After that day, I found myself revisiting the incident in my mind over several sleepless nights.
The gazes exchanged amidst the crowd.
That solid figure standing before me in an instant.
The familiar scent mixed with the sweet aroma of champagne.
The slow, deliberate turn of his back.
Perhaps it was because I hadn’t seen him in such a long time, but the memory left me strangely elated and tingling deep within. It was a feeling I had never experienced before.
I spent those nights looking at the torn photo of him again and again.
‘How strange. I never had thoughts like this while watching Kayan throughout my childhood.’
Why had he taken the champagne in my stead? Could it be that, like me, he simply wanted an excuse to leave the room and clean up quickly?
‘Or was it truly for my sake?’
Hoping to see him again, I attended several official events, but we didn’t cross paths. The difference in our social standings made it difficult.
As I pondered the moment, tilting my head, Connie’s voice broke my reverie.
“If you keep agonizing over this on your own, you’ll eventually realize that no one can replace Sir Kayan.”
Ah, she was talking about that made-up story of a noble lady whose handkerchief Kayan picked up earlier…
“And then, you’ll declare, ‘To hell with status! It’s him or no one else!’ and push for marriage.”
Connie said this with a grave seriousness.
“Your Highness, you may be too young to understand, but this is what it means to be an adult.”
An adult!
Was this adult emotion what I experienced when I was nineteen?
“That’s how it is between men and women. It’s something that happens naturally.”
Right…
Even in my previous life, noble ladies would gossip endlessly about such things.
“If Sir Kayan were to connect with a moderately wealthy countess, it could further strengthen Your Highness’s position. It’s a good strategy.”
If he became a proper noble in this life, it would certainly be possible.
Even I, who had never felt this way before, was losing sleep over it!
“What is this?”
I blinked slowly.
Kayan… a man? Not a friend, but an actual man? Could this really be something between a man and a woman?
Though I was deeply confused, the conclusion was simple.
Kayan wasn’t an adult yet, either. We hadn’t even restored our friendship. The road ahead was long and winding.
There was no point in rushing a romantic relationship with a boy who couldn’t even accept being my friend.
‘I’ll just stay close to him for now.’
I thought carefully.
‘We’ll grow together, and I’ll figure out whether we can truly become something more.’
Mentally, I was twenty years old. I could certainly wait for a fifteen-year-old boy to catch up.
In hindsight, it was clear Kayan had taken the champagne hit to protect me.
“I was definitely flustered by it…”
Saying it out loud made my feelings clearer. The emotions I had felt over those sleepless nights were undoubtedly a kind of thrill.
‘Wow, Ivnoa… You’re unbelievable.’
I groaned inwardly.
‘Even during those dark, depressing days, you managed to get butterflies! And for Kayan, of all people!’
No wonder people always said love could blossom even amidst war.
‘Right. Whether it’s a friendship or something else, staying by his side is what matters. Let’s stick to the plan.’
There was plenty of time.
As Connie had said, we were still far from being adults.
“Ah… I see. Well, for now. Next…”
There were so many other matters to address.
Resolving myself, I pulled out another piece of parchment and jotted down the next item.
Connie frowned and muttered, “It seems like all intangible values are being disregarded here.”
“Exactly. At this rate, there’s no future.”
And another thing: if things remained as they were, Arthur Barcklith and the northern people would soon face destruction.
This meant fifteen-year-old Kayan was destined to lose everyone—his father, his knights, everyone.
“Perhaps he thought, having already lost everyone from his happier days, he couldn’t bear to lose Your Highness as well.”
There was a reason Kayan had said those words in the end.
When I heard of their deaths through news in the palace, I had stopped eating and cried for days.
Though I later discovered it was all part of Simon’s scheme, it didn’t change how I felt.
‘Seeing them again… it fills me with so much joy.’
Thinking of Hans and the other northern knights, I bit my lower lip.
‘I can’t let them die meaninglessly again.’
I still didn’t know why Simon was determined to kill Arthur and the northern knights around this time, but one thing was clear—I had to save them.
‘Because they’re all precious to me.’
However, solving this would require patience. I needed to wait for the right moment, and there was still some time left.
It was then that I heard a cheerful voice from outside the room.
“Your Highness! Come have some snacks!”
Connie’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“…Did they just dare to invite Her Highness to come for snacks?”
“Let’s go, Connie.”
I stood up abruptly, smiling.
“Like I said, this is how things used to be for me.”
“B-but how could Your Highness! Walking to snacks on your own two feet!”
“I’m not walking there myself.”
The moment I opened the door, a knight waiting with a beaming smile swept me up in his arms.
“Let’s go, Your Highness! Hahahahaha!”
The large, burly knight practically leaped with excitement as he shouted, “I won rock-paper-scissors, so I get to escort you! This’ll all end when the Viscount arrives anyway! Hahahahaha!”
Connie rolled her eyes and muttered beside me, something along the lines of, “Snacks should be brought to the room, not served in the kitchen. What nonsense.” She didn’t dare say it too loudly, though, as the knight’s face was half-covered with a menacing scar.
“I-I just don’t think I can ever get used to this…” Connie whispered to me, looking teary-eyed.
“Just seeing the knights’ intimidating faces makes me st-stutter…”
Of course, the knight didn’t hear her as he continued talking boisterously.
“There’s a room perfect for gathering and enjoying snacks together here!”
The idea of such a room in a noble residence was unheard of. I had no clue what he meant.
Still, when we arrived…
“Ah.”
Everyone stood in two rows, bowing deeply at a perfect 90-degree angle, and shouted in unison.
“Welcome, Your Highness!”
The burly men dressed in black all greeted me at once, making it feel less like I was being welcomed and more like I’d stumbled into the den of a mob boss.
“We will serve you with the utmost dedication!”
Among them, one knight wearing a chef’s hat stood at attention and announced, “We have prepared all the dishes you loved, Your Highness!”
Plates were promptly laid out in front of me.
There were no servants here. The knights handled everything—cooking, cleaning, tending the horses, and even laundry. Originally mercenaries who took care of their own needs, they seemed to find it completely natural.
“Oh!”
I exclaimed in delight as I looked at the plate before me. Though rough and rustic in appearance, it was filled with cookies and tarts made from northern wild berries.
“Surely your tastes haven’t changed in a year?”
Everyone looked at me with eager faces.
I took a fork, scooped a generous bite of the berry tart, and brought it to my mouth.
Warmth flooded through me, just as it had in my old memories.
In the North, there was no tea time culture. Instead, during snack time in the afternoons, we would gather like this, eating sweets and chatting noisily.
“This is so delicious…”
Though I had tasted countless rare and exquisite dishes in the palace, none of them had ever been as nostalgic as this.
“Thank you, everyone. Truly, it’s so delicious.”
As I savored the cookies with teary-eyed gratitude, everyone around me chimed in with their comments.
“Wow, the palace has really done wonders! Why are you so much prettier now?”
“She’s already quite the figure, isn’t she?”
“Your skin’s glowing! And your hair—what did you do to it?”
Meanwhile, Kayan, caught in the middle of the chaos without a chance to even offer a proper greeting, was left rubbing his forehead in silent exasperation.
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