Cutting through the suffocatingly heavy air of the waiting room, a clear bell chimed. Aiden turned his head. Seeing his expression brighten, Kirian caught on too. It was the signal that the rite had ended.
Aiden picked up the tray he’d prepared in advance. A clean new shirt, trousers, and a towel were laid out on it. Wiping down the empress’s holy-water-soaked body and helping him dress was a personal priest’s duty.
Just as Aiden was about to leave the waiting room with his preparations complete—
“Hold on.”
A low, weighty voice stopped him. It was Kirian.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“His Majesty the Empress has summoned me. I must help him change.”
“Change?”
Kirian’s eyebrow twitched. He’d assumed a purification rite meant praying or the like—but dressing him? Then didn’t that mean this brat would see the empress’s bare body?
You? You dare?
Even if they were both men, he couldn’t allow it. No—precisely because they were both men, all the more so.
“Hand it over.”
Kirian held out his hand. Aiden stepped back.
“This is my duty. As his personal priest—”
“No one but me is permitted to see the empress’s body.”
Kirian strode over and gripped the tray Aiden was holding. Aiden put force into it, refusing to give it up.
“Let go.”
“You let go, Your Majesty.”
By now Kael was on the verge of fainting. What kind of juvenile contest of wills is this? He couldn’t believe either of them—the priest who kept talking back to the emperor, or the emperor reacting to and getting provoked by a twenty-year-old priest at every turn.
“Listen here, priest.”
Kirian curled the corner of his mouth into a thin, sardonic smile. As maturely as possible. As befit an emperor.
“I’m speaking very civilly right now, so you’d do well not to test my patience.”
As if I’d cave to a threat like that. Aiden scoffed inwardly. But the words that followed were different.
“The empress is waiting. If he catches a chill, will you take responsibility?”
“…”
The strength drained from Aiden’s hands. Those words had softened his heart. Not missing the opening, Kirian snatched the tray away.
“Kael.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
“Don’t let this brat anywhere near that door. If he peeks, gouge his eyes out!”
“…Understood.”
Kirian flashed Aiden a victor’s smile. This is power. For the first time, he found the trembling priest agreeable. Kael thought it terribly childish, but kept his mouth shut.
“Well then, carry on.”
Holding the seized tray in one hand, Kirian sauntered out of the waiting room, making a show of it. His steps down the corridor were oddly quick.
Left behind, Aiden bit his lip in frustration.
“…Lord Luan.”
Kael shook his head. There wasn’t a single thing about this that wasn’t childish—a perfect, petty little man through and through.
The silver door stood slightly ajar. Since one without divine power couldn’t open it themselves, Luan must have left it open beforehand. Kirian shut the door with a loud thud. He was getting ahead of the game in case that damned priest tried to follow.
Standing at the door, Kirian gripped the tray in his hands. Honestly, he couldn’t make sense of his own behavior. He’d browbeaten some mere boy of a priest—if Luan saw, he’d scoff that they were the same age—and wielded imperial power, all over something as trivial as helping the empress change clothes. He was well aware he’d been acting unusually childish.
It’s because that bastard’s got such insolent eyes.
A month ago he’d have left it alone, insolent eyes or no, whatever they were. The man inside was his spouse, yes—but also the son of the ducal house that had likely driven the late emperor to his death.
Five years of neglect had stemmed from that, too. Because every time he looked at Luan, his own helplessness and his hatred for the nobles who jerked him around came rushing back. And yet now, here he was, having browbeaten a young priest to push his way in just to help Luan dress.
“…Hahh.”
He’d been doing things he couldn’t comprehend lately. …But changing his clothes is a separate matter.
Kirian lifted his head, frowning. Light poured down from the high ceiling. Past a view of light particles scattering as if dancing, he saw the back of a figure standing alone.
In that instant, Kirian’s thoughts came to a halt.
“…”
Luan was clad in nothing but a single thin white linen gown, the kind worn for the rite. The problem was that his body was soaked through with water.
He couldn’t even draw a breath.
The thin, water-laden fabric clung translucently to his skin, laying bare the contours of the body hidden beneath the cloth.
White.
The flesh glimpsed through the wet fabric was sickeningly pale. Translucent skin without a trace of color. For a moment he had no idea where to put his eyes.
He’s thin.
But it wasn’t an unsightly thinness. The muscles of his back, without an ounce of excess, were delicate and keen. The protruding shoulder blades jutted up like wings about to tear free of the skin. Below them, the knobs of his spine traced ridges through the wet cloth, flaunting their presence.
A droplet falling from his wet hair slid down the long line that followed his spine. The water trailed down the curve of his slim waist and vanished into the firm contour just above where the gown pulled taut over his hips.
It was undeniably a man’s body. Yet it was a beauty as precarious as if it might crumble at any moment, and as untouchable as something within forbidden ground.
