As if there was something very urgent.

Like someone who had just received urgent news that someone had passed away.

Of course, there were rarely occasions where one would rush into the palace after receiving such urgent news, but anyway.

‘Please, please, please, please just pass by….’

Valentin prayed with his eyes tightly closed.

“Oh my… Who is this…?”

Damn it! Nothing goes right!

Valentin let out a scream in his heart.

His unluckiness in encountering enemies was truly consistent.

“…Greetings to Your Highness, the Third Prince…”

A greeting reluctantly spat out from a bowed face flowed out softly.

He didn’t even properly raise his face.

It was because his expression had rotted too much to betray his feelings. Valentin naturally packaged and concealed his rotten face by bowing deeply in a polite greeting, but he couldn’t hide his displeased voice. Although he had become an adult, he was still far from becoming a packaging expert.

“Hmm…”

For some reason, Clifton, who was expected to just pass by after receiving the greeting, did not budge.

‘Why isn’t he going…? Despite always making a shit-eating face whenever he sees me, does he have some business with me?’

Not only the sudden encounter, but also him acknowledging Valentin and not quickly disappearing to go about his own business, all of those things were not to Valentin’s liking. Well, no matter how great an enemy was, how could any part of them be likable?

Valentin looked only at Clifton’s feet that were not moving at all, and then slowly raised his head again with no choice. He had no idea why they were doing this when they were on uncomfortable terms with each other.

“Then I’ll be on my way…”

“I heard you returned to the capital…”

He tried to quickly escape by pretending not to know, but he was caught because Clifton spoke to him.

“Visiting my mother’s palace as soon as you return.”

“Yes…?”

“It seems you still can’t give up that dirty ambition?”

…The hell? Valentin unknowingly thought of the catchphrase of the queen dowager in Joseon Dynasty dramas.

Is he talking shit right now?

What does he think I came here to do, spouting such nonsense…!

‘I have to endure it…’

Valentin was afraid of harboring even more resentment in front of his enemy, so he couldn’t even vehemently protest and gritted his teeth secretly while pulling himself together. No matter how much the other person acted up and provoked him, he had to calmly find reason. Isn’t that the mindset of a reincarnator who knows the original story?

“You’re mistaken, Your Highness.”

Well done. Nice, my true adult self!

Clifton’s mouth, unaware that Valentin was greatly proud of himself, kept spewing nonsense mixed with paranoid delusions.

“Mistaken, even though you were caught red-handed…”

Clifton tilted his head askew halfway up the stairs and muttered as if telling him to listen.

Caught red-handed, my ass. It’s a bountiful year for bullshit and a bumper crop for nonsense.

Others all called him a wise person, and he was even the protagonist who achieved human victory in the original story’s world, yet he was so narrow-minded. Could it be that what’s blinding your eyes is hatred towards me…? Or is the original story exaggerated? Valentin couldn’t understand it at all.

Bullshit kept spewing from his enemy.

“No matter how much you try to look good to my mother, I guarantee that we will never get married.”

The way he misunderstood on his own, didn’t listen to others’ words, and only excitedly said what he wanted to say was somehow forming a perfect pair of mouths with his lover Evener. There was no better answer-turned-question.

If you had put that guarantee into action long ago, I wouldn’t have gone through all this heartache and physical suffering and would have enjoyed a comfortable reincarnated life. Valentin could only suffer inwardly because he couldn’t be sarcastic to the third prince, who was a direct member of the imperial family in this world where status was like a gangster and position was the boss.

If only I could say these words out loud and feel refreshed right now, I would have no regrets. The small Valentin in his heart repeatedly hit his chest.

“Fortunately. I also came today to personally reject our engagement by having an audience with Her Highness the Empress.”

He struggled to speak while putting on a social smile disguised as smooth social skills.

He had made up his mind to throw a straightforward ball since Clifton wouldn’t listen to reason.

“What a coincidence.”

This guy, seriously…! Valentin felt like his blood pressure had been rising and he was about to pop like a balloon.

“I don’t believe you at all, but even if that’s true, you don’t seem to know that it’s not something that will happen just because you alone reject it.”

Now even treating him like a fool?

He felt like he couldn’t help but say this.

“Then why didn’t you directly reject it all this time even though you disliked it so much, Your Highness?”

The words he had most wanted to ask since a long time ago suddenly popped out and cut through the air.

A rebuke asking what he had been doing all this time.

Valentin’s question, filled with his sincerity and truth, was so cold that it froze the air solid.

It was as if time itself had cooled down and stopped. Valentin quietly waited in front of Clifton, who was silent.

Even though they had been engaged to each other since childhood, it was discourteous to the imperial family to ask further as if digging when they were not even close privately. And even now, he had thrown words that went too much against the prince’s mood.

‘Sigh…. I had been enduring all this time to lessen the resentment even a little… But I couldn’t endure it again…’

Like a reckless mouth.

He had endured well enough to boldly escape in order not to give any chance to pick on him or grab his tail, so what was this behavior…? Valentin lamented his lack of patience just now and slyly raised his eyes to gauge Clifton’s reaction.

However, the expression on the face he encountered was unexpected.

He thought Clifton would be angry, like someone who was suddenly struck by lightning while walking on the road, at his straightforward remark that he couldn’t hold back. But the handsome face looking at Valentin intently with a tilted head didn’t seem very angry.

“You’ve definitely changed.”

The face that seemed to have slowly finished contemplating opened its mouth and spoke.

“…Saying that I’ve changed is not an answer at all.”

“And still impudent.”

He seemed to be more focused on exploration rather than emotional expression at the moment. His dark green eyes that seemed to have a deep shade glowed under his nicely falling red hair.

Valentin bit his lower lip firmly.

“I don’t even know if you’re sincere. About not being fond of this marriage proposal.”

Valentin’s brows completely furrowed at the words added, ‘Unlike in the past when you thoughtlessly liked it.’

“I thought I told you sincerely and showed it through my actions, but it seems it wasn’t conveyed at all.”

“Of course. I thought it was another trick from your cunning mind.”

Clifton’s tilted head returned to its place and snorted.

Who was really cunning…? The bitten part of his lips turned white from more force.

As expected.

All of Valentin’s efforts so far had not reached them sincerely at all.

‘Saying it’s another trick.’

A laugh came out involuntarily.

Evener, Clifton’s lover, must have thought the same way. That’s why he committed such an evil deed that day they met at the gallery, gathering all the anger and malice in the world.

“No. Since that day 5 years ago, I have sincerely wished for this marriage proposal to be nullified.”

A cool westerly wind inappropriately passed over the stairs.

No, maybe it was the heart that was cold.

While someone had left for 5 years, leaving behind everything in their family and life, they had not changed at all.

“Okay. Now that I see it, I can believe you.”

“……”

“But you know.”

Clifton untangled his crossed arms and walked slowly towards Valentin with the sound of his boots. His stylish frock coat fluttered in the wind.

“I said there would be no marriage, but I never said I didn’t want the engagement, didn’t you know?”

His voice was calm yet low and captivating, but to Valentin, it came as a shocking sound like striking his head with a bell.

What? What does that mean?

“…Could you… Could you say that again?”

Did I hear that correctly?

As if driving a wedge into Valentin’s dumbfounded question, Clifton smiled a picturesque smile and reconfirmed in a clear voice.

“Unless something happens, our engagement will proceed as planned.”

Clifton raised his clean and long hand and lightly brushed Valentin’s cheek with his index finger. Goosebumps rose in that shape. The disgusting finger settled on the tip of his chin after passing his cheek, and then the white and clear face was lifted with force as if to closely observe it being filled with anger.