I Don’t Trust My Twin Sister

“Lawrence, you can call me Lawrence.”

Fervi mumbled my name a few times and then opened her eyes slightly. She opened her mouth in surprise, then grinned, then shook her head a few times to get her words out.

“Well, I know that one. No. It’s even weirder that people in social circles these days don’t know the name Lawrence.”

“Is that so?”

“The next head of the Ajstain family, the woman who monopolizes Berdian’s love, what else is there? Anyway, she has many nicknames.”

“..ahaha.”

I never thought hearing my story would be this embarrassing and embarrassing. When she smiled awkwardly, she took my hand lightly and shook it as if she understood, then sat down in her chair.

“By the way, Miss Lawrence… Oh, can I call you by your first name?”

As soon as I nodded, she smiled and opened her mouth again, thanking me.

“I never imagined that here I would meet Miss Lawrence.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Actually, I didn’t think we would be able to laugh and talk like this even if we met. It’s surprising.”

“Why?”

Was there a need to think like that when the person was not malicious and has not sinned against me? As I tilted my head, Fervi turned her gaze to me. She felt a strange sense of déjà vu as his gray eyes rolled to look directly at me. A somewhat familiar eye color. And her appearance strangely reminds me of someone.

As my eyes narrowed slightly in confusion, I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned my head, Ian came walking towards her, holding a beak filled with rice and smiling. While he was smiling as he handed me the food, his gaze slightly turned and landed on Fervi, and at that moment, I could see his face harden.

“Are you here?”

Ian looked at her with her cold, hard face. Then he reached out his hand to me, pulled it as if to cover me, hid it behind me, and opened his mouth quietly.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m going to see the performance.”

“Why are you…”

“Is there a law that says I can’t look at it? I am definitely one of His Majesty’s people.”

“Do you think you will readily believe that?”

“It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. Besides, you know that, unlike my brother, I’m not that interested in politics and power. Well, I understand that you’re wary of me, but I feel a little sad. I did something.”

As I looked at Fervi, who was making a sad expression with her lips slightly lowered, her eyes were fixed on me. she was smiling

“It might be better to say it now because there may be a misunderstanding later.”

She lazily poured her wine into her own glass and opened her mouth with a languid expression on her face.

“My name is Fervi. I am the third of the princesses of the Lirus imperial family and is closely related to her half-brother, Prince Deoreden.”

“…Ruus?”

“It just so happened that it happened like that. As I said before, I’ll tell you in advance because you might misunderstand.”

She put down her glass and looked directly at me, rolling her gray eyes that proved her imperial bloodline.

“I have nothing to do with my damn brother. Don’t get me wrong.”

There was no misunderstanding.

“You knew, right?”

There are only boundaries. I stared quietly into her eyes.

* * *

The woman who spread both hands and claimed her innocence, and the color of her eyes that could not be hidden no matter how much she tried to deny it, made it impossible to hide the fact that she was born with the same bloodline as the crown prince.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to piece together the situation for her. Was it really a coincidence that Fervi came here? I couldn’t easily believe it. No matter how much I said that I was in conflict with Prince Oravain Theoreden, I was the one who would suffer if I believed that. Moreover, the Alpensia family and the Crown Prince, who had taken the lead in the matter, remained in their places unharmed. In a situation where I didn’t know what would happen in the future, I wasn’t entirely happy with her approach.

‘Let us continue to look at Fervi with her wary eyes.’

Eventually she stood up from her seat with a wry smile on her face.

“If you see it that way, I can’t help it. I thought we would communicate well since we have the same enemies.”

“Same enemy?”

“Prince Theoreden.”

I shook my head at her referring to my brother’s name as if it were someone else. Calling one word or name differently did not cause any agitation. Words can deceive oneself. No one could guarantee whether that was true.

“It would be natural for Miss Lawrence to be hostile towards me, just like the crown prince. But I want you to know one thing. I am different from the crown prince.”

She gathered her luggage and smiled as she walked past me.

“I guess I’ll have to give up on this performance. I’ve been waiting for a long time, and it’ll be hard to see it in the same place, so I’ll just leave. I hope you’ll clear up any misunderstandings about me the next time I see you.”

“…”

After finishing what she had to say, I looked at her back as she disappeared, and then turned my gaze away from her. Ian followed Fervi with his eyes with a slightly stiff expression on his face. Eventually, when she disappeared, the curtain rose on her stage. Everyone cheered and cheered for the actors who appeared on stage, but Ian and I couldn’t react in any way.

The sudden appearance of Fervi, the younger sister of Crown Prince Deoreden and a member of the imperial family. How should we accept her, who claims that she is different from her Deore Den and describes her brother as her enemy?

“Yes.”

“Lawrence.”

Ian stretched out his hand and wrapped her around my waist, hugging her and muttering softly.

“I don’t know about anyone else, but you shouldn’t get close to that princess.”

“Is there a reason?”

Ian nodded at her. He bit his lip with a hard look on his face, looked at me, and let out a labored breath.

“It’s because of Fervi’s past.”

“Her past?”

When I tilted my head wondering what the past was like, Ian bit his lip, looked at me, and quietly opened his mouth.

“A woman without blood or tears, who killed her own family with her own hands… who stabbed her half-brother to death with her own hands… that is Fervi.”

Her mouth opened slightly and Ian frowned at her.

“She is a daughter who cannot be shooed away even if he tries, and even the emperor finds it difficult.”

“…Why, didn’t her imperial family punish her?”

“I tried to get off, but some nobles resisted. She is the princess born to her worthless concubine, but her influential nobles, who support no one, surround her. Because of this, even in the imperial family, she took it easy and didn’t make a big deal out of it. Thanks to this, her concubine, who was the mother of the young princess killed by Fervi, went crazy and went on a rampage and was eventually abandoned. It was a result that did not make sense in many ways.”

