstones lit the dim room.

When the purple-haired man entered with a boy held in his arms, a murmur rippled through the hall.

The sounds were flushed with vulgar curiosity and interest.

“Isn’t that the man rumored to be the perverted young count?”

Beside him was a boy who looked as though he had already been purchased, with ornaments dangling all over his hood. His face was hidden deep beneath it, but from the glimpses of his fingertips, feet, and lower face, anyone could tell he was extraordinarily beautiful.

The people stealing glances at his full lips jokingly asked the perverted count whether kisses were sold separately. The count stared at the one who had asked, smiled brightly, and said that if the chance came, he would provide one himself, then took the boy and avoided them.

The young count sat in his assigned seat, received opera glasses, and handed them to the boy first.

When Ren looked at the stage through them, magic stones soon began to glow from the darkness here and there, making the room brighter.

Ren tapped at the ornaments wrapped over his hood.

Peruan had said he would draw suspicion if they went as they were, then taken jewels and ornaments from his coat and draped them dazzlingly over the hood.

They were surprisingly heavy.

“Are they very heavy?”

At the worried voice, Ren shook his head.

It was not as though Peruan would take them off even if he said they were heavy.

Even knowing it could not be helped, the feeling of being restrained was unpleasant.

“It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

Peruan’s eyebrows drooped. He watched Ren’s expression, then noticed the attention focused on them and put on his opera glasses.

“Oh. It seems to be new technology.”

His voice was calm and arrogant. It sounded natural, as though this was his real manner of speaking.

Listening to his admiration, Ren also lifted his heavy hand and put on the glasses. The iron chains binding his hands clinked.

When he slid the opera glasses up, the room remained dark. Only through these special glasses could he properly see inside the space that felt like midnight.

“What are these?”

“Ah, those are called magic stones.”

The young count fiddled with the chains binding the boy’s arms.

This had been done by the manager before they entered the hall. According to the slave caravan’s rules, anywhere except a private room, slaves had to be bound by chains on either their [N O V E L I G H T] arms or legs. It was a measure meant to prevent them from harming customers, and to keep them from running away.

“I am truly, truly sorry I couldn’t have the chains on your arms removed. It’s a rule of the slave caravan, so even I simply can’t break it. Once we get out, I’ll set you free, so you don’t need to worry about a thing, my little bird.”

Ren’s whole body shuddered as he looked at Peruan muttering with a sorrowful face.

For a moment, his irritation and disgust were forgotten under the sheer twist of revulsion through his body!

The two of them had, in their own way, coordinated their story and come down to the deepest underground level where the auction was being held so they could record evidence.

Because of the things Peruan had said the entire way down, Ren felt like he was going to lose his mind.

This was a new kind of torture!

“My you” was bad enough, and now little bird!

After hearing that this was the deepest part of the port city, Ren had no choice but to admit, while coming down here, that his luck was good. If they had not been deep underground, Ren would have run from this man’s side. And this man, who tormented Ren with that mouth of his, was supposed to be his good fortune today!

“Are you cold somewhe—”

“Can you please stop saying that little bird crap? I’m going to die from the goosebumps!”

Sick of the nonsense Peruan had spouted on the way down under the guise of love confessions, Ren had changed the subject, and thanks to that, he had been able to hear bits and pieces about the slave caravan and the underground bunker.

And Peruan had made one promise to Ren.

He would do everything in his power to rescue everyone who had been taken, and he would actively search for Cedric as well.

Ren did not know how far Peruan would keep his word.

But the king’s order could be trusted.

Ren decided to trust the king’s order.

“I would like to do as you ask, but when you speak, you sound like a chirping little bird, so I cannot help calling you that. If only you were a little less adorable, this problem would be solved...”

Wasn’t this basically an illness?

“You don’t know yourself. How adorable you are, and how lovely.”

Ren avoided those eyes that looked as if honey were dripping from them and thought for a moment.

Was he adorable?

No. I just shriek and get angry. How is that adorable?

Lante had said that, but...

Anyway. That doesn’t mean I’m adorable...! If anything, doesn’t that chirping thing mean he wants me to stop running my mouth and shut up? 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Ren looked at Peruan with eyes full of suspicion.

Peruan, who had been meeting his gaze tenderly, opened his mouth with a somewhat startled expression.

“Wait. Your complexion... isn’t good.”

“Should my complexion be good after being dragged here?”

Even when Ren answered crookedly, Peruan only smiled faintly and examined him seriously. His gaze was almost obsessive.

His eyes shone in the dark.

Peruan wiped away the cold sweat on Ren’s forehead and spoke.

“That isn’t what I meant. I know this is delicate, but I have to ask. Do you perhaps suffer from a chronic illness?”

“...!”

Ren’s eyes went wide.

“I’m sorry. It seems I was right. This won’t do. We need to find your belongings. Do you have medicine you usually take?”

Your hands are cold too. Peruan massaged Ren’s hand and called Tom, ordering him to find Ren’s things.

With a deeply worried face, he said, “Your breathing is strained, and your pulse is weak. It seems you’ve been sick for a long time. Have you seen a doct—”

Ren began to cry, tears falling one after another.

