Do You Know What Love Is?

"We have arrived, Your Grace."

The carriage door, shut fast until that moment, swung open with the coachman's courteous voice. A pair of polished shoes touched the ground first—and above them appeared Cesare. The instant his feet landed, he turned his gaze toward the garden as though he had been waiting for exactly this.

I wonder how our lovebirds are getting on. A light tune slipped out between his lips as he went. Instead of heading straight for the ballroom, Cesare quietly changed course and tucked himself away among the dense shrubbery.

"Your Grace...?"

Bewildered by the sudden detour, the escorting knight could only stare. Cesare pressed a finger to his lips and breathed a short whisper.

"Quiet. Hide."

Having dragged the knight into the bushes with him before the man could protest, Cesare peered with great interest through the shadowed leaves at the heart of the garden.

And there, dead center, stood Lysian and Leoneld facing one another—Lysian holding a bright, blooming bouquet.

Perfect atmosphere. Perfect timing.

Now then. Pink, romantic currents... arise.

Cesare swallowed hard, waiting for the two of them to fall head over heels. It was staging straight out of a romance novel—his heart was already pounding with anticipation.

But the conversation that drifted over was nothing like what he'd hoped.

"...And what might this be."

"Good question. One thing's certain—you're not the guest I was expecting."

The two traded a handful of icy words before promptly catching on that they had both been baited and hooked.

Far from romance, neither seemed to carry the slightest lingering attachment. They coolly turned their backs and went their separate ways.

Abandoned in the bushes, Cesare's eyes quivered faintly, as though about to scatter.

"...?"

Why? Wasn't the "omegaverse" supposed to work so that the moment eyes met, sparks flew, and then—what?—instinct swept them off to bed without a second thought? That's how it went in everything I've read?!

"...Your Grace? Might I ask... what exactly it is you're doing right now?" Watching Cesare stand frozen in dumbstruck disbelief, the knight hiding at his side ventured the question with great care.

"......"

Cesare still could not believe his reality. This couldn't be happening. Even if the two of them didn't get along, it should never have fizzled out this pathetically... Hold on.

Don't tell me...? At the ominous hypothesis streaking through his mind, Cesare whipped around to the knight.

"...Sir. What are the second genders of His Highness the Fourth Prince and His Highness the Thirteenth Prince?"

"...Pardon?"

Startled by the question out of nowhere, the knight nevertheless answered at once—everyone knew this much.

"They are both Alphas, aren't they?"

KRA-BOOM— A colossal thunderbolt came crashing down through Cesare's mind.

As far as he knew, Alphas were offense and Omegas were defense. And now both of them were Alphas? A tower meeting a tower?!

Insane. Then... the two of them can't be paired up at all? Cesare's mind went white.

This... this could not be allowed to happen! His precious virginity, along with his peaceful and comfortable future, was about to fly out the window—every last bit of it!

Cesare was tearing at the underbrush, weeping tears of blood on the inside, when—

"...Your Grace? The ball will be starting soon. I believe you ought to head inside." The knight, hovering at his side, whispered as tactfully as he could manage.

With the expression of a man whose country had just fallen, Cesare finally hauled himself upright. He brushed the dirt from his clothes with a few careless swipes and trudged toward the ballroom, his gait that of a man whose soul had half run away from home.

Inside, brilliant chandeliers blazed across the ballroom. Grand music and the laughter of the nobility filled the air, but Cesare's mind remained a tangled mess.

But human beings, they say, always find a way. Even as he dragged his feet along, he began desperately hunting for an alternative.

...Hold on. Let me try thinking a little more openly here.

Cesare lifted his chin, eyes gleaming. Just as there was no law that only men and women could pair up, where was it written that an omegaverse romance had to be Alpha and Omega?

The idea that Alphas can't court one another is narrow-minded, hidebound nonsense!

Yes! Come to think of it, there was no problem at all. Alpha-and-Alpha love deserved to be respected just the same.

Having transmuted despair into hope in the span of a single breath, Cesare broke into a satisfied smile.

Right—these days, Alphas date Alphas all the time. If I push them together with real enthusiasm, how could they possibly not fall for each other?

Young ladies in resplendent gowns drifted past, but Cesare spared none of them a glance. He stood frozen in place, simulating the romance of two Alphas in his head alone—and that was when it happened.

"Duke Valois."

A low, clear voice pierced through to Cesare's eardrums. He turned reflexively, and his eyes went wide. It was Lysian, the Fourth Prince—the very man who, mere minutes ago, had been locked in that lethal standoff with Leoneld in the garden.

He was still carrying the bouquet of red roses Cesare had seen in the garden. Remarkable, really—bouquet that gaudy in hand, and Cesare had only just noticed him closing in this close.

"Ah, Your Highness the Fourth Prince, it is an honor to—"

As Cesare hurried into a proper bow, Lysian gently cut across him.

"To think you would stand me up. I'm quite heartbroken."

"...Pardon?"

Lysian let his brows fall soft and low, as though the disappointment were genuinely his. It was a devastatingly beautiful smile, the kind that could hold a person spellbound.

"Did you not summon me to the garden, claiming you had something of great importance to tell me? And yet when I arrived, the Duke was nowhere to be seen—only an uninvited guest I never asked for."

