“You’re not eating the cake? Don’t you like it?”
I stared at the cake on the table. At first glance, it seemed like a gesture of reconciliation, but this wasn’t nearly enough to soothe my anger.
I alternated between glaring at the cake and the man. My older twin brother, seated beside me, quickly gave me a look.
‘Just eat it and get this over with! Quickly!’
As twins, I could read his expression instantly. But I stubbornly shook my head and even made a deliberate “hmph!” sound.
“I don’t want to eat it, Your Grace.”
At my reply, the platinum-haired man’s face flushed red. It wasn’t anger. He was holding back laughter on his handsome face, knowing full well that laughing here would truly infuriate me.
‘How annoying.’
While I scowled at the man trying to suppress his laughter, the one suffering the most was my brother, Sasha, who wore a desperate expression as if he wanted to leave this scene immediately.
“Your Grace, huh? It’s been a while since I heard that title.”
His glittering eyes locked on mine without a hint of wavering. The intensity of his gaze made me uncomfortable, and I turned my head away.
Platinum hair, a strikingly handsome face, and amethyst-like eyes that sparkled with an unnatural glow.
His looks alone were a perfect ten. I now believed the saying that someone could possess a face so enchanting that just looking at it would dissolve anger. I was witnessing it firsthand.
As the man mentioned, it had been quite some time since I called him “Your Grace.” The memory of when I used to address him like that resurfaced, leaving me with a strange feeling.
“You’re so peculiar, my lady.”
And yet, the man played along with my obstinacy. “My lady,” huh? It had also been ages since he called me that. He was clearly reminiscing about the same things I was.
‘So that’s how he wants to play?’ I stubbornly nodded.
“If Lord Armin says so, it must be true.”
“Ha. First ‘Your Grace,’ and now ‘Lord Armin’?”
“Can’t either of you stop? It’s exhausting being stuck between you two.”
Unfortunately for Sasha, his muttering had no effect on us.
“Sasha, I’d love to stop, but Lady Roha is just too stubborn. She’s so different inside the house compared to outside that I can’t let it go.”
The man’s eyes crinkled into crescent moons. His gentle expression was balanced by the playful energy brimming in his vibrant purple gaze.
“What did you call that, my lady…?”
Crossing his legs, Armin Grey leaned slightly toward me. From experience, I knew that smile of his could be a little dangerous.
I asked hesitantly, my voice trembling slightly. No matter how much I tried not to feel intimidated, his smile always made me instinctively nervous.
“W-What are you talking about?”
“The first day we met.”
“The first day?”
Sasha, who had looked tired, suddenly lit up. Armin Grey was bringing up the story from that day—the one I’d dodged countless times no matter how many times Sasha had asked.
This is cheating, Outright cheating! Overwhelmed by the embarrassment of my past mistakes suddenly flashing before me, I burst into exaggerated laughter and grabbed a fork.
“Oh, my! This earl grey cake looks absolutely delicious. How did you know this is my favorite?”
It was a lie. Heaven knows, earth knows, Armin Grey knows, I know, and even my brother knows that I wouldn’t touch anything other than a fresh cream cake.
And just as surely, everyone in the room also knew I was trying to change the subject.
“Lord Armin, forget Vivian and continue. So, what exactly happened that day?”
“Brother! Brother, Have a bite! Okay?! Earl grey! You love earl grey, don’t you?”
Desperately, I shot Armin a pleading look. It was my declaration of surrender, silently begging him to let it go now because it was all my fault.
“I seem to recall you saying something about being a shut-in, but, well, that’s not important right now,” Armin said, sweeping back his platinum hair as he asked kindly.
“It tastes good, right? I got it from a dessert shop that’s popular in the capital these days.”
“Oh, absolutely! Absolutely delicious. So good, the three of us could drop dead from it!”
When he looked away momentarily, I glared at him secretly. But as soon as he turned back, I quickly flattered him. I wasn’t clueless, after all.
Moved by my tearful display of flattery, Armin seemed satisfied. Even under Sasha’s relentless pressure, he didn’t continue with the story.
* * *
To start my story, I think I have to start with an incident that happened when I was four years old. No, first, let’s introduce our house.
My family name is Roha. I was born into a household that doesn’t fall as low as a baron in the five noble ranks, but neither does it reach the prestige of an earl.
We’re comfortably middle-class nobility. Even my looks are appropriately average. In a world where golden or silver hair is everywhere, I sometimes wonder if my plain brown hair makes people forget I’m a noble..
Anyway, that’s how I was born—Vivian Roha, the younger twin sibling of Alessandro, otherwise known by his nickname, Sasha, the heir of the Roha family.
Why am I narrating my own story as if it’s about someone else? Well, that’s because of an incident that happened when I was four years old.
At that age, I had a near-death experience—I crossed the river to the afterlife but made a U-turn and came back. It happened while my brother and I were playing on the second floor, and I slipped through the railing and fell.
