You Mean Nothing to Me

One week and two days before Eren left the Ducal residence. Kazen received a request through a lawyer from Aila to meet for an important discussion.

Since their last meeting had not been pleasant, Kazen was not particularly pleased with Aila’s request to talk. The fact that she wanted to meet secretly with a lawyer in tow made it even less appealing.

“Please review this first.”

Sure enough, before the conversation even began, Aila took a single sheet of paper from an envelope and abruptly thrust it toward Kazen.

“What is this?”

Without even pretending to read the paper shoved in front of his face, Kazen asked gruffly.

“You’ll know if you look. You haven’t forgotten how to read already, have you?”

Adjusting her ornate hat, Aila calmly retorted. Her tone was as elegant as ever, but her words were laced with thorns.

Kazen reluctantly lowered his gaze and read the bold letters at the top of the page.

[Breach of Engagement Agreement]

Kazen found the word ‘breach of engagement’ strangely amusing. It was something he had always wanted, yet at the same time, something he had thought would never happen.

“I expected you to demand a divorce after marriage. Did you decide a breach of engagement was better than divorce?”

Kazen muttered, tapping the document with his finger.

Aila’s father was no different from an enemy who had killed Kazen’s father. There was no way Kazen would be happy marrying such a woman. Nevertheless, their marriage was entangled in complex political issues.

Kazen had left it alone because dealing with the repercussions of breaking the engagement was troublesome, and he had assumed the same was true for Aila.

“The reason I agreed to marry you was because there was something to gain. But you broke the terms of the marriage first, so I have decided to end the engagement.”

Kazen thought the best way to describe the concept of marriage was not love but profit and loss. So Aila’s argument was reasonable. What he was curious about was why she had now decided the loss outweighed the gain.

“I’m curious why you think that.”

Aila raised her head and looked at Kazen, her expression blank as if this conversation was incredibly tedious.

The public often praised Kazen’s looks, calling him the ‘Angel of Gehenna.’ But Aila thought differently.

Kazen’s eyes were always dead, devoid of light, and his face showed none of the emotions a human being should naturally possess. He breathed and was alive, but he was no different from a dead man. Aila had always found that chilling.

Yet she had seen a hint of human emotion in him only once. It was when he had been talking about having s*x with some man, whether his aide or his valet.

Naturally, his mother Catherine denied it, but Aila saw the sincerity in his expression. So she had gone to that servant to confirm.

‘So, to repeat, even if you truly are the Duke’s lover, I won’t mind. Are you truly intimate with him?’

‘Yes, that’s correct. I have been intimate with His Grace.’

The frail-looking valet had answered with unexpectedly resolute eyes. Hearing that answer, Aila decided to break the engagement. She didn’t want to share a future with a man whose thoughts she couldn’t fathom.

“If you’re going to spread scandals with a lowly servant and drag my family’s reputation through the mud, I have no obligation to continue this marriage contract.”

At Aila’s cold voice, Kazen sneered. He slapped the breach of engagement agreement with his palm and furrowed his brow.

“That was obviously a joke to irritate Catherine. You believed that? Do I look like someone who would fool around with such an insignificant person?”

“I thought it might not be true, so I confirmed it with that servant myself. I heard a confession from his own lips that he had slept with you. So it was you who broke the terms first.”

Listening to Aila’s clearly and concisely delivered position, Kazen’s eyebrow shot up. In that moment, he showed more emotional agitation than when he had received the breach of engagement agreement.

“What are you saying? So, you’re telling me that Eren said he slept with me?”

“Yes. In any case, I have confirmed the facts, and our deal ends here. I’ve delivered the agreement, so review it with your lawyer and do what you will. Send your response through your lawyer, and I will make it public then. Until then, abide by the confidentiality agreement.”

Having hastily delivered her prepared notice, Aila left quickly, as if she no longer considered it worthwhile to speak with Kazen. But Kazen remained behind, dazedly staring at the document she had left.

“…Slept with him?”

Kazen muttered quietly to himself. He couldn’t believe that Eren had said such a thing to Aila.

