When the Female Lead Went Off-Script, the Main Male Lead Became the Tyrant's Empress - Chapter 35.1
“You seduced men too?”
Haster shot Arden, who had shouted, a contemptuous look.
“Is that all you ever think about?”
“Then what kind of lunatic gives flowers to another man?”
Irritated, Haster roughly seized that particular lunatic by the cheek with one hand.
Right here. Here!
Why did his thoughts jump straight to that?
Haster hadn’t even hit him in the head yet. Had something already gone wrong with his mind?
In one fell swoop, Arden had turned everyone who had ever given flowers to someone of the same sex, including himself, into lunatics.
The Crown Prince pursed and unpursed his lips, which protruded like a duck’s bill, while grumbling something.
Haster released the cheek he had been holding as though tossing it aside.
“……Surely not, but you didn’t send me flowers with that kind of meaning, did you?”
When narrowed eyes filled with suspicion bore into him, Arden laughed.
“Come on, I just sent them as a sign of affection. I’m not interested in men.”
“And you think I am?”
At the murderous voice laced with ice, Arden awkwardly averted his gaze.
“That’s not what I meant……. What I mean is……. If you go around giving people the wrong idea like that, you could get caught up in rumors that you see both men and women, and that could damage the image and reputation you’ve built up all this time.”
Haster sighed at the rambling excuse.
‘Can someone this narrow-minded really govern the country well in the future?’
People tended to see in others what they themselves were. Since Arden went around flirting with people and handing out gifts for that purpose, he apparently assumed everyone else behaved the same way.
“Since you’re here, take this too.”
Ignoring Arden’s incoherent rambling, Haster held out the box sitting on the coffee table.
At the extremely familiar sight of it, Arden’s face heated up again.
“I told you it can’t be returned!”
“I have no intention of accepting it.”
“Just take it! Do you have to embarrass someone who went out of his way for you before you’re satisfied?”
“I don’t like it because it’s tacky!”
“……Excuse me?”
Did I hear that wrong?
But as though delivering the finishing blow, Haster began mercilessly criticizing Arden’s sense of aesthetics.
“There isn’t a single thing I like about it, from the colors to the overall design. Purple with gold embellishments? Am I supposed to dress like some kind of jester? And what in the world is this gaudy embroidery? Anyone would think you tore the silk damask wallpaper off your bedroom wall and pasted it onto the clothes. And why is there a rose-shaped brooch with a ruby on it? Am I accepting a bribe?”
“You said you liked flowers…….”
Cornered, Arden cautiously replied while watching his reaction, and Haster shook his head.
“I do, but I’m not interested in anything except fresh flowers.”
“…….”
“Your aesthetic sense is hopeless.”
Haster delivered the final verdict in the voice of a doctor pronouncing someone deceased.
Arden had attacked him for no reason and gotten his pride thoroughly beaten instead.
Reluctantly, he accepted the box of clothes.
What else could he do when Haster said he didn’t want it?
Rather than seeing it shoved into some corner of the wardrobe and never worn, Arden thought it would be better to simply take it back.
“Wait.”
Haster stopped Arden as he trudged toward the door with his shoulders drooping.
At the sound of Haster calling him, Arden whipped around.
It isn’t to your taste, but you’re still going to keep it because you appreciate the thought?
So you do have a human side after all―
“How did you know my measurements?”
Tch, of course.
Disappointment washed over Arden’s face.
“How do you know whether the measurements fit or not? Did you try it on?”
“It fit so perfectly that it was unpleasant.”
Arden had asked with a sliver of hope, and that was the answer he received.
His mood immediately improved.
Haster might not have liked it, but he had at least tried it on once out of consideration for the person who gave it to him. That was enough.
Haster pressed him again as Arden’s face brightened and darkened like a lamp all on its own.
“Answer me. How did you know my measurements?”
Instead of answering Haster’s demand, Arden gave him a strange, suggestive smile.
“Want to know?”
“……Just leave.”
Haster turned his head away in disgust.
He had a feeling hearing the answer would only make him feel worse.
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