T/N: Again, please read this chapter when you are alone, so you can squeal to your heart’s content.

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To tell the truth, Cadel didn’t want to go back to his subordinates. He didn’t know how to feel about seeing them.

He didn’t have anything to label his feelings. Maybe it was because he had never felt this deeply for a fellow human being, regardless of gender. These were new, budding feelings, and that made them all the more difficult to discern.

Cadel rode down the mountain blindly. He didn’t care where his comrades were. Daylight seemed like a dream as he rested by the waterfall. The darkened sky and shadowy woods held a nightmarish humidity and coolness that matched his mood.

As he forced his weary body to move across the trail, a sudden sensation stopped him in his tracks. Cold, sunken ashen eyes slowly turned to look at his surroundings.

Soon, a man emerged from the dense canopy of trees. The man, too, stopped in his tracks when he spotted Cadel. He waved lightly at Cadel, and the red thread that had been dragged along with him stirred.

“……Garuel.”

“I thought the conversation would have been over by now. Did you have a good time?”

The fact that he gave the Ring of Fate to Garuel, and the fact that the ring was worn on his own finger. He had completely forgotten. Cadel belatedly noticed the ring on his index finger and smiled wryly.

Garuel approached Cadel with long strides, scanning him as if examining his condition. Cadel stared at him as he got closer, trying to capture the emotions that only he could feel. He wanted to feel his own emotions, purely his own, free of the will of Cadel Lytos.

“I figured that Knight Commander would be able to have an amicable conversation with the Scarlet Dragon, but if I went to find you during the conversation, I’d get in trouble, so I decided to wait until nightfall when the rest of the group would have no idea.”

Garuel removed the ring from his middle finger and handed it back to Cadel. Cadel took the ring and swallowed lightly.

“Sir Van watched me receive the ring, so I thought he might get mad and demand me to give it to him, but he didn’t seem to have the presence of mind to remember that, and he’s probably scouring the mountains with Sir Lumen right now.”

Bracing himself, he looked up at Garuel cautiously and slowly sorted through his floating emotions.

His demeanor told Cadel that his subordinates were unharmed, and he was relieved. Next, he thought of his subordinates, who must have worked themselves to death worrying about their commander, who had disappeared with the Scarlet Dragon. He wondered what had happened to Lydon.

And finally, a shocking fear that the source of all these feelings might not even be his own.

“……Knight Commander. You don’t look well. Have you been in a fight? Would you like me to look at your wounds?”

“It’s okay, we didn’t fight.”

“So did you hear something bad? Did they take the members hostage and make ridiculous demands? Did the Scarlet Dragon…… force you to do something?”

There was a note of caution in Garuel’s questioning, and he was uncomfortable with the way Cadel seemed to be withdrawn, even as Garuel welcomed his safe return. There was no sense of exhilaration or excitement in Cadel’s demeanor from his conversation with the Scarlet Dragon.

The Scarlet Dragon and Cadel must have just met for the first time. What could possibly come up in such a short conversation that would send the other person into a state of depression? Garuel couldn’t guess, and it made him wonder about Cadel’s condition.

At worst, the Scarlet Dragon, tired of being free for so long, would find Cadel intriguing and insist that he stay if he wanted to save his subordinates. If that were the case, Cadel would surely have tried to meet with his subordinates to discuss a plan of action.

Cadel shook his head slowly, wearily, and slipped the ring into his pocket.

“He said he would let us get out of the mountain safely. He also made a promise not to touch us.”

Garuel said no more. Instead, he simply stared at Cadel with an intense gaze, as if trying to uncover the source of the discomfort he sensed in Cadel.

Cadel meekly returned his gaze. Without his blindfold, Garuel had an uncharacteristically grim air about him, even though he knew he was a man who would never harm anyone. The black sclera on his left eye tarnished the color of his iris, which was as bright as the violets.

Looking into those dark eyes, Cadel suddenly realized that Garuel was the man who knew most of his secrets.

When he had recruited Garuel, Cadel had laid himself bare to him. He hadn’t made up anything to impress him, hadn’t tried to please him. He told him the truth as best he could, and then added a dash of selfish greed.

He didn’t hide the fact that he was greedy. He admitted that he was a selfish man. In front of Garuel, he was not a regal commander, but a weary human being driven by a special destiny.

That helplessness, so uncharacteristic of Cadel Lytos, was clearly his own. All the negative emotions were his, and he had to admit it.

But then what?

