ITMFYWCLBU 3

With a soft thud, the door shut in front of him—and the moment it did, Alexis let out a heavy sigh.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world.”

The guard standing watch over the chancellor’s door eyed Alexis with puzzled concern.

“Don’t tell me you had a fight with your beloved fiancée?”

“…Something like that.”

It grated on him to admit it, but with his face giving him away this badly, he couldn’t deny it.

The guard was three years older than Alexis, a baron’s son with an easygoing, friendly nature—yet he had one glaring flaw: he took far too much interest in romantic gossip. Especially when drunk, he latched onto that sort of talk like a leech. Alexis wasn’t uninterested in such matters—he was only human, and at that age—but he was on duty, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood.

“If it’s a fight, just send her a bouquet and apologize sincerely. You’ve gotta make up fast—if it festers, it becomes a real pain, you know?”

If that were enough to fix things, I wouldn’t be suffering like this…

Since yesterday, something about Clarisse had been… wrong.

The Clarisse who used to have a pure, softly floating sort of air about her had started wearing a strangely grown-up expression.

It was endearing in its own way—but the problem was that she had suddenly declared she wanted to dissolve their engagement.

What did I do wrong…?

He had no idea. None at all.

Alexis loved Clarisse. And Clarisse, surely, loved him in return. Her emotions were always so visible on her face that her affection for him was beyond doubt. For someone like Alexis, who had been certain of their mutual love, yesterday’s talk of breaking up had hit like a bolt from the blue.

He couldn’t even guess what he’d done to deserve it.

And then—of all things—she claimed it was because he would cheat on her in the future.

How could Clarisse possibly know I’d cheat someday? Or… did she never trust me in the first place…?

The despair was crushing. And at the same time, anger welled up—why couldn’t she understand, when he loved her this much?

As Clarisse stubbornly insisted on leaving him, something ink-black threatened to spill from the depths of his heart. A mad thought even surfaced—What if I simply took her away and locked her somewhere no one could reach? The very fact that such a thought occurred to him only deepened his confusion.

He didn’t want to make Clarisse cry.

And yet, if she was determined to leave him… then he could take her far away and make her his alone.

That was the kind of shadowed emotion that had risen inside him.

“Well, either way—make up soon. Good luck.”

With a friendly pat to his shoulder, the guard sent him off. Alexis offered a strained smile in return and started walking.

He had to hurry—Gracian’s meeting was about to begin.

And His Highness had that amused look on his face, too. Honestly…

After Clarisse brought up breaking up with him yesterday, Alexis had gone straight to Gracian. If Clarisse had summoned him in the middle of the day, it had to be serious—so he’d left his work unfinished to go to her.

When he returned, Gracian had peppered him with questions, likely because Alexis’s complexion had been so poor.

Alexis had been too shaken to contain it, and under Gracian’s persistent probing, he told him everything Clarisse had said.

Gracian folded his arms, made a thoughtful face… and finally delivered his verdict.

—That’s it. It’s that thing people call marriage blues. Matilda’s been suddenly moody lately too, and it’s probably the same.

It was a miserable thing to hear—being broken up with over marriage blues—but Alexis couldn’t come up with any other explanation.

Gracian, for his part, concluded that Clarisse must be feeling anxious about marriage, and he told Alexis to stay near her as much as possible. He even adjusted Alexis’s workload.

Thanks to that, Alexis could arrive later than usual in the mornings and leave earlier in the evenings.

That was the trick behind his ability to escort Clarisse to and from the castle. Though Alexis was a knight, he served under Gracian, which meant Gracian could rearrange his hours however he liked.

For that, Alexis was grateful.

…Honestly. I’m not going to cheat.

For Alexis, it would be Clarisse—and only Clarisse—for life. He had no proof, but he possessed an unshakable confidence that he would never love anyone else. That was simply how much he loved her.

His heart felt heavy as lead, but he smoothed his expression and hurried toward the meeting room—when a bright, floral voice called out.

“Oh?”

Standing before the meeting room doors, looking directly at him, was Princess Wiejeny.

Pink-beige hair, brown eyes—beautiful, with a hint of sharpness to her features. She was three years younger than Gracian, sixteen this year.

“Princess. You’ll be attending the meeting as well?”

The current king had only two children: Gracian and Wiejeny. Normally, a princess did not participate in governance—but with only one prince, Wiejeny had apparently petitioned the king herself, saying she wished to work. Officially, she claimed it was because she wanted to “help her brother,” but where did her true intentions lie?

Was it truly to assist Gracian—or did she have other designs?

It was hard not to be wary, especially since in Roberius, princesses also possessed a claim to the throne. How could anyone say that Wiejeny—daughter of Joanne, who was always seeking a chance to knock down the queen—would never think of knocking down the crown prince as well?

Wiejeny smiled, radiant.

“Yes. Today’s agenda is the regional healthcare issue, isn’t it? I’m interested in the disparity of medical techniques between the capital and the provinces, so I asked to attend.”

Whatever her motives, her mind was undeniably quick. The proposal addressing the gap in medical care had been raised a year ago—by Wiejeny herself. Her ideas ranged widely: establishing institutions capable of comprehensive treatment across the country, employing physicians through the state to refine their skills and dispatch them to each region, and more. None of it could be implemented overnight, but step by step, progress was being made.

Gracian had been appointed to oversee it. Whether Wiejeny resented that, or whether she simply wished to see where her own proposal would ultimately land, she appeared frequently at meetings on the subject.

Alexis could not enter the room ahead of the princess, so he waited for her to go in—yet for some reason, she walked toward him instead.

“Your complexion is poor. You’ve got shadows under your eyes. Couldn’t you sleep last night?”

As she spoke, Wiejeny reached out and touched Alexis’s cheek.

The sudden contact made Alexis’s eyes widen. He loved holding Clarisse’s hand, loved drawing her into his arms—but touching other women made him uneasy. He wasn’t used to it.

At parties, he didn’t even dance with other women, no matter how often they asked—he was that strict about it.

“Princess—”

He tried to pull away, flustered, when a sweet fragrance drifted into his nose.

Was it her perfume?

The instant he inhaled it, a faint dizziness washed over him, and he swayed.

“Oh dear—are you truly all right?”

Wiejeny caught him in a posture that was almost an embrace, smiling up at him as she asked.

Why did it feel dangerous to stay any closer to her?

Alexis pressed a hand to his spinning head and stepped back.

“My apologies for worrying you. It’s nearly time for the meeting to begin. We should hurry.”

“Yes… you’re right.”

Wiejeny wore a languid smile far too sultry for a sixteen-year-old, then turned neatly on her heel.

Even after she walked away, that cloying sweetness refused to fade. And since Alexis truly hadn’t slept the night before, he wondered if perhaps exhaustion had simply caught up with him—as he rubbed at the tightness between his brows.