Chapter 68
Suddenly, she could feel all eyes in the hall turning to her.
Shirua looked into the eyes that held her gaze for a long moment.
Puzzlement, surprise, wariness, and… faint fear.
She’d never met anyone who looked at her like that before. It piqued her interest.
‘You’re looking at me like I’m going to kill you.’
Shirua’s smile deepened.
Even though she could feel her brother’s fierce glare from afar, and the emotions it held, she didn’t feel like leaving.
It was a strange feeling.
“It’s rewarding.”
It was rewarding to be so uncharacteristically smarmy.
“…?”
Shirua rolled her eyes and smiled as she met his puzzled gaze.
“Shirua.”
“Yes.”
In the atmosphere created by Princess Shirua’s sudden behavior, a full-scale tea party began.
***
“Shirua.”
Pession glared at his sister with a stiff expression and sharp eyes.
“Why?”
Shirua grinned, getting on Pession’s nerves.
“Can’t I look at it? Will I wear it out? Will I tear it apart? Why were you so sensitive when I asked to see it? I mean, it’s so cheap, it’s only in a place like this that I can get a good look at it? I’m not doing you any harm, so why are you being so sensitive?”
“Your very existence should.”
“I’m sorry, big brother.”
“Only in times like this are you my sister.”
Looking at Pession growling and Shirua scratching at her stomach impatiently, Empress Ageni raised her eyebrows.
“Enough.”
The siblings, who had been at each other’s throats, stopped fighting. Empress Ageni looked back at Shirua.
“Shirua, I would advise you to stay away from Lady Arellin.”
“Oh, no.”
“Shirua.”
Empress Ageni’s cold reprimand flew.
“You should have held back.”
Shirua clenched her jaw.
“There would have been plenty of natural opportunities.”
“How can I hold back when she is right in front of me? I was driving myself crazy with curiosity. I knew it as soon as I saw it. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
Pession’s face crumpled into a grim line.
“Don’t touch her.”
“Don’t what?”
“Stay away from her.”
“Why do you say that? You make it sound like I’m going to do something bad. It’s ridiculous.”
“Arellin’s not like you, she’s a woman, she’s fragile and delicate, and if you hurt her, she won’t let you.”
She doesn’t know why she doesn’t realize that the more he talks, the more he intrigues her.
“Lady Arellin, do you not like animals?”
“Shirua.”
Empress Ageni interrupted again.
Shirua looked weak under the stern glare.
“But what can I do, the more you act like that, the more attractive it becomes?”
“Shirua.”
“You were the one who said I needed friends too.”
Shirua, the geeky girl who’d ripped off all the friends she’d been given and never stepped foot outside of her own personalized monarch’s palace, smiled.
“I’ll make you a friend.”
“Shirua.”
“For the first time, I have a child I want to be friend, would you object?”
Pession narrowed her eyes when Empress Ageni’s mouth fell open, unable to object.
“Absolutely not.”
“What do you object to?”
“Arellin is my friend.”
“What does that have to do with me? If she’s friends with my brother, why can’t she be friends with me?”
“Uh, that’s weird.”
“What’s weird? Are you jealous of me brother?”
Pession’s eyebrows twitched. Shirua’s smile deepened.
“You’re not popular with girls if you’re that narrow-minded.”
“… There’s no way Arellin likes the likes of you.”
“What? Is that really what you said to me?”
Shirua was genuinely amused at this moment.
Pession, who usually ignored her with a sullen expression or lost to her no matter what she did, was reacting like this.
‘Did he really mean it?’
Shirua’s eyes sparkled with interest as she turned to Pession.
“Oh my!”
Pession gave her a mumble.
“Ohhh!”
Shirua didn’t back down.
“Don’t fight, you two, work it out.”
Empress Ageni refused to mediate.
The Empress Ageni’s determination to not care what the outcome was as long as they didn’t fight rekindled the fire in their eyes.
Pession suggested.
