The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 34

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride, Episode 34

An hour had passed since Lia forcibly locked Lucian and Kaizar in the room together. The two of them sat as far apart as possible.
At first, wounded feelings had kept them distant, but as time dragged on, the situation grew tedious and suffocating—their skin itched with restlessness.
So they stole glances at each other, gauging how to break the silence. Then, in an instant, their eyes met.
But the moment their gazes connected, both started visibly and turned away. Yet it didn’t last long.
Kaizar spoke first.
“……Why are you staring.”
“……I’m not staring. You’re the one staring.”
Neither spoke gently, and both felt their pride wounded anew. They turned away with sullen expressions.
“If you’d just been nicer with your words from the start, none of this would’ve happened.”
“What? Are you saying this is my fault?”
“Yes! Do you think I enjoy being insulted every time? I wasn’t asking for much!”
During their lessons, Lucian had spoken to Kaizar once after holding his tongue for so long.
He didn’t even ask for praise—just to not speak in a way that hurt.
Kaizar had felt a pang then, and with the thought that he needed to keep his distance from Lucian, he’d often spoken even more harshly than necessary.
Struck by conscience, Kaizar pouted his lips. And he voiced his own grievance.
“Why don’t you call me by name anymore?”
“……What?”
“You used to call me ‘brother.’ Why do you just call me Kaizar now?”
Kaizar too had preferred it when Lucian called him ‘brother.’
It felt like having an adorable younger sibling, and it felt more intimate.
But now that Lucian called him by his name so stiffly, as if they were strangers, it hurt.
Kaizar, muttering to himself, glanced sideways at Lucian. And suddenly he froze.
Lucian’s face was scrunched up, on the verge of anger.
“Who started this anyway…….”
“…….”
“You said first that I was nothing! So why should I call you ‘brother’!”
“No, I…….”
Kaizar couldn’t finish. Tears began to drip from Lucian’s eyes, and he started to sob.
“I’m sorry. You weren’t there when I was hurting, you only said cruel things, and you called me your sibling but then said I was nothing at all!”
Lucian unleashed his hurt, unable to hold back anymore.
“Waaah! I hate Kaizar more than anything in the world!”
Kaizar had seen Lucian cry a few times before, but never quite so miserably as this.
The fact that it was his own doing made Kaizar feel utterly helpless.
Waaah!
As Lucian stood there, sobbing with his whole body, Kaizar crept cautiously toward him.
As he drew near, Lucian’s tear-stained face hardened into a glare.
“You’re terrible!”
“……I’m sorry.”
“Stupid idiot!”
“……I’m sorry.”
“Stupid lizard!”
“Ow…… Yeah, I was wrong.”
Uuuu-
Lucian clamped his mouth shut and glared at Kaizar with all his might, but fresh tears burst forth.
Kaizar awkwardly patted Lucian’s back, then pulled him into an embrace and sat down on the sofa. Lucian struggled against him, writhing.
“Let go! I don’t need a dragon who hates me!”
“I said I was sorry…….”
“If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done something to be sorry for!”
You’re right about all of it.
Kaizar regretted his own stubborn pride. Why had he tried so hard to keep his distance if he was only going to crumble at Lucian’s tears?
“Why did you do that to me.”
“…….”
When Lucian looked up with tear-filled golden eyes, Kaizar’s lips trembled.
“Because I was afraid I’d hurt you again…….”
Lucian kept his eyes fixed on Kaizar, the tension still there.
Kaizar struggled through his words painfully.
“I was terrified I might kill you again. ……You’re so fragile, and with just a single gesture from me, you could die.”
The mind-bending madness that had seized him then was gone now, but he feared the same thing might happen again.
“I thought cutting off my feelings before they grew too deep was the answer.”
“Then why did you stay instead of just leaving.”
“……Yeah, why did I.”
At his hollow response, Lucian’s lips softened slightly.
“I’m scared too, you know. That’s only the second scariest thing I’ve ever felt.”
“What was the first?”
“……When I first came here.”
When he realized he’d truly been abandoned by the family he’d waited for so long, he felt despair and terror for the first time.
Walking through an endless dark tunnel, a single beam of light appeared—and that was Lia.
“Even now, whenever I think of the basement, my heart pounds, and whenever you act scary, it all comes back to me.”
Kaizar flinched, his face hardening.
“So maybe me keeping my distance was the right thing…….”
“But more than that, what scares me most is that you said I was nothing.”
At Lucian’s next words, Kaizar’s mouth fell open. Lucian’s eyes glistened with fresh tears as he wiped them.
“……I don’t want to drift apart from you.”
Lucian’s words pierced Kaizar’s heart. His own eyes reddened.
Kaizar pulled Lucian close.
“I want to go back to the way things were too.”
“……Am I really nothing to you?”
“Of course not. You’re the first human I ever cared about.”
“And you’re the first dragon I ever cared about.”
Lucian held Kaizar tight against his back. At the faint sound of his heartbeat and the warmth of his body, Kaizar finally shed tears.
Perhaps his cruelty toward Lucian, his careless words, had been his unconscious plea to be seen.
He didn’t want to be hated, yet he had to be—so that Lucian would be safe.
When Lucian felt the wetness against his hair, he lifted his head with a sniff. Kaizar was crying.
Lucian was startled, then giggled.
“Hehe, crybaby.”
“……You’re one to talk.”
They pouted at each other, then burst into laughter.
Soon after, they talked freely, pouring out all the hurt they’d felt and all the things they’d wanted to say.
Time passed unnoticed as they spoke.
Three hours later, Lia came upstairs with dinner prepared, checking on Kaizar and Lucian.
She released the barrier and carefully entered the room.
At first she saw no one, but when she went around to the front of the sofa, she found them.
Lia laughed.
[My, acting like sworn enemies, and now this.]
Kaizar lay stretched across the sofa, with Lucian sprawled on top of him, both fast asleep.
The tear tracks and reddened eyes made it clear they’d had a genuine conversation.
With a satisfied smile, Lia remembered something and headed to her own room.
She returned with parchment and pencil, and sketched the sleeping pair.
Years later, when Lucian and Kaizar saw this drawing, they would laugh at each other’s tears and cherish the memory.
But that was still a distant future.

