Hiding That the Damn Prince Is an Omega 2
IV. Do you want to be Emperor?
“Your fever has finally gone down.”
Ben’s face brightened as he checked the thermometer. With a sigh of relief, he set a cushion against the headboard so Etienne could lean comfortably.
“It looks like the changed medicine worked. That’s a real relief.”
“It does.”
Sinking his body into the soft cushion with Ben’s help, Etienne answered with a drained face. A rasp of metal threaded his frail voice. Ben handed the hoarse Etienne the ginger tea he had prepared.
“Now we just need the cough to stop.”
“Mm.”
After a sip of steaming ginger tea, Etienne set the cup down on the wood tray. His throat was so badly swollen that even tea was hard to swallow.
“Please have a little more.”
“My throat hurts…”
Etienne rubbed at the stinging throat with his hand as he answered. Ben looked at the enervated man with pity. Even now he felt dizzy when he recalled what had happened five days ago.
What on earth was that about back then.
Putting away the ginger tea, Ben worried. That day, even in his eyes, Etienne had been a little strange. He had served Etienne for a long time as chief valet, but it was the first time he had seen him act so emotionally.
It was probably because of that Stella or whatever her name is.
Ben suspected Stella was the cause. No matter how he thought about it, there was no one else. That day, the only element out of the ordinary had been Stella.
On top of that, her manner had been flighty and rude. How many times had she even seen Etienne that she played at familiarity the moment they met? Watching from behind, even he had thought, What is this?—so what must it have been like for Etienne.
He hadn’t gotten angry at Stella because she was the Grand Duke of Eckhart’s retainer, and because they had just expelled attendants who had run their mouths.
Ben was nearly certain of his guess. Only one question remained unsolved. It was that Etienne, who had gone out alone, had stood blankly in the rain. No matter how angry he was at Stella, there was no reason to act so emotionally as to do that.
“Cough, cough…!”
“Oh dear.”
Jerked from his thoughts by the cough, Ben quickly offered a handkerchief. Etienne covered his mouth with it and coughed a few more times. When he finally stopped, he wheezed, face bloodless. He seemed to be struggling to breathe.
“I’m sorry. I should have served you better…”
Unable to overcome his distress as he looked at the thoroughly sick face, Ben apologized. Etienne gave a faint smile.
“That again. I told you it wasn’t your fault.”
“It is my fault.”
Despite Etienne’s consolation, Ben’s expression didn’t ease. For the past few days, he had been tormented by guilt for not serving Etienne properly—because the cold that had been barely improving had worsened after he got caught in the cold rain.
“If I had reacted properly then and followed at once, Your Highness wouldn’t have been rained on.”
“I acted on my own. You don’t need to apologize.”
Etienne lifted a hand and tapped Ben’s arm. Seeing him blame himself, a pang of guilt rose. It wasn’t Ben who should apologize, but himself.
“I need to sleep a little. If you need something, I’ll call—go on out.”
“…Understood.”
Ben hesitated at the dismissal, then withdrew reluctantly. Left alone, Etienne flopped down as if collapsing.
“Hoo…”
Pulling the quilt up, Etienne curled up with a weary breath. The fever had dropped, but the chills continued. Still, unlike a few days prior, he at least had the leeway to think—small mercy that it was.
“Five days…”
Murmuring to himself, Etienne retraced the past time. He could hardly believe five days had already passed since he returned from the Military. Proof, if anything, of how out of it he’d been.
Right after he came back from the Military, Etienne had suffered severe high fever and chills. On the first and second days, he could hardly hold on to consciousness, much less think. He must have blacked out at some point—his memory broke in patches.
He truly came to himself on the afternoon of the third day. As his fever began to fall, the fog that had clouded his head gradually thinned, and the body that had hung heavy, waterlogged like sunk in a marsh, became manageable to a point.
It’s definitely bad.
Opening and clenching his faintly trembling hand, Etienne gauged his condition. He had always taken to bed at the drop of a hat, but the last few weeks had been the worst. Especially since the triumph ceremony, he had been getting worse and worse.
