"Y-You really have no sha!"
Yuan’s face flushed as he suddenly yelled. Gillen, who had been laughing hahaha until then, tilted his head in confusion.
"Hmm? All of a sudden?"
"You’re the one who’s being sudden, Duke. Now you’re being so blatant... hah, this is absurd. Let’s go, quickly!"
Yuan spun around, his cream-colored cape fluttering. The other servants were pursing their lips, trying hard not to laugh. Their gazes were all alike. ’How embarrassing.’
"Why is everyone looking at us like that? Yuan, why are you leaving ahead of ? Wait, Yuan! Jade, give my overcoat. Wait, Yuan!"
Gillen hurriedly took the overcoat and followed Yuan out of the house. A brief silence fell among the servants left in their wake. The first to break that silence was the maid, Sadie.
"Wow... they’re more intense than I thought."
At her blunt assessnt, a few of the maids giggled. The mischievous male servants snickered, and even the prim and proper maids covered their mouths to stifle their laughter.
"Ahem, how dare you speak so carelessly about His Grace the Duke, your master! Everyone, return to your posts."
The head maid exclaid sternly. The servants, with hints of laughter still on their faces, exchanged greetings and scattered. Bryan, who had been watching them with a benevolent smile until they all left, opened his mouth.
"It really seems... like sothing has begun, doesn’t it?"
At the words of the butler who had served the duke longer than anyone, the head maid let out a deep sigh.
"Don’t even talk about it. I have to go renew the contract with the dressmaker’s right now. I thought taking a lover twenty years younger was sothing that happened to the nobles of other houses. Now I’ll have to dress His Grace the Duke up like a peacock every day."
With that, she went off to find the maids who would be going out with her. Bryan wiped the corners of his moistening eyes with the tip of his glove.
Our Duke has been alone for too long... This is a good thing.
"I’m just going to get out."
Yuan, sitting in the carriage, said resolutely. Gillen unknowingly narrowed his eyebrows, then rembered the head maid’s words and quickly smoothed them out. He asked in a gentle, coaxing tone.
"What’s wrong, again."
"The carriage is too small. It feels suffocating. With a big body blocking the view in front..."
That ’big body’ clearly referred to Gillen, who was sitting opposite him. The two n, both tall and large in build, sat facing each other in the carriage, their knees touching. Even though they sat slightly diagonally to avoid their thighs brushing, one of their knees kept touching whenever the carriage swayed.
"How about trying to cross your legs for now?"
Gillen suggested patiently. If they crossed their legs, their knees wouldn’t touch. But Yuan replied instantly.
"My cock is too big, it’s uncomfortable to cross my legs."
"..."
It was a statent he didn’t know how to respond to. But based on past experience, he knew Yuan wasn’t just talking nonsense.
"Ahem! This is still a very large and fine carriage. Why, even with the two of us, there’s this much spare space..."
Gillen, who was trying to further placate Yuan, suddenly stopped talking.
’I was imprisoned and tortured by High Priest Marius when I was young.’
Yuan had said he suffered from imprisonnt and torture when he was young. When he felt pressured in a small space or when a trigger related to Marius was pulled, he would be unable to breathe properly or would lose his reason. Could it be that his feeling of suffocation now was an extension of that trauma?
Gillen looked around the inside of the carriage. It was certainly a large and fine carriage, but for soone used to riding alone, having a person as large as Gillen blocking the view could indeed feel oppressive.
Gillen thought for a mont, then lifted his bottom.
"What, what are you doing now?"
Yuan asked, flustered. It was because Gillen had stood up from his seat and sat down in the seat next to Yuan.
"I thought it felt more suffocating with sitting in front. Wouldn’t it be a bit better if we sat side-by-side like this? And... heave."
Gillen leaned towards Yuan, who was sitting against the carriage wall, and opened the small window. Rustle, Gillen’s pheromones stimulated the tip of Yuan’s nose. But the pheromones soon drifted away, and a fresh breeze blowing in from outside newly filled the carriage.
"It’ll be better if you get so air like this. How is it? Are you okay?"
Gillen turned his head towards Yuan and asked. His eyes were filled with worry, and his voice was warm and gentle. Yuan was at a loss for words and just stared at Gillen.
"Yuan?"
Gillen, thinking Yuan was having a hyperventilation episode again, furrowed his brow. The head maid’s incessant nagging was of no use right now. Yuan looked at the wrinkles forming on his handso forehead before sharply turning his head away.