Urk. Cesare flinched and swallowed hard.

A single line of cold sweat ran down his spine. Desperate to squirm out of the crisis, he scrambled to stack up excuses.

"Ah, that is—! My sincerest apologies, Your Highness. Urgent word arrived from my family without warning, and in dealing with it I was compelled to break our appointment. I had no intention whatsoever of deceiving you."

He delivered the excuse without so much as a blink, dipping his head in a shallow bow—and into his field of vision slid a bouquet of red roses.

When Cesare looked up, dazed, Lysian's smile turned featherlight.

"Then, by way of apology—would you grant me the first dance?"

"...Pardon?"

"Your punishment for making me walk in vain. You've seen to your urgent business, after all. You wouldn't refuse a request this modest, would you?"

The phrasing was impeccably courteous, yet threaded with a strange pressure. For a man like Cesare—with a prior record of rigging the board and snaring others in it—this was to be caught red-handed, a neat little pretext placed in Lysian's palm.

Dead center of the ballroom, the eyes of the surrounding nobility converging on them. To coldly brush off a prince's request here would have been no small strain, even for a duke.

...Haah. Refusing would be rather poor form, wouldn't it.

Swallowing tears on the inside, Cesare took the smooth, outstretched hand.

"...The honor is mine."

And so, leaving the bouquet of roses in his knight's keeping, Cesare allowed himself to be led onto the center of the ballroom floor.

The grand swell of the orchestra rolled through the hall. Lysian led him with flawless steps; the warmth in the hand cradling his waist and in their joined palms was impeccably courteous, impeccably gentle.

They traced the steps in silence, until at last Lysian broke it first, his voice low.

"The rumors are rife these days, Duke."

"Rumors, you say..."

Cesare felt a chill crawl up the back of his neck and, heart skittering, barely managed to keep the beat.

Surely he didn't catch me making an idiot of myself in the garden?

He gulped—and Lysian smiled, ever so faintly. A sorrowful, exquisite, thoroughly fraudulent smile, the kind that could beguile anyone.

"I hear you've been... ardently courting my dear brother Leoneld."

"Ah, that's—"

"There's no need to hide it. Love is a wonderful thing, after all."

And with that, Lysian's unprompted paean to love began.

"To yearn for someone with your entire soul, to cast yourself willingly upon the altar of their existence—where in this world could you find anything more noble, more beautiful than that?"

Fuck. What the hell is this lunatic bastard going on about?

The profanity spilled out of him unbidden. This was a psychopath who had never felt so much as the first letter of the word love in his entire life, reciting lines like some great romanticist.

To Cesare, who had read the original novel, the true nature crouched behind that hypocritical, smiling gaze was laid perfectly bare. This was the kind of man who brought nothing but ruin to anyone entangled with him.

Cesare humored him with noncommittal murmurs and waited only for the tedious dance to end.

"Haha, yes. Quite so, Your Highness—every word of it."

It was a reply containing not a single gram of soul.

Finish this fast, then get lost and go bother Leoneld.

Love paean or not—the point is, take it to Leoneld. It's only if those two end up together that I get my freedom back!

That was the moment.

Lysian's presence shifted, ever so subtly. His steps slowed by a hair's breadth, and the hand wrapped around Cesare's waist took on a quiet, deliberate strength.

"However."

Lysian let his gaze sink slowly. Between his long, sweeping lashes flickered a mournful, aching light, as though tears might spill at any moment.

"It is, to me, terribly sad news."

...? Why the hell are you suddenly sad? It's your brother we're talking about?

Cesare turned the situation over in his head, utterly baffled.

Don't tell me... he's actually fallen for Leoneld already?

Just as the thought reached that point, Lysian stopped dancing altogether and pressed in close against Cesare.

From a distance so near their hearts might touch, he murmured, low.

"It seems you never noticed. All this time... I have been interested in you, Duke Valois."

...Pardon?

Insane—what is this? The nape of his neck froze stiff with cold. Cesare barely reined in the urge to let his jaw hang open.

Was this world secretly a 'Lysian × Cesare' one all along?

No. Setting that aside entirely—

I can't let him set the pace.

If I fumble into a panic here, or find myself backed into a corner, I may well come to my senses flat on my back in some bed.

You're supposed to end up with Leoneld!

Both Alphas, half blood-related—who cares! That's none of my concern!

And above all... Now that he thought it through, slowly—

was that confession even sincere in the first place?

The Lysian he knew was not a man who could love another with any ease. The more he replayed Lysian's course through the original story, the firmer the conclusion became: that confession from moments ago was a paper-thin lie.

No—even if, by some far-fetched chance, those words were true, it changed nothing. Genuine or counterfeit, it made no difference to him either way. Because whatever happened, Cesare had to see Leoneld and Lysian joined. Come what may.

Cesare swallowed hard and let his rigid face ease. Then, looking straight into Lysian's beautiful face, he opened his mouth.

"Your Highness."

"Yes, Duke."

"I am deeply honored by your kind regard, but..."

Holding Lysian's unshaking gaze, Cesare cast out the words in a tone that was very soft, and very heavy.

"Do you know what love is?"