The door of his new residence was colossal beyond measure. Luan looked up at the imposing scene unfolding before his eyes and thought:
Guess this is my coffin.
The palace where the Emperor resided was so opulent it was nearly blinding. Everything seemed to warn, This is the Emperor's domain, so don't you dare breathe carelessly—and no wasting oxygen, either.
What exactly am I supposed to do here? As he stood there blankly amid the sigh-inducing situation, a flustered voice came from beside him.
“Your Majesty the Empress, is this… all of your luggage?”
The chamberlain asked, visibly bewildered. And no wonder—it was a picture entirely different from what he'd imagined.
It hardly even counted as luggage. Just two attendants carrying two bags, that was the whole of it. Even for a sudden relocation, the scale was beyond imagining. But even this was sufficient luggage for Luan.
A bag holding a few changes of clothes and some emergency cash. As the moving load of an empire's Empress, it was shabby beyond measure, but as travel baggage it was plenty. For the optimal setup—an amount he could carry alone when the time came to leave—this was just right. With this much, he could make a swift midnight escape too.
“I have no hobby of acquiring possessions.”
Luan answered dryly. The truth he didn't voice was his resolve to skip lightheartedly out of the imperial castle half a year from now.
“B-but with only this, the Empress's dignity…”
“How long do you intend to leave me standing here?”
“M-my apologies!”
My battery's about to die. At his indifferent reply—the feeling of his stamina leaking away—the chamberlain hurriedly had the massive doors opened. The dry urging somehow conveyed a sense of pressure.
When the doors opened with a heavy sound, a vast bedchamber revealed itself. And in the very center of it, sitting on a sofa with his legs crossed arrogantly as though to say I am the master of this room, was a man.
Kirian Eckart.
Glass in hand, he greeted the spouse who had walked in on his own two feet—presumably—with an intrigued look.
“Welcome, Empress. Welcome to my domain.”
Domain? What a beast's-lair sort of word choice. And more to the point—wasn't this supposed to be my room? Luan clicked his tongue inwardly and dipped his head slightly.
“Thank you for the warm welcome, Your Majesty. The room is quite… spacious. The upkeep must cost a fortune for one person to use.”
“Don't worry. Arje isn't poor enough to be shaken by a trifle like this.”
Kirian rose from his seat with a smile. As he slowly approached, Luan instinctively wanted to step back, but it was too much bother, so he refrained. Kirian's gaze swept over Luan's luggage. The attendants' shoulders shrank.
“This is all your luggage? Rather lacking in effort, for someone come to merge households.”
“Unnecessary possessions only scatter the mind. One must always be ready…”
“Ready?”
“…Ready in spirit, I mean. Life is fleeting, after all.”
When Luan dodged the question, Kirian narrowed his eyes. Naturally, he didn't believe a word of it. He'd simply landed on a different hypothesis.
Is he trying to leave no trace?
Kirian scoffed inwardly. It was a transparent ploy. Minimizing your luggage—that was the textbook habit of those who didn't want to be caught by the tail.
Befittingly meticulous, for one of Requies blood.
This relocation had clearly come about from his own abrupt notice, yet the man calmly concealed unnecessary information. The thought struck him that this might not be so easy an opponent after all.
Without letting it show, he came to a stop right before Luan's face. When he bent at the waist to bring himself to eye level, a cool fragrance brushed past the tip of Luan's nose.
Up close, Luan's face was even more unreal. It was exactly the pale, doll-like appearance he'd seen at the wedding. A figure from which no emotion could be felt at all. No—he looked even more parched and precarious than back then.
“This room connects to my bedchamber.”
He jerked his chin toward a small door in the wall.
“That door has no lock. I can come in anytime, and you can cross over into my room too.”
“…Are you familiar with the term 'invasion of privacy'?”
“Are we strangers? What a wounding thing to say between husband and wife.”
“We've lived worse than strangers, though.”
