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Luca had realized something after comforting Noe last night. It wasn’t a pleasant realization. The thought had occurred to him as he’d tried to fall asleep that his family might well react as Noe’s had done. He had no real love for his parents, as they’d exhausted that emotion by the time he hit twenty. It was duty and obligation that had held him to his family home. It was because he had no blinders of love on that he could see them as they were and know how prejudiced and spiteful they could react.

It worried him.

He still wanted to try loving Noe, but he had to admit, the reaction of Noe’s family had put their situation into stark reality. Would he be able to give up his family for a man he wasn’t actually in love with? Luca had sworn to try loving Noe, but he didn’t even know how it felt to be in love with someone. His emotions were very confused on the whole matter.

Luca did know he cared for Noe deeply. He was more precious than air while underwater, and Luca would put his own life on the line for him. Literally. Did that mean he was in love with him? He didn’t know.

Did it mean he’d choose Noe over his family, his duty, his very liveliehood? He didn’t know that either. The questions kept whirling in his head, worry upon worry making a snarled mess in his mind.

It troubled him enough that he went to speak with Brahms after lunch. For all he teased his friend for not speaking, Brahms could pry his mouth open and dispense excellent advice when the situation called for it. Also, if anyone would understand the pressures that came along with being the heir to a fortress, it would be him. Brahms had already walked this road ahead of him. Right now, Luca could dearly use the insight.

He found his friend on the hill, in his usual spot, bundled up against the cold and with Sakura nearby—ostensibly to oversee her learning and the building of the fortress at the same time.

Brahms lifted a hand in greeting, head canted to the side as if to say What brings you here ?

“Need some advice,” Luca admitted while taking a seat next to him on the bench.

Sakura stopped scribbling on her paper and looked up as well, which Luca didn’t mind. She was a sweet kid and had proven a good support, too, even if she didn’t fully grasp all the complications going on. Nor should she, at her age.

“To make a long story short, Noe got a letter from home yesterday with…well, not good news. His mother was irate with him because Petar ended up serving time for the mess that happened here.”

“Serving time?” Sakura repeated, confused.

“In prison,” Luca rephrased for her.

“Oh!” Then her brows snapped together in an angry line. “But it was all Petar’s fault!”

“I know. I’m wroth about it, too. But Noe wasn’t surprised. He said it was normal for him to be given all the blame. Apparently, Petar can do no wrong in his mother’s eyes.”

Brahms rolled his eyes at that.

Which more or less summed up Luca’s feelings on the matter. “I have to agree. He can do a lot of wrong. I wrote a letter back to her and his father, basically ripping her a new one, because for once Noe’s not shouldering the blame for his brother’s mistakes. Noe, in fact, wrote to her and cut himself off completely from his family.”

Brahms opened his mouth, then closed it, expression perturbed. “Last straw?”

“That’s my take on it. He’s just…done. His family has cut him down, cut him out, or harangued him for his choices his entire life. He doesn’t have anything else to give to them, nor should he try, in my opinion. What’s the point? Every time he’s given them another chance, they’ve thrown it back in his face.” Luca sat back with a sigh, remembering how defeated Noe had looked last night. “As bad as that is, I realized my own family isn’t going to react much better to the news. My engagement to Noe, I mean.”

Brahms pointed to the engagement ring on his finger and quirked a brow.

Luca had no idea what that meant. “Do I need to get Sho up here to translate for you?”

“He meant, if you didn’t think your parents would agree, why did you get engaged in the first place?” Sakura inserted helpfully.

Oh, for the love of— “Brahms, seriously? You’re making your daughter translate for you now?”

Brahms just shrugged, a twinkle in his eye.

Perhaps the man was cursed. That would explain why he never said more than twenty words in a day. He’d keel over from heart failure if he went over the allotment.

Right, well, moving on. Brahms clearly hadn’t changed because of fatherhood.

“Honestly? I was desperate enough to try anything. My parents were putting an ungodly amount of pressure on me to marry and kept shoving this girl at me who didn’t have the brains to even lace her corset. I couldn’t stand the idea of marrying her and following in my parents’ very toxic footsteps. I thought if I married a friend and adopted children, they’d leave well enough alone. The problem now is…Noe’s not just a friend.”

Brahms’s mouth formed a silent “ah” of understanding.

Sakura didn’t get it and scooted in closer. “Why’s that make it different?”

“They’d probably accept a friend for my spouse because it doesn’t tread all over their conservative beliefs.” How to explain this for a child’s ears? “Noe’s very much intimately involved with me, which will make all the difference in the world to their eyes. They’ll see me as a man who has an intimite and sexual relationship with another man, and they’ll be livid. They won’t accept it.”

“Oh.” Sakura sat on this for a second before her face scrunched up. “They’re wrong.”

“I know that, and you know that, but they won’t. They’re not going to change their opinion.” Luca blew out a stressed breath. “I don’t know what to do. I got into this whole idea because of the duty I felt toward my people. The whole point of this, in the beginning, was to marry someone so I could look after my own. But I fear that when my letter reaches home and they realize what my relationship with Noe really is, they won’t accept him. They’ll demand I break it off. Then what? What do I do then?”

Luca looked blindly over the fortress, picturing his parents’ reaction to his letter. Of how enraged they’d be, how much of a fit they’d throw. They would likely immediately write back and demand he break things off without any care for meeting the man who steadily encroached on Luca’s heart. To them, it wouldn’t matter how wonderful Noe was. They’d only see him as “not a woman” and therefore unacceptable.