* * *

Two weeks had passed since Lucian and Kaizar reconciled.
In that time, James stopped by the Mansion again to deliver supplies. The three of them seized the opportunity to conduct an experiment with him.
Whether eating food made by Lia would let him see her.
‘Mmm, this cookie is good. Did you buy it in the village? Which shop is it from?’
The result: he couldn’t see Lia.
Though he walked past him several times while he ate, he didn’t blink once.
It seemed the condition for seeing her wasn’t merely eating her food.
It had already been about four months since Lucian arrived here. And it was exactly one month since Kaizar had come to stay.
Kaizar was a Hatchling who hadn’t yet undergone the Adult Dragon Ceremony.
The maximum time a Hatchling could spend in the human world without a guardian was one month.
Knowing he had to say goodbye to Kaizar, Lucian hadn’t left his side since morning.
[Lucian, stop it now and come down. Kaizar has to leave.]
“……I don’t want to.”
[If you keep this up, it’ll be hard on Kaizar too.]
“I can use magic. It’s not heavy.”
Lucian whined and clung to Kaizar like a cicada on a branch.
Unlike the perplexed Lia, Kaizar smiled.
“You don’t want me to go?”
“…….”
Wordless, Lucian nodded.
For Lucian, experiencing separation from someone he cared about for the first time was utterly difficult.
Kaizar understood his feelings well. It was deeply gratifying, but time wasn’t infinite.
If he didn’t leave today, his parents would forcibly summon him.
Kaizar patted the arms around his neck and lowered Lucian down.
Lucian was fighting back tears.
Kaizar bent to meet his eye level.
“I’ll come back. This isn’t goodbye forever.”
“But it’ll be so long. Lia said so. You only come once every four or five years…….”
“That’s just how Lia sees it. I’ll come back in one year. Okay?”
“……One year is still too long.”
As Lucian grabbed Kaizar’s clothes again and whimpered, Lia moved behind him and patted his shoulder.
“I’ll come as soon as I can. Just wait five years. Once I become an Adult Dragon, I can come whenever I want.”
“You’ll really come within five years?”
“Of course! I’ll come back within a year at least!”
“……Uuuh.”
Despite Kaizar’s coaxing, Lucian burst into tears.
Lia and Kaizar looked at each other and laughed, pulling Lucian into a tight embrace.
“We should call you the crybaby prince.”
[Really, what kind of prince cries this much?]
“Stop…… don’t tease me…….”
With his nose running, it made them want to tease him more. But they set the teasing aside and truly prepared for Kaizar’s departure.
Kaizar would likely not return for a year.
A Hatchling was given a maximum of one month per year to spend in the human world.
Kaizar too didn’t want to be apart for a whole year.
He was reluctant as well, and his feet dragged. Seeing Lucian spilling tears, he suddenly remembered something and rummaged through his Subspace.
“Here, take this.”
“Huh! What…… what is this……?”
It was a Crystal Orb, about the size of a ball.
“You can use it to contact me. Though I can only reach you from my side.”
The Dragon Lair was covered in a massive barrier, making it impossible to reach from outside without an authorized communication network.
But communication from inside to outside was possible, so Kaizar would reach out through this whenever he had time.
“Keep it with you, and I’ll contact you whenever I get a chance. Got it?”
“You have to do it every day.”
“……I’ll do my best.”
Kaizar pulled Lucian into a tight embrace.
“We’re different species, and no blood runs between us, but we’re brothers. Remember that.”
“Yeah! You, and Lia—you’re all my family!”
[Haha, are you including me?]
Lia broke into a brilliant smile, and Lucian and Kaizar laughed along.
The three of them parted with tears in their eyes.
After Kaizar left via Teleportation and Lucian wept for a long time, he would endure well, for this wasn’t a permanent farewell.
“Lia…….”
[Yes? What is it?]
“You can’t leave me.”
[Who’s leaving? It would only be if you left me.]
“That’ll never happen, so you absolutely can’t leave me!”
Lucian buried his face against Lia’s chest. Because her body was transparent, his tear-stained face showed right through.
“If you left me, my whole world would fall apart.”
[Somehow it sounds like you miss him more than Kaizar leaving……?]
“……Missing him hurts, but I can’t even imagine a world without you. You’re my bride. So you have to stay by my side forever.”
Tear-streaked as he was, his words sounded trivial and only endearing. His anxiety is understandable, but truly there’s no worry more pointless than this.
[Don’t worry. That will never happen.]
‘I will never be the first to leave your side.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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