I didn’t know how to respond to his question, so I kept my mouth tightly shut.
A sharp question had been thrown at me.
My heart felt like it had been pricked, and my eyelashes quivered slightly. My eyes were wide open in surprise so I knew he could see my trembling.
“Before you ask me, Lady Emilone, please answer first.”
My answer, huh.
What should my answer be?
I found myself hesitating and unconsciously biting down hard on the soft flesh inside my cheek.
“…Alois, what kind of answer do you want?”
“I want your honest answer, Lady Emilone.”
The taste of blood filled my mouth.
An honest answer.
Alois acted as if he already knew what I was going to say.
“Just a few days ago… didn’t we both say we didn’t have those kinds of feelings?”
“We did…”
“Do you think my answer has changed?”
I asked then I realized, ‘Oh no’. It was me who asked Alois first if he loved me.
His question left a mess in my head.
After I spoke, I shut my mouth like a clam and Alois’ eyes narrowed like he was amused.
Somehow, that look made a shiver run down my spine.
“I’ve changed.”
“…”
“It’s not exactly that my feelings have changed… but I’ve gotten my thoughts together. I think I can express them properly now.”
What thoughts was he talking about? Seeing the question in my eyes, Alois stood up.
He accidentally knocked over an inkwell, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Do you care about me?”
“I care about you a lot.”
Alois smiled faintly and took a step closer.
I considered stepping back but decided against it.
I didn’t want to back away right now.
“More than anyone else?”
“More than anyone else, I care about you. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you to suffer.”
I hated seeing people get hurt. But I hated seeing Alois get hurt even more.
I didn’t want him to be in pain.
Of course, I didn’t want anyone to suffer but for Alois, it felt even more unbearable.
“Do you want me to stay by your side?”
“I want you to stay with me. I feel strong when you’re by my side.”
There were no lies.
Thanks to that, saying it out loud wasn’t so hard.
He drew out my answer with a drowsy voice.
“Am I precious to you?”
“You are. Others are precious too, but you even more so. I want you, at least, to be someone who acts for my sake. I want you to move for me.”
His expression softened.
Then, my heart suddenly tightened, and I clenched my empty fist.
I squeezed so hard that my nails dug into the flesh of my palm, but it didn’t really hurt.
Did I love him? What I felt for Alois couldn’t be summed up in such a word.
I realized only now why I couldn’t give a proper answer to the question of whether I loved him.
Because that one word couldn’t possibly convey how I felt about him.
“I want you to hold me when I falter. Even someone like me, someone who must protect others, wants someone to protect me.”
Alois didn’t say anything.
Alois meant a lot to me.
While everyone else looked at me, they saw the Saintess, God’s Blessing, rather than as ‘me’…He was the only one who ever help me up.
“When I act selfishly, when everyone says a Saintess shouldn’t behave that way…I want you to take my side.”
Among all the people who only sought to use me, he was the one who said, use me instead.
“When I’m exhausted, I don’t want someone to just say, well done. I want someone who will come to me and say, that’s enough, rest now.”
And now, he had become someone who moved for me.
I had sworn not to be swayed by petty emotions, but a person’s heart didn’t seem to work so simply.
Because I found myself thinking, if nothing else, I wanted Alois to be someone who stood by me.
“Alois… you once said something to me, didn’t you?”
“…I’m listening.”
He paused quietly to listen to my words.
I still remembered clearly what he had said back then.
“When you’re forced to choose between the one person you love and the lives of many—”
At the time, I thought it had nothing to do with me.
But not anymore.
“You said you would choose the many.”
His brow immediately furrowed. The softened look on his face disappeared in an instant.
My mouth went dry. I swallowed and asked:
“Do you still feel that way?”
Just as he seemed to know the feelings I had hidden away,so too did I know his.
There’s no way Alois didn’t love me.
There’s no way there weren’t personal feelings involved.
Even if those beautiful lips of his denied it.
It didn’t matter. I was certain.
“…The person I love would understand me even if I chose the many.”
I heard him say the same answer as before.
But then, his lips parted slightly, as if there was something more he wanted to say.
“But now that I look at you, I don’t think I could do it.”
“…?”
“I don’t think I could let go of the person I love.”
“…For someone who aims to be king of a nation to say something like that. How worrying.
He shrugged when I said that, like it was a joke.
It might’ve been something trivial, but because of me, Alois had changed his mind.
Because of ‘me’.
That didn’t feel bad at all. I slowly blinked.
Alois stood right in front of me.
“Lady Emilone. Let me ask you again.”
That low voice felt unfamiliar.
“You said you cared about me. That I was precious to you. That you wished I wouldn’t get hurt, and that I wouldn’t fall ill. Those feelings, Lady Emilone—”
“You want me to call them love, right?”
