Chapter 1618 - 227 - Love and War (6)
Alice’s POV
Leon and I have been together ever since we were little kids growing up in the same place. The two of us had lived in the orphanage for as long as either of us could remember, and it had become the only home we truly knew. Apparently, he arrived there sometime after I did, though neither of us was old enough to remember that day ourselves.
Which meant we were basically still toddlers back then, far too young to understand anything that was happening around us or even remember those first few years properly.
As we grew older, it was only natural that we became incredibly close to each other over the years. We were around the same age, after all, so we spent most of our childhood together without really thinking much about it. Well... maybe we weren’t exactly the same age. I think I was just a little older than him, but the point still stood all the same, and it never really mattered between us.
Leon had always been a quiet person by nature, almost to the point where people forgot he was even around sometimes.
He never really seemed interested in joining conversations or getting involved with whatever everyone else happened to be doing around the orphanage. Most of the time, he stayed off by himself as though he had his own little world that nobody else could step into. I even caught him talking to himself once, and honestly, I thought it was pretty funny back then. Looking back now, maybe I shouldn’t have laughed so hard, but I was still just a kid, and it really did look strange at the time. Altogether, he was definitely a weird person in more ways than one, but I never once believed he was a bad person because of it.
It always felt like he simply wasn’t someone who naturally knew how to socialize with other people, and forcing himself to do so wasn’t really something he wanted either.
Because of that, and because I happened to be slightly older than him, I naturally found myself acting like his older sister without even realizing I had started doing it.
Thankfully, things worked out naturally after that without either of us trying too hard. Before either of us realized it, we had become so close that spending time together every single day simply became part of our normal routine. Being together just felt comfortable, familiar, and completely natural, almost like that was simply how our lives were always meant to be from the very beginning.
Still, life has a funny way of changing people as they continue growing older together.
Sometimes, no matter how close two people once were to each other, they slowly drift apart before either of them even notices when it first began.
That was exactly what ended up happening between the two of us before either of us could stop it.
Well, it wasn’t really something anyone could have helped even if they had wanted to.
Leon changed after he entered the academy and started walking down a completely different path from mine.
He found someone he loved, and eventually his life became much bigger than the little world we had shared together.
Well... lovers, I suppose would be the more accurate way to put it now.
From everything I kept hearing from other people, there were already quite a lot of women standing by his side wherever he went these days.
It shouldn’t have had anything to do with me anymore, at least that was what I kept trying to convince myself of whenever I heard another rumor.
At least, that was what I repeated to myself over and over again, even though every single time I heard another story about him, it hurt far more than I ever wanted to admit out loud.
I had been the very first person to stay by his side when we were still children with nothing.
Yet somehow, there were now so many women standing in the place that I had once quietly believed belonged to me alone.
That jealousy slowly brought out a side of myself that I honestly hated seeing whenever I looked inward.
It made me feel ugly inside, even though I desperately wanted to pretend otherwise.
And no matter how many excuses I made for myself, I simply couldn’t bring myself to swallow those feelings without them hurting me.
Still, after watching everything Leon had managed to accomplish over the years, I eventually realized something that I hadn’t wanted to admit before.
The Leon I had grown up with wasn’t the same person who now stood before the entire world.
He had become unbelievably powerful, almost to the point where it sounded ridiculous whenever people described him.
Powerful enough to overwhelm countless opponents without looking as though he was struggling very much at all.
Powerful enough to fight people whose strength had already surpassed what ordinary people could even begin to imagine.
Compared to the quiet little boy I had known all those years ago, the man standing before everyone now almost felt like an entirely different person wearing the same face.
Because of that, the feelings I had always carried for him deep inside my heart slowly started changing in ways that I couldn’t fully understand.
Maybe "change" was a better word than "fade," because they were still there even if they felt different now.
The feelings themselves hadn’t disappeared completely, even after everything that had happened between us.
They simply weren’t the same as they had once been during our childhood together anymore.
Honestly, thinking about that made me feel unbelievably shallow as a person.
How could my feelings change just because someone else had changed so much over time?
It didn’t really make any sense when I stopped and thought about it carefully for more than a moment.
Maybe what I had always believed was love from the very beginning wasn’t actually love after all.
...
That wasn’t true at all, and I knew I was only trying to fool myself with that excuse.
I was simply lying to myself because accepting the truth felt much harder than denying it.
I loved Leon.
I had loved him back then when we were children growing up together.
And even now, after everything that had happened between us, I still loved him.
At the very least, I wanted to be completely honest with myself about that much before anything else.
Even so, I still couldn’t bring myself to confess those feelings directly to him.
He already had so much resting on his shoulders that adding my feelings to it almost felt selfish.
More importantly than anything else, he already had so many women who genuinely loved him with all their hearts.
I honestly didn’t think he needed me anymore, even if a part of me still wished otherwise.
Strangely enough, I had slowly started accepting that reality little by little over time.
Lately, though, I kept hearing more and more stories about everything he had been doing behind the scenes.
People constantly talked about how he had practically been protecting the kingdom almost entirely on his own without asking for recognition.
Of course, I knew perfectly well that he hadn’t accomplished all of those things without receiving help from countless other people around him.
There were many people supporting him behind the scenes, offering their strength whenever they possibly could.
Still, the amount of work he continued carrying on his own shoulders was so overwhelming that it honestly felt as though he was supporting the entire kingdom by himself. Sometimes I even wondered whether he actually remembered to sleep, because the stories made it sound like he had somehow replaced rest with sheer stubbornness.
Leon was incredibly strong.
I had always known that much about him, even long before everyone else started realizing it too.
Truthfully, I couldn’t even imagine anyone capable of defeating him anymore after everything I had seen and heard.
Even so, being strong didn’t make someone completely invincible forever, no matter how powerful they became.
He wasn’t some machine that could keep moving forever without eventually slowing down from exhaustion.
If he ever became exhausted after carrying all of those responsibilities by himself...
If someone chose that exact moment to take advantage of his weakness...
Even Leon could eventually fall despite all of his overwhelming strength.
And if the person protecting everyone eventually disappeared one day, then who would still be left to protect this kingdom afterward?
If someone as strong as Leon was carrying the burden of protecting all of us every single day...
Then who was protecting him whenever he needed someone the most?
That was the question I found myself asking over and over again, and I still couldn’t find an answer that truly satisfied me.
Which was exactly why I finally made up my mind to do something for him.
I quietly took a slow breath before gathering the courage I had been searching for.
"I’ll do everything I can," I said softly while looking into his eyes. "Even if all I manage to do is make things just a little easier for you."
As those words finally left my mouth, I slowly reached for the ribbon tied around my sleepwear with slightly trembling fingers.
I gently tugged on the ribbon, feeling my heartbeat growing louder with each passing second.
The knot came undone almost immediately, allowing the fabric to loosen before it slowly slipped down from my shoulders.
"For now..." I said with a gentle smile that I hoped would help him relax a little. "Why don’t you take a little rest?"