Because I Like You
"Since when did the quality of imperial banquets become so vulgar?"
"Duke Valois? Your Grace, what brings you here...?"
The Crown Prince fumbled out the words, but Cesare offered no answer in return. He merely arched a brow and let his gaze drift slowly down over the Prince and his clustered companions.
The Crown Prince's eyes trembled faintly. It was the look of a man silently screaming, You lunatic, you ordered this yourself.
Cesare seemed to savor that bewilderment, lips twitching, before he finally spoke with a thin, venomous smile.
"...To think you would personally bestow such a rare vintage upon the Thirteenth Prince. Might there be some special reason for it, Your Highness?"
"W-well, that is..."
While the Crown Prince stammered and stalled, Cesare flashed a grin and strode toward Leoneld.
"Well, it hardly matters. When the Empire's little sun deigns to show such precious favor, one ought to receive it graciously, shouldn't one?"
Cesare seized Leoneld's chin in a rough grip. Then he plucked the glass from his hand and poured its contents mercilessly down his throat.
"...Ugh, mmph!"
At this sudden move from the very man he had expected to save him, Leoneld's eyes wavered. As the poisoned liquor burned its way down, his brow knotted in agony.
Watching him suffer, Cesare murmured low, as though deeply satisfied.
"Drink every last drop. Don't leave a thing. Only then does His Highness's sincerity carry any meaning, doesn't it?"
With that, as if his business here were finished, Cesare coldly released him and turned away. The nobles nearby murmured that the Duke of Valois was every bit as ruthless as his reputation, and Cesare moved at his leisure, melting into the crowd filling the banquet hall.
...Right. Why didn't I help Leoneld, you ask? The answer was obvious. Because it would have been strange.
Until only days ago, Cesare himself had been the one who ordered Leoneld poisoned. And now he was to appear out of nowhere and snatch the poisoned cup away? From the Crown Prince's standpoint, it would look like nothing less than a knife in the back. However many of the Prince's weaknesses he held, so soon after transmigrating into this world there was no reason to needlessly make an enemy of him and invite the exhaustion that would follow.
Cesare idly fingered the small glass vial in his pocket. Instead, I brought the antidote.
Seizing a moment when no eyes were on him, he slipped toward the terrace. No one else could have heard it... but that sharp-eared Leoneld would have. A moment ago, in the instant he had forced the poison down Leoneld's throat, he had murmured something low, just barely loud enough to graze the man's ear.
If you want to live, come to the terrace.
And sure enough: with a long creak, the terrace door swung open, the sound rolling out across the heavy silence.
...There he is. Right on cue.
Cesare curled the corner of his mouth with fluid grace and turned, slowly. Moonlight, softly gilding the night sky, settled cool upon his jet-black hair, and beneath it, brilliantly gleaming violet eyes caught the man standing in the doorway.
"You came, Thirteenth Prince."
"......"
Leoneld stared at him for a long while without a word. In stark contrast to the pallor the poison had left on his face, his blue eyes flashed razor-sharp. At length, his lips curled upward, slow and twisted.
"What are you plotting, Duke Valois."
At that question, Cesare coolly took the man's measure in his mind. Leoneld le Aurelian. He was nothing like the archetypal hero of a classic fantasy novel. Steadfastness and a sense of justice had been discarded at the door; he was selfish, he trusted no one, he did not even trust himself. To sum him up in a single phrase: a thoroughgoing sociopath. That was the essence of the man called Leoneld.
...Which is why clumsy kindness would only ever be poison.
Cesare leaned back against the railing at his ease and studied him. Extend goodwill to Leoneld, twisted to the core as he was, and the man would simply brand Cesare an enemy, hunting for the blade hidden behind the gesture. Which left exactly one option.
"Do you want to know so badly what I'm plotting?"
A deep smile settled at the corner of Cesare's mouth. He drew the small vial from his pocket and tossed it lightly into the air. The vial sailed up in a clean arc, and Leoneld caught it as though snatching it out of flight. For the space of an instant, Leoneld's listless eyes rippled.
"This is..."
"The antidote."
Cesare went on, perfectly composed. Yes, if heartfelt goodwill would not reach a man, then one simply furnished him with a pretext. A pretext so airtight and so absurd that even that clever, suspicious mind of his could never find a logical crack in it.