"You’re like a fool."
"What?"
Instead of resting his elbow on the carriage windowsill and propping his chin on his hand, Yuan covered his mouth. He felt that if he didn’t, his ragged breaths would escape. He lowered his voice and said.
"Do you think I’d lose my reason in a asly carriage like this? And do you think I’m a child? Treating like so seven-year-old kid... No matter what kind of tricks you try, Duke, our contractual relationship will never progress into a real one."
"What are you muttering to yourself about?"
Gillen, beside him, asked as if he hadn’t heard properly, but Yuan didn’t repeat himself. Instead, he fixed his gaze outside the window and slowly inhaled the cool early evening breeze. His face, which had been flushed bright red, quickly returned to its original color, and fortunately, Gillen did not see it.
It is a rule that the stars of a party do not arrive on ti. This is not for the sake of a dramatic entrance. It is because if popular people arrive early, everyone flocks to them, desperate to exchange even a single word.
If that happens, nobles who are at a party for the first ti or are from minor families are forced to stand by the wall without uttering a word before going ho. Not only such nobles, but even ordinary nobles are robbed of their ti to socialize. When people like the Crown Prince or the young lady of the Blake house are in the sa space, what is the point of chatting among themselves? They must try to be noticed by them even one more ti, by any ans necessary.
For that reason, the celebrities of high society would tacitly enter the party venue late. The royalty, in particular, would drop by when the party was in full swing, offer words of encouragent and disappear, or dance a few tis and leave. Gillen was similar. Not to the sa extent as the royals, but he had repeated the pattern of entering a little late and leaving earlier than others for 20 years.
"What kind of ridiculous custom is that?"
Yuan, having heard this from Gillen, scoffed as if he found it absurd.
"Nobles really fuss over every little useless thing, don’t they? When there are so many truly important problems out there."
He said coolly.
"Hahaha! You’re right. But what can you do? Noble society has its own set of rules. You, too, have now set foot into this society of useless formalities."
Yuan, who had just beco a marquis a re three months ago, surely had much he didn’t know. Gillen, too, had been full of complaints like Yuan when he was first possessed, so he felt a sense of kinship. Perhaps becoming Yuan’s partner this ti was a good thing, Gillen thought. One way or another, it was true that he had grown fond of him, and it angered him to imagine Yuan being ignored and bad-mouthed by the nobles for so trivial fault.
"Hmph, spoken like an old boor."
The word ’old boor,’ which Gillen hated, was uttered, but today it only brought a smile. It was partly because Yuan, standing beside him, was so unrealistically beautiful, but also because he found it cute how Yuan had been sticking close to his side since a while ago.
"Well then, shall we go? Take my arm."
Gillen politely offered his arm first. Just like when escorting a woman, and just like when he had linked arms with Yuan while walking downtown the other day.
But Yuan, as if sothing was not to his liking, glared at that arm before abruptly offering his own.
"No, thank you. You take mine, Duke."
"Ooh, can you escort ?"
"You think I can’t do sothing as simple as that? I told you. I am a genius who appears once in a millennium. Trifles like the superficialities that co from the heads of diocre nobles are nothing to . I know how to escort soone even better than you do, Duke. Take it."
He’s like a sulky child.
Why was he so easy to handle? Gillen suppressed his laughter inwardly and linked his arm through Yuan’s. Yuan’s arm, which he was touching again after several days, was still thick and firm. He didn’t know if he had been working out his muscles more than before, or if he was flexing, but it felt much harder.
"You must work out hard, Yuan."
So when he deliberately pointed it out, Yuan tensed his arm even more.
"Ha! Training one’s body is the most basic of basics. Why are you so impressed by sothing like this."
In truth, after personally feeling Gillen’s arm muscles last ti, Yuan had increased his workout ti. However, instead of revealing the truth, he chose to be pompous. The foolish duke naively praised him, saying, "Oh, is that so? I thought mages were weak in stamina."
"Hmph..."
While Yuan and Gillen were chatting like that and slowly walking towards the imperial palace banquet hall, the surrounding nobles and royal guards were inwardly marveling. What they had only heard through circulating rumors was true!
The unprecedented genius mage Yuan Hampton, who had just been incorporated into noble society, must really be in a romantic relationship with Duke Gillen Blake. They seed very intimate and had no hesitation about physical contact. What was even more shocking was that their pheromones were blending naturally.
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