The Twin Sibling’s New Life

With a pale complexion, I shook my head while holding the emperor’s clothes. I lowered my eyes to the floor and I tried to get out of his arms.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty the Emperor. Please don’t send us to Derolina Castle. Yes?”

It was a place where I promised Argen that we would never go back to. Going there was like falling into a maze where we couldn’t come out of again.

“Arien, first calm down…..”

The emperor first put me and Argen down on the bed and swept my cheeks with his big hands, but I couldn’t calm down. I could feel his embarrassment.

“You’re going to send us back to Derolina castle. I don’t like that. I’ll obediently do what your Majesty tells me to do. I’ll do everything your Majesty wants me to do, so….. please just don’t send me there.”

When I couldn’t hear the answer I wanted, I drop to the level of pleading. Others don’t dare understand. They wouldn’t understand the pain of having to go back to that castle and looking at the place where we lived still intact.

It seemed that Lulahel would come back to life right away. The memory of wandering around with an empty stomach came to my mind vividly. When the emperor was about to say something, Argen suddenly caught me.

“Arien!”

Argen rocked my shoulders and shook his head while looking at me. My opponent was the Emperor. The master of this empire, not anyone else.

I meant calm down.

I had to slowly loosen my hands on the clothes I was holding on to like a rope. As soon as I was about to relax my hand and drop my arm, the emperor grabbed me by the wrist.

“…….. I won’t take you to Derolina castle.”

“……..”

“I didn’t mean to go there to make you suffer.”

The emperor distorted his face. A shadow fell over my head when he slightly bent his waist as if to match my gaze.

“……. I wasn’t considerate, I’m sorry.”

“…….”

“……. Don’t say that now.”

Argen held my other hand tightly and pulled me straight. Instead of the expression that told me to calm down, he narrowed his forehead and emphasized each letter with a crumpled face.

“When did you ever think about us… why are you saying that?”

“…… After you came to Imperial Palace, I tried to make everything as comfortable as possible.”

“…… You’ve been ignoring our opinions every time and doing whatever you wanted….. I’m not happy to hear that now.”

Rather, it was a situation where I had to stop Argen. It didn’t matter who the opponent was, when Argen started expressing his emotions contained inside, I wouldn’t be able to stop him for a while.

He wasn’t like this before, but it was so tightly packed that it was pouring out like a dam had burst.

I was glad that Argen released his feelings because he was usually so serious and cold in general. However, the problem was that he didn’t care about whoever the opponent was.

Even in front of the emperor and the first prince, he complained without hesitation about the pain we felt.

….. This was actually a plea.

Argen doesn’t express pain, sadness, or distress. However, Argen was only a five-year-old child who lived the same life as me.

It was like a plea to someone who didn’t know.

It was the same this time. It was clear that if the emperor hit us… Argen would take my hand and somehow leave this imperial palace.

I was also going to follow Argen. It’s stupid and reckless, but in this place where the wound will only carry on…….It was obvious that we’d want to get out of here as soon as possible.

On the contrary, the Emperor…

What if……

What if in the end…

“You didn’t come to us even when we were at Derolina Castle. Why do you think Arien and I are small? It’s because we never had a proper meal before……”

The Emperor really did understand our pain…….

“You ask us why there were so many wounds?….. Here every time… Every time……”

If he apologizes just once.

“How much pain we felt…… How painful it was every time those scars were engraved on our bodies…..Do you know how hurt Arien was?”

Even a father who has never been seen since we were born again…..

Wouldn’t the resentment towards him clattering down on our hearts melt a little?

I couldn’t turn a blind eye to this faint hope.

“Don’t pretend to be nice to us now…! When we were really hurt, when we called for you to come, you never came…..! ….. Please, please, Your Majesty……..”

The emperor’s face was not visible. Looking up at him, I couldn’t say anything for a moment so I didn’t notice Argen swaying back.

Those were things I couldn’t say. It was the emotion that my other half expressed for me. Each and every one was precious.

“…….”

“You left us behind, but don’t do that……Don’t make us feel attached to you……Because you’re going to turn your back on us later anyway. You’re going to throw us away when you don’t need us like you did when we were born……”

While muttering quietly, my dark eyes gradually became painful. I’m not gonna cry, I’m gonna…..

Why am I so…..

Eventually, I buried my face on Argen’s shoulders and wiped away the tears.

“…… Is it because we’re not pure blood? Or because we’re not growing as fast as the other princes? Is it because we’re poor learners and we’re not particularly useful?”

“…….”

