ICTGMP 10

Chapter 10

My Male Lead Is Only Allowed to Bully Me. (2)

Time flew whenever I was with Adel, even when we weren’t doing anything in particular. I picked up a pen and tried to follow along with him, but all I managed to do was make him burst out laughing.

He bit his lip as he looked at the drawing I had painstakingly completed.

I had tried my best to look carefully and draw it properly, but the eyes were uneven, the lips were far too small, and the angular jaw was so sharp it looked capable of piercing through a brick wall. The bridge of the nose rose so high it seemed to have no idea where the sky ended.

Overall, something was seriously wrong with it, but I had no idea where to even begin fixing it.

“It really does look like me.”

“You want to die? In what world does this look anything like you?!”

I snapped back at him instead. This was practically an insult to Adel.

We were still arguing because Adel stubbornly insisted on keeping the picture I had drawn when someone knocked on the door. Adel told them to come in, and the head maid opened the door and bowed politely.

“Excuse me. Lady Anastasia, His Grace would like to speak with you for a moment. Would you be willing to meet with him?”

His Grace referred to Friedrich Magnus, the Duke of Magnus. Adel’s father and Anastasia’s father were close friends, so the two families had been acquainted with each other for a long time.

However, after Anastasia was diagnosed with an incurable disease and cut off contact with the ducal household following her falling-out with Adel, the Duke had respected her wishes and never sought her out unless she wanted him to.

But now that I, as Anastasia, had come to the ducal estate of my own accord, there was no reason to refuse.

The Duke was a fairly decent man.

Well, at least when it came to me and Adel.

I readily nodded.

“Sure. Where should I go?”

“His Grace will come here.”

With that, the head maid withdrew. I gave a bright smile to Adel, who was looking at me with a somewhat worried expression.

A short while later, the Duke came to the drawing room. I failed to cover my mouth before it fell open.

Was the person standing in front of me really human?

Friedrich Magnus was such an attractive man that I couldn’t help wondering if Adel would grow up to look like this.

Holy crap. No wonder people liked handsome older men.

I couldn’t take my eyes off his languid face, overflowing with effortless composure.

His neatly slicked-back blond hair and deep blue eyes whose depths were impossible to fathom were the very definition of a handsome man.

On top of that, his sharp eyes, gaze filled with confidence bordering on arrogance, and slender physique were more than enough to captivate me.

Wow. What the—wow…

I couldn’t even form words.

I had thought there was no way I could ever experience another shock like the one I’d felt when I first saw Adel…

Adel rose from his seat.

“Father.”

“Your Grace.”

I started to stand as well, but the Duke stopped me with a gesture.

“No need for formalities. Stay seated.”

The Duke sat across from us. He looked at the two of us, who had been sitting practically shoulder to shoulder, with interest.

Adel cleared his throat and moved slightly farther away from me. As he did so, he secretly slipped the picture I’d drawn into his pocket.

I told you to throw that thing away!

“It’s been a while, Anastasia. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit you often.”

Reluctantly, I looked away.

Ugh. I’ll have to steal it back later.

“How have you been, Your Grace?”

“I’m always the same. But you look more and more pale these days. Still, did something good happen? It’s rather fascinating to see you smiling so brightly with such a pale face.”

The Duke’s rich, resonant voice was downright lethal.

Sometimes, when Adel worried about me with a serious expression, he spoke in a similar tone to his father.

It was enough to make me faint.

His voice was also remarkably clear, so even if he spoke quickly or quietly, I could understand every word without difficulty.

“Of course something good happened. I’m with Adel, after all.”

At my answer, the Duke let out a hollow laugh.

“When I tried to pair you up with Will, you made it painfully obvious that you didn’t like the idea. Then, the moment I stopped interfering, you two became close as if you’d been waiting for it. I knew Adel had practically been living at the count’s estate lately, but… Has my son been treating you well?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t he?”

“He hasn’t upset you?”

“Not at all.”

I answered without hesitation.

“Hmm.”

The Duke suddenly fell silent.

He stared at me for a moment as though contemplating something, then shifted his gaze to Adel.

“Adel, would you mind stepping out for a moment? I’d like to speak with Anastasia alone.”

I tilted my head, but still let Adel leave.

“See you later.”

“Understood.”

Even after the door closed, the Duke remained silent.

He seemed deeply absorbed in his thoughts, so I spoke first.

“Is something troubling you?”

Concern clouded the Duke’s blue eyes.

“If you don’t mind, could you tell me how you feel about Adel?”

I was, after all, someone of lower status than the Duke, yet he spoke to me gently.

It didn’t feel as though he was merely trying to probe the relationship between us.

How did I feel about Adel?

He was the male lead, my friend, and also…

In this short life, where I had been granted barely two more years, he was the only person I could trust enough to let my guard down around.

Sometimes I teased him for being hopelessly rigid, but Adel really was kind.