Peruan’s brow twisted in the middle of speaking. He carefully reached out to Ren.

“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Seeing you shed tears feels as if a deep pit is being carved into my chest. Did my words hurt you? I was wrong. I’ll apologize, so...”

As Peruan struggled desperately to soothe him, tears even welled in his own eyes.

Ren, on the other hand, was so dumbfounded by the sight of Peruan’s tears that his own stopped completely.

This man really was insane. Who confessed love to someone they had just met, cried over them... and noticed this much about their condition?

Ren wiped away his tears and spoke as dryly as he could.

“No. I don’t have an illness. Mind your own business.”

At his sickly voice, Peruan looked heartbroken.

Ren glanced at him and made up his mind.

‘...I need to run.’

Peruan would not be carrying out this mission alone. When his comrades came to help, Ren would use that chance to get away from his side.

Ren hid his discomfort and decided to start watching for an opening.

After a brief silence, Peruan cautiously took his hand. Because of the hood, Ren could not see Peruan’s expression properly, but the hand holding his was trembling.

Ren tried to pull his hand away, but Peruan held it firmly. Gentleness slipped between each of the words he carefully spoke.

“Aren’t I a stranger to you? You don’t need to force yourself to hide anything, my you. Strangers have that kind of charm. There is something about them that makes it less shameful when they see your weaknesses. Since I know nothing about you, you can show me yourself as you are. I will beg you, but I won’t bind you. So, my you. Don’t be afraid.”

Maybe the hand trembling had been Ren’s.

Peruan’s quiet, careful words pierced through Ren’s heart. To Ren, who had grown tired of lying and enduring in order to hide his illness, those words sounded sweet.

His elegant speech might have been nothing but pretty decoration. He might speak beautifully and then betray Ren. Just as Mine had.

‘Don’t trust him. You got all the way here because you trusted wrong in the first place.’

Everything was like that. At the time, you thought you were right, and only after you had gone far away did you realize.

Only after leaving the village had Ren regretted it, thinking he should not have done that.

Only after trusting someone and being betrayed had he regretted it, thinking he should not have trusted him.

...But some of them were sincere.

From a place where there had been no trust between them at all. From a heart that had even hated. The longing that had sprouted there seemed to speak to Ren.

“I won’t ask you to trust me. But your illness should be trea—”

“It’s useless. I might die in a few years, or even next month.”

“...That’s...”

“I’m telling you so you won’t waste your effort. I don’t know whether you’re acting because you’re bored, or whether you really came here under royal command. But there’s nothing you can get from me. So don’t expect anything.”

It felt.

Refreshing.

Ren said it that way on purpose. He knew the letter Peruan had was in the king’s own handwriting, and that the seal stamped on it was real.

But so what?

That was not a reason to trust him.

But if, as Peruan had said, he was a complete stranger, then Ren’s secret would not be heavy to him at all. Without having to work so hard to hide it, couldn’t he lean on that “charm of strangers” Peruan had mentioned, say it, and forget it?

Ren looked at the frozen man and smiled faintly. He pushed the hood back a little and put on the opera glasses.

The interior, dark yet clearly visible, really was fascinating. The murmurs all around them, too. The revolting obscene jokes and the conversations pretending to be refined.

Once they went outside, all of this would become something that had never happened.

Humans who lied.

When all of these people went outside, would they be the kind of people who cared for their families?

Then what kind of person was this man?

A person who begged, saying he had fallen in love at first sight.

Letting the noise around them pass in one ear and out the other, Ren looked at Peruan, who was still staring at him. At his eyes, shining like jewels.

When their eyes met, Peruan spoke as though a spell had broken.

“What if I don’t want to?”

His voice was small, almost a whisper, but strangely clear.

“Isn’t that different from what you just said?”

A laugh escaped Ren from sheer disbelief. Peruan stared at the corner of Ren’s mouth before opening his own.

“Presumptuous as it is, I no longer want to let you go. I want to heal you. No—even if I can’t heal you, I want to give you the joy of living. Seen this way, the world may be a little fair. You were unlucky enough to be dragged here, but you met me. And I wandered all my life searching for someone I wanted to love for a lifetime, and haven’t I met you?”

“What kind of bullshit...”

“Please don’t say that.”

“What exactly do you see in someone you just met that makes you like them? You know this is really absurd, right?”

Ren snickered.

Whether it was a sneer or a smile, Peruan touched the corner of his mouth as if Ren’s laughter had undone him.

“Of course it must seem that way. I will explain that to you slowly, little by little. As you listen, I’m sure you’ll understand too.”

“No. I don’t need that, so I’d like you to keep what you said earlier.”

“What I said earlier...”

Peruan furrowed one eyebrow and smiled awkwardly. Ren paused for a moment as though thinking, then smiled spitefully.

“That you won’t bind me, and that you’ll set me free.”

Ren carefully unfolded his index and middle fingers.

“Do your begging in your head. By my standards, love confessions count as restraint.”

Looking into those curving green eyes, Peruan had to feel as though he had stepped into a trap.