“So is that why you abandoned us?”

“Stop…”

I didn’t want to cry, but I was just so sad. The pain, the sorrow, and the unknown ache that came to me pierced my heart.

The emperor, who had been away for a while, reached out and hugged us both in his arms. I was on the verge of trying to push back the warmth.

“……I didn’t mean to do that.”

And the words I heard were enough to stop me and Argen. It was a sweet and shaky voice that seemed to be in pain so I grasped the emperor’s clothes with my trembling fingers.

The emperor’s body also shook.

“….. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I’ll be by your side as much as I can unlike back then…. I’ll do much more than when I failed you.”

“…….”

“There are so many things that I don’t know about you yet….. I’m just trying to get to know you, but I’m just not good enough, so….. I hurt you.”

This sort of affection was always a problem when it is so warm. It was always this slight warmth that melted my frozen heart.

like an aftermath, that same frozen water kept flowing down from my eyes. I was so scared earlier that I was crying, and I was so ashamed that I squeezed my eyes to his shoulder.

“I came to see you too late…..”

Tears that I haven’t shed since I was young came pouring out. I had never been hugged by someone so tenderly, so one part of me felt painfully sad.

“Because I couldn’t be with you when you were hurt….. Because I couldn’t help you at that time…….”

I felt like the tears would keep coming, so I bowed my head and trembled without saying anything.

“……I’m sorry.”

I really missed this kind embrace and cried a lot when I was younger.

I wasn’t really relieved by this.

To begin with, this was the first sincere ‘apology,’ we received.

******

Because of those words…..

I passed out as if I was falling asleep, but when I woke up in the morning, this was the situation.

I tried shaking Argen, but the moment the emperor looked back at me, I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep like ‘the Rose of Sharon blossoms again’. (T/N: ‘The Rose of Sharon Blooms Again’ is famous novel published in korea)

‘Argen, Argen.’

When I woke up, I could understand that I was on the emperor’s bed.

If I recalled yesterday’s events, I can guess why we are staying in the emperor’s bedroom. But the problem was something else.

The emperor decided to set up his office in the room and was watching us from over there.

When I remembered yesterday’s scene, I was embarrassed and I thought it would be nice to suffocate myself with my face in the blanket, but Argen woke up groaning and tapping on his back like an old man.

He usually sleeps as if he was dead so I just opened my eyes and wondered why he woke up like that today. It already seemed useless to grab the hem of Argen’s clothes and try to pull him down.

The emperor’s green eyes were pointing this way.

As soon as I made eye contact with him, I straightened my spine. I don’t have the slightest desire to call him my father.…..But….. Still, since he apologized yesterday so……Unlike before, I didn’t want to turn away with unpleasant feelings.

Only my eyes were moving and eagerly avoiding his gaze, but Argen didn’t come to his senses so I had to suffer the mental exertion.

I knew that Argen’s body has become more tired than usual these days, but I thought it was gone when he manifested, however, it didn’t seem to be the case.

Argen grabbed his back and pressed his temple, but as soon as he made eye contact with me, who was sitting still without raising my upper body, He opened his arms and embraced me.

“Arien.”

It was me who was frightened by the situation. While he was lying face down on the bed, I slapped his back with my hands and called his name inwardly with my eyes wide open.

‘Argen, the emperor is behind you!

Fortunately, the word emperor had a great effect. The aftermath of the kidnapping and assassination yesterday was huge, but unlike yesterday, Argen was overflowing with a refreshing energy.

Of course, Argen was as stiff as I was after looking back at the emperor. When he turned his neck and looked down at me like a robot, he looked relieved rather than embarrassed or anxious.

I could tell how he felt with that expression.

When I opened my eyes again, I wondered if it was Derolina Castle. It seemed like a long time ago, but it was a place where I couldn’t sleep because I was anxious every day. It was such a fearful and frightening place for us. I didn’t want to dream about it…..

I grabbed Argen’s chubby cheeks, which didn’t disappear even when he turned five years old, out of sight from the emperor and pulled it straight.

It was an action telling him not to lose his mind and come down from above me first, so Argen carefully raised himself when he understood it.

The emperor’s gaze was still upon us.

The slightly wrinkled forehead I saw yesterday and the passionate feeling when he apologized was nowhere to be found, instead it was the same calm expression as usual.

No. It was a little different from usual.

The corners of his mouth seemed to have drawn an arch and…..The corners of his eyes were a little curved.

Suddenly, he put down the pen in his hand and lifted his chin. He observed me and Argen who were sitting side by side on the bed.