CH 46

Let’s just go back.

Khalid forced his stiff legs to move. It was hard to watch any longer because he felt like he had peeked at a secret that someone wanted to hide. At that moment, Renato raised his face swollen from crying, and blankly looked up at the sky.

In an instant, Khalid felt a strong sense of déjà vu. He felt as if something like this had already happened someday in the past. Enveloped in that strange sense of déjà vu, he unknowingly touched a branch close to his fingertips.

Rustle.

Hearing the rustling sound of the branch, Renato turned his head. The moment their eyes met, Khalid recalled the dream he had forgotten for a while. When he gave his watch to someone who was crying sadly……

“I seem to have shown you an unsightly scene. I’m really sorry.”

Renato was the first to break the silence. Khalid escaped from his thoughts when the tear-filled voice reached his ears.

“Not at all! The one apologizing should be me. I, I didn’t mean to look on purpose.”

“I know. I guess Louis let you know that I was here.”

Astonished because of Renato’s apology, Khalid hastily responded. Hearing the man’s awkwardly added words, Renato faintly smiled as if he knew everything even if Khalid didn’t say it.

“Here……”

Seeing Renato smiling with a face drenched in tears, Khalid momentarily stiffened, then pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and handed it to him.

“Thank you very much.”

Renato blinked, feeling a little surprised because of the handkerchief held out to him, then said thanks and received it. Khalid opened his mouth as he watched Renato wipe his face. After pondering for a moment, he hesitantly asked.

“If you don’t mind, Your Imperial Highness…… May I ask if anything happened?”

“Pardon? Ah, it was nothing. It was just because I was repressing my emotions and feeling a bit stressed, so I wanted to cry a little bit.”

Flustered because of Khalid’s question, Renato bashfully curled up the corners of his eyes. Maybe because of crying, the tear mole under Renato’s reddened left eye was unusually dark today.

Momentarily distracted by the darkened tear mole wet with tears, Khalid let out a fake cough and looked elsewhere. He suddenly felt thirsty for no reason.

“But rather than that, what brought you here? If what I heard earlier is correct, did His Majesty the Emperor ask you to come and see me?”

“Yes, it somehow happened……”

Khalid looked down at Renato, slurring his words. Renato had wiped his face with the handkerchief, but when Khalid saw his still-wet face, his heart felt heavy. And when he recalled, Renato called him ‘Khalid’ again a while ago.

As expected, there is something, a secret that I don’t know.

His red eyes dimly sank like the evening sunset. He kept feeling like he was missing something. Khalid forcibly collected the dim memories of his dream. And he replaced the blurry person in the dream with Renato in front of him. Then, once again, he felt a strong sense of déjà vu.

As expected, was it you?

Khalid was almost certain that the person he had seen in his dream was Renato. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have felt this way. The feeling he felt in his dream was the same as the feeling he felt while looking at Renato now.

Perhaps the dream he had was a prophetic dream. If so, he could understand the déjà vu he was feeling now.

But that was not enough to explain. Feeling a strange thirst, he moistened his lower lip with his tongue. Inexplicable anxiety rose from the depths of his chest.

“Your highness?”

Renato called Khalid with a puzzled expression when the man just looked at him without saying a word. Instead of answering, Khalid slowly raised his hand. When his thumb swept on the warm skin, Renato’s hot tears touched his fingertip.

I want to know the secret that you are hiding.

The moment he felt the tears seeping into his skin, Khalid was enveloped in a strong impulse. The desire to uncover Renato’s thoughts and everything he was hiding rose to the top of his head.

“……Ha.”

Raising the corners of his lips, Khalid let out a breath that was close to a sigh. He obediently admitted his defeat. From the very first moment, it was a fight that he couldn’t win.

When he thought about it again, there were already signs. When he patiently listened to a story he would never have heard if it were from anyone other than Renato, when he wanted to know why Renato chose him, when he decided to help Renato despite knowing he was going to suffer from losses, and when he wondered if Renato was still having nightmares like before……

For Khalid, Renato was already someone whom he made many exceptions for. He came up with various excuses, such as suspicions because the price of the marriage was too good, and that it was burdensome to intervene in political battles within the Empire, but all of them were just meaningless efforts.