Fervi reminded me of her face. She couldn’t believe she would do such a thing with her beautiful and gorgeous looks. They say people don’t know just by looking at the outside….

“Why did you kill her brother?”

“It’s simple.”

Ian paused briefly and spat out.

“just”

“yes?”

“They said it was just that.”

“It happened when Fervi was eight years old and the deceased princess was six years old.”

It seemed like I was becoming distant from a cruel reality that was difficult to even think about. Ian looked at me and shook his head.

“Fervi is a person that even the members of the imperial family consider to be cautious and are wary of. You never know what he might do. However, the power of the nobles who surround Fervi until the end is quite strong, so you cannot treat him carelessly. So, it is best to avoid him if possible. “It gets annoying if you get caught up in it for no reason.”

“I have no intention of becoming friends with the person who killed my brother.”

Whatever the reason, killing her half-brother, her six-year-old brother, was incomprehensible under any circumstances. I didn’t know if that family was crazy, or if there was a particularly strange person around me. Since I couldn’t take the word “coincidence” for granted, I felt that my meeting with Fervi was unlikely to end as a one-time thing.

What did she want from me? As she said in her own words, does she want to become friends with me, who is in charge of the crown prince? But why bother me? It had been a long time since the crown prince gathered the noble forces led by the Alpensia family. They would grind their teeth to bring down the two ducal families who were common enemies. Perhaps he did not want the Ajstain family and the Verdian family to combine.

A completely new character enters this simple and easy-to-understand confrontation.

‘What on earth are you aiming for?’

I felt like things were getting complicated.

* * *

At this time, when the warmth of spring gently enveloped the empire, the hottest thing throughout the empire was by far the union of the Verdian family and the Ajstain family. In the process, there was talk that some of the Ajstain family’s assets would be transferred to the Berdian family. In addition, there was a logical opinion that the scope of the business carried out by the Ajstain family would be slightly expanded through the connections of the Verdian family, which specializes in military power.

Various stories came out in daily, weekly, and monthly newspapers. Where did the rumor come from? In fact, I had no intention of stopping the rumor, so I wasn’t really interested in the outpouring of these words. There were a lot of speculations and most of the articles were unconfirmed, but as you read them, there were many things that seemed plausible.

“Sister, shouldn’t we control the newspaper companies?”

Ercia rolled her pen and made a disapproving expression. More than a week has already passed since she returned from her vacation. Before she knew it, Elsia had completed her first month of work and was showing off how she was doing quite a bit of business. Ercia put a pen between his nose and lips and pouted his lips. I told you not to do that, so you do it again. I feel bad because it feels like it’s done with my face.

As I stared at her, Ercia quietly took out her pen, tapped it on the table, and spoke again.

“Do you know what’s going on these days? My God, they’re even guessing the number of children that will be born between you and Archduke Verdian? What kind of scientific technique is this, based on astronomy…? …I don’t even know.”

You’re guessing something useless. It was funny that people were paying attention and trying to guess things that I couldn’t know, but it was also quite fun to listen to.

“Recently, there have been a lot of newspapers publishing speculations related to business. Not long ago, there was a pile of letters from managers who read the newspaper and asked if it was true. Are they really going to sell their business?”

“Well, that’s right.”

“Looking at things like that, I think we need to regulate it. I tried to reduce the noise by letting them know through my line that no, all business-related information would be communicated through the internal network, but it’s getting worse as time goes on. What really happens is that this happens. I’m worried that’s not the case.”

“If something happens, how much will it happen? You don’t have to worry about that.”

She put down the newspaper, stood up, and approached Ercia. Ercia raised her head at an angle, stroked her head, and then glanced over the accounting data she was in the middle of writing. At this rate, I didn’t think there would be any major problems even if Ercia took over my position in half a year.

Fievel would make up for what was lacking, my grandfather would help, and I would also help out a little. But there are some businesses I couldn’t completely get away from. As a member of the Ajstain family, no matter how much she got married and became the mistress of a family, she could not completely shake off her hands. I don’t want to do that either.

“Besides, isn’t it too much of a stretch to say that the Ajstain family’s wealth is flowing to the Verdian family?” 

“We will provide support, but it is an issue that will be dealt with slowly at regular intervals. If we merge through marriage, it will not be beneficial to either of us, and Ian will also be told that he married me for that reason alone. It is not good for both parties, so we will have to wait for decades. It’s a story that will unfold slowly.”

I put down my papers, sat down at my desk, and looked up blankly at the ceiling.

“If the imperial family’s checks on the Verdian family and Ajstain family slow down a bit, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to separate and manage the families like this, but if the pressure intensifies, in the worst case, a new family may be born.”

“If that happens, what will happen to the Ajstain family?”

“Well, the next matriarch of Ajstain will not be me, but Ercia. We will put the pieces together one by one, and when the time comes, we will put the pieces together to make a new door. Actually, I don’t have any plans to do this, you know. Right now, next month. If you don’t know anything, how can you predict what will happen decades from now?”

“…but.”

What was Ercia thinking as she regained her appetite? In fact, I was still thinking about handing over my position to Ercia. There wasn’t much of a problem with me getting married while holding a title. If Ercia gives up her qualifications to continue the family, I could manage the Ajstain family and Ian could manage the Berdian family. If these two conditions fit together well, it could exert great power.

If Ercia had the will to succeed her family, I had to stand behind her and act as her support. Ercia seemed like she wasn’t very greedy, and she actually said that she wasn’t interested in being the master of her family. Then I have to embrace it. As my grandfather was still making corrections, she decided to take some time to think about it and slowly observed the situation.

 

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