“Shall we duel?”
“That would put me at too great a disadvantage.”
“Shirua, how can I get Arellin to let go of you?”
“I see you’re doing it.”
Empress Ageni turned away from her son and daughter, who were beginning to growl again. She patted her youngest, who was eagerly inhaling her dessert.
At least one of her children was still alive, thank God.
“Yum! Mother!”
***
The fight between Pession and Shirua did not last long.
One was the Crown Prince of the country, and the other was a reclusive monarch who never went outside, so there was a lot of attention on them. People wouldn’t leave them alone.
“Ha. Ha ha.”
This forced Shirua to smile for the first time in a long time, until he got tired of it.
‘When will they ever go away?’
Forgetting about the humans who would come to this tea party with Arellin, Shirua regretted her plan for the first time.
‘Why are they so interested in me?! The Crown Prince is Pession! Shouldn’t I be going to Pession?! I can’t even go to the Halbern Table because of these people!’
Shirua’s naturally pouty face became increasingly impatient and short, but the attention never waned.
“I think my Leslie and Her Highness would really get along, ohhhhh.”
“Ah, yes.”
“It would be wonderful if our little girl could be a friend of Her Highness, wouldn’t it, Leslie?”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
‘She’s a friend, she’s a nabal, she’s not interested.’
Marquise de Belfort and Young Lady were smiling brightly even as Shirua looked openly bored.
Such patience.
Shirua inwardly admired them. Only someone with such patience could fulfill their ambitions.
‘Not that it’s any of my business.’
Shirua looked for Pession, wondering when these humans would stop.
Pession had already moved to the Mubisk table.
“Master Quian, I honor you!”
“Haha.”
The next most popular table after the imperial table was surprisingly the Mubisk.
Perhaps it was because it was a more macho family that didn’t socialize as much as Sperom, but the people gathered were all knights.
Watching the one-sided courtship of the knights, who were showing their respect with their whole bodies, it was hard to tell if this was a tea party or a dance hall.
“Master, you’re quite popular.”
“What, Your Highness?”
Pession looked at Aaron after a moment’s refuge. The soft-spoken swordsmanship genius brother was drinking neither tea nor sugary drinks.
“Have some dessert.”
“…”
At Pession’s urging, Aaron offered a scone to his brother. John looked at him with clear eyes and shook his head. Aaron took a bite of the scone and went still again.
“…”
Pession had given up trying to understand Brother Mubisk.
Maybe the Mubisks had some kind of… ability to communicate without saying a word.
“There is no such thing.”
“Don’t read my mind, Master.”
“What brings you all the way here, anyway?”
“You’ve seen Arellin. How was she?”
The Duke of Mubisk rubbed his chin. As a member of the Arellin Health Council, the Duke of Mubisk had been known for his strong opinions on ‘muscle’ and ‘diet’.
But…
She was thin and lean, with a bit of fat, but her biceps were like skinny twigs, and what could she lift with them?
She looked like she needed a workout.
“That’s exercise.”
“Yeah…”
The Duke of Mubisk couldn’t believe it.
“That’s a bit of exercise.”
“…!”
Pession shook his head.
Because this was the truth.
“Well, well.”
He thought there were few things in life that would surprise him anymore.
The Duke of Mubisk and Grandmaster of the Sword, Quian, agonized over his newfound challenge.
He’d trained so many men who were healthy and could survive anything you threw at them without breaking, and now he had to make a girl healthy who didn’t know how or where she’d break if you touched her wrong!
“Mmm, that’s too hard.”
“It’s hard.”
“It’s hard…”
This isn’t training or discipline, it’s rehabilitation or resuscitation.
Their gazes drifted to somewhere on the Halbern table.
“What should I order?”
***
Terrifying.
She shuddered at the sudden sense of foreboding.
“What’s wrong?”
She rubbed her arm, which was suddenly covered in goosebumps.
“I just… felt a genuine threat to my life.”
“What?”
