The Secret's Out
Out of everyone in the entire Inspectorate building, the errand boy probably visited Lina the most often.
From the very first day he arrived, the boy had been stamping his feet in the 5th Division office several times a day—except for the days when Lina was away on business trips.
Since he always left with his arms full of snacks, the errand boy looked positively thrilled every time he delivered a letter to her.
The boy held out an envelope to Lina.
“A certain knight asked me to give this to you.”
Whenever he delivered a letter from a specific person, the boy always phrased it exactly like that.
Lina took the envelope and smiled like spring blossoms.
To anyone watching, it was obvious she had something going on with the knight who had sent the letter.
Even the twelve-year-old errand boy seemed to know it.
“If you’re going to write a reply, should I wait?”
The boy, who had already popped one of the snacks Lina gave him into his mouth because he was hungry, asked.
“No, it’s fine.”
The letter felt unusually thick today, so it would probably take some time to read and reply. Lina decided to send the errand boy on his way first.
“Then call me later.”
The boy bowed politely and disappeared.
Almost as if he knew for certain that Lina would soon summon him to deliver her reply.
Lina seemed to think of him as a diligent and bright boy, but to everyone else, it was painfully obvious.
The errand boy was simply pretending not to know.
He didn’t want to lose this golden goose of a delivery job that came with piles of snacks if he acted like he was in on the secret.
Even though the boy’s sly but clumsy acting was transparent, both Lina and that knight seemed utterly convinced that no one knew.
But there was an old saying: office romances and sneezes cannot be hidden.
Not only the errand boy who shuttled between the lovers, but even Sophia, who sat right next to Lina, had caught on long ago.
They’re in that blissful phase.
Today once again, Sophia pretended not to notice anything about Lina.
And she planned to keep pretending for the foreseeable future.
That is, until a few days later when she collided with Lina’s desk while carrying an armful of documents.
“Ouch!”
With her vision completely blocked by the towering stack of papers, Sophia slammed her thigh against the sharp corner of the desk.
It hurt so much that tears sprang to her eyes.
She was definitely going to have a nasty bruise.
The impact made her hands go limp, and the documents scattered everywhere.
Because she had twisted her body at the last second when her thigh hit the desk, the papers had fallen in every direction.
Not only did her thigh hurt, but all the neatly organized documents were now a mess.
“Ugh, how long is this going to take to sort out?”
Sophia sighed and began picking up the bundles of paper.
That was when she spotted several documents on the floor that clearly belonged to Lina.
“Looks like some of Lina’s papers fell off her desk when I bumped into it.”
Careful not to mix them up, Sophia started sorting the documents.
That was when she found a single sheet of stationery tucked between the papers.
This must be that letter.
Lina must have slipped it between the documents in a hurry when she left her seat earlier, and it had fallen along with everything else.
Sophia only intended to pick it up and put it back so it wouldn’t get stepped on and upset Lina.
Unfortunately, it had landed face-up, but she tried her best not to read the contents with her blurry vision.
However, the handwriting that caught her eye even for a split second was far too familiar.
This is…?
At first, she thought she must have seen it wrong.
The person she knew was the last man on earth who would fill stationery with flowery poetry praising the sweetness of love.
Now, a declaration of war? That I could believe.
But a love poem about how the world sparkles because of you?
As she mulled it over, she unconsciously forgot her initial resolve and found herself examining the letter more closely.
The more she looked, the more her suspicion turned into certainty.
It really is his.
Sophia belonged to a vassal family that had served the Crown Prince—Edwin’s father.
She had been somewhat close to the Crown Princess and was also friends with his nanny, Viola Seymour.
Thanks to that connection, she had even briefly served as young Edwin’s tutor for basic imperial language.
That was when she had first become familiar with this handwriting.
Ever since he was learning to write, he had a habit of pressing unusually hard on the vertical strokes of certain letters. That distinctive trait was still very much alive.
No way.
A terrible suspicion made Sophia shudder.
These days, the atmosphere in the 5th Division office was anything but pleasant.