I knew exactly what Alois was going to ask, which is why the words slipped out of my mouth.
“If you want, I can say it as many times as you’d like.”
“…”
“I love you. As many times as you want, I’ll say it.”
I didn’t want to answer his question halfheartedly.
I knew the feelings I had for him, the care I held, were never something ordinary.
So, if I had to sum up these tangled emotions I felt toward Alois in a single word, love was the right one.
“This is the answer you wanted to hear, right?”
“…Yes.”
He replied obediently.
I saw the surprise break across his once-composed face.
After saying it, I felt a weight lift off my chest. My heart pounded loudly. It was a pleasant kind of pounding.
“So now, Alois. I want you to tell me too.”
“Is it okay for me to answer the question of whether I love you?”
Alois wore a slightly complicated expression, but his eyes remained firm. I couldn’t help but touch the back of my neck as I met his unwavering gaze.
“Lady Emilone.”
He lowered his head.
He brought his lips close to my ear, and then, in a voice just loud enough for me to hear, he said—.
* * *
The king held a banquet early in the morning and invited both me and Alois.
Neither of us had gotten much sleep thanks to the never-ending paperwork but we weren’t in a bad mood.
As befitting of a banquet, the king, his daughter, and sons were all present.
Normally I would’ve avoided such a suffocating setting, but today I didn’t.
Among the princes and princesses, I lifted my head to glance at Alois, his striking appearance standing out more than anyone else’s.
The king and the crown prince stared at me intently but I pretended not to notice.
“Lady Emilone?”
Alois called me.
We were the same as usual.
Naturally, nothing had changed.
As expected, a single exchange of words didn’t alter our relationship in any way.
“Would you like to take a walk with me after the meal, if you’re up for it?”
Even in this quiet atmosphere, it was the same.
Among princes and princesses, I had never met before, I spoke to Alois as naturally as always.
He nodded in response.
“Lady Saintess, forgive me but rather than a walk, I’d like to have a word with you—”
Until the throne changed hands, things would surely stay busy.
Which meant I had to return to the temple, and Alois had to deal with the reaccumulated mountain of documents.
So I decided to take a short break after the meal with a walk but the crown prince spoke urgently.
“There’s something I’d like to speak with you about. If you could spare a moment of your time.”
The other princes and princesses looked at the crown prince with thinly veiled contempt.
I remembered how Alois had once referred to the prince as the king’s puppet.
Watching him try so hard to speak while glancing at the king made him almost pitiful.
“Your Highness, I believe I just made an appointment with Alois just now?”
“…Well, yes, that is true, but… that’s—.”
“Crown Prince, do not talk back to the Saintess.”
The king cut him off.
Though his expression was indifferent, he looked very uncomfortable.
I had been about to shut the prince down properly if he tried to talk back again but the king’s interruption made me close my mouth instead.
Thanks to that, silence descended again.
Despite so many royals gathered in one place, the only sounds were that cutlery clanging against dishes.
In the end, I quickly finished my meal and slipped out of the hall with Alois.
I sneered quietly at the king’s barely concealed displeasure.
I stepped forward, letting the cool breeze wash over me.
As I walked side by side with Alois down the neatly kept garden paths of the royal palace, my thoughts returned to the king’s face.
Just thinking about it soured my mood and made me clench my fists.
The sting reminded me, and I quickly relaxed my hands.
I looked down at the wound I had gotten yesterday from clenching too hard.
Not wanting Alois to notice, I quickly hid my hand behind my back.
“The king is unpleasant to see, no matter how many times I see him.”
“Because my father is wary of you, Your Holiness.”
That was what made it uncomfortable.
I hoped I’d never have to share a table with that king again.
“Come to think of it, you asked me something yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Hmm?”
“You asked why I wanted to be king.”
“…Ah.”
I asked him that in passing yesterday, while looking over the piles of paperwork.
Didn’t he already tell me before why he wanted to become king?
“Well, now that I think about it again, it’s because I want power. I want to shape this country more to my liking.”
I remembered those words.
I had never forgot any of Alois’s words.
I stepped on a small pebble with the tip of my shoe and gave it a gentle kick. The stone rolled off the path and tumbled over the grass.
“And now, I have a new reason for wanting to be king.”
I turned my head.
A faint smile spread across his face.
I liked that expression. That confident face.
I didn’t know exactly what he was going to say next but I was sure it wasn’t going to be something bad.
*.*.*
- Honey, I’m Going on Strike – Chapters 47 – 49 - November 22, 2025
- Honey, I’m Going on Strike – Chapter 44-46 - November 14, 2025
- Honey, I’m Going on Strike – Chapters 42-43 - November 8, 2025
cuteee
thanks for the chapter!