“…Yes, because I have work to do here.”
“Then we’ll get to see each other often, right?”
Raha said it was great, his face brightening.
Edrion was slightly flustered by Raha’s reaction, but Raha kept talking, saying that he had been bored with nothing to do by himself when Teore went to his office anyway, and asked what Edrion’s work at the castle was.
When Raha offered to help, Edrion immediately shook his head and refused.
“It’s my personal business, so there’s no need for the High Priest to help.”
“Ah, is that so?”
Smacking his lips with a hint of regret, Raha nodded his head slowly.
He didn’t know what Edrion planned to do here for several days, but he thought it worked out perfectly.
After seeing Hayden’s reaction earlier, he had developed a desire to try a taste of the other targets, including Hayden.
He figured he could use this opportunity to leave Teore glued to Edrion while he went out to meet the other targets.
Watching Raha smirk with those thoughts in mind, Edrion felt strangely unpleasant at his mysterious smile.
In the first place, Raha was a person who used to hate him to an baffling degree.
Therefore, Edrion expected him to get angry at the news that they would be staying together for a while.
Instead, seeing him smile as if he were truly happy, Edrion couldn’t help but suspect what this man in front of him was up to.
Then, suddenly, he realized the reason why Raha didn’t care even though Edrion was staying at Teore’s castle.
“Ah. Even if he denies it, this man truly cares only about the Crown Prince.”
Clearly, even in the past, Raha had only sharpened his claws fiercely when it came to the Crown Prince.
Therefore, regarding the part where Edrion would be staying at Teore’s mansion for a while, it seemed to deal zero blow to Raha.
‘Yes, given that he’s actually happy to an strange degree, this man definitely still cares only about the Crown Prince.’
Just then, Raha’s blue eyes sparkled as he asked Edrion, “By the way, have you ever been to the glass greenhouse? I’m not particularly fond of gardens, but in this place where it snows most of the time, a greenhouse made of glass sounds quite beautiful.”
Hearing that question, heat rushed to Edrion’s head, as if the words meant: ‘Someone of your status hasn’t been there yet, right? Teore told only me to go there just now.’
Even though Edrion had been standing right next to him, Teore hadn’t told them to go together, treating Edrion like an invisible person instead.
Thus, Edrion thought Raha was purposely bringing that up to remind him of it.
Of course, Raha was just making his own sort of effort, thinking it would be good to build a friendship with Edrion before playing matchmaker between Edrion and Teore.
However, completely unaware of this, Edrion believed Raha was subtly ignoring him, and looking at him with a slightly irritated face, he spoke.
“I’ve been there too, though it was when I was a child.”
“Oh, really?”
“But the glass greenhouse of the Crown Prince’s palace is more beautiful than the glass greenhouse of the Grand Duke’s castle.”
Feeling Raha’s face stiffen slightly at the words “Crown Prince’s palace” leaving his own mouth, Edrion inwardly shouted, ‘Success.’ Looking at Raha, who was still reacting to any mention of Blizan, he believed this was the perfect opportunity to rip off his mask.
With that in mind, Edrion brought up what had happened with Blizan as if it were just casual conversation.
“Actually, I spent the night in His Highness the Crown Prince’s bedroom yesterday. One thing led to another, so I naturally ended up going to the glass greenhouse at the Crown Prince’s palace as well…”
“You slept with the Crown Prince?!”
Just as expected, Raha cut him off, his eyes widening in pure shock.
‘As I thought.’
Amused inwardly by Raha’s overreaction, Edrion covered his mouth with the back of his hand and offered an apology.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I was far too thoughtless…”
“Oh, it’s fine, it’s totally fine.”
But without giving him enough time to finish his fake apology, Raha smiled brightly and waved his hands.
“To think you took the Crown Prince’s first time… that’s wonderful—no, I mean, I’m so jealous.”
Correcting his words with an awkward laugh, Raha’s eyes sparkled with immense curiosity as he began a barrage of rapid-fire questions.
“How is the Crown Prince? Is he good?”
“……?”
“Is it big? Did he hurt you? You’re the Grand Duke’s friend, so you probably know, but the Grand Duke is the type who is incredibly skilled even during his first time. His endless stamina was a bit overwhelming for me, but it didn’t hurt at all.”
“……!”
Raha was simply trying his best to emphasize to Edrion that Teore was fantastic in bed, hoping to score points for him.
However, Edrion assumed that instead of flying into a rage at his words, Raha had shifted tactics to deliberately needle his insides like this.
Consequently, Raha’s tear-inducing efforts to play matchmaker between Edrion and Teore only served to heighten Edrion’s hatred and jealousy to a whole new level.
Completely oblivious to this, Raha assumed that since Edrion had already opened his eyes to that world through his encounter with Blizan, he would naturally want to get involved with the other male leads just like in the original novel.
Therefore, he figured his next order of business was to hook him up with Teore.
‘According to the original novel, Teore was the first one, followed by Gerard, Hayden, Grey, and then Blizan.’
Recalling the source material, the childhood friend Teore easily commanded the largest share of episodes among all the love interests.
It felt natural to think that if there was a true “main lead” in the original story, it had to be Teore.
‘But right now, the capture sequence itself has flipped…’
Because Edrion had pursued Blizan first, the timeline was scrambled.
Even so, Raha figured it wouldn’t be a major issue for Edrion to conquer all five of them eventually, so the precise order didn’t matter much.
However.
“Are you acting like this on purpose because you’re angry?”
Hearing Edrion suddenly drop that question, Raha’s eyes went wide.
“Pardon?”
“I know you’re furious that the Crown Prince and I spent the night together. But from the beginning, His Highness and the High Priest were never in a relationship. So even if I spent the night with him, you have no right to seek revenge on me in this manner—”
“W-Wait, wait, wait… Revenge? Me?”
“Are you trying to claim that’s not the case?”
Edrion asked, staring at Raha, who was pointing a finger at his own face with an utterly flabbergasted expression.
Raha replied with a completely straight face.
“Of course it isn’t! Not at all!”
“…You say it isn’t, but you’ve been deliberately bringing up the night you spent with Teore since a moment ago—”
“What?! No, that was just because I wanted to let you know the Grand Duke is really good at it…!”
Raha shouted, frantically waving both hands in panic.
Seeing his expression of pure, genuine grievance, Edrion’s brow twitched.
“It really isn’t like that. I don’t know why you’re misunderstanding… well, given my past actions, it makes total sense why you’d think that way… but seriously, it’s not. I genuinely just meant that the Grand Duke…”
“Whether it’s true or not, I have no need to know about Teore’s performance in bed. So the High Priest’s comments just now are—”
“You should know! Don’t you like the Grand Duke?!”
In that instant, Edrion’s eyes grew so wide they looked ready to pop out.
“I mean, you used to like him, didn’t you?!”
Raha quickly corrected himself.
During the period when Edrion was juggling all five leads in the original novel, he hadn’t been exclusively devoted to just Teore.
Raha reasoned that since Edrion had already slept with Blizan, his feelings for Teore might have already begun to fade.
However, that particular remark triggered a massive misunderstanding in Edrion’s head.
‘I knew it! He seduced Teore because of me!’
Edrion clenched his fists tightly and glared at Raha.
He couldn’t comprehend why this man was so desperately eager to torment him.
What could he have possibly done wrong?
