My Child's Father is The Emperor - Chapter 7.2
“Let Leo and me out of the palace.”
When Adele said those words, Van did not show any emotion, but he felt a stifling shock, like the floor was being pulled out from under her feet.
He didn’t know how to react.
“I don’t remember what you said.”
Adele sobbed, telling me what she’d said, while she shouted in embarrassment and anger.
But both what he heard and what he said was a blur. He only remembered that she asked him to let her go.
Since leaving that room, he had been in this state all along.
Van glanced at the clock.
One in the morning. Adele should be asleep.
Van headed for Adele’s room.
He couldn’t express how happy he was to Adele and Leo back at the palace, his home, after only seeing them for one night at the battlefield. But today, he was anxious as he made his way to the room.
Van snuck out onto the terrace.
Opening the window silently, he entered. Adele was sleeping on the bed.
Van traced Adele’s dry lips with his fingers.
‘Didn’t she even drink water?’
He gently stroked Adele’s hair.
Lying down beside her, he pulled her small body into his embrace.
Her sweet scent reached his nose.
What would normally have been a good feeling weighed heavily on me as I begged her to leave.
“Van?”
There was no strength in Adele’s voice as she called out to him.
“Adele.”
Van lifted himself while still holding Adele.
He poured water from a bottle on the bedside table and held it to her mouth.
She thought she was dreaming, but she drank the water obediently as he offered it.
‘Maybe I should feed her some soup. Maybe fruit would be better?’
Van was lost in his thoughts.
“Van.”
Adele pushed him away while sitting up.
Van moved away from Adele due to the chill.
“Why do you seem so tired today?”
Van, concealing his surprise, treated Adele as usual.
“Van.”
Seeing Adele in a sunken state made Van strangely uneasy.
“Don’t come into my dreams anymore.”
“What?”
Van opened his eyes wide.
“Why? What’s the reason?”
Then it happened.
Adele reached out and gently touched his cheek.
Adele looked at him with deep eyes and smiled softly.
“Van, I love you.”
His heart pounded heavily.
It was the heart that had been taken by Adele long ago. Now, the test was on the stand to determine who the owner of that heart was.
He ran to Adele.
As it had been from the beginning.
“But not anymore.”
Van was shocked by the unexpected words.
“The person I love is you, not the Emperor.”
“He and I are the same person.”
“No, I’ve been wondering why you appeared in my dreams until now.”
“Why would you think that…”
“It was an escape from reality.”
Adele smiled sadly.
“I guess I wanted to be loved by Van.”
“I love you, Adele.”
Adele chuckled softly.
“That’s why Van was nice. You only said what I wanted to hear.”
Adele, who had risen, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead against his.
Then the nose. And the lips.
Lips that touched gently began to nibble softly.
Van was enchanted.
“Just a little more.”
Pulling Adele’s small head closer with one hand, Van breathed more deeply.
It was dizzyingly sweet.
The kiss that began with soft lips heated up the inside of the mouth.
Van moaned at the sensation.
The feral beast he’d barely suppressed threatened to wake up inside him.
“No, no more.”
Before he knew it, Adele was lying disheveled on the bed.
Half breathing raggedly.
Pressing Adele’s wrists, he looked down at her.
“It’s the last kiss.”
Tears gathered in Adele’s eyes.
“I can’t love you anymore, Van.”
Van stiffened.
“What does that mean?”
“I won’t dream of you anymore.”
Adele was bidding farewell to herself.
“Adele, I lived because of you.”
Van wanted to cry.
“Didn’t you make me live?”
“I knew who you really were, and that’s enough.”
Adele laughed while crying.
“The Emperor… That person shouldn’t be in my dreams.”
Seeing her like that shattered Van inside.
“I never want to see you in my dreams again.”
Adele sobbed violently.
“Uhu, huhuhu.”
Van’s strength drained from his hands, and his grip loosened.
As Adele’s wrists were freed, she covered her face with both hands and cried.
“Adele.”
“Don’t call my name! Get out of my dream!”
Adele cried for a while and then fell asleep as if exhausted.
Van’s mind went blank.
He barely covered Adele with a blanket and left the room.
The dimly lit palace corridors twisted and turned.
“Yo-Your Imperial Majesty.”
“Your Imperial Majesty.”
The guards, guarding Adele’s hallway, saw him and bowed with surprised faces.
No one should know what Adele was to him.
Van crossed the window and entered Adele’s room. But now the shock was so great that he even forgot that he shouldn’t come out through the door.
She was the first woman he felt something for, the first woman who moved his heart.
“Now I can’t love you anymore, Van.”
So losing that affection was also a first.
Those emotions existed within him.
Van felt as if that place had been torn apart, so painful that he felt like dying.
“… Adele doesn’t love me.”
