“Isn’t that how everyone is? When you tell them to say it properly to your face, they just mumble and dodge the question, saying things like they meant Asha is pretty or whatever.”
“So how did Lyuda end up with shorter hair?”
Lyudmila’s face turned red and she pulled Natalya.
“It got a little heated during the conversation.”
Natalya made a gesture of clashing fists in each hand behind Lyudmila. Asha looked at Lyudmila with her mouth open. Lyudmila hurriedly grabbed Natalya’s hands.
“It wasn’t like that!”
“Oh really…”
“I… Might have reacted a bit strongly, but the young master of Count Yufov’s family also apologized. He was startled by my response and apologized profusely, and in the process, a candlestick got knocked over.”
“So you kept hitting him until he apologized?”
“Exactly!”
“No, that’s not what happened!”
Lyudmila and Natalya shouted at the same time. Asha burst into laughter, she removed the bowls of stew of Natalya and Lyudmila and embraced them.
“W-Why are you doing this all of a sudden? People are watching!”
“This much is fine even if people are watching. Knights hug each other when they’re close, right? Isn’t that right?”
Asha let go of Lyudmila and Natalya and glanced over at the knights sitting a little further away, enjoying the stew Asha had made. The knights, eyes wide in surprise, quickly stood up and started hugging each other tightly.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
Even in the dense forest, the stars decorating the night sky shone vividly, as if they were pouring down. The three of them lay inside the tent, heads poking out, quietly chatting. From afar, the crackling of the still-burning campfire, the sound of a squirrel clutching a nut at the end of a tree, and the soft rustle of starlight falling could be heard.
“Did you find a store?”
“Yes. Olga found it for me. I didn’t want something too close to the main street, so I chose a spot tucked away in a corner.”
Asha replied, holding a cup of warm tea in her hands.
“Uncle Maxim said he’d help with the interior decoration, and Mariya will handle the design. Now I’m just thinking about what kind of pastries to sell.”
“I vote for strawberry tarts. Oh! Peach tarts sound good too.”
“What’s the name of the shop going to be?”
“How about ‘Pesheranskaya Pastry Shop’? ‘Asha’s Pastry Shop’… feels a bit too narcissistic.”
Asha gently touched her cheek, remembering the same dilemma she faced when choosing a name for Mura’s painting.
“I actually think ‘Asha’s Pastry Shop’ sounds nice, though.”
“It’s a little embarrassing.”
“But isn’t Pesheranskaya one of your names too?”
“Well, Yeah, But since it’s still new, It doesn’t feel overwhelmingly like… ‘Me!’”
At the mention of “Me!” Lyudmila and Natalya laughed together.
“Have you found someone to help out at the shop? It might be hard to run it alone.”
“There’s someone named Sophia who’s been baking pastries using my recipes for a while now. She said she’d help. I just need to work hard to make sure I can pay her…”
“Will one person be enough?”
Natalya tried to drink tea while lying on her back, spilling about half of it. Lyudmila sighed and dabbed at Natalya’s front with a handkerchief.
“I have to prepare for the possibility that no customers might come… I heard that’s how it is for most people when they first open a shop.”
Asha responded seriously, clutching her head, but when she looked up, she caught her friends staring at her.
“What? What?”
“…”
“…”
“What is it?! I’m just voicing a valid concern! I mean, I intentionally chose a remote location, the shop is small, and I didn’t even attend pastry school…”
“Hmmm…”
Natalya smiled faintly. Asha had never seen such a mature expression on her before. Lyudmila cleared her throat.
“Thinking you need to graduate from pastry school might be a little… Inconsiderate, Your Highness.”
“She’s right. That’s too much.”
“You two are the ones being too much!”
The girls bickered for a while before their eyes grew heavy, and their voices softened into gentle whispers.
“Can I build a cabin here? I’m good at building cabins now. I’m not the kid I used to be.”
“Shall we?”
“I’ll build the kitchen too.”
“U-Uhm. I’ll handle the kitchen.”
“Why? Don’t you trust my kitchens?”
“To be honest… Ah, No, Never mind.”
“You can be honest.”
“Natasha has never set foot in a kitchen.”
“I have. Twice!”
“You mean when we made Tarte-Shasha?”
“What’s Tarte-Shasha?”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Is this another Sasha-exclusive memory that doesn’t include me?”
“N-no. The first Tarte-Shasha was like that, but the second Tarte-Shasha was for Lyuda!”
“For me? When…”
As the words trailed off and the memory resurfaced, Lyudmila’s face flushed bright red, and she darted inside the tent. Asha and Natalya exchanged glances, burst into laughter, and quickly ran inside after her.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
The girls opened their eyes at the break of dawn.
