CH 33

"Yulia?"

Lewicia asked back as if he hadn't heard properly.

Only then did Yulia raise her head, and calmly responded.

"Fairy tales aren’t even kind to the main character. Who really wants to live a life like that? Kidnapped by the Demon King, suffering from a witch's curse... There is no way that such pain can be healed with the love of prince from a fairy tale."

"So you don’t believe in love?"

"If I dare say... I mean that my love is worthless."

"How come?"

"Because it will disappear like foam in no time."

Yulia's tone was no different from when she taught Lewicia about the successor studies.

At the dry voice, as if reading a book, this time Coco clicked her tongue with a tired face.

However, Lewicia couldn't take Yulia's words lightly.

To think that love is worthless. It was the first time he had heard such words from a woman.

The absolute woman who dominated his childhood was his mother, and she was the one who gave up her life and her only son for love.

"There are some people in this world... who believe that love lasts forever."

"Probably. Somewhere."

When Yulia was about to scold him for chatting too much, and tell him to read the book, Lewicia suddenly burst into laughter.

"Hahahaha!"

It was a hearty laugh. Surprised, Yulia opened her eyes wide. Coco muttered, "Have you finally gone crazy?" and "No matter how much you don't want to study, don't go crazy."

Lewicia, who had been laughing for a long time, stopped laughing, and said.

"Coco, I hate fairy tales."

"What are you saying all of a sudden?"

"That's why I like the both of you. You're awfully pessimistic and realistic. Just in case my head turns into a flower garden, make sure to pour cold water over it like today. So that I can come back to my senses."

As he looked out of the window, he saw the pale moon. It was the crescent moon that had the power of captivating people. Lewicia, who had been fidgeting, muttered as if talking to himself.

"If I say that I want to run away from here... will you be disappointed in me?”

Somehow, his voice sounded sad. With his usual smile on his lips, he asked Yulia and Coco.

"Is running away bad?"

"Your Highness."

"Is it that bad to run away because I hate this place so much? I don't want to fight. I don't want to kill anyone, and I don't want to do the same thing as the person I hate. Is it still bad to run away?"

"It's not bad. It's brave. Because you're protecting yourself."

"But, why do you keep asking me to fight?"

"Because Your Highness has nowhere to hide."

Yulia did not comfort him.

Lewicia laughed. His beautiful face was full of sadness.

His lips, which only poured out sly jokes every day, trembled slightly, so he couldn't look more sad. Lewicia Ortega was a man whose lips expressed more sadness than his eyes.

"Am I going to die after all?"

"Your Highness."

"I will either die at the hands of my father... or at the hands of my siblings. If not... will I die a violent death somewhere without anyone knowing?"

Coco's breathing quickened. Yulia knew that Coco was catching her breath with her hands clasped tightly together.

Lewicia joked that they could become a family after growing attached to each other, but to Coco, he had already been family for a long time.

From the day little Coco met a lonely crying baby lying alone in a white cradle, Prince Lewicia has been like her real brother.

In one of her previous lives, Lewicia actually died. It was the result of a collusion between the Marquis of Marjoram, the King, and a few other nobles. Lewicia was sold to the imperial family of the Baikan Empire, and died miserably on the way.

At that time, Coco cried a lot. She said that she cried more than when her first love failed. She cried with the face of someone who had lost her family, like when her parents passed away.

Yulia spoke on behalf of Coco.

"We will be together."

"What?"

"I won't let Your Highness die, but... if there is something like fate, and Your Highness eventually dies... I won't let you die somewhere in complete silence. Coco and I will definitely be together with you."

"What's with you? Are you saying you will die with me?"

"There is nothing I can’t do."

"What? ...Are you being serious?"

"Yes."

Her tone was firm and calm. The kind of tone that makes your stomach ache all the more because you can't feel any emotions from it.

Lewicia laughed while telling Yulia not to lie. But as he said that, ripples were spreading in his eyes.

Lewicia, like Yulia, did not believe in love.

He particularly despised it when a woman cried while clinging onto a man's love. It was because it reminded him of his mother, who suffered the most, when he was a child.

Whenever he saw Vasily clinging to Yulia, and her acting cold, he fondly imagined the two of them as his father and mother.