The fact that the youngest member, Beth, was currently staying at the separate palace to help the Saintess adjust took up only a tiny fraction of the gloom.
The majority of the heavy mood came from a certain problem that Lucy, Derek, and Sophia had discovered—in that order.
Lucy kept having dreams where Edwin endlessly rolled up his sleeves to show off his forearms.
Derek could no longer open the windows even in the middle of summer.
And every time the errand boy came to the office, Sophia’s leg would start shaking uncontrollably.
Because no matter how hard they tried to forget that Lina was dating the Emperor, it was impossible to erase from their minds.
They were members of the Blue Hawk—people with tight lips and strong mental fortitude—but this particular bombshell was shocking enough to haunt their dreams.
The dark circles under the eyes of those whose sleep had been fatally disrupted grew darker by the day.
They looked at one another’s increasingly haggard faces and thought, ‘Could it be…?’ but ultimately kept their mouths shut, each thinking the same thing.
Then the last remaining member, Nadan, entered the office with an equally tormented expression.
Beth hadn’t been coming in lately because she was staying at the separate palace, and Lina had stepped out for a moment.
That left only four people in the office, all wearing nearly identical gloomy expressions.
Their eyes met in midair.
‘Wait… you too?’
A wordless understanding passed between them.
If everyone knew, then it could hardly be called a secret anymore.
Besides, the burden had grown far too heavy to carry alone.
The first to speak was Lucy, who had known the longest.
“You all saw it too, right?”
When Lucy opened with such a grave tone, Sophia nodded with a serious expression.
“I saw.”
After confirming both Lucy’s and Sophia’s reactions, Derek’s mouth burst open like a dam breaking.
“Holy crap. Do you have any idea how shocked I was to find out Lina and His Majesty are dating? I’ve never seen His Majesty smile before I started working here!”
Sophia responded with a heavy face.
“I only had a hunch, but it turns out I was right.”
It felt like they were taking turns confessing.
But the next person in line, Nadan, remained silent.
As if he had received a massive shock.
All three pairs of eyes turned to him.
Nadan, who had been standing there half-dazed, finally stammered out a question.
“What are you talking about? Lina and His Majesty are dating?”
His voice grew louder as if reality was slowly sinking in.
By the end, he was practically shouting.
His eyes were shaking wildly. He was genuinely stunned.
“Wait, why?”
Derek asked, equally startled.
“You didn’t know?”
While Lucy and Sophia had tried to be somewhat indirect, Derek had gone straight for the one-line summary.
Sophia and Lucy both looked away from him.
As if they had no idea what he was talking about.
“Lucy, you’re the one who brought it up first!”
“I was asking if you’d read this morning’s newspaper.”
“Same here.”
After getting his tail cut off by both Sophia and Lucy, Derek scratched the back of his head furiously and turned his frustration on Nadan.
“Then why did you come in looking so depressed?”
Nadan whispered with a gloomy face.
“I proposed to Cecil, but she said she needs to think about marriage for a while.”
The reason for Nadan’s tormented expression was finally revealed.
No one had deceived anyone, yet somehow everyone felt deceived.
“Oh dear.”
“Well, at least she didn’t say she wants to break up.”
But the words of comfort were short-lived.
Because each of them saw their own future as even darker.
The other three had figured it out on their own, but Nadan had been completely in the dark.
The realization that they had caused an incident made all three of their faces turn ashen.
Naturally, Derek looked the worst.
He clasped his hands together and spoke to Nadan in the most polite tone he could manage.
“Nadan, I know you’re not feeling great right now, and I’m sorry to ask this of you. But could you please forget that Lucy, Sophia, and I know that His Majesty and Lina are lovers?”
His tone was polite, but it was half a demand.
Just as Nadan was about to nod with a dazed expression, the office door—which had been tightly closed—swung open.
“What did you just say?”
It was Kyle.
Derek’s voice had carried right through the door.
And of all times, Kyle had chosen that exact moment to visit the Inspectorate office.