“Garuel.”

“Yes.”

If all kinds of negativity were his, how about his feelings toward the members? Was that all that warmth belonging to Cadel Lytos? Was he able to embrace the feelings of brilliance because Cadel Lytos was a radiant person? He hoped it wasn’t as bad as that.

“Kiss me.”

So Cadel tugged desperately at Garuel’s collar. He hoped that all the affection he had felt was genuine. He and Garuel held no secrets from each other, and he wanted Garuel to feel his feelings honestly this time.

“Kiss me, Garuel.”

Garuel seemed quite taken aback by the sudden request. The always relaxed look in his eyes changed. He narrowed his eyes as if gauging Cadel’s intentions, then brushed the back of Cadel’s hand holding his collar and whispered lowly.

“You won’t regret it, right?”

“I won’t.”

“……It’s like you’ve become someone else.”

Cadel’s every move was urgent as if he were being chased, but his expression was reserved. It was as if the man who had been embarrassed by the skinship had gone somewhere else. In fact, the man in front of him was not Cadel at all, but something else in the same shell. Garuel had his doubts, but Cadel was Cadel nonetheless. He could not refuse his request.

The hand that had been brushing the back of Cadel’s hand gently squeezed his cheek. Garuel tilted his head naturally and pressed his lips together lightly. The dry lips were rough. He pressed his lips together briefly, as if savoring their roughness, then opened his mouth to capture Cadel’s bottom lip. Gently, he sucked on the mucous membrane of his mouth, and Cadel’s lips parted as well.

Cadel’s eyes were slowly closing. Garuel could see the movement of his pupils as they rolled beneath his eyelids. Cadel looked unsteady, like a man wandering in the dark, searching for something.

The tip of his tongue flicked across Cadel’s damp lower lip. Cadel’s eyelashes twitched as if tickled. Garuel took it all in with his eyes, intent on not missing a moment of the kiss. He pulled and wrapped his hand around Cadel’s waist, pressing Cadel close to his body, and grabbed Cadel’s wandering hands to wrap them around his neck.

Nibbling at Cadel’s lips, he made a small frown and dropped his head. Staring into Cadel’s eyes as he finally lifted his eyelids, Garuel gave him one last chance.

“The only time to stop is now. If you don’t like it at all, say so.”

The sunken, ashen eyes flickered across Garuel’s recollected face. Cadel kept his gaze locked on Garuel’s reversed eye, which was so different from his own, and pulled him down by the neck to press their lips together forcefully. It was an unmistakable affirmation, and Garuel hesitated no longer.

There was a certain savagery to the kiss between the aggressive Cadel and the skillful Garuel. Tongue after tongue, tangling and crushing, and tongue after tongue, the tip of the jaw was swallowed in a single bite. Wet, slurping sounds rang in each other’s ears. Their breaths came in sweet gasps, interrupted only by the occasional drip of saliva.

Garuel pinned Cadel against a wooden post and frantically indulged him. Cadel ran his fingers through Garuel’s hair, as if he, too, had lost his senses. He concentrated on nothing but the scent of Garuel’s body odor, the pressure of his teeth against his mucous membranes.

He tried to feel nothing but pleasure, for it was his role to see and feel this world, and if he did not think, but merely felt, then the will of Cadel Lytos could not interfere. If he became addicted to this pleasure, if he felt affection for Garuel, who gave him this pleasure, it would be entirely his.

He didn’t want to feel Cadel Lytos inside him. It was a shame for him, the real protagonist, but it was the only way to get through this.

The hand that had been resting on Cadel’s back slid down to his waist. Gently, Garuel stroked his way down the chiseled waist, then pressed his lower body harder, slipping his knee between Cadel’s legs.

Garuel pushed his tongue into Cadel’s mouth, pressing their lips together and the tip of his nose against Cadel’s own. Garuel’s tongue pressed against the roof of Cadel’s mouth, stimulating deep inside. Cadel tried to put up as little resistance as possible to Garuel’s unbridled teasing of his mouth, but he couldn’t help but feel increasingly out of breath. It was hard to keep up with his pace.

When Cadel twisted his head slightly to breathe, Garuel cupped both of his cheeks in one hand. Using the force of his fingertips, he parted Cadel’s lips and slowly slipped his tongue out. He sucked gently on the tongue that followed in a welcoming manner and rubbed the corners of Cadel’s half-open eyes.

“You’re not going to allow any more than this, are you?”

“……That’s unconscionable.”