Decadent, and holy. So much so that wrapped in that wet cloth he seemed more obscene than if he’d been bare.
Kirian’s throat bobbed hard. His head was a mess. He’s supposed to be someone I should be wary of. Someone I should keep at a distance. And yet his gaze raked over that wet back like a starving beast. Instinct began to gnaw away at the cord of reason.
What broke the silence was a soft voice.
“Aiden?”
Sensing a presence, Luan slowly turned his body. As he moved, the wet cloth peeled away from his skin with a faint, slick sound, then clung again.
That bastard was going to see this?
The front was even more of a problem. The thin gown was plastered completely against his chest. Below the deeply carved collarbones, the lines of taut pectoral muscle. Even the small points of his chest, made prominent by the water, showed through clearly.
The platinum-blond hair usually combed neatly back was now damp, scattered in disarray across his forehead and cheeks. The pale face revealed between strands of wet hair looked strangely, eerily lewd.
“…Huh?”
Luan’s eyes narrowed. Spotting Kirian standing blankly at the door, he rolled up a wet sleeve and asked flatly,
“Your Majesty? Why are you here? Where’s Aiden?”
“…I cut him.”
Kirian’s voice cracked as it came out. He cleared his throat and steadied it, but the tips of his ears were already flushed red. Not a shred of embarrassment or fluster from Luan—facing someone so utterly unbothered, Kirian somehow felt his pride wounded.
“That kid was neglecting his duties, so I came. To help you change.”
Neglecting his duties—that makes no sense. Did he just hate watching Aiden do menial work? Enough that he decided he had to wait on me himself? This was a severe case from the very first meeting.
“You, Your Majesty? Have you ever even done it before?”
Luan asked with a laugh. The situation was so absurd that laughter was all he had. But to Kirian it was another matter entirely. Flaunting his defenseless wet body and provoking me like this!
Damn it, don’t laugh.
Kirian cursed inwardly, grinding the words down. If that bastard Aiden had come in, he’d have seen this. The thought that the cheeky priest would have seen this wet body, this smile, stirred a murderous impulse.
This is for my eyes only. He’s mine. The thought flooded his mind whole.
“Quiet. I can manage that much.”
Kirian set the tray down roughly and picked up a dry towel, hiding his trembling hands.
“Turn your back.”
“All right. Be gentle, won’t you.”
He’s saying such strange things. Without a word of complaint, Luan turned his back, and Kirian held his breath at the sight of that wet back before him. The wet back filling his vision, the streams of water tracing the lines of the body—they robbed him of his gaze.
Kirian swallowed despite himself. His throat was parched. He stretched out a trembling hand and pressed the dry towel to that wet back.
…
The sensation against his fingertips was a shock. The warmth transmitted through the wet cloth was hot, unlike the hand from before. Each time Kirian rubbed with the towel, the wet fabric scraped against the skin, making a peculiar friction sound.
“Your Majesty?”
Luan turned his head slightly. Why is he so slow? Maybe I should’ve just said I’d do it myself. But Kirian was biting down hard on his lip.
“…Be quiet. I’m concentrating.”
“Ah, right.”
Luan turned his head back again. This is torture.
That was when it happened. Kirian’s gaze drifted past Luan to the edge of the basin. There, a dark-red stain bore the marks of a hasty wipe—wiped to hide it, but not quite erased. A bloodstain.
In that instant his eyes shook violently. The sexual tension that had ruled his mind vanished in a flash. An uncontainable emotion came surging in.
He was… coughing up blood again.
A person as precarious as if he might shatter at any second. A body trembling faintly, soaked through. Guilt and a strange pity mingled together, and they set fire to some emotion in Kirian.
He couldn’t hold back any longer.
“…Your Majesty?”
On impulse, Kirian wrapped his arms around Luan from behind. The sodden gown pressed against his uniform and soaked it through in an instant. His firm arms enfolded Luan’s slender body. He was clearly the older man, yet he fit so impossibly into Kirian’s embrace.
“…I’m losing my mind.”
Kirian buried his forehead against the wet shoulder.
“What is this? Let go.”
Caught in a sudden, baffling situation, Luan twisted his body to slip free. But Kirian pulled him in even harder. When Luan’s wet back and hips pressed flush against his lower body, Kirian groaned like a beast.
“Don’t move.”
Kirian growled.
“Stay still. Just… let’s stay like this for a moment.”
He could never show this face. The expression he wore now wasn’t one of worry. It was closer to a male’s—desire mingled in, the urge to sink his teeth into the nape and rake apart the tender skin. At the unfamiliar stimulation he felt from the very person he was supposed to hate, his whole body trembled.
The forbidden door had opened.
To Kirian now, Luan was no longer someone meaningless. He was the one man he absolutely had to claim and possess.
