As My Husband Said, I Brought in a Lover

“By having feelings, do you mean romantic interest?” Luize asked with her eyes wide open.

Robin nodded. “Yes. Now, it’s just a faint first love. Honestly, I can’t say I’m indifferent. It feels strange to see her face, but it’s not enough to say I still like her as much as I did back then.”

“

”

“Of course, it also plays a part that she knows so much about me, but I still can’t understand her. Since I ran away from the temple, it’s not like we could just be happy to see each other.”

“

, so that’s the person you mentioned before. I thought you hadn’t met anyone else because you couldn’t forget her. Did you leave the temple because of her?”

When Hendrik asked, Robin grumbled in response. “It’s not that I didn’t meet anyone else. It’s that I was too busy! I didn’t have the chance. And Raphaela wasn’t the direct reason.”

“So she was an indirect reason?”

“…There is a connection. Come to think of it, His Excellency is the only one who knows the full story.”

Robin took a deep breath and made up his mind as he looked at Luize, Edward, and Hendrik in turn. “Until I joined the order, I was a high priest in the temple, almost designated as the next pope due to my strong divine power. Since divine power is mostly innate, I was raised in the temple from a young age, completely cut off from the outside world and estranged from my family.”

“So you haven’t met your family since leaving the temple?” Luize asked, and Robin nodded.

“Yes. I traced my memories to find the house where I lived with my family, but I heard they had moved a long time ago.”

“Without saying anything to you?”

“My last memory is of my parents being happy to receive a reward from the temple, as we were a poor family with many siblings. I heard from other priests that my family occasionally visited the temple, but I never saw them. It seems they were living well with the reward money.”

“That’s unbelievable…”

Unlike Robin, who had lived with his parents in isolation from the outside world since childhood, Luize couldn’t imagine being estranged from her family like that.

“I was upset at first, but the people at the temple treated me well, so I managed. I later learned it was all because of my innate divine power. Anyway, I was fine until I met her. Life was easy if I just did what I was told.”

Robin’s expression hardened.

“In the spring when I was fifteen, I heard a new high priestess candidate was entering the temple. She was a girl three years younger than me with tremendous divine power. Curious, I went to see her, and there she was, a girl with purple hair tending to the garden’s violets.”

“…”

“That was Raphaela. I fell in love at first sight.”

The sound of something crispy breaking the silence turned everyone’s attention to Hendrik, who was eating caramel-coated corn cookies. Luize took one of his cookies, and Edward, watching this out of the corner of his eye, snapped his fingers to summon all kinds of cookies in front of her.

“Continue,” said Edward.

“…Anyway, at that moment, a question suddenly popped in my mind. God clearly told us to love each other, so why does the temple oppose love between the priests and priestesses?!”

Robin was now passionately arguing, veins bulging in his neck. “After that, more questions kept popping up. Our divine power is meant to save people, so why don’t we use it to save lives? We are told to treat everyone equally, yet within the temple, invisible hierarchies form based on the magnitude of power and the pope’s favor.”

“You were going through adolescence. It’s called youth.”

Hendrik took another bite of his corn cookie.

Robin glared at him sharply. “It might have been adolescence since I was fifteen, but that wasn’t all! I still have those questions.”

“I agree with Robin. Honestly, it’s not wrong,” Luize said, having finished her caramel corn cookie and now picking a raspberry chip cookie from the pile Edward had summoned.

“

, does falling in love deplete divine power?”

“

, exactly.”

As Hendrik and Luize expressed their doubts, Robin sighed deeply.

“It’s more a matter of mental strength rather than physical strength. It’s known that abstinence and fasting clear the mind and increase divine power, but that’s misinformation. It doesn’t increase divine power but makes one more sensitive and able to use it delicately. The amount you can gain through effort is negligible or nonexistent.”

“So you’re honing it daily without even using it?”

“Yes. After that, I started questioning everything. Why can’t we do this? Why don’t we do that? I argued a lot.”

Recalling those memories, Robin shuddered. “I even tried to change the temple’s laws by speaking to His Holiness. Of course, the elders didn’t budge, and His Holiness grew increasingly annoyed with me. The only one who quietly listened to me was Raphaela.”

“Was High Priestess Raphaela sharing the same thoughts as Robin?” Luize asked, now holding a chocolate chip cookie.

“She rarely expressed her opinions. She never directly agreed with me, but having someone listen was comforting. It was even better that it was Raphaela.” Robin bowed his head. “Though she didn’t talk much, I could tell she was perceptive from her occasional sharp remarks. I thought, ‘Oh, she really understands me.’ It was a vague guess, but it turned out to be right.”

Unconsciously, Luize took a bite of a cookie.

“So, High Priestess Raphaela knew you liked her and used it to try to bring you back to the

! …temple?

”

“Oh gosh.” Edward patted Luize’s back and summoned a cup of water, which he handed to her. She took it, tears welling up, and drank.

“That’s right. Raphaela was planning to use that fact to bring me back to the temple. But as I said, I won’t return. I’ll leave those feelings as a memory.”

“Sending one of our knights was a silent pressure on Robin,” Edward said, and Robin nodded.

As Luize recovered, she grabbed a butter cookie.

“I told her, ‘A lot of time has passed, and my feelings have changed.’ She said she’d try another way. She wants to become the pope, and for that, she needs me. Her position in the temple seems uncertain.”

“Are there special benefits to being pope?”

“The pope can freely change the temple’s rules, laws, and personnel. Though important matters need the elders’ consent, they are mostly figureheads. They follow the pope’s lead.”

“I see…”

“Raphaela is the type of person who strictly adhered to temple rules, unlike me. It seems she’s facing opposition within the temple. She probably thinks getting rid of them is the right course. But, it’s not my concern anymore.” Robin ended his words with a grumble.

Luize, puzzled, asked, “Did High Priestess Raphaela try to oust you?”

“No. I left on my own. It was frustrating because no one would listen to me.”

“Maybe High Priestess Raphaela silently listened because she didn’t think your direction was wrong.”

Robin flinched at Luize’s words. After a moment of silence, he spoke. “Is that how it is…? It’s all in the past now. I don’t want to go back to the temple. It’s just that it feels like my hometown, so I’m a bit worried.” Robin replied with a somber face.

Luize and Hendrik bit into cookies simultaneously.

Unable to hold back any longer, Robin raised his voice. “Why do you all keep eating cookies like it’s some interesting show?! At least pretend to be serious when I’m talking!”

“

! There’s nothing as entertaining as someone’s first love story. It’s natural to listen while snacking,” Hendrik said, brushing cookie crumbs from his hands and picking a new corn cookie.

Luize slid the mountain of cookies toward Robin. “Robin, have some too. It’s not polite to just watch when there are so many delicious cookies.”

“Really…! Fine, give me one of those ganache salt cookies. I’ve been wanting to eat it since earlier.”

“Here you go.” Luize handed Robin a ganache salt cookie.

The three of them bit into cookies simultaneously.

Watching them, Edward quietly curved his lips into a smile and summoned steaming hot tea in front of everyone.