After ending the call with Grey, Raha rested his chin on his hand and fell into thought.
‘If I choose, I can go out whenever I want during the evening, but Teore’s Dark Space isn’t a place I can leave even if I want to.’
He chewed over Grey’s words, debating which would be more beneficial to him.
Honestly, if he really had to choose, being imprisoned by Teore was better than by Grey.
Grey still felt a bit uncomfortable—of course, Teore was uncomfortable too, but not as much as Grey.
Besides, being with Teore was actually quite pleasant.
As he pondered these thoughts, he suddenly felt that something was wrong again.
‘In the end, I shouldn’t be getting involved with either of them.’
He realized now that he shouldn’t be thinking about who was “better” to be imprisoned by; he shouldn’t be imprisoned by anyone at all.
‘Right, I was planning to go somewhere else anyway.’
Initially, he had thought about leaving the Empire for the small kingdom of Verteron, but now there was no need to cross into another country.
He hadn’t continued harassing Edrion enough to warrant that.
Of course, the five attribute users would look for him if he disappeared, but it wouldn’t be to kill him like in the original work.
It would just be a natural search because the Empire’s High Priest had gone missing.
He had no intention of going through the headache of crossing into another country; he just wanted to live a life of leisure in a quiet, rural village at the very edge of the Empire.
Surely they wouldn’t think to look for him in a place like that, so he wouldn’t have to worry about being caught.
Even if he were found, since Edrion existed, he could just say he was retiring as a High Priest, and they would have no right to force him to stay.
‘Of course, if a situation like this where Edrion couldn’t use his light attribute happened again, he might have to go help…’
A sigh escaped Raha’s lips at the thought.
His heart was swaying like a reed.
First, he was terrified of dying, so he planned to run far away, but now that he felt he had avoided his fate, he was thinking of settling in a quiet village and just helping out whenever they needed him.
‘The most important thing is to get away from the protagonists of the original novel.’
Raha tightened his resolve, reminding himself to stay on track with his original plan of distancing himself from the main protagonist and the male leads.
Time passed quickly as he sat lost in thought, and soon Teore returned after finishing his urgent work.
“Raha.”
“Ah, Your Excellency.”
Raha stood up with a bright smile the moment he saw Teore.
It was an instinctive movement that came out before he even realized it.
Teore’s lips curved into a tender smile as he watched Raha.
“What were you doing?”
“Ah, just…”
He couldn’t say he had been talking to Grey, who had left the communication orb behind, as that would require explaining too many follow-up details.
It was only natural, as he couldn’t let Teore know he even knew about the Dark Space.
“It’s snowing again.”
Teore, who had walked up to Raha, muttered while looking out the window.
Raha, who hadn’t paid any attention to the weather, turned his head to look at the falling snow and let out a short, surprised exclamation.
Teore watched Raha intently for a moment before asking,
“Shall we have a glass of wine?”
“Yes?”
As Raha looked at him with wide, surprised eyes, Teore reached out his hand and continued, “I realized we’ve never had a drink together.”
“Ah…”
Raha took Teore’s hand and stood up, nodding once.
“By any chance, are you not good with alcohol?”
“No, I drink well.”
“Ho-ho.”
Teore laughed, looking pleased at Raha’s immediate answer, and squeezed his hand.
A tingling sensation tickled the area beneath his heart, making the corners of his lips twitch.
“Isn’t alcohol forbidden in the High Temple? Why do you drink well?”
“Ah…”
Teore tilted his head playfully as he asked, and Raha’s face stiffened for a moment.
‘Wait, you can’t drink in the High Temple? Then does Raha, who lived there for so long, not have any tolerance at all?’
He had answered that he drank well because his original self had a high tolerance.
If he had known alcohol was forbidden in the temple, he would have played dumb.
‘What do I do…’
He was panicking, unsure how to rectify his slip-up, but fortunately, Teore said something that saved him from having to explain.
“Well, you can drink as much as you want if it’s in secret.”
“And alcohol secretly consumed always tastes the best.”
He lifted Raha’s hand, which he was still holding, and kissed the back of it, laughing happily.
He then walked toward the bedroom, talking about the first time he and the four other attribute users drank in secret as children.
Raha’s heart kept fluttering because Teore was acting like a lover with such natural ease.
It seemed he had intended to drink in the bedroom from the moment he arrived, as a wine table was already set up on the sofa table by the window.
A three-tier cheese cake—as if the pairing of wine and cheese were a universal constant—was placed in the center.
Cookies, dried fruits, and fresh fruits were arranged around it.
Raha sat on the left sofa, wondering why there were so many snacks for just one bottle of wine.
However, his curiosity vanished when he saw Teore sit right next to him instead of across from him.
“Why?”
Teore asked as he opened the wine bottle himself.
The tenderness in his voice made Raha’s stomach tingle again, but he swallowed hard and pretended not to notice.
“Usually, when people drink, they sit facing each other, not side by side like this…”
“I can’t touch you if we sit facing each other.”
“Are you planning to touch me?”
“No?”
Teore asked back with a puppy-like, somber expression at Raha’s bewildered question.
It was so unexpectedly cute that it made Raha’s heart itch with a desire to scratch it.
“Wh-where are you planning to touch?”
Feeling his face burning, Raha desperately turned his gaze out the window.
Teore’s eyes narrowed like a snake’s, glistening as he watched him.
“Let’s see, starting from here.”
Teore used his index finger to sweep down Raha’s hair, across his face, and then grabbed his chin to make him look at him.
Soon, his index finger began to trace down his neck, past his chest, and paused briefly around his navel.
Raha’s shoulders shivered at the strange sense of excitement, and Teore’s index finger moved below his navel, pressing against his partially aroused area before heading toward his thigh.
Before Raha could even think, ‘Is he going all the way to my toes?’, Teore leaned down, his index finger passing his knee and tapping the top of his foot, reaching his toes.
“Up to here?”
The sight of Teore lifting his body and raising his lips felt chillingly erotic, and Raha swallowed hard involuntarily.
“If you want to refuse, say so now.”
Teore said, pouring wine into two glasses.
“Of course, a refusal will be dismissed.”
Teore smiled, handing the glass filled with deep red wine to Raha.
Raha let out a dry laugh as he took the glass.
Telling him to say so if he wanted to refuse, and then dismissing the refusal?
How was that any different from telling him not to refuse at all?
