HAFLHS | Chapter 2

Scene 1

“Damn it.”

Adrian ground out the curse and clenched his fists tightly. His nails dug into the tender flesh, and bright red blood dripped one drop at a time onto the bed sheet.

He could not live like this. This life was no different from a nightmare. A life spent surviving like a beast, having sex with his father every day, was disgusting. The semen still flowing in his ass was humiliating.

He looked at the full-length mirror placed against one wall. Certainly, compared to three months ago, he had had more life in him. His cheeks had filled out, and the dark circles around his eyes had lessened. It had been a natural result, perhaps, since the threat of rampage had eased and he had been able to eat and sleep in peace of mind.

But unlike that face, his body was a complete wreck. Because he had been bitten and grabbed so much, his body was covered in bruises. Adrian stroked his body, which did not have a single intact spot, then raised a hand toward the mirror.

Crash.

The glass shattered to pieces from the flung golden mana. Throwing mana toward the target he wanted was no longer difficult. He was not happy about his own growth. Looking at the broken mirror shards, Adrian let out a rough breath.

“So, you just have to stay like you are now. Like a doll, pretty.”

What on earth had he wanted?

He did not think the man truly liked him. The man had had countless lovers in the past, yet not a single one of them had ever received his heart.

Was that why his mother screamed every day whenever she looked at him?

“If only you had looked more like that person, he would have come to see me one more time!”

“If it weren’t for you, if you had never been born, I wouldn’t have had to stay here!”

The one who bore the Ballard heir was inevitably bound to that castle. It was presented as being for safety, but in reality it was no different from the grand duke’s whim.

A desire to keep what he had taken into his hands, and not let it go even without looking back.

He had hated that. But when his bright red eyes looked at him, all the resentment that had piled up layer by layer crumbled away like a sandcastle washed away by a wave.

Adrian hit his own head with his fist, thud, thud. He forcibly suppressed the wicked feelings rising in him.

“I can’t give my heart…….”

He muttered the words he had kept hearing ever since meeting him. He was thirsty for affection, the first affection he had ever received, but he could not crave that man’s affection, which was like seawater. The more he drank, the more he would surely thirst.

The man was someone who could change his behavior at any time, like flipping over a card. Even if he seemed to find Adrian strangely cute right now, there was no guarantee that feeling would last forever. To him, emotions would be no more than a sandcastle before the waves.

Besides, this life of confinement was even more sickening. After Sebastian declared him the heir, he was given the east wing, said to be the largest and most beautiful, in the shabby castle that seemed as if it might collapse at any moment.

It was a place with plenty of sunlight and greenery, but the room itself was no different from the room he had lived in before. A room empty except for a bed, and a window that let in no sunlight at all because of the dark curtains.

Sometimes when he opened the curtains and looked outside, the garden, which made the words beautiful feel true, was dazzling enough to blind him. When winter passed and flowers of every color bloomed, his lungs ached, as if someone were tightening his throat.

Beautiful things lasted only for an instant, and what remained was only the afterimage. The reality that he had to stay here forever only weighed on him.

How long had he been lost in such thoughts when the door opened? Adrian only turned his head slightly. It was the butler. He pulled a trolley loaded with food into the center of the room.

“Young master, I have brought your meal.”

“Just leave it there.”

“Yes.”

The butler nodded and looked around the room. The full-length mirror on the wall had shattered, and glass fragments were scattered on the floor.

Seeing his face grow darker than when there had been a risk of rampage, a heavy feeling inexplicably settled in his chest. But he did not say anything further. He pitied him, but even if he felt sorry for him, there was nothing he could do.

“I will call someone to clean up the glass shards.”

“No need.”

“If you leave them like this, you could get scratched.”

At the butler’s words, Adrian flinched. Then he shot mana toward him.

Bang.

The mana grazed the butler’s cheek before he had time to react and slammed into the wall. But thanks to Sebastian having personally reinforced the wall with his own power, only dark red smoke rose for a moment, and the wall did not have a single scratch.

“……Is it that I can’t even get scratched?”

Adrian panted harshly. His shoulders trembled, and his chest rose and fell.

“Because I’m my father’s property? Is that why?”

He had not even wanted affection from him. But was it not okay to hope for at least human treatment? Now that he was hearing it directly from someone else’s mouth, uncontrollable emotions burst out in waves.

At Adrian’s words, the butler’s eyes widened. It was the first time he had openly tried to speak with him. He had not taken a single step outside the room, and he had not spoken to the servants either.

That was partly by his own will, but also partly not. The more he left the room and spoke at length with someone, the more Sebastian’s dark red mana tightened around his throat.

On the surface, it was said to be in preparation for him going berserk, but neither the butler who saw it nor Adrian who suffered it thought so. It simply felt, quite literally, as though Sebastian had Adrian’s breath in his grasp.

“Say something!”

Along with Adrian’s shout, golden threads bloomed around him. Dark red mana mixed in, as if resisting him. Because of that, Adrian’s face was hard to see.

The butler slowly backed away. He had only ever felt this kind of pressure from Sebastian.

Was a dragon still a dragon, even if it was only a hatchling?

But that was all. Compared with Sebastian, it was absurdly weak. The butler lowered his head toward Adrian and opened his mouth.

“The Ballard family has not bowed its head before strong authority, has it? This applies not only to the direct bloodline, but to all members of the family, so I sincerely hope you will keep this in mind.”

To put it plainly, it meant to submit before power. Adrian did not try to suppress the mana that was raging in his heart. Power spread through his whole body along his blood vessels. His body tingled as if struck by lightning, and his mind went hazy.

Sensing a rampage, the butler backed away. The mana Sebastian had placed on Adrian also swayed precariously, as if it might shatter at any moment.

Bang!

Just before the butler could leave the room, a wave of mana shook the room. Unable to withstand the power spreading in all directions, the butler collapsed in place.

When he looked at Adrian, the dark red mana was gone, and golden threads were circling around him. Seeing that sight, the butler’s eyes widened.

His appearance, which he had thought would have lost all reason, was astonishingly calm. Rather, the way he casually rotated his wrist made him seem to have a composure the butler had never seen before.

The butler swallowed hard. Sebastian, who was disturbingly obsessed with Adrian, would not have left the mana weak. Then this meant that all of it had been done by Adrian’s own power. He had heard that his power had become much more stable. But already being able to push back Sebastian’s power like this.

With the thought that the hierarchy that had not changed for a hundred years might change, fear rose in him. He would report this to Sebastian the moment he left the room. He thought that.

Adrian looked quietly at the butler. Golden energy swirled around those red eyes.

“Don’t tell Father about what you saw today.”

“……Yes.”

The butler nodded as if entranced while looking into his eyes.

“Get out.”

“……Yes, please rest well.”

At Adrian’s words, the butler bowed. Adrian did not look back even once until he left the room.

After leaving the room and walking down the corridor for a while, the butler suddenly stopped.

“……I felt like I was talking to the young master about something, but what was it?”

His memory was hazy, as if mist had gathered in his head. But he did not think about it for long. If he could not remember it, it must not have been important.

After the butler left, Adrian felt the mana that had bound his body disappear completely.

So it had been this easy. It was almost absurd.

“Ha, ha ha!”

The Ballard house was established by power. If he did not like Sebastian’s whims.

“Then I just have to kill him.”

He just had to kill him and go outside.

He would kill him and shake off this sickening cycle of life. Then he could get rid of the source of these feelings, of that persistent affection of his.

That was what Adrian thought.