“Asha, Asha.”
Asha slowly opened her eyes to the familiar voice heard outside the tent.
“Karnov? Huh?”
Why was Karnov’s voice, which shouldn’t be heard here, reaching her ears? Asha hurriedly got up. Lying next to her, Lyudmila and Natalya stirred slightly. As she pulled apart the tent flap, Karnov, holding the reins of a horse, was looking down at her. Asha quickly rubbed her eyes with her hands.
“Karnov…? How did you get here?”
“Kairos said it might rain soon, so I came to get you.”
“Rain?”
Asha blinked her slightly swollen eyes. She could see clouds in the sky, but it didn’t look like it was going to rain. But Kairos couldn’t be wrong.
The knights seemed to have heard Karnov’s words too and were already packing up. It seemed they had intended to wake the girls last.
Asha rubbed her eyes a bit more and then woke up her two friends. Although Lyudmila was struggling a bit, she quickly got up.
Asha took the thin bedding and teacups, Natasha took the pillow and teapot, and Lyudmila took their friends’ nightcaps and saucers, and they left the tent.
As soon as they started packing up the tent, raindrops began to fall. The three decided it would be better to stand quietly rather than get in the way of those packing. The three of them stood under a peach tree, watching the rain pour, and suddenly burst into laughter.
“Ah~! I can’t believe it ends like this.”
“It’s raining a lot…”
“I should have brought Dimitri, to stop the rain.”
“Why couldn’t he come?”
“He went to practice with Ilya. He became an investigator directly under the imperial family.”
“Ah~! He finally passed this year.”
“Exactly. If he wanted it so badly, why didn’t he bend his will a bit? I don’t know why he kept failing.”
Natalya shook her head.
“That’s not something you can just bend because you want to.”
Asha and Lyudmila looked at Natalya at the same time. Natalya shrugged.
“I also wanted to make my mother happy, so I tried to stay in her room for a while.”
“Really?”
“But it didn’t work. Eventually, my mother cried and told me to go out and play.”
“What… what did you do in the room?”
Lyudmila asked with a slightly trembling voice. Natalya just smiled and didn’t answer.
“It doesn’t seem like the rain will stop.”
“It was my first camping. It’s a shame…”
Lyudmila mumbled. Natalya shrugged.
“We’ll do it in a cabin next time, so it won’t matter if it rains or snows.”
“Great! Oh, Natalya. It would be nice if the cabin had a fireplace too.”
“…What?”
“It’s a bit chilly now with the rain. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a fireplace?”
Suddenly, Natalya’s expression became resolute.
“I… I’ll try.”
Asha shook her teacup, and Lyudmila shook her saucer to express their applause of encouragement. Karnov and the knights tidied up the traces of their camp and got on the carriage a bit earlier than planned.
“Achoo!”
Asha, who sneezed loudly, took the three handkerchiefs her friends handed her one by one and sniffled.
“It’s just some cold wind.”
Karnov clicked his tongue as he got into the carriage with them. Asha glared at him.
“I just sneezed. Catching a cold from sneezing is something that only happens in novels.”
“I didn’t say it was a cold.”
Asha tried to stand up abruptly but was barely held back by Lyudmila. Karnov chuckled quietly.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
The rain, which began to fall at the end of the summer, never stopped. The fireplace in the conference room where the political affairs meeting was held was also lit with firewood as the sound of the cool rain felt a little chilly.
At that moment, the chamberlain quietly entered and whispered something into the emperor’s ear. For a moment, the emperor’s pen halted. The chamberlain then approached the crown prince, who was seated opposite the emperor, and whispered to him as well.
The nobles, who overheard the conversation, exchanged small glances. It seemed the crown princess had developed a fever. Perhaps he got caught in the sudden downpour. Oh dear.
After a brief silence, just when everyone thought the crown prince would rise from his seat, the crown prince looked up at the emperor.
“Your Majesty.”
“…”
Clutching his pen tightly, the crown prince spoke with eyes that seemed to have gained a firm resolve as if bearing a burden.
“This meeting… I will conduct it.”
“…”
“From now on… I will be here.”
Everyone blinked, not understanding what he meant.
The emperor put down his pen and rose to his feet. The chair rattled slightly. Leaving behind only the words that he needed to go quickly, the emperor departed first. It was something that had never happened before.
Alexei watched the emperor’s receding back through the slowly closing door. And when the door was completely closed, Alexei nodded. The meeting resumed.
