Chapter 150

Realizing this was the source of his frustration, Nisha let out a soft laugh and shrugged.

She finally spoke up, sounding almost triumphant, as if she’d discovered a brilliant answer.

“I thought it would be best to keep things as they were. I’m usually in your room anyway, so I rarely even use mine.”

“For someone who’s usually here, you don’t have any belongings in this room either.”

“My clothes are in the wardrobe, aren’t they?”

“That was here already.”

“It’s your room. Wouldn’t it be strange for me to leave my things here?”

Nisha’s matter-of-fact response about having her own dressing room left Kagan exhaling a long, bemused sigh.

“Then what about your room?”

“I told you, I hardly use it…”

“Then leave some things in here.”

“But, again, it’s your room…”

It was starting to feel like they were going around in circles, and Nisha found herself frowning slightly in response.

“…”

“…”

Kagan, realizing the loop they’d fallen into, let a heavy silence settle between them. 

After a long pause, he leaned back and raked a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Princess.”

“Yes?”

“What I’m saying is… it feels like you’re not leaving anything of yourself here at all.”

Nisha’s brow furrowed a little at Kagan’s words.

“When people live somewhere, they usually leave something behind—objects, traces of themselves. But… it feels like you’re almost obsessively avoiding that.”

At the added remark, Nisha’s lips subtly stiffened.  

She hurriedly lifted the teacup she was holding to her mouth to hide the corners of her lips and pretended to drink.  

The cooled tea slid down her throat.  

As she listened to Kagan’s words, Nisha slowly exhaled.  

‘Did I?’  

Perhaps she did.  

No, she definitely did.  

She didn’t see a need to leave anything behind. Whatever she bought, the thought, ‘I won’t be using it for long anyway,’ always crossed her mind first.  

She repeated breathing in and swallowing slowly.  

She didn’t particularly want to leave any traces.  

She was fully content with the current situation and had nothing more to wish for.  

“Nisha.”  

At his call, Nisha slowly lifted her head.  

“Is Xieman uncomfortable for you?”  

“Not at all.”  

She could confidently say it was a hundred times better than being in Roshan.  

At least in the physical sense, for sure.  

“Then am I making you uncomfortable?”  

“……”  

Nisha stayed silent for a moment.  

Kagan’s brows knitted slightly, and then he burst into laughter.  

“This is where you’re supposed to say ‘Not at all’ right away. What does that make me, Princess?”  

“Well, sometimes it is a little uncomfortable when you ask me things like that.”

“There’s no way around it.”  

Kagan said firmly.  

Nisha, with a sullen expression that seemed to ask why he even bothered asking, stared at him, and he shrugged.  

“It looks to me like you need conversations like this, even if you don’t want them. Maybe everyone else neglected you until now, but—”  

“……”  

“I’m not going to.”  

Kagan shrugged again as he spoke.  

“If you don’t buy anything, I’ll have to take you with me, buy everything you so much as glance at, and label it as yours, then scatter it all over the castle.”  

He said it as if it was the saddest and most unavoidable thing in the world.  

Just imagining that bizarre act gave Nisha goosebumps. She looked at Kagan with an expression of utter disgust.  

In response, he burst into laughter, shrugging his shoulders.  

“What? Do you hate the idea that much? That’s harsh.”  

“…That’s hardly normal.”  

“It is normal.”  

“No, who in their right mind would do that…?”  

“Nisha.”  

Kagan suddenly leaned forward, taking her small hand in his large palm, meeting her gaze head-on.  

“If I do it, it’s normal. If you do it, it’s normal. Whatever we do is normal. Here, we’re the law and the standard.”  

“…What—”  

“That’s what power is. That’s what strength is, Nisha. And you’ve got it in your hands, too.”

Kagan held her hand lightly, pressing it firmly into his grasp.  

There was a hint of warmth in his narrowed gaze.  

Yet the look of a proud predator lingered alongside it.

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