The imperial palace annex. The marriage counseling room.
This place, which had begun fulfilling its purpose again for the first time in nearly thirty years, opened its doors once more a month after the first session.
The faintly drifting scent of chamomile tea filled the warm-toned room. Across a tea table, Luan and Benya sat facing each other.
It was the day for the once-a-month couples counseling, all thanks to that damned Article 7, Clause 3 of the temple law or whatever it was, brought up in the last session. And before the couples counseling, an individual session was held first, so that each party could pour out their innermost feelings without filter.
First up was the one who had filed for divorce—Luan.
“It’s already been a month since the cooling-off period began. How have you been getting along?”
Benya wore a gentle smile as he prepared his parchment and quill. Luan fiddled with the teacup steaming in front of him and let out a deep sigh. Thanks to the showdown he’d had with the god in the Hall of Holiness last time, his physical condition had definitely improved. It was low-power mode, sure, but at least the bouts of dizziness and the breathless collapses had noticeably decreased. And he wasn’t coughing up blood anymore.
The problem was that, as much as his body had grown comfortable, his mental fatigue had spiked to a degree beyond imagination.
“My body’s been comfortable enough, but… mentally I’ve been exhausted. No—‘drained’ would be the precise word.”
“May I ask what’s been wearing on you, Your Majesty?”
Luan pressed his brow and muttered.
“To be honest with you, Benya. Lately I can’t make any sense of the emperor’s behavior.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s gone beyond mere discomfort. There’s a limit to these things.”
Luan set down his teacup and began listing the emperor’s recent eccentricities.
“Following at my back like a shadow wherever I go is the least of it. If I so much as trip, he tries to scoop me up; when I get into a carriage, he clamps an arm around my waist like he’s some kind of seatbelt and won’t let go. He even came into my bedchamber a few days ago…”
Luan furrowed his brow, recalling the dreadful and bizarre service of that day.
“Since I had no appetite and was lying down without eating, he personally dragged over the steak plate and minced the meat. He cut it up like baby food and stuffed it into my mouth—what sort of grotesque behavior is that to inflict on a grown man?”
Recalling that suffocating moment of the emperor sitting at the head of the bed, blowing on a spoonful to cool it before feeding him, Luan shook his head. Comfortable as it was, it was a burdensome situation he never wanted to go through again.
Benya’s quill scratched busily across the parchment. Outwardly he was calmly keeping records, but a faint smile was spreading across his lips.
“From what you’re telling me, the emperor seems to be looking after you with the utmost devotion. It’s the kind of affectionate care rarely seen even between ordinary couples.”
Benya gently steered toward a question.
“In that case, might we say that the changes over this past month have brought positive progress to your relationship? I’m curious whether your resolve toward divorce has softened at all.”
“No. Not in the slightest.”
There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation in the answer. At the firm denial, Benya’s quill paused midair.
“Is there a reason you can assert that so plainly? The behaviors you’ve described could, by most measures, be seen as deep affection and concern.”
“Affection? Benya, please. That’s preposterous.”
Luan waved a hand decisively. His rational way of thinking had begun whirring at full speed.
“Five years. This is a man who never once spared me a glance, even while we lived in the same palace.”
And then one day, out of nowhere, Luan had thrust a divorce agreement at him. What’s more, around that same time he’d started moving about and shown that, contrary to expectations, his administrative competence as empress was actually rather useful.
“Consider it from His Majesty’s position. The spouse he’d left to rot turned out to be a fairly useful card. And then that card declares it’s walking out on its own two feet. As the empire’s supreme authority, faced with a variable he can’t control, his stubbornness and possessiveness kicked in.”
It was a jaw-dropping line of logic.
“His Majesty’s attitude is nothing more than obsession. It’s lingering attachment to a useful chess piece, plus overprotectiveness.”
Even Benya, listening, was nearly persuaded for a moment—ah, is that so?—by the dry rationalization. Luan’s talent for disguising the emperor’s blind possessiveness as his own tidy logic was nothing short of genius.
“Besides…”
Luan added serenely.
“Right now he’s only acting this way because the empty seat at his side bothers and frustrates him. But someone destined for him—someone incomparably more suited to him than the likes of me—will appear at his side.”
“Someone destined, you say?”
“Yes. The truly heaven-sent, perfect match who can wrap that temper of his in something round and warm. It’s only a matter of time. Someday, without fail, such a person will enter the emperor’s field of vision. That’s the way of the world.”
In Luan’s head, the romance formula of the original work was firmly entrenched. He was merely there to keep the seat warm until the true protagonist appeared.
“So those fussy behaviors are nothing more, nothing less than stubbornness over not wanting to lose a talented subordinate, or a passing whim.”
At Luan’s steadfast answer, Benya set down his quill for a moment and gazed at him intently. How on earth do I bring down a wall of delusion this solid? At the very least, the look in the emperor’s eyes at the temple had been nothing of the sort. Very carefully, but striking right at the heart of the matter, Benya posed a hypothetical.
“Your Majesty. Let me pose just one hypothetical—a complete what-if.”
“A hypothetical?”
“Yes. Suppose the attitudes the emperor is showing you now… were not simple stubbornness over not wanting to lose a capable subordinate, nor a matter of saving face, but a wholly genuine and intense affection.”
Benya’s voice grew a shade more serious.
“If the emperor truly cherished you, and had no intention whatsoever of letting you go no matter what destined partner might appear. In that case, would there be any room for change in your relationship?”
At Benya’s question, Luan quietly set the teacup down on the table. Then he met Benya’s gaze with eyes so clear and unwavering.
“No.”
“…Not at all?”
“No. It’s a relationship that can never come to be.”
Benya’s breath caught. There wasn’t the faintest sliver of possibility in Luan’s pale-violet eyes. It was as natural and certain as discussing the immutable truths that the sun rises in the east and water flows from high to low.
Benya silently observed Luan’s terrifyingly perfect wall. To be this trapped within one’s own logic.
He brought the quill back to the parchment.
Your Majesty the Empress refutes the emperor’s goodwill and obsession with the miraculous logic of “lingering attachment to a competent employee about to resign.” Places blind faith in an imaginary destined partner who will appear someday; even granting the emperor’s feelings as genuine, declares a 0% chance of relationship development… That was what he wanted to write.
Of course, that candid summary only circled around inside Benya’s head; on the parchment it was politely adapted to something like Your Majesty the Empress holds a very firm resolve toward divorce.
“Understood. I’ve organized your thoughts very clearly, without a single misunderstanding. Let’s wrap up the individual session here.”
Benya nodded with a serene face and began preparing for the next item on the agenda.