As the Palace Physician had said, his body had likely reached its limit—yet the heightened stress compared to before also played a part. Since Rishar’s return, he had been in continual psychological turmoil.
Rishar.
When he thought of him, the last image he had seen surfaced in his mind. Feeling his heart grow heavy, Etienne clutched the quilt tight.
Because the Palace Physician had insisted on absolute rest, Etienne had to lie in bed all day. In that time, he thought, and thought again, about that day when he had been swept up in a feeling he couldn’t name.
After mulling it over for days, the heart he couldn’t define at the time gradually took shape. At last, Etienne could put a name to what he had felt seeing Rishar and Stella.
It was unmistakable jealousy.
“Ha.”
A hollow laugh slipped between his dry lips. Recognizing his feeling made his behavior back then all the more embarrassing.
Etienne scrubbed his face dry as he recalled Rishar and Stella looking at him, startled. He had thought admitting the feeling would bring relief—nothing of the sort.
Maybe it wasn’t even something to be jealous about in the first place. Who am I to be jealous of anything between the two? I’m not anything to Rishar.
“Ugh.”
Thinking that far, his windpipe cinched and his chest throbbed. Etienne pressed a hand firmly over the stinging sternum. Somehow it felt as if someone had hit the bull’s-eye.
Rishar and Stella were not sweet on each other, contrary to the rumor. Even if no one else could tell, Etienne could.
Though they had grown awkward compared to before, Rishar and Etienne had over a decade stacked between them. Even before Rishar entered the Imperial War College—no, even after Etienne one-sidedly put distance between them—they had been the closest people in the world.
That was why he recognized it at once—how at ease Rishar was with Stella.
And not only with her. Etienne felt the steady air that flowed among Rishar, Stella, and Elvin.
From Rishar’s tone and manner toward Stella and Elvin, Etienne realized the two were quite precious to him. They were people of Rishar’s world that Etienne did not know.
The instant he realized that, Etienne despaired. His world was exactly the same as three years ago, but Rishar’s had grown larger.
Why do you make a face like that.
Why do you look at someone else with those eyes instead of me.
That was what had surged up from deep in his chest to the back of his throat. If he had stayed there any longer, Etienne might really have let those words out.
So he ran. Because he hated that Rishar had made someone else dear, because he was jealous of Stella, who knew Rishar’s time that he himself didn’t.
And yet when Rishar pushed through the rain to chase him, he was relieved. He felt reassured that, for now at least, he still seemed to be the most important to him.
“Idiot.”
Cursing himself, Etienne pressed hard at his aching eyes. It had been he who decided to keep his distance from Rishar, he who had coldly pushed him away when he clung.
And then to be hurt when Rishar gave his side to someone other than him—how selfish could he be. It couldn’t get any worse.
Your Highness.
The gentle voice buzzed at his ear. The deep-blue eyes that curved sweetly with affection for him rose in his mind. Etienne closed his eyes, overcome with the urge to cry.
Maybe he had been basking in superiority all along. In the way Rishar came toward him unflinchingly even when pushed away; in eyes that shone just as they had the first day they met; in the voice that always held affection—he had grown arrogant.
That shattered five days ago. The moment he confirmed the change shaped by a three-year gap, the conceit that he alone could receive Rishar’s affection smashed to pieces. And where the unconscious sense of emotional superiority collapsed, what remained was a vicious self-loathing.
Don’t think.
Etienne stopped thinking and pulled the quilt over his head. If he kept thinking about Rishar like this, he felt a crisis creeping in—like he would fall into a mire he could never escape.
The feeling that, just like this time, he would again realize a truth he didn’t want to recognize.
Feeling an unknown anxiety, Etienne forced himself to sleep. At such times, fleeing reality into a dream was best. But his attempt failed.
“Your Highness. Are you asleep?”
Etienne couldn’t ignore Ben’s voice calling him, and opened his previously closed eyes. He reached out and lightly pulled the bell-cord. Permission to enter.
“Excuse me.”