When I asked him to come find me, he had invested his precious time in me without a moment’s hesitation.

He must have known that it was like pouring water into a bottomless jar…

But when he treated me that gently, I couldn’t help feeling my heart flutter.

“Adel is someone precious to me.”

The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

The Duke stroked his chin.

“That’s a little surprising. Whenever other people talk about Adel, they always describe him as a good and upright person. But you call him someone precious.”

Of course, Adel was kind.

But to me, he wasn’t simply a “good person.”

He could be awkward in certain ways, surprisingly innocent, and even knew how to feel wronged.

He was just an ordinary boy.

The Duke murmured as though he had reached a decision.

“I suppose I can tell you.”

He relaxed his posture. Leaning back against the sofa, he stretched out his legs and sighed.

“That boy lacks a sense of humanity. No, he does make an effort. A tremendous effort, actually. But sometimes he just completely misses the point.”

I could understand that to some extent.

Adel could definitely be a little thickheaded at times.

Rigid, inflexible, and so frustrating that sometimes I wanted to grab him by the collar, yet at the same time he was so cute I wanted to bite him…

Wait, what am I thinking?!

“There is such a thing as taking the lesson of ‘always be a good person’ too far. Having an overly model child can actually be frightening from a parent’s perspective.”

I quietly listened to the Duke.

Even in the novel, the Duke and Duchess had struggled while raising Adel.

He was absurdly well-behaved.

He didn’t cry or throw tantrums.

It might have been convenient for a while, but eventually, it was inevitable that his parents would start wondering whether something was wrong with him.

Being outside the normal range wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

The Duke rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache.

“When Penelope was still with me, I was confident that even if we made mistakes along the way, we’d be able to raise our child well. But now that she’s gone… Honestly, I’m not so sure anymore. He’s only two years away from adulthood, and I still don’t really understand that boy.”

“I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with Adel.”

Adel’s mother, Penelope Magnus, had passed away three years ago.

That was also around the time Anastasia was diagnosed with her incurable disease.

Perhaps Adel’s obsessive insistence on hope was connected to Penelope’s death as well.

Since it was something that had happened in the past in the novel, it had never been explored in much depth, but Adel had been far too young to accept both his mother’s death and the diagnosis of his childhood friend Anastasia.

“…Anastasia. The kindness he shows others is the result of conditioning, and the reason he’s so polite and respectful to everyone is because Penelope and I practically drilled it into his head. We figured that if he was going to become something, it was better for him to be excessively kind than to go around committing murders. Besides, with the wealth of our family, we can clean up almost anything as long as it isn’t treason. And I hate blood.”

I was thoroughly bewildered.

“Adel would commit murder?”

“That was merely an example, but I can’t completely deny the possibility. There was something Adel did in the past… No, perhaps it’s better to keep that a secret for now.”

The Duke abruptly trailed off.

“The reason I’m telling you all this at such length is because I’m a father who worries about his son like any other parent. But I also think you ought to know. Don’t come complaining later that you’ve been deceived.”

It was true that I felt confused.

I had never imagined the Duke thought of Adel that way.

Why?

How?

The Duke knew a version of Adel that I didn’t, and from what I’d read in the novel, he wasn’t someone who judged people carelessly.

He was by no means an easy man to deal with.

And yet he was telling me that, out of concern for his son’s future, he had deliberately raised him to be excessively kind.

“My son is objectively perfect. Kind, compassionate, intelligent. Even his looks are impeccable because he takes after me, so he’s practically flawless. He’d give away his last piece of bread to a beggar standing in front of him even after starving for three days. That’s how I raised him. But artificially cultivated, unconditional nobility isn’t necessarily a blessing. I’ve been involved in politics for twenty years now, haven’t I? From what I’ve observed during that time, people of that sort can cause truly enormous disasters once something snaps inside them.”

“That’s a pretty harsh assessment.”

I couldn’t help muttering.

The Duke gave me a smile that was impossible to read.

“Well, I wouldn’t be a duke otherwise.”

The Duke deliberately gave me time to think, pretending to sip his tea as I gathered my thoughts.

His blue eyes gleamed sharply.

He seemed to be waiting for my answer, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything carelessly.

How was I supposed to process the fact that he had deliberately instilled “goodness” into his son from an early age because he was afraid his child might someday become a cold-blooded psychopath and murderer?

I was certainly bewildered, but I wasn’t particularly offended.

Whatever the case, the Duke was clearly telling me all this out of genuine goodwill.

He truly cared about me.

His method might have been direct and ruthless, but he was giving me an opportunity to remain wary of Adel.

Friedrich Magnus, Duke of Magnus, was a father, a ruthless businessman, and a politician.

There was probably no one better at reading people than him.

I knew he wasn’t doing this to separate me from Adel.

My head throbbed.

This couldn’t be right.

No, I simply couldn’t make sense of it.

How was I supposed to accept this…?