The thought sickened Luca.

“Most of my life, I did whatever my parents demanded of me,” he whispered. “Mostly for my people’s sake. Partially because it was just easier. Easier than fighting with them and dealing with the sulking and the tantrums afterward. Those sulks can go on for a week or more. In my younger days, I did everything I could to make them love me, but I gave up after I became an adult. I’m not asking that they love Noe, but is it too much to ask they let him be? And yet I fear they can’t even manage this.”

Sakura’s small hand rested on his knee, drawing his attention down to her. She had a very serious look in her dark eyes.

“It’s not love,” she told him seriously. “What your parents are doing, that’s not love. If you have to earn it, it’s not love. That’s just obedience.”

He looked into her face and felt like she’d just taken a bat to the back of his head. Gods above and below, she was right. His parents had never wanted love from him. They’d wanted obedience. It was why their relationship had never changed even after he’d stopped trying to earn their love. It had never been their goal in the first place.

How sickening of them. Was that all he’d been good for, then? A willing slave?

Rubbing a hand over his face, he muttered, “Out of the mouths of babes.”

“Papa and Chichi and Uncle Robert all taught me this,” she said confidently. “’Cause I don’t have to obey for them to love me.”

He’d never questioned if Brahms and Sho were good fathers, but damn, they must be amazing. For an orphaned child to realize she was this loved, and to be so balanced and confident for her to give such advice? They must be exceptional.

Luca turned to Brahms and asked, half jokingly, “Can you adopt me too?”

Brahms snickered and stroked his daughter’s hair. “No. Try again next life.”

“That’s fair, I suppose. No one wants a son older than them.”

In a milestone moment, Brahms opened his mouth and actually spoke again. “Your order is wrong. Duty to yourself first.”

“Huh?” Luca kind of knew what he meant but…what?

Sakura once again translated. “What Papa means is, you have to put your duty to yourself first. Don’t you have a duty to make sure you’re healthy, and happy, and all that? Chichi says this all the time. You have to take care of yourself first, because if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else.”

As obvious as this seemed, it felt like another bat to the back of his head. Luca had been trained out of this thinking at a very young age, and he was only just now realizing it. He’d always been told that he shouldn’t be selfish—to think of his parents, his people, his territory. His duty to everyone else came first. That was how he’d been raised.

But his parents didn’t. They always put themselves first. It was why Luca had borne the brunt of their selfish decisions for his entire life.

Shit, how had he not realized this?

Brahms doubly surprised him by opening his mouth yet again. “Can you live, wholly and happily, without him?”

“No.” His answer was blunt and direct, and it even surprised Luca. “Wait, is this…I…Shit, I don’t know how to ask this. I don’t know what love’s supposed to feel like, and I’m scared I can’t give Noe what he needs. That I can’t love him back as he loves me. How did you know you loved Sho? Was it just the jealousy?”

“Hmm, a little. Also looked down, realized my heart was missing. Figured he had it.”

That was so on course with those two, Luca just snorted a laugh. “That obvious, eh?”

“Took six years for the obvious.” Brahms shook his head. “Still, you ask the wrong question. What do you want? Do you want to love him?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Then do. Love’s a choice, you know. We choose who we love.”

Luca’s eyes drifted to Sakura, and he realized his friend was absolutely right. After all, he’d chosen to love Sakura, chosen to take her into his heart. It really was that simple. Luca was the one making it complex and overthinking it.

“Don’t overthink it,” Brahms advised.

“Do you not know me?”

He snickered again but gave Luca a bracing pat on the shoulder. “Still, don’t. And don’t worry about your people. They want you happy. They’ll understand.”

Yes, they likely would. They’d all spoken to him from time to time, reassuring him, urging him to be happy first and foremost. It was about time he listened to them and believed what they said.

“I made the right decision, talking to the two of you. I knew you’d get it, Brahms. I’m the idiot who hadn’t realized the obvious.”

Brahms gave him another pat on the shoulder, sympathizing. “Forest and trees.”

“Basically. I was too close to one to see the other. Thank you, Sakura-chan, for talking me through it all, too. You’re right. I wasn’t putting the duty to myself first. I’ve been using the duty to everyone else to deny what I truly want.”

She gave him a smile, but it looked worried. “You’re not going to break your engagement with Keller-san?”

“No.” The answer was instinctive, without hesitation, and the moment it left his mouth, Luca knew it was the right one. He felt such relief, too. He did love Noe—he apparently had for a while —but worry had kept him from seeing it. He could love the man properly, and knowing this made him feel so much lighter, like a breeze could carry him away. “No, I won’t. No matter what my parents say. They’ve dictated to me my entire life what I could and could not do. It’s never been for my benefit, only their own. I won’t allow them to do it any longer. Even if it means I’ll be forced to live elsewhere until they die before bringing Noe home with me, then that’s what I’ll do. But I won’t let go of him.”

She looked relieved and popped up to give him a quick hug, which Luca appreciated, as he needed a hug just then.

He still didn’t anticipate a good response from his parents, but unbeknownst to them, the dynamics between them had just shifted. Their selfishness would not be a priority of Luca’s anymore.

If push came to shove, and he had to choose between the fortress and Noe?

Noe won.