115 - Evil Husband (15th Anniversary Edition) Chapter 115
115
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A jet-black piano fully absorbed the sunlight pouring in through the large window. The ebony piano gleamed with a smooth luster.
Crafted by artisans brought from a distant foreign land across the sea, the piano possessed a tone as magnificent as its worth.
Leone loved watching his brother play the piano. From the piano, when met with an excellent performer, flowed a sound more beautiful than ever.
The piano room prepared in the Imperial Palace was entirely for his brother. It was a waste of his outstanding skill, enough to make a name for himself as a pianist, so he brought the piano hoping he would play it occasionally, even if only in the Imperial Palace.
Standing in the bright sunlight, Leone moved his feet slowly. Only after dividing the short distance and walking for a long time did he reach the piano.
"......"
Even with the piano in front of him, he only looked down at it for a long time before finally reaching out his hand. The moment his hand touched the piano lid, he stiffened as if he had committed a forbidden act.
Leone soon clenched his teeth and opened the lid. With the neat black and white keys in his eyes, he sat on the piano bench.
As he placed his hands on the keys, a chilling shiver ran down his spine. An unknown, faint fear brushed against his body. As if shaking off his hesitation, Leone pressed a key with his finger.
A clear tone resonated vividly. Starting with that, Leone fumbled and pressed the keys. A clumsy but plausible performance followed. The initially mismatched pitches gradually stabilized.
After completing a simple piece, Leone clenched his hands into fists on the keys. Following that, he began to play the piece that Cesare had played before.
His hands had stiffened from not playing the piano for a long time. It was impossible to play a virtuoso piece of difficult level.
The notes continued to be wrong and the rhythm distorted, but Leone didn't care. He just kept pressing the keys and stepping on the pedals.
In fact, he had wanted to play the piano for a long time. Nevertheless, the reason he chose the violin was because he knew that Cesare was more outstanding.
Rather than learning the piano the same as his brother, he thought it would be better for him to learn the violin and play together. He deceived himself that way. Pretending to concede that Cesare would play the piano better because his fingers were longer.
In fact, watching his brother play the piano made him feel happy and joyful. He was also proud of his brother's skill, which was no less than that of a pianist.
His brother, who was good at everything, was always Leone's pride. When Cesare received praise, he felt as happy as if he had received the praise himself.
But even while being genuinely happy, he felt some conflicting emotion stirring inside him.
Born as twins, it was a sense of defeat that he could never be like his brother.
However, suffering from his own inferiority was all in his childhood. Leone converted all the emotions he felt into affection and poured it out. He gave his brother, who was not loved by their mother, familial love as a brother.
Cesare repaid Leone's affection in abundance. The twins established themselves as rulers of the Traon Empire, and Leone became Emperor.
It was an Imperial Palace where killing blood relatives was commonplace. In a world of the survival of the fittest, the brothers divided their titles as Emperor and Grand Duke and joined forces to run the country, so people praised them as rarely good-natured twins.
However, the seemingly equal relationship between the brothers had never been horizontal. Leone was always aware that he was below Cesare. That was what others tacitly felt as well.
But it was okay. Cesare was a perfect being like a god, and it was natural that he, a mere ordinary human, could not catch up with him. Not only Leone, but anyone who had experienced Cesare by his side would have understood.
Leone had been with Cesare since birth. He was the twin who was closest to Cesare and knew him best. He thought that being more intimate than anyone else in the world with someone whom others were clamoring to exchange even a single word with was a sufficiently satisfactory position.
So there was no reason to feel such inferior feelings.
"Haa, haa......"
When he finally finished the song, Leone's body was soaked with cold sweat. Leone gasped for breath with his eyes wide open.
Even though thick sweat was constantly flowing down, he couldn't even think of wiping it away, and just kept his hands on the keys.
There was a flaw in his perfect brother.
The flaw, which he initially thought would end as a small scratch, gradually grew larger and became so hideous that he could no longer ignore it.
His brother was shaken by a trivial being and could not make rational judgments. Every time he confirmed that he was also an imperfect human, he felt twisted.
Wouldn't he have not felt this way if Cesare had married the Parbellini Duchess Young Lady?
He should have stopped him from the beginning when he said he would commit such an absurd misalliance. But a long time ago, when he tentatively sounded him out, he said firmly that he had no intention of marrying that child, so he was relieved that it would be okay.
Leone, who had been glaring at the piano with bloodshot eyes, suddenly inhaled at some point. He got up from the chair as if running away and left the piano room.
The long sunlight brightly illuminated Leone's back, but Leone disappeared into the shadows of the dark Imperial Palace.
Leone, who was walking as if running, stopped in surprise. It was because a man with hair as black as the ebony piano was standing on the opposite side.
"Brother."
At the voice that fell like a low note, Leone moved his lips.
"...Cesare."
A questioning gaze swept over Leone. Leone belatedly realized that he was covered in sweat. He belatedly took out a handkerchief and wiped his face, smiling. Cesare quietly looked at Leone and said.
"I heard the sound of the piano."
"Ah, it's just been a while.... I was lonely without you, so I tried playing the piano myself."
He made excuses, saying that it would be better for anyone to play the expensive piano than to leave it unattended for a long time. Cesare, who was staring at Leone, tilted his head slightly and asked.
"Shall I play the piano for you? With the song you want."
If it were normal, he would have been happy and immediately led Cesare to the piano room. He would have joked that it was a lucky day, wondering why he was playing.
But today, he didn't want to hear Cesare's performance. The tingling sensation still lingered on the fingers that had pressed the keys. Leone carefully clenched and opened his hands and approached Cesare.
"You must be tired, so it's okay today. Is the preparation finished?"
"Roughly."
After getting rid of Marquess Menegin, who was the Speaker of the Upper House, Cesare was quietly dealing with the nobles of the system from behind the scenes. He heard that he had finished dealing with those who could be resolved without a major scandal some time ago.
From now on, only the big shots were left, and Count Bonepar was the one he aimed to deal with this time.
Cesare did not tell him the specific method of how to remove Count Bonepar, who was a member of the Upper House and had led the Traon political world for a long time. He only notified him in a way that he had targeted Count Bonepar, so he should be aware of it.
He also did not tell him the reason for randomly removing the nobles without clear criteria. At first, he only thought that he was removing those who could be a threat to the Imperial Family, but he even began to put pro-Imperial Family nobles on the removal list, so he had tried to dissuade him.
But Cesare did not stop the silent slaughter. It was as if he was not the brother he knew.
"I plan to carry it out during the Hunting Festival, so you should be aware of it too."
Leone struggled not to show the emotions he was feeling on his face at the words thrown as if giving an order.
"But brother."
Cesare stood close to Leone. A nonchalant question dropped.
"Why did you do that?"
He was asking about the matter of secretly visiting Aileen. Leone retorted in a harsh tone without realizing it.
"I already told you. You don't even let me have a conversation."
Suddenly, a pain as if his heart was being squeezed occurred. At the same time, a fiery hot emotion surged from within.
"I'm asking just in case."
Leone glared at his brother in front of him and asked.
"The strange things you're doing now... is it all because of the Grand Duchess?"