From the moment he, a strictly principled person, made an exception for Renato, the answer had already been decided. Perhaps already from that time, when he received a sudden marriage proposal on the balcony on that winter night.

I can’t turn away from this person.

Khalid admitted that he was attracted to Renato. He didn’t know if this feeling was a sense of familiarity towards a person who had a similar situation to him, pity for someone who was alone unlike him, or a different kind of emotion. Because it was the first time Khalid had ever felt something like this.

One thing was sure. He couldn’t leave Renato just like this.

So Khalid decided to take Renato’s hand just like he wanted without nitpicking anymore. Then, just like magic, his heart felt lighter.

My heart already sinks at the sight of him crying, like hell I could reject him. Khalid sneered at himself. Then he declared defeat with a relieved expression.

“I have lost.”

“Excuse me?”

Renato blinked when hearing the man’s strange words. Khalid calmly smiled at him. It was a very refreshed smile.

“What are you talking about……”

Seeing Khalid smiling happily and hearing his incomprehensible words, Renato tilted his head.

“Uhm, I mean.”

How should I say it? Looking at Renato, Khalid pondered over his words. He briefly glanced at the wet, moist eyelashes and the puffy eyelids, then made eye contact with Renato again. There was one thing he wanted to confirm before answering Renato’s proposal.

“Your Imperial Highness, Prince Renato El Fleurette.”

Erasing his smile, Khalid called Renato in a serious voice. Renato’s slender shoulders flinched because of the sudden change in the atmosphere.

“Your highness?”

As Khalid suddenly called him by his full name, Renato nervously looked up at him. His light purple eyes fluttered like violets soaked in the rain. Staring at the delicate eyes that seemed as if they would burst into tears with just a soft touch, Khalid slowly opened his mouth.

“Are you really okay with marrying me?”

Renato’s eyes slightly widened because of his unexpected question. Tears welling up in the corners of his eyes were fluttering. He immediately realized why Khalid was asking that question. Khalid was now trying to answer Renato’s proposal.

“There is no guarantee that you will get the best outcome just by marrying me, Your Imperial Highness. On the contrary, things might even take a turn for the worse. Will you still not regret it?”

“I won’t regret it.”

Renato answered without hesitation. His eyes which had been shaking helplessly until just now also gained strength. He had no intention of resenting Khalid, even if the outcome was bad.

“There is no reason for me to regret it.”

A voice filled with conviction came out from his lips where the trembling had already stopped. Khalid held his breath when realizing Renato’s sincerity without a single trace of deception. Soon, he completely made up his mind and looked straight at Renato.

He couldn’t understand where Renato’s trust in him came from, but he wanted to give Renato back a little bit of the trust he had received.

“……Renato.”

Khalid tried to call Renato by his name, just like Renato did. It was the first time Khalid called him this way, but it felt strangely familiar. As if he had only called Renato by his name in the past.

After a moment of hesitation, Khalid reached out and held Renato’s chin. Then, he gave a little force to his hand to make Renato completely face him.

“I hate complicated things like a contract or a deal. So please let me ask you just one question.”

Renato’s answer at this moment would change everything. Khalid fixed his gaze on Renato and opened his mouth with a more serious expression than usual.

“Do you need my help?”

Hearing Khalid’s question, Renato’s eyes trembled. The eyes reminiscent of violets fluttered like waves, and his small lips parted.

Help.

That word caused a ripple in Renato’s heart. Something like a hot lump swelled up inside him, and then the tears that had just barely stopped filled his eyes again.

‘Do you perhaps…… need my help?’

Why do you still say the same thing to me, even when I already go back in time? Without remembering anything, without knowing our promise and our time together.

Renato’s face contorted as he recalled the voice that could only remain in his memories now. The person who reached out to him first in his previous life was trying to hold his hand even in this world that he returned to.