The Reason for Marriage

“Your Majesty.”

It was too heavy to talk about this kind of thing on his birthday. After all, even at this moment, he was thinking about the Amethan Kingdom while he was eating dinner and drinking.

She got up impulsively and pulled Daniel’s hand, which looked somewhat vain. It was an instinctive choice.

Still, since she was ten, she ate cookies with Anriq on every birthday and she drank with her colleagues after entering the Bureau of Investigation. She felt lonely if she thought she would spend her birthday alone again.

For her birthday, she wanted to make the day a little more enjoyable for this man, rather than making him smile like this. It was her price for the little heart he showed her. She had even heard that he was afraid of the throne, but there was no reason why she could not comfort him just because he was a King.

She grabbed his hand to celebrate his real birthday when no one can be there now. Daniel looked at her with her slightly startled eyes.

“The salaries of affiliated organizations are quite high. I will buy you a present.”

“What?”

“I’m going to the general store at the top of the door. The things there come with a warranty, so it goes halfway.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want anything…”

“You must have missed your school days, but I will buy you a pen that students use a lot. Please use it when paying. Last time I saw you borrowed it from an escort.”

As she dragged him along the streets of Amenity at her momentary impulse, she felt an itch in the depths of her heart at the warmth of his hands wrapped around her hand. Oh, was it okay to hold the King’s hand carelessly first? But he did not seem to hate it. It was nice to have compassion for the King who suddenly became alone. She wanted to be nice to him.

As if possessed, Iveca went to the general store at the top of the street, then chose a pen that was a little on the cheap side. She said that she would engrave the gift giver’s name, so she said, “E. From J.” Daniel grinned, took the pen she gave him and put it into the palm of his hand. Three days later, incomparable gifts would overflow before him, but Daniel liked hers the most, even if it was a small gift to him.

“I’ll use it well, thank you.”

It was still light. Iveca felt strange. In the sunset light, Lake Menata sparkled and gleamed, and the people of Amenity were having a peaceful evening. In the distance, the royal palace was wrapped in a magic sphere and shone like a dream.

Iveca looked up at Daniel, who was smiling like a picture. Suddenly she remembered how she felt when he was sitting alone in a bar in a college town, and his heart was depressed. Iveca thought for a moment as she looked at Daniel’s profile while she was looking out over the lake at sunset.

He was always smiling sweetly and kindly, but… she knew the sort of meaningless smile that was scattered among all kinds of aristocrats.

“Eve.”

“What?”

“Why do you look like that?”

“…Look like what?”

“It’s like looking in a mirror.”

Maybe it was because she was wearing thick glasses under her ruffled hood, so Daniel felt a lot closer than usual. She laughed and joked about it.

“Well, you must be as pretty as they say then.”

Daniel said nothing, so Iveca continued.

“Now… are you okay? Being alone.”

“Well, in fact, I am used to it.”

“…Pardon?”

“One day, my mother passed away in the hands of the concubine.”

Iveca could not bear to connect the words. It was a fact that the entire nation knew that Daniel’s biological mother and Queen Suzanna drowned in the scheme of Testy, the concubine of the King.

“I was willing to risk my life to help my older brother, William, but… my dearest sister killed my older brother.”

It was a royal business, so it was just finished as a topic of discussion, but Daniel was the only one standing in his place in the storm. She realized how lonely he would be as he spoke so tenderly that she could not say anything.

“One of the three brothers is dead, one is far away, and one is in captivity. The first older brother, who never even questioned his personality, was a cruel person who had no compassion for the weak, the second older brother, who always spoke of his distant ideals, was a poor person who could not even protect the woman he loved, and the younger sister who he thought was the closest and resembled him was also a human, who met a clever man who deceived her to kill. I’m used to being alone. Maybe it’s because I don’t like it, and I miss Kaiden and Rezen, who know what I was like when I was in school when I did not have any worries. The moment William died, and I needed to enter the battle for the throne, I knew I would be lonely too.”