Thank You For The Confinement, Grand Duke! - Chapter 55.2
“Something like… self-defense capabilities, something to better protect itself.”
Enfrise nodded thoughtfully after a moment.
“You’re concerned because of what happened last time.”
“Yes… I mean, I trust the Grand Duke will protect me! And I want to believe it won’t happen again! But you never know with these things.”
It was always too late once something was lost.
Watching the leads in novels, I’ve wondered why they didn’t prepare in advance. Of course, for the story to be thrilling and cathartic, events need to unfold with tension. That was the fun of creative works, but maybe I got too emotionally involved?
They were all beautiful, handsome, smart, skilled in martial arts….
In addition, they sort everything out amongst themselves, these male and female leads. When they didn’t predict and address the cause, it left me feeling frustrated alone.
Naturally, I’ve cheered in admiration when leads were proactive and handled everything adeptly. I respected that every author wrote differently. I wouldn’t trust myself to write like that. It was easy to talk about it, but doing it was another thing.
Still.
I’d rather do something than just trust that Enfrise would handle everything. To prevent it from happening again. To take some action.
Because I was foolish and often failed to predict properly.
“Sure… you’re right. No matter how hard I try, there are things I might not be able to stop. If I had it my way, you would have already….”
He pauses suddenly, cutting off his words.
I thought I knew somehow… what he was thinking right now.
Certainly, Enfrise was a bit… What could I say? He had a dishonest personality. He acted on grand moral principles but then caught himself harboring a bit of selfishness, which he readily exposed… he was the type that sunk into thinking he was a bad person.
Right now, he might be thinking something like that.
Like, maybe he was secretly hoping that this confinement continued, even though he wanted me to be free. He might worry that his own conflicted desires could be slowing things down.
“You know, Grand Duke.”
“Yes?”
“I believe there’s no such thing as perfection in this world.”
Did such a thing even exist?
Something everyone universally loved or universally hated—absolute 1s or perfect 0s—I doubt it, whether it was about emotions or anything else.
“Every person has their flaws, just as every flawed person has their virtues. What one person sees as a strength, another might view as a weakness.”
Even cockroaches fell under this rule. Everyone might think they were disgusting, but I had a friend who’d casually remark, ‘If you look closely, they’re kind of cute.’
Still, it made me think.
Personally, I’ve always liked kelp noodles. I actually preferred it over sashimi. Grandma probably scooped the sashimi onto my brother’s plate with her chopsticks to make sure he ate well, but that just made it easier for me to get to the kelp noodles underneath.
I liked its crunchy and chewy texture.
Once, when I went to a sashimi restaurant with friends, they were all shocked when they saw me going for the kelp noodles under the sashimi. One friend tried to heap more sashimi on my plate, but I kept picking at the kelp.
— “Why are you eating that?!”
— “You should be eating sashimi, not that!”
— “It’s our treat today! Eat as much as you want!”
It took a lot of explaining to convince them that I genuinely enjoyed the kelp noodle. Some didn’t even know it was edible and thought it was just decoration. What I liked to eat could be just a garnish to someone else.
Certainly, life was just like that. Thinking this way, I could understand my friend’s point of view.
“Grand Duke… do you think it’s selfish to want to stay with me for a long time?”
“Uht… well, that’s not—”
“I said before, didn’t I? I’d be happy to stay with you forever. That was true. So, am I also being selfish?”
It was definitely selfish. However, if Enfrise and my interests aligned, could it simply be dismissed as selfishness?
“You can… think that way. Your intentions aren’t impure like mine.”
“Impure intentions?”
Though I couldn’t say it, I really enjoyed this life. The laziness, the idleness every day.
And.
“I enjoyed staying with the Grand Duke that I don’t want to leave.”
‘…The time I spent with you.’
I was even worse than Enfrise. I was exploiting his love for Chaperil, benefitting as someone who was not Chaperil.
“What’s wrong with being a bit selfish? It’s just a thought. You haven’t actually done anything bad to me, right?”
Well, you did something to the original Chaperil. Even if it was to save her, doing it without explanation was wrong.
“…You are…”
As I chuckled, Enfrise tried to say something but was interrupted.
“Ppiriri—! Ppippik! Ppiririri—Ppi!”
It was the sound of Sherry’s cry.
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