"...I'll accept it gratefully, though I confess I don't follow why you would extend such favor to me."
Leoneld narrowed his eyes and smiled, cold as frost. He looked ready to shatter the vial to pieces if the answer displeased him. Cesare swallowed a sigh. The cheat code for handling a terminal case of suspicion was, paradoxically, to offer the most illogical pretext in the world. And he had certainty on his side. As a reader who had pored over the original novel dozens of times, he knew the setting well: Leoneld was uniquely weak to pure, unguarded emotion. Raised in a royal house riddled with betrayal and intrigue, the man could see through the most intricate scheme or political calculation with uncanny clarity, yet before blind affection that approached without condition, he froze up abnormally.
So... It was an option he truly despised, but there was only one way to cut through this situation. Truly, horribly despised it...
"The reason is simple."
Cesare closed the distance by a single step and lowered his voice, as though confessing the most intoxicating secret in the world.
"Because I like you."
If it meant keeping his virtue intact, and if it meant slipping past this mad protagonist's suspicion, then he would gladly play the lunatic blinded by love.
"...?"
For an instant, Leoneld's thought circuits appeared to grind to a complete halt. The answer had been so far beyond expectation that his dumbfounded gaze simply hung in the air.
"I said I like you. As in, I like you, Thirteenth Prince."
Cesare drove the wedge home, shameless to the last. The one option logic could not dismantle. That's right, he was gay. He absolutely was not, but still. How about it, could anyone refute that? However hard the man racked his brain, there would be no logical opening to pry at. Human emotion, after all, came with neither plausibility nor logic attached.
"......"
After a long, excruciating silence, Leoneld finally parted his lips, a twisted smile on his face.
"Well, this is... bewildering. I hadn't realized the Duke of Valois was such a passionate man."
"I'm not asking you to return my feelings."
Cesare added hastily, in case the man actually meant to accept. Because if you do, I'm the one in trouble. He was neither gay nor a romantic. Ah, infuriatingly enough, he had gone and transmigrated into some derivative fanfiction and turned into an Omega besides, but that changed nothing.
"I merely wished to explain the reason for my conduct. As one who holds Your Highness in quiet affection."
"...I see."
Leoneld picked him apart with his eyes for a long moment, his gaze odd and unreadable. It was a persistent look, as though searching for the slightest shard of a lie, but he soon seemed to lose interest, gathering up the antidote and turning away.
"...I'll gratefully accept the antidote. Until we meet again."
Watching that retreating back, Cesare let out the breath he had been holding in a rush. A single line of cold sweat traced its way down his spine. He didn't... catch on to the lie, did he? The chronically suspicious protagonist had withdrawn without pressing further. By any measure, that counted as a success. Barely keeping his legs from buckling beneath him, Cesare exhaled in relief.
"......"
The imperial garden lay deserted. Leoneld, walking out of its deep darkness, came to a halt. The small glass vial he had drawn from his pocket glinted coldly in the moonlight.
Because I like you. Cesare's low voice, the one that had brushed against his ear, lingered like an afterimage. ...Emotion carries no logic.
It was exactly as stated. Emotion was irrational by its very nature, so however persistently one picked at it, one could never pronounce it truth or lie. But there are things in this world that cannot be hidden. Cheeks burning red, eyes trembling faintly, and even a heartbeat that quickened despite every effort to still it.
"...Right."
Leoneld's lips set, cold. Of all those signs, Cesare had shown not one. In place of the heat peculiar to a man drowning in longing, there had been only the keen vigilance of a beast scrabbling to survive.
"Deception, then."
Leoneld raised his head. The practiced smile he had worn until moments before was gone without a trace. His face, bared beneath the moonlight, had gone stone cold, not a single shard of feeling left in it.
He looked down once more at the antidote resting in his palm. This, too, is more than likely a lie. The Duke of Valois had no reason to like him, and none to save his life. He tightened his grip on the vial, on the verge of hurling it away, when he abruptly stilled, lost in thought.
...Shall I test it?
The instant that reckless hypothesis flashed through his mind, Leoneld pulled the stopper without hesitation and tipped the contents into his mouth. He swallowed, and the liquid slid down his throat. The antidote was sweet. Sweet enough to make his heart sting. Terribly, unbearably sweet.