“Th-the next treatment with a kiss? What are you talking about?”
“It’s exactly as I said. From now on, let’s do the treatments with saliva contact instead of hand contact…”
“Ugh, no, with me?”
When Raha asked in bewilderment, pointing at himself with his index finger, Grey raised one eyebrow and retorted:
“Then who else with?”
“No, well, there’s High Priest Edrion, too.”
“Why would I kiss Edrion? I wouldn’t.”
Grey said, frowning immediately. Raha asked him with a look of disbelief:
“Then why do you do it with me?”
“Because I’ve already done things even more intimate than that with the High Priest.”
“You’re going to do more intimate things with High Priest Edrion, too.”
“I’m not going to.”
“Yes?”
At Grey’s firm denial, Raha’s eyebrows twitched.
“I won’t. With anyone other than the High Priest.”
“No, why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Are you asking me?”
When he asked back, pointing at himself as if he were dumbfounded, Grey looked at him with an expression that was somehow quite pleased.
He had no idea what part of the conversation had made him feel good, but Grey clearly looked a bit happy.
‘A strange human…’
Raha looked at him with an expression of incomprehension, then let out a short sigh and said:
“High Priest Edrion will surely regain his powers soon.”
When he added that he wouldn’t necessarily need to receive treatment from him next time, Grey’s face stiffened terrifyingly.
“I never said I was going to receive treatment from High Priest Edrion.”
“Yes?”
“Why do you keep trying to send me to High Priest Edrion? Did you not like what we did?”
“Yes?”
“That was your first time, so it couldn’t be helped. I can do it more skillfully the second time, so…”
“No, no, no, no. What are you saying?”
Raha looked at Grey with an embarrassed face.
“Are you asking if you’re trying to pawn me off on High Priest Edrion because you didn’t like what we did? If that’s the case, next time I’ll be more…”
“That’s not it?!”
When he frowned, looking stern, Grey felt wronged, asking why he was so desperate to send him to Edrion if that wasn’t the case.
Raha replied that he had originally thought he was trying to receive treatment from Edrion.
“You originally intended to receive treatment from High Priest Edrion, but after hearing the news that it was impossible to receive treatment from the Marquis, you came looking for me at the Grand Duke’s castle, didn’t you?”
“…That’s a misunderstanding.”
“Yes?”
“I never had any intention of receiving runaway suppression therapy from High Priest Edrion from the start.”
“…Yes?”
Grey looked at Raha, who was blinking his eyes in confusion, with a fairly serious expression as he spoke.
“I only ever intended to receive it from the High Priest.”
‘Liar.’
That couldn’t be true.
Wasn’t Grey the one who hated even holding hands for treatment in the first place?
Of course, they had ended up sleeping together by chance, but before Edrion failed to treat Hayden, he certainly would have intended to receive treatment from Edrion, not himself.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now, so I have no intention of digging into it.’
Raha felt like what he was saying was a lie, but he didn’t intend to make an issue of it.
“Ah… um…”
He just swallowed hard, looking openly troubled, and glanced at him.
At Raha’s reaction, Grey’s expression softened slightly.
“High Priest.”
“Yes?”
“Do you dislike me?”
“Yes?”
When he asked back like a fool at the completely unexpected question, Grey let out a short sigh and said:
“I asked if you disliked me.”
“Isn’t it the Duke who dislikes me?”
“I don’t dislike you.”
“Yes? Don’t lie.”
Raha knew all too well what kind of hateful gaze Grey had been looking at him with until now, so the words “don’t lie” popped out immediately upon hearing him say he didn’t dislike him.
At Raha’s reaction, Grey looked at him with a somewhat dejected expression.
“It’s the truth.”
“Considering how you’ve acted toward me until now…”
“That was before. Because the High Priest was obsessed with Blizan and kept acting out toward innocent High Priest Edrion…”
Grey, who had stopped talking, clamped his mouth shut, glancing at Raha to check his reaction as if he were reading the room.
“But that’s not the case anymore. High Priest, you said you wouldn’t do anything to High Priest Edrion anymore, and the same goes for Blizan.”
Grey continued, saying that since Raha had changed, it was only natural that he had changed as well, and stated that he did not loathe or dislike Raha at all.
Raha began to feel strangely uneasy at those words.
It made sense; the reason the attitudes of Blizan, Teore, and Grey had changed like this was surely because he hadn’t followed the original storyline.
If things continued this way, he wouldn’t face the death ending he was destined for in the original work.
Moreover, since he had already taken the ‘first times’ of two of the male leads—which were supposed to belong to the main protagonist—it was impossible for the original flow of the story to remain intact.
In the first place, the episodes regarding their ‘first times’ were events of significant importance in the original work.
It was only natural, as those episodes were the starting points that led the male leads to fall in love with Edrion, the main protagonist.
‘I ruined those, so does that mean Teore and Grey might not end up loving Edrion?’
That possibility was quite high.
‘If that’s the case, does it mean that in this current world, only Blizan, Hayden, and Gerard will end up blindly loving the original protagonist?’
Raha thought of Grey and Teore, whom he had laid his hands on first for various reasons, and wondered if this meant they would end up loving him instead.
Of course, it was an absurd thought, but if that were really to happen, it would be nothing short of incredibly inconvenient.
From the beginning, he had thought about ‘tasting’ each of the five male leads once and then leaving this place, but he had never wished for their love.
Love?
If anything, he felt anxious, wondering if that would become a stumbling block in his plans to leave.
‘I hope I’m just worrying unnecessarily, but this guy’s attitude right now is also fishy.’
Just looking at how Grey wanted to kiss him, even claiming that saliva exchange was more helpful for runaway suppression than physical contact, made Raha think that Grey wasn’t exactly in his right mind, either.
‘Once you take someone’s innocence, they fall in love.’
If that crazy formula was actually working, he had to pull out quickly, even now.
‘If I make him sleep with Edrion, wouldn’t he forget about the sex he had with me in an instant?’
Since Edrion was the original protagonist, they would surely fall for him the moment they had sex.
After all, that’s just how the ‘main character buff’ worked.
In the end, his plan was to avoid the death ending, take the fortune he received from Teore, leave this place, and live a life of leisure.
He intended to leave without a single loose end remaining.
To ensure that, he had to tidy things up very neatly so that his rash actions wouldn’t change the male leads’ hearts toward the main protagonist.
‘To do that, I first need to solve the problem looming right in front of me.’
“Please spend the night with High Priest Edrion, Your Excellency the Duke.”
“…What?”
“I am certain that a night with him will be an unforgettable time for you, Your Excellency.”
Raha thought that since Grey’s interest in him wasn’t that deep or heavy yet, if he could just get him to sleep with Edrion somehow, this abnormal fixation on him would disappear in no time.
“You are misinterpreting my heart right now.”
But wait.
These words of Raha seemed to make Grey want to bind him even more tightly.
It was enough to make Grey, who had always strictly called him ‘High Priest’ until now, call him by his name.
“Raha.”
Raha’s eyes slowly widened.