“Which is exactly why we should start closing the distance now. Just as the priest prescribed.”
Kirian's eyes curved mischievously. This is harassment. It was plainly harassment! Egregious enough to report to the audit office. But rather than reveal any agitation, Luan looked at the door with indifferent eyes.
If there's no lock, I'll just block it with a bookshelf.
I'll block it while the Emperor sleeps, as if by accident. So thinking, Luan turned his gaze and checked the bed. By that size, it was a king. The duvet looked like goose down. It looked plush. He wanted to fling his body onto it right now and pass out. The grudge of having died, thanks to the god, without ever getting to sleep had followed him all the way here.
“I'm moved to tears by Your Majesty's deep consideration. Then, since I'm tired, may I rest now?”
At Luan's words, Kirian tilted his head. It was still bright outside the window. He'd said by evening, but Luan, figuring he'd best knock the chore out fast, had thrown a few things together and come right over.
“Already? The sun's still high.”
“The counseling drained my energy. I feel like I did five years' worth of talking in one day.”
Felt more like double five years' worth, actually. Luan let his shoulders droop, finding even standing too much trouble. He looked for all the world like a corpse freshly crawled out of a grave.
Kirian found the excessively dry, composed attitude as suspicious as ever, yet at the same time he was dumbfounded. The Emperor was right in front of him, and the man wanted to lie down?
He's not trying to seduce me, nor to dig out information?
“…Fine. Rest.”
Kirian stepped back one pace and gave a peculiar smile.
“On one condition—leave the door open.”
“…Pardon?”
Truly startled, the expression that had seemed mask-like went blank. Somehow it put Kirian in a pleasant mood.
“Isn't this a shared chamber for the sake of improving our relationship?”
You ordered it unilaterally, though. Luan was dumbfounded, but Kirian's eyes curved.
“Let me hear every last breath you take.”
Have you lost your mind? He barely held down the words trying to burst up his throat. He's needling me on purpose.
“If the door's closed, I can't see you, after all.”
To the speechless Luan, he kindly added:
“Sleep well, my lovely Empress. I'll be watching over you, so you won't have nightmares.”
You're the nightmare, though.
But he hadn't even the energy to retort. Blocking it with a bookshelf is off the table now. Damn it. Lacking the strength to protest, he merely bowed his head.
A little while later, the moment Kirian finished thoroughly toying with him and returned to his own room, Luan made a beeline for the bed. Behind him, the door truly was left open. Cursed thing.
Flump. His body sank into the mattress. It was as plush as he'd thought. But it offered no comfort. The ceiling was high, the lighting gaudy, and in the next room lived an emperor with a case of paranoia. He wasn't sure a good night's sleep was even possible.
“…They say marriage is a tomb.”
Luan mumbled, burying his face in the pillow.
“Awfully noisy, for a tomb.”
Contrary to his words, the instant he closed his eyes, his consciousness cut out. The fact that Kirian was surveilling him viciously from beyond the open door was no problem at all in the face of the sleep crashing down on him.
Meanwhile, in the next room, Kirian was so dumbfounded by the scene beyond the open door that he couldn't pull his gaze away.
“Is he really… asleep?”
“Unless there's something wrong with my eyes, Your Majesty and I are seeing the same thing.”
“He's asleep.”
At Kael's words, Kirian realized he wasn't seeing things, and was struck speechless. Not one thing was lining up with what he'd anticipated.
He'd expected the man to check, while unpacking, whether the room was bugged. Or to read the situation and prepare to bribe an attendant. At the very least, he'd thought the man would pace around, restless with anxiety. He was, after all, the watcher and spy that House Requies had planted on him.
And yet…
That man had begun breathing in a steady rhythm less than a minute after lying down. Without the slightest movement, like a corpse.
The nerve, to fall dead asleep with the Emperor in the very next room? I feel rather ignored.
“Ha.”
Kirian let out a scoff. It was the first day of two men sharing one bed and dreaming entirely different dreams.