That near-fatal incident caused my brother to get scolded by our father for the first time in his life, almost to the point of death himself. Meanwhile, I supposedly lost consciousness for several days.
Fortunately, I hadn’t landed on my head, so the external injuries weren’t severe. After waking up, I quickly returned to my normal life.
But ever since then, I’ve had a secret I can’t share with anyone.
Even now, I sometimes wonder. Could the afterlife of this world be spherical like Earth, with the Jordan River here somehow connecting to the Samdocheon* in Korea?
[*T/N: A mythological river in Buddhist tradition where before reaching the afterlife, the souls of the dead must cross the river by 1 of 3 points. The weight of your sins while alive dictates which path you must take.]
What’s my secret, you ask?
After waking up, I began to remember my past life.
At first, I was utterly bewildered. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the romance fantasy stories I’d spent countless 100-200-won coins on in my previous life would apply to me. As a personal skeptic and atheist, the idea of reincarnation was never something I believed in.
But with the memories of four-year-old Vivian Roha still intact, it was hard to deny the reality.
Before I fell from the railing, I was a quiet and shy child—reserved, soft-spoken, and timid. Perhaps I still appear that way to others now.
Thanks to my parents’ desperate pleas, “Vivian, please, don’t show such behavior in front of others!”, I’ve been acting diligently ever since.
As a result, the Roha twins were quite famous in the area. Elegant and ladylike… uhh, that’s the reputation of Vivian Roha, while Sasha Roha is known as a capable heir expected to outshine our father someday.
But life inside the house is a different story.
Because I’m what you might call a “shut-in tyrant.”
* * *
“Vivi, did you take the next volume… And when did you take my clothes again?”
A month ago. That day was as ordinary as any other when Sasha barged into my room without knocking, wrinkling his nose in disapproval and shaking his head.
Since the accident when I was four, I’ve lived under the overprotectiveness of my parents. As a result, they utterly failed in “raising a proper daughter.” Poised? What’s that? Is it something you can eat wrapped in lettuce?
No matter what I did, they indulged me. And so, within the walls of the Roha viscounty, I became a queen—a tyrant, even.
That day, I was lounging around wearing one of Sasha’s oversized trousers that I’d secretly swiped to use as pajamas. A nightgown? No way. Pants are best for pajamas but people in this world don’t know anything.
By now, Sasha was used to this. He didn’t even bother trying to take his clothes back, opting instead to sigh deeply.
“Vivi, I beg you. Leave my clothes alone.”
“What can I do when this is comfortable?”
“Sigh.”
Another sigh. And the words that inevitably followed. I didn’t need to hear them to know.
Mocking him, I mimicked his voice.
“Oh sureee, and what do you plan to do about it, huh?”
Perhaps my impression was a bit too spot-on because Sasha’s face turned bright red. Having endured my antics since childhood, his illusions about women were completely shattered. He snapped in exasperation.
“If you know, then stop it already. You’re over twenty now!”
“Barely! I’m twenty-one. The next volume’s on the desk. Take it.”
Lounging on the bed, I shoved a cookie into my mouth. Sasha sighed again as he retrieved his book from the desk.
One of Sasha Roha’s hidden hobbies—despite being quite popular among women—was reading romance novels. If anyone found out about it, they’d probably gossip about how disappointed they were.
But that’s just the way the world works. Everyone puts on a little act now and then. Calling it “an act” might make it sound insincere, but you could also call it a survival skill. I just happen to be better at it than most, though my family seems to have a different opinion.
Sasha gave me a disapproving look before dragging a chair to my bed. From the way he settled in, I could tell he was gearing up for a lecture.
“Vivi, I’m not joking. What are you really going to do?”
“What’s wrong with you all of a sudden? I’m doing well outside!”
“That’s the problem. Every time I go out, people keep saying you’re like an angel descended from the heavens.”
“Oh my, really? Who said that? Who’s such a kind soul?”
I chuckled and rolled over, but Sasha rubbed his forehead as though I was giving him a headache.
“Is that the behavior of an angel?”
Quickly, I switched to my “public” expression—gentle, melancholic, and tearfully wistful, as if pleading silently.
Faced with my over-the-top act, Sasha flinched and took a step back.
“See? This is why I keep saying I’m not getting married.”
“Do you really think that’s reasonable? You’re an adult now. Father and Mother will start looking for matches for you.”
Sasha’s nagging made me sit up properly. Of course, the crumbs from the cookie all over my mouth didn’t exactly make me look poised.
“Seriously! If I got married, there’d be no bigger disgrace to the family. Besides, what about the poor man they choose? That would practically be a marriage scam. ”
“So what are you going to do? Are you going to live with our parents for the rest of your life?”
I couldn’t give any response to my brother’s words. Well, it’s normal for me to become independent from my parents now that I’m an adult.
The problem was this world. It’s a rigid era where the idea of a woman having a career is unthinkable, and the ultimate achievement for women is considered to be a good marriage.
And on top of that, there’s the undeniable fact: no man exists who could understand the stark contrast between the me inside the house and the me outside.
