“Hmm.”
The reason Alice was narrowing her eyes at me was usually one of two things.
One was when I did something ridiculous and absurd, then dumped the blame on the Emperor.
Most of my friends had seen some parts of my personality, but the only one who almost perfectly saw through my essence was Alice. Claire had become a bit of a threat lately, and Charlotte was also starting to guess my expressions little by little, but so far, that’s how it was.
The problem was that I hadn’t done anything like that recently.
Right after returning from Lindbergh, it hadn’t been a full day before I caused some chaos. Thanks to the airship that flew non-stop all day, coming back didn’t take several days, but almost immediately after that, I started messing around at the most important places in the Imperial Capital. Of course, I always went back in time to destroy the evidence after causing a ruckus.
So Alice’s gaze couldn’t possibly be because of that.
That left only one reason.
She had found a reason to tease me.
I didn’t quite know when exactly Alice had completely opened her heart to me, but at some point, she started teasing me without caring about my expressions at all. Even after figuring out a little about my abilities, she continued to do so.
No, maybe she could tease me precisely because she had figured out my abilities.
Anyway.
The person who had a rival mindset towards me in my childhood was Alice, but now it seemed I was feeling something similar toward her.
Just thinking about how I flared up at Alice’s gaze made it clear.
“What’s going on?”
Unable to hold back that gaze anymore, I asked.
We were seated in the classroom after a long time. You might think after so long of going on various internships, classes would be running smoothly, but there’s no compulsory education curriculum under the law in this world.
They call it the best faculty in the world, but they’re not teaching based on centuries of educational theory; instead, they provide various bits of common knowledge based on their lifelong research findings, which is more akin to a university than a high school.
So it’s not a big deal if classes get a bit cut off in between. Besides, since the teachers knew about the internships, they set their schedules accordingly.
Thus, the atmosphere in the classroom was a mix of joy and regret. Among all the internships so far, the last one at Lindbergh felt the most like a ‘trip’ because of that. Well, Winterfield and Northwood also had their travel vibes, but Lindbergh had the most exotic atmosphere.
Murmuring, the kids chatted about the last internship even after the weekend had passed, so my voice didn’t spread to others.
“No, well, you see…”
Alice turned her eyes away as if she was playing coy. But those eyes soon returned to me.
Yep, that was clearly a teasing gesture. As evidence, the muscles at the corners of her mouth that seemed to be hiding while she propped her chin up were slightly raised. Alice was smirking at me.
“……”
And somehow, I felt like I could guess the reason.
I turned my body a bit more toward Charlotte. The foreign princess, whose gaze met mine, quickly looked away.
I knew it.
I held back a sigh. No matter how much my concept had become precarious lately, I didn’t want it to completely break—
*
…….
No, well.
A cool beauty falling in love and becoming a cool dere, then eventually breaking that icy expression and awakening into a mega dere could be considered somewhat of a cliché.
But here’s the thing.
I had no intention whatsoever of getting involved with male characters.
Not to mention male characters, I wasn’t really keen on getting involved with female characters either. If I genuinely had possessed Leo, or even just came to this world as a male character, I might have had the chance to flirt with a few of the heroines. With so many female characters around, as long as it wasn’t NTR (netorare) with the main character, I could sneak in, right?
But now I had become a female character. Moreover, I was an utterly basic character whose cameo in the original was uncertain.
In this day and age of homosexuality, given that the game was made to target otaku subculture, they might be lenient towards it, but I wasn’t looking to stir up problems by taking unnecessary risks.
Still, if I were to date someone, it would have to be a girl.
That’s right.
At least for the foreseeable future, I wouldn’t be dating a ‘man’.
“Uhmm… well, you see.”
Charlotte, facing me and Alice, spoke with a slightly uneasy expression.
“Actually, I didn’t want to talk about it. Keeping ‘that kind of thing’ a secret is etiquette as a noblewoman, you know?”
I didn’t really want to hear about ‘that kind of thing’, so I stayed silent.
“But, still… I can’t just keep my mouth shut when his sister asks like that.”
“So you mean you told Claire that ‘I like Leo’?”
But I couldn’t hold it in until the end.
The following words were so absurd that I quickly asked to stop other absurdities from leaving my head.
“N-No, I didn’t say that much!”
Seeing my expression look genuinely terrifying, Charlotte unusually flustered replied like that.
“Yeah, Charlotte didn’t say that much.”
I turned my head to Alice’s voice.
“I heard it from Claire.”
“……”
“If my sister might like someone, I can’t just ignore that. Besides, don’t say too much to Claire. She had her own reasons for not saying it in the first place.”
“How did you persuade Claire not to say anything?”
“I said I would support Claire’s plan. At that time, I didn’t even know what the plan was.”
I struggled not to touch my forehead.
“You mean you said that without even knowing what the plan was?”
“You also agreed to something not knowing what the Duke of Lindbergh’s plan was, right? Isn’t what I did a much lighter mistake?”
“……”
Touché.
“And listen.”
Alice leaned against the wall, crossing her arms.
“If you really don’t have feelings for Leo, Claire’s plan would be pretty good for you.”
She said that while snickering, and it didn’t seem like that plan would be good for me either, but I decided to hear her out for now.
“What’s the plan?”
“Claire doesn’t want Leo to marry you.”
“……What!?”
Charlotte gasped, covering her mouth.
As our two pairs of eyes shifted toward Charlotte, she asked Alice with a look of shock plastered on her face.
“Why is that? Claire calls Sylvia ‘sister’ and follows her, right? Isn’t it a very important thing if she can become a true ‘sister’?”
“That’s the problem.”
Alice replied.
“Claire wants Sylvia to stay her ‘sister’ and doesn’t want to be her ‘younger sister’.”
…….
……….
………..Ah.
I see.
After a while of my brain freezing, it finally began to turn again.
Claire claims Leo is her ‘younger brother’. Of course, since they were both claiming ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ respectively, it’s impossible to tell who is older.
But it seemed that the rivalry was more genuine than I thought.
Claire genuinely sees Leo as her younger brother, and she’s worried that if I marry Leo, I will start calling her ‘sister’.
I clenched my fist once more. If I wasn’t careful, I might have made that fist collide with my forehead, so I tightened my arms.
“No way!”
Charlotte looked genuinely invested in this drama.
“So for that reason…!”
“Moreover, Claire doesn’t just call Sylvia ‘sister.’ She already thinks of her as part of her family. Just think about it. How would she feel if her younger brother and her sister were to get married? Even if the blood isn’t mixed.”
“……”
That was truly a bewildering line of thinking.
“So if you really don’t like Leo, just keep that feeling to yourself until the end. Right? It would help ease your sister’s worries at the very least, wouldn’t it?”
No, the way Charlotte looked at me felt like she was seeing a sister sacrificing herself for her young brother.
…….
Alright then.
If that’s the case, isn’t there a completely different way to approach this?
I had already been successful in making a couple… a couple that was too successful, to the point I felt sick each time I saw them.
Making Leo a girlfriend wouldn’t be too hard, would it?
Since he already likes a girl, it shouldn’t be that difficult, right?
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