Almost the moment he tugged the cord, Ben came in. Trouble shaded his face.
“What is it?”
“Well… the Grand Duke of Eckhart has come again.”
“Rishar?”
“Yes. He says even a moment is fine—he must see you today. I told him to return, but he insisted on staying, so I’ve shown him to the Receiving Room for now…”
Watching Etienne’s mood, Ben trailed off. Since Etienne had taken to bed, Rishar had come every day. But every time, he had had to turn back without seeing Etienne.
Partly because Etienne’s condition wasn’t good enough to receive visitors. But the main reason was that Etienne refused to see him.
For the last several days, dutiful Ben had turned Rishar away according to his wishes. But today he could not. Unlike usual, Rishar’s force of will was unusual.
My apologies, Your Grace. His Highness the Prince has just gone to bed.
A moment ago, when Ben began the refusal, Rishar did not withdraw with an “I understand” as he had yesterday. Instead, his face hardened.
Is it no again, today?
I am sorry.
Feeling that Rishar’s voice had dropped lower than usual, Ben swallowed dryly. Rishar, staring silently at Ben as he bowed with an abashed face, slowly opened his mouth.
Could I not step in for a moment and only look at his face?
That…
It’s already the fifth day. I can’t bear this worry as is. I will at least look upon his sleeping face.
Rishar was firm. Refused for five days straight, his patience seemed to be reaching its limit. Ben, who hadn’t expected him to be stubborn in this way, was a bit flustered.
Even so, I cannot, on my own authority, admit Your Grace to His Highness’s bedchamber. It’s against propriety and…
A moment will do. I think His Highness caught this cold because of me.
How could it be Your Grace’s fault. His Highness’s fever has now fallen and he’s improving day by day. Please don’t worry overmuch.
Then I will wait until His Highness rises.
Pardon?
Why? Is there a problem?
Arms folded, Rishar regarded Ben, eyes narrowed, as he widened his own. He had no intention of backing down easily.
I will wait quietly. When His Highness wakes, inform me. If I still don’t receive permission then, I will leave.
“…Understood. I will show you to the Receiving Room for now.”
Overborne by Rishar’s momentum, Ben ended by guiding him to the Receiving Room. Whatever else, one could not leave a grand duke of the realm standing in a corridor.
“What shall we do?”
“Mm…”
At Ben’s question, Etienne gave a small hum. Right now both his body and heart were weakened. He had realized what he had felt that day, but had not recovered his composure. He worried whether it would be all right to meet Rishar while his heart was still unsettled.
“Meeting briefly should be fine.”
After a brief struggle, Etienne came to a decision. Perhaps unexpectedly, Ben asked again with a startled face.
“You will see him?”
“I know that fellow’s stubbornness well. Even if I say I won’t meet him, he’ll keep waiting until I permit it.”
Etienne spoke in a tone of certainty. He pushed himself up, swaying. He couldn’t go to see Rishar like this.
“I need to wipe down with a wet towel. And put in the eye-drops.”
“I’ll prepare them at once.”
Risen from the bed, Etienne sniffed the scent permeating the bedchamber and knit his brows. Perhaps because he had been so ill he could barely think straight, his pheromones filled the room.
If Rishar had come in here? He would likely have been exposed as an Omega on the spot. The thought alone made his vision swim; Etienne quickly gathered his pheromones.
But with a visibly weakened body, it was hard to control them perfectly. Lifting his wrist to check his body scent, Etienne hurriedly called Ben.
“Ben!”
“Yes, Your Highness. What’s wrong?”
“Bring the pheromone perfume we used last time, too.”
“Perfume? Ah! Understood.”
Catching on to why Etienne was asking for the perfume, Ben slapped an oh no face and ran to the dressing room. He knew that when the body was sick, pheromone control didn’t go well, and yet until Etienne said so, it hadn’t occurred to him to fetch the perfume.
“You idiot, fool.”
Ben smacked his own forehead with a slap-slap as he gathered the perfume. At times like this, it was truly a shame that he, a Beta, couldn’t sense pheromones.