“Yes? What did you say?”

“You! You have to be careful of Julia!”

Cassion groaned. Soon after, a slight cough spilled out of his mouth.

He covered his mouth with his hands and coughed for a while before hiding himself under the blanket.

I scattered the dusty clouds caused by Cassion and looked at the bundle under the blanket.

“Be careful of Julia? Aren’t you the one who is supposed to be careful of her instead of me..”

His face heated up after he reflected on his own words.

So, right now, he was...

“Are you worried, Your Highness? Just now, you were worried about me, right? Right?”

A big smile didn’t leave my face.

“Don’t laugh, Diana.”

“How can I not laugh? Your Highness is worried about me!”

Cassion opened his eyes wide. I tried not to laugh as much as possible, but the corners of my mouth naturally twitched.

Then Cassion said in a really unpleasant way.

“Is it that funny that I’m worried about you? Is it funny that I, who is weak, worried about you, who looks healthy as a cow?”

When I heard that, I stopped laughing. The room became silent like someone poured a bucket of cold water over me.

I just blinked as Cassion was huffing.

Cassion misunderstood the meaning of my laughter. However, the misunderstanding was so profound that it was difficult for me to clear.

‘He was sick for a long time, and people around him were slandering him.’

But we’ve become quite close these days, so I thought it was okay, but it turned out that it wasn’t. He still didn’t trust people.

‘Because Cassion is just a child.’

I understood and started talking.

“Please listen carefully, Your Highness.”

“What?”

When I relaxed my face and spoke kindly, he sat up and leaned against the bedhead.

His expression and tone said he didn’t want to hear what I said, but his behavior spoke otherwise.

His personality gap was so cute that my hand moved automatically. My finger gently touched past Cassion’s bangs.

Cassion couldn’t dodge quickly. He blushed, but he didn’t get angry and sulked.

‘I need to fix his habit.’

I reached out my hand out of habit when I saw something cure. I clenched my hand and continued.

“Your Highness, the reason why I laughed was.. I am glad Your Highness worried about me.”

Cassion showed a face like he didn’t understand what I was talking about.

‘We speak the same language, but it feels like I’m talking to a foreigner.’

I tried to be patient and explained it slowly.

“Your Highness Cassion, please think about the first time Your Highness met me. You didn’t even bother to look at me, right?”

“I did because you were a rude and arrogant person who was full of confidence.”

So that was how you saw me. ?I tried to hold back my urge to yell and said.

“Yes, you can think of me like that. And what did you say when I asked for your help? You said that you didn’t care if I died or not. You didn’t want to marry me because you didn’t really care..”

As I rambled, Cassion straightened his back.

“I didn’t say anything about dying.”

“Isn’t my story predictable enough? I am fighting for family succession after all.”

I held my breath for a moment. Cassion waited for me to continue.

“You know that my family is not an ordinary family, right?”

I didn’t have to say this with my own mouth. When I snickered, Cassion lowered his head. I guess mentioning my death made him finally realize. He himself did mention how easy it was to die.

“Tell me your point.”

“When I fight for succession, it’s no different from fighting for the throne. We are similar. It is mentioned a lot in history books, right? What do people do to become a King? People fight to the death. Please don’t tell me that you thought that I only have to debate over whether I deserve the position or not.”

“No way.”

Everyone who had studied history even a little bit would know—the end of a desperate fight for a throne.

“Do you know what’s the easiest way for Count Corcos to take over the Irenberg family?”

It was a question, but I didn’t need to hear Cassion’s answer. Cassion closed his mouth.

“He just has to kill me.”

There were many alternative words such as ‘banish me,’ ‘get rid of me,’ and so on, but I told him brusquely because he could relate to it more easily.

“You can just live, can’t you? If you give it up.”

How naive.

“If there was any chance for me to do so, would I have come to Your Highness?”

Count Corcos was going to sell me off to Dyson to take over the family and eventually framed me to death. Cassion’s face got darker and darker. He finally realized the weight of my proposal.

Cassion, who wrapped himself tightly in his blanket, started to hesitate.

I guess he just realized that my situation was more serious than he thought.

“Should I have appealed for sympathy from the beginning? Like If I don’t marry you, I’ll die?’

I shook my head so that Cassion could not see through my thoughts.

If I suddenly told him about my situation as soon as I met him, I wouldn’t get to have a friendly relationship like this with him. Instead, I would get something like ‘I didn’t care if you die’ in return.

“So what will happen?”

Cassion asked.

What were we talking about? Oh! Laughter! I laughed because I was happy that he was worried about me, but he misunderstood me.

“As you know, I don’t have parents.”

... Uh, I thought I was about to cry.

No matter how adult I was, it was difficult to bring up the story of my late parents.

“So no one really cares about me.”

Aunt Zoe or Janice came to my mind, but they couldn’t fully sympathize with my sadness and pain because the situation and environment they grew up in were clearly different from mine. And they were adults. If I expressed my difficulty, they would try to help me deal with it, but they couldn’t empathize with me.

However, Cassion was different.

His political opponents have oppressed him. I knew the fears when adults with power pointed their blades to attack you.

To a child like me, on top of that.

“Yet Your Highness said he was sincerely worried about me.”

That was pure happiness for me.