/
“But I’ve never tasted ice cream this yummy before!”
“Yeah, yeah. Heli Oppa, I think this is muuuch better than the ice cream at the Imperial Palace!”
“I think I can eat five.”
“I’ll eat ten!”
Rosé and Ferre raised their sticky fingers, five and ten, at each other.
Sitting up straight and keeping their chins high, they both looked really confident that they could eat a lot more.
“Hmm, I’m not so sure about that. Ferre, don’t you remember who had a stomachache before? Who was it again? It was only a little while ago when that person’s tummy went rumbling like that
 Isn’t that right, Miss Popo?”
Helios playfully said that as he glanced towards Sera.
He saw this as a chance to tease his cute younger siblings, so he couldn’t miss it.
“Oh! Yes, now that you mention it, that did happen. That person ate three ice cream servings and then he had a massive stomachache.”
“At first, I thought it was a really big emergency.”
“Me, too! I was really surprised.”
“I was even going to treat him with divine power.”
“But it was a stomachache after all!”
Sera helped out Helios, and they worked as a team.
“Hiiing. Don’t tease me, Sera and Hyung!”
Embarrassed, Ferre stuck out his lower lip, which was slathered with ice cream.
Sera and RosĂ© both usually tease him, but he couldn’t believe that his Hyung was also doing it!
“Hate you!”
Ferre grumbled, puffing up his cute little pink cheeks.
Those cheeks were as lovely as two shy peaches, and so Sera and Helios smiled contentedly.
“Kehehe. Ferre, you always fall for it. Sera and Heli Oppa are doing it on purpose! Because your reaction is so funny!”
The lower half of Rosé’s face didn’t fare much better than how Ferre’s was right now, but she shot back like this and tried to act maturely.
The disgruntled Ferre huffed out from his nose and eventually cried out.
“Everyone’s bad! You’re all just teasing me!”
“I got it, I got it. Sorry, Ferre. Don’t cry.”
“It’s because Your Highness is just so cute. I’m sorry.”
Sera and Helios quickly raised their hands in surrender because, from the way things were going, Ferre really might shed tears.
Alternately looking between the two, the corners of Ferre’s lips wiggled as he tried not to smile. Then, pretending that he couldn’t win against them, Ferre nodded.
After finishing up the rest of her ice cream, Sera soon took out the handkerchief she knew she’d be needing again and placed it on her lap.
Perhaps because she ate in a hurry, Sera didn’t notice the traces of vanilla ice cream left on her.
Helios let out a chuckle as was the only one who noticed the sweet trail left on her rosy lips.
“Miss Popo, can you face me for a moment?”
“Me, Your Majesty?”
Sera looked at him with her eyes wide open, perplexed.
Seeing her like this, Helios couldn’t help but think that she was cute. He smiled again.
Leaning forward and half-standing from his seat, Helios drew closer to Sera. She tried to stand up as well, but he gently pushed down her shoulder as he said,
“Miss Popo, you and my younger siblings are the same.”
“Yes? What do you mean, the same?”
With a smile that was mixed with a bit of shyness and awkwardness, Helios’s hand went towards her lips.
“There’s something here.”
Shhk—
Pale fingers brushed against her pink lower lip.
Then, when she saw the traces of ice cream on Helios’s thumb, her blue eyes widened even further and her face gradually turned red.
“Your Majesty!”
Sera shouted, her confusion obvious from her voice.
“Yes, Miss Popo?”
But Helios responded with a light tone, as if nothing much had happened.
“You did that before, too
 You can just tell me instead
”
Completely red from her cheeks and to her neck, Sera carefully offered to him the handkerchief that she had put on her lap earlier.
Her heart skipped a beat and was now all a-flutter, and her fingertips trembled slightly.
It was like this, too, when he did the same thing about a month ago.
And again, the corners of Helios’s lips rose up high because he took delight in seeing this red tint upon her skin.
He meant to wipe his finger, but he looked at the white handkerchief she was holding out for a moment, but instead brought his finger over to his lips.
“Ah
”
Did she just see that correctly? It looked like his thumb went between his lips

Sera’s mouth gaped open, and she stared at him quietly, unable to say anything.
Helios wiped her lips, and then
 No, she couldn’t believe what just happened.
At the same time, the twins piped in.
“Hey, hey, you saw that, right?”
“It’s my first time seeing Heli Hyung do that!”
“Sera, why’s your face so red? Because Heli Oppa licked it?”
‘Licked?’
The part of his finger that disappeared into his lips suddenly flashed through her mind.
“Sera looks like a red apple!”
“Sera turned into a red cherry!”
“What Oppa just did!”
“We know what it is!”
Smelling like sweet strawberry and melon, RosĂ© and Ferre then whispered into Sera’s ears.
The twins lowered their voices to the fullest and whispered slyly.
“That’s
”
“What
”
“Mom and Dad did!”
“It’s what
”
“They called
”
Sera bit her lower lip as she listened to the children’s hushed voices.
“In-”
“Di-”
“Rect-”
“Kiss!”
Sera’s mouth went wide open as she looked up at Helios.
“Indirect kiss
”
Unconsciously, she murmured the short four syllables that Rosé and Ferre whispered gleefully.
And Helios, who had been looking at her with a sly and casual expression earlier
 turned his head!
‘But Your Majesty did it! Don’t dump your responsibility on me!’