Chapter 47 - Volume 2 (1/2)

Oh, Lady Filmina?」

Lunamerie tilts her head to the side, as if saying, ‘that’s unexpected’. Her strawberry blonde hair slips off her shoulder at that gesture. I stood up, even as I was captivated by that hair, so fine that even though I didn’t touch it myself, I could tell how soft it was. Since I’ve been caught, it’s unacceptable to just sit and watch when the other person is the noble daughter of the Valentine family, although she’s younger than me. Lifting up the hem of my dress from left and right with both my hands, I bow.

「How do you do, Lady Luna. It’s been a while since we last met.」

「Haha, nice to see you. Are you here to meet Sir Agedilus again too?」

「……Yes, I just had a small errand.」

I can’t possibly be foolishly honest and say 「I’ve been coming here every day lately」 so I vaguely smile, lying. The man’s sunrise-colored eyes look at me as if he wants to say something, but I ignore that and smile. I don’t know what Lunamerie thought of that, but she deepens her lovely smile even more, opening her light-pink lips.

「If so, then would you have tea with us too? It would make me so happy to hear your stories about Sir Agedilus.」

「Lady Lunamerie, that’s—」

「I can’t listen to what you’re saying if you won’t call me Luna.」

「……Lady Luna. There’s nothing interesting in my past. It’s not even worth hearing about.」

「Oh, that’s for me to decide, not for you. Hey, Lady Filmina. You agree, don’t you?」

I can’t help but be speechless. Lunamerie blinks her sparkling eyes, asking me that. I can’t feel any bad intentions in her words, just genuine interest and curiosity – and then, envy towards me for knowing about his past. It’s only natural for a maiden in love to want to know about her beloved’s past stories. Especially if it’s a man like this one, who almost never talks about his past usually.

Usually, I wouldn’t hesitate to cooperate with a maiden that’s determined trying to woo the one she likes, also I wouldn’t be discouraged from his unfriendly behavior. But that scenario doesn’t apply to this man.

I can feel my heart getting noisy just by watching the two of them stand and talk like this. My heart was supposed to have calmed down, but now waves of discord wash over it. Waves bigger than the last time I met Lunamerie.

For some reason, the sight of them in my nightmare, standing together intimately, overlaps this scene in front of me. I feel the impulse to close my eyes, but I somehow manage to bear that.

No, this isn’t that dream. This is unmistakably reality. Yes, it’s reality – that’s why the sight in front of me weighs so heavy on me.

「Filmina?」

「……—!」

My breath is slightly taken away by that man’s voice. By the time I realized it, he and Lunamerie, and then Widnichol, were all looking straight at me. Ah, not good. It seems I zoned out again. Lunamerie’s gaze as she waits for my answer hurts.

‘Well now, what should I say?’ As I think that, a troubled smile probably comes on my face. Just like before, those sunrise-colored eyes look at me, saying more eloquently than words could, 「Don’t say unnecessary things.」

——Yeah, yeah, I know.

Even if the other person is the daughter of a great aristocrat family, my most important priority has been obvious from the start.

「Lady Luna, please forgive me. I can’t tell you about his stories when he himself doesn’t want that.」

I know that his childhood stories are full of the dark past he wants to erase. Even I don’t know about all of it. But if this man 「doesn’t want to talk about it」 then there’s no reason for me to say no to that.

Perhaps my answer was unexpected, since Lunamerie widens her deep purple eyes. There probably aren’t many people that deny her what she wants like this, considering her parentage or her looks. ‘This may have been rude,’ I secretly get flustered internally. Indifferent to me, Lunamerie purses her lips once, and then opens her mouth again.

「Is that so. ……I understand. If that’s what you say, then I’ll just have to get Sir Agedilus to tell me by myself!」

That’s a brave declaration. I can’t help but feel like applauding her. 「Please prepare yourself!」 Lunamerie pushed the basket in her hand towards him. In response to that, he takes it on instinct, but furrows his brows at an angle that Lunamerie can’t notice. Widnichol looks back and forth from the man and Lunamerie, trembling with fear, 「Uwaah……」

The man looks down into the basket pushed at him, an indescribable expression on his face. Watching that, the girl smiles in satisfaction. That man with otherworldly androgynous beauty, and that girl with lovely features like a doll. Just like in the dream, it really is picture-perfect. ‘They’re a good match,’ it quite naturally seems like that. It really does.

Somehow, I horribly feel like I can’t stay here any longer. I want to cast my eyes downwards. But I feel like if I do that, I’ll really have accepted the two of them standing together, so I just can’t.

「Edi, I……」

「Goodness!」

「Huh?」

To try and calm down, I open my mouth to say I’ll leave and make some tea. But right as I do, Lunamerie raises her voice. I blink my eyes in surprise; she turns those big eyes towards me with a very lovely smile on her face.

「So you call Sir Agedilusm ‘Sir Edi’!」

「Huh, ah……」

「That’s so lovely, I’m certainly going to call him that too! That’s alright, isn’t it?」

Entwining her fingers of both hands in front of her chest, Lunamerie looks up at him. Even though I’m only watching from beside, those upturned eyes are extremely adorable.

What is he going to say? What is he going to say to a girl much, much more lovely than me inside and out, who’s not afraid of him even though he’s a ‘black-hair’? What if he says 「I don’t mind」? What if he says that? Just thinking about it makes me cold to my core, as if my entire body is freezing.

By the time I realize it, my hands are tight fists. It takes me a while to notice the pain of my fingernails sticking into the palms of my hands. I finally loosen them. Then I stick onto my face the smile mask I inherited from my father.

「——Edi, I’m going to take my leave now.」