Eren must have known that Aila could use that fact as grounds to demand a breach of engagement. Why had he given her such an answer?

“You know how to stir up interesting trouble, Eren.”

Kazen’s mouth twisted crookedly.

Starting with the Harold incident, he had thought Eren’s behavior was suspicious lately, but to cause something like this. Kazen let out a faint smile, thinking about what punishment he should give Eren for this.

* * * *

But after that day, tensions rose between the Kingdom of Felosia and the Espel Empire, and Kazen became busier than he had been in a long time. Between attending parliament and being summoned by the Emperor, he had no time for a proper conversation with Eren.

The Kingdom of Felosia was demanding the return of the Orlando region, territory they had ceded to the Espel Empire as part of the peace treaty. Though Aila had said the reason she demanded the breach of engagement was because of Eren, Kazen thought the political motive was larger.

Felosia had already been intending to go to war with Espel, so they had likely hinted to Aila to break the engagement. In truth, Kazen didn’t care either way. The problem was that the Emperor was trying to shift the responsibility for that war onto Kazen.

‘I would like you to serve as the commander of this battle. You already have experience winning the Battle of Orlando, don’t you?’

‘Your Majesty, please withdraw your request. I am a man with the fate of a house on my shoulders. I already lost the former Duke of Clifford on the battlefield. I cannot repeat such a tragedy.’

Having already grown sick of battlefields, Kazen naturally refused. Harold also opposed Kazen’s participation, but the Emperor’s will was firm.

‘If you don’t like that, then try to mediate by asking Lady Aila. Wasn’t your marriage to the princess included in the terms of the peace treaty? That will be a problem as well.’

Since he was already facing a breach of engagement with Aila, convincing her was impossible. In fact, the Emperor must have also sensed the two of them would break the engagement when he heard Felosia’s demands.

‘If that’s also difficult, there is the option of negotiating with the Kingdom of Felosia using your mage-stone mines.’

‘That’s nonsense, Your Majesty.’

‘Otherwise, war is the only option.’

Thus, while being hounded by the Emperor, Harold had out of the blue gotten drunk, calling Eren’s name as if out of his mind, and when Kazen returned home, Eren smelled of Harold’s perfume.

The thought that the two had been meeting in secret without his knowledge filled Kazen with rage. Already stressed, he had impulsively taken Eren.

When he came to his senses, Eren was quietly crying beneath him. The molten emotions boiling in his gut had suddenly cooled, as if doused with cold water.

Kazen found it hard to understand what he had done. Even as he wiped the fluid clinging to Eren’s thighs and belly, he felt twisted and nauseated.

‘Why am I letting someone so insignificant shake me up like this?’

Eren was always quiet and composed about everything. He quickly absorbed and did well at anything he was told, but that was all. To Kazen, he was not an important person at all.

But at some point, everything about him had started to get under his skin. Thinking back, it probably started the moment Eren had mentioned Harold.

‘Yes, I dropped a plate on the way here and cut my hand while cleaning it up. His Highness, who was beside me at the time, gave it to me.’

Daring to speak to him with a shy face, as if in love, for no reason at all, it made him angry. From that moment on, an unpleasant sensation, as if something was boiling in his gut, had tormented Kazen.

“Your Grace….”

Just then, Eren quietly opened his eyes. His long, black eyelashes, wet with tears, looked terribly heavy.

“I’m sorry….”

Looking into his clear, grass-green eyes, Kazen felt another inexplicable unpleasantness.

“Why are you always sorry about everything? Besides that, isn’t there something else you want to say….”

Pressing his palm to Eren’s dry cheek, Kazen asked, as if demanding an answer. Why was it that Eren could always meet and talk happily with Harold, but with him, he had nothing to say except about work?

“…Pathetic.”

His chest felt tight, and he couldn’t control his emotions. What bothered him most of all was himself, for caring about such things.

“You’re nothing. Such a nuisance.”

Kazen muttered lowly, looking at the sleeping Eren. Unable to understand his own feelings, he was frustrated and on the verge of losing his temper.