CHAPTER 09
At those words, Filiatus asked back with a bewildered face.
“How should I do that…?”
Areias smiled and closed his eyes deeply.
“You have to love me.”
Filiatus was speechless at that answer. His lips parted slightly, but still no words came out.
……love?
‘I have to love you?’
That wasn’t something I could control, was it? It was a feeling I’d never experienced or felt before. The unfamiliar word settled quietly in my heart.
“I… don’t know how to do that…?”
Filiatus muttered with a very absurd and bewildered look on his face.
“You don’t know what love is? That’s ridiculous, Your Highness.”
‘Then what was it if not love that we shared all this time?!’
“You seem like a broken person. How could you not know what love is—”
It wasn’t just because it was easy to cheat, or because I couldn’t be bothered to break up, that I made excuses.
Philiatus had never truly felt love in his entire life.
I didn’t understand what it meant to feel excited when thinking of someone, what it meant to feel a heartache when thinking of someone, what it meant to be able to sacrifice for someone, what it meant to desperately want to receive someone’s love, what it meant to give even just a little—all of it.
“…….”
Areias didn’t laugh at those words. Rather, he seemed to have expected them, neither resenting them nor looking at them strangely like the others.
He just nodded quietly with an apologetic and sad expression.
“I know.”
At those short words, Philiatus asked back with an even more bewildered expression.
“……You know?”
Areias added, still looking at him with sunken eyes.
“Nevertheless, you must love me. Only then can you break the curse.”
At those words, Philiatus began to slowly back away, now overcome by an instinctive fear.
Areias grabbed Filiatus’ wrist as he retreated as if running away.
“……Ah, it hurts!”
Filiatus was flustered and tried to push him away, but Areias did not let go of his hand and just stared blankly at him.
Then he carefully lifted the back of Philiatus’ hand and kissed it gently.
“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault that you ended up like this.”
I couldn’t understand what he was saying. What was it my fault?
“But still love me, Philiatus.”
At those words, Filiatus’s ears somehow felt hot.
I don’t think this feeling is excitement. It’s just the feeling of his lips touching my hand, the same lips that explored every part of my body last night, that makes my body feel faintly hot, as if leaving a lingering heat on my skin.
“……Anyway, if I love you, my curse will be lifted, and that damned heat cycle won’t happen again, right? I’ll go back to being a normal human again?”
Areias, who had been lost in thought, slowly raised his head at Filiatus’ question.
“Do you want to go back that much?”
“of course!”
Philiatus shouted almost immediately.
At those words, Areias tilted his head and asked back.
“That’s strange. You seemed to be enjoying it.”
“……Who enjoys it? No matter how much I like that, I like doing it of my own free will.”
As Filiatus waved his hands and got angry, Areias asked quietly.
“So you didn’t like it last night?”
Filiatus couldn’t answer those words. He just muttered to himself.
‘… … It was so good that it ended well. That’s why it’s more of a problem… … .’
But as if his intentions had been discovered, Areias leisurely extended his hand.
He began to slowly, almost blatantly, caress each of Filiatus’s fingers. As if he knew the tenderness of the flesh between his fingers, he slowly intertwined them, savoring the sensation.
Then he gently pulled Philiatus towards him and whispered in a low, affectionate voice.
“I think it ended well. Why don’t we forget about the curse and all that for a moment and just enjoy it?”
At those words, Filiatus’s gaze wavered for a moment. He wanted to shout, “No,” that was nonsense. But the hot air flowing down his neck, the feeling of a large hand encircling his fingers—strangely familiar, and pleasant.
As if he noticed that Filiatus’ thin ears were fluttering, Areias whispered in his ear in a very low and sly voice.
“I will give you the greatest ecstasy every night. Come to me every night, Philiatus, even if you don’t love me.”
The moment the man’s soft voice lingered in his ears, Filiatus slowly lowered his head, as if the last remaining thread of pride had been loosened by a ticklish touch.
‘Yeah, well… … It’s a curse, it’s fate, so thinking about it won’t lead to a conclusion. In the end, he said that to escape this curse, I have to love this man… … If I keep coming every night… … Well, maybe I’ll end up loving him.’
Repeating a self-justification that seemed almost like an excuse even to himself, Filiatus slowly leaned against Areias.
As his fingertips touched his waist again, Filiatus took a shallow breath, and Areias, as if he hadn’t missed the sound of his breath, gently embraced him.
The moment their lips met, the moonlight seeping through the bathroom shattered onto the water’s surface.
The warmth and body temperature that had dissipated in the water once again spread through each other’s skin, slowly and gradually, like gently swaying waves.
Philiatus wanted to remember this night as a moment unrelated to the curse.
Just at this moment, under Areias’s hand—Piliatus was once again crumbling under his own will.
That night.
Areias quietly looked at Filiatus, who was fast asleep in his arms, and carefully ran his fingertips through his hair.
A sleeping face, even the breath is still.
Areias, who had been caressing Filiatus’s forehead, almost touching it, carefully wrapped him in a thin cloth. Then, he gently lifted him up and walked towards his room.
After carefully laying him down on the bed, Areias looked down at Filiatus without saying a word.
‘You have to love me.’
‘I… I don’t know how to do that… ?’
Areias recalled an old memory, thinking about what Philiatus had said to him a moment ago.
“He was struck by a silver arrow that could never love, so he will never know how to love in this life. There’s no way my silver arrow could be defeated by mere human emotions. Go ahead and suffer, Areias!”
These were the words of Enoch, son of Benoit, Cupid, and the god of love. So, the reason Philiatus couldn’t love anyone now was because of himself.
After gazing at Philiatus for a long time, he remembered a different memory.
Before he reached his current state, he was stripped of all his divine powers and imprisoned in the abyss as punishment. It was the god of mischief who came to find him.
“Isn’t it interesting, Areias? That the child you caused to commit fratricide has been reincarnated as a human.”
‘… …so what?’
“The gods are bored. I made a bet with you and that child’s fate. Will you fall in love in this life? Or will you ultimately be separated?”
When Areias heard those words, he felt an indescribable rage. How dare he use his love, his child, as a bet just because he was bored.
But that anger was short-lived.
The mere fact that the child was reincarnated made Areias willing to throw himself into the gods’ wager.
There is only one reason.
Because I never wanted to lose him again.
Those eyes, those hands, that voice. If I could see that child, that Philiatus, again, I didn’t care how much I got caught up in the gods’ game.
At that moment, the god of mischief smiled slyly and said.
“You have exactly one year, Areias. If you don’t win that child’s heart, you will never be able to emerge from the abyss. This is your last chance. If you win that child’s sincerity… …I will grant you a life with that human. A life by his side, a life you have longed for so desperately.”
