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Kento’s men also don’t leave. Kenji himself doesn’t come, but there are dozens of guards. After all, this is their heir.

I am lost in my thoughts when Kento blinks, his brow furrowing.

“Doctor!” I slam my palm down on the call button, barking into the intercom box before I even know I’ve moved.

Within twenty seconds, the door flies open. A doctor and two ICU nurses rush past me. “Step back, please.”

I don’t step back. I just flatten myself against the wall. The doctor checks the pupillary response and some other things before he says, “Vitals are steady. No signs of internal hemoperitoneum. He’s stable enough. Keep him calm and don’t let him strain his abdominal wall. We’ll give you twenty minutes.”

After they clear the room, I lunge forward, dropping back into the chair, my hands snapping out to grab his.

“How are you feeling?”

Kento lets out a gravelly groan from the bottom of his chest. He tries to shift upward, gritting his teeth as the stitches pull across his ribs.

“Stay still, you idiot,” I scold, grabbing the plastic water cup from the tray. I shove the bent straw between his lips before he can tear something open.

He takes three greedy swallows. Water dribbles down his chin, and I wipe it away with the heel of my palm, trying to hide how badly my fingers are trembling.

Actually, it isn’t just my fingers trembling. My entire body is shaking. He’s opened his eyes, he is right there in front of me, alive and breathing, but my mind refuses to let go of the image of him jumping off that cliff. I keep seeing him fall. And I have the urge to hide him.

Kento leans his head back against the thin hospital pillow, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. I miss the color of his eyes. I could fall into that abyss forever and never once think to claw my way out.

He gives me a small smirk. “Princeling…” he rasps. “You saved me.”

I shake my head. “You saved me.”

“Let’s say we saved each other.”

My chin wobbles, and as much as I try not to, I am crying.

“Don’t cry.” He pulls lightly on my wrist. “Come here.”

I kick the plastic chair out of the way, and then I climb onto the edge of the mattress and curl myself into a miserable knot on his uninjured side.

“I’m sorry,” I sob into the scratchy hospital sheet, my forehead pressed against the mattress beside his hip. “I’m so sorry… I’m so fucking sorry…” I want to fall to my knees at his feet and chant those words over and over again.

“Ilya.” The warmth of his touch nearly breaks me all over again. I love his touch. I love it so much, because I know what those hands are capable of. I know how much blood they’ve spilled. And still, they’ve never made me feel anything but loved. “It’s not your fault.”

“I don’t hate you,” I blurt out. “I’m sorry I hurt you so many times. None of it was true. I’m a liar. I’m a liar.” I look up through the blur in my eyes.

Kento is smiling. “I know, princeling,” he whispers, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone, wiping away the tears as fast as they fall. “You’re a very bad liar.”

I pull myself an inch higher, burying my face straight into the warm crook of his neck. I just want to glue myself to him from now on. To crawl into his arms and stay there until the world rots around us. Fuck, I’d sew myself into his skin if I could.

“You’re not allowed to die,” I choke out against his throat, feeling the beat of his pulse jumping beneath my lips. “Never. You hear me? Never.”

Kento turns his head, his lips pressing a dry kiss into the crown of my hair. “I promise,” he murmurs against my skull. “I won’t.”

“The answer is yes.”

Kento looks at me confused, and I can’t blame him. After everything that happened, he’s probably forgotten the question altogether. But I haven’t. I haven’t stopped thinking about it for a single second. It’s been sitting inside my chest. “I’ll be your boyfriend, Kento.”

And fuck, the way his eyes change.

I’ve seen those dark eyes filled with all sorts of things, but I’ve never seen them shine quite like this. Something disbelieving comes alive in them. He looks at me as though I’ve just handed him the entire world, when all I’ve done is finally admit that I want to be part of his.

I can’t stand how close I came to never seeing that happiness on his face.