It was childish and naive, but he didn't feel guilty because he felt refreshed every time he imagined it.

Even so, Yulia's confession that day sank heavily in his heart.

To think that love is worthless.

For the reason that it's an emotion that will disappear like foam.

"What are you doing?"

After Yulia told Lewicia to do his homework alone and left the room, Coco approached him, who was clinging to the window, unmoving.

"Your Highness, don't give up, and..."

"What do you think of Yulia?"

It was yet another random question. Coco narrowed her red eyes into a line, and glared at him. In response, Lewicia raised his hands slightly and assumed a surrender posture, then pointed out of the window.

"Look over there."

"What is it?"

"Yulia's sponsor sent another gift. The box is small this time. Last time, what was it... that's right, a dress and shoes."

"There was also a box of gold coins."

"What am I going to do? There is nothing I can do for her."

Coco asked what he meant by those words. Although Yulia was Lewicia's maid of honor, she probably didn't enter the palace hoping to receive dresses and accessories.

"Then, what did she expect from me when she came here?"

Lewicia was talking to himself, but it didn't sound like that to Coco. She watched Yulia, who was having a conversation with someone outside.

"Your Highness couldn't protect Yulia from the Marquis of Marjoram."

"I know. I was shocked too... I admit what I have to admit. That's why it's even more strange. If it were me, I would run away without even looking back while cursing at the Prince."

Lewicia thought that since it had been revealed that he was not a strong shield for Yulia, it was normal for her to leave the palace.

However, Yulia approached him even further as if all of that was nothing, and her actions were deeply engraved in his heart.

Lewicia followed Yulia with his gaze. His eyes moved from the round top of her head, along the long and elegant neckline, the neat and straight waist, and down to the hem of the long skirt.

"Your Highness Lewicia."

Coco covered his eyes with the palm of her hand.

"What?"

"Not Yulia."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know that Your Highness is a child who hasn't even had his first love yet. Still, don't get involved with Yulia in that way. Any other woman is fine. Men are fine too. But, not Yulia."

Lewicia laughed, took Coco's hand and lowered it.

"Really... It's not like that. And! Thinking of it, isn't it strange? Everyone else is fine, so why not Yulia? Rather, even if others won't do, shouldn't Yulia be fine because I can trust her?"

"She is not a woman Your Highness can handle."

Coco said sternly.

Lewicia tried to continue the conversation with a wild joke this time, but for some reason, his mouth wouldn't open. As he stood still with an awkward face, Coco gave another warning.

"You will get hurt. I like Yulia, but I can't support a relationship with a girl who will hurt Your Highness."

"Coco."

"Didn't you hear her when she said that love was worthless?"

"That..."

"Do you think that such words could come out of an average twenty-one year old? You watched her play with Vasily Marjoram."

Coco was right. Lewicia nodded, said he understood and told her not to worry.

Coco sighed anxiously while pleading him to come to his senses.

Telling someone not to fall in love is like a spell to make you fall in love.

Lewicia vowed that if one day he was to write something like an autobiography, he would use these words as the opening sentence.

He didn't think much of it, but since Coco warned him so sincerely, Yulia kept being on his mind. During the moments he would normally greet her and pass by, he always ended up adding one more word.

Although Lewicia was an adult, he had never truly fallen in love.

When he was young, he was often embarrassed and nervous in front of girls, so he made stupid mistakes, but it never happened after growing up. To him, love was at best a fairy tale fantasy, and at worst, a bad thing that made people like his mother sick.

'Love, what a load of shit.'

He tried imagining it once.

That Yulia, who is his maid of honor, is also his lover. Members of the royal family sometimes hired their lover of low status as a maid of honor in order to keep her close.

When he wakes up in the morning, will she be the first person he sees? A maid of honor is a person who shares the daily life of the royal member she serves, so they may be together all day.

He wouldn't have to worry about who to bring as his partner to a banquet, and he wouldn't have to endure it alone on days when he feels lonely because he doesn't have a friend to share his feelings with.

Yulia appeared quite cold, so he thought she would be shy. It seemed that the honest Lewicia would be the one to express that he loved or missed her.

Would Yulia smile at that time? Or would she get angry in order to hide her embarrassment?

Embarrassment... Isn't this feeling really unsuitable for that perfect maid of honor?