“Can’t you at least fake a smile while we’re attending a ball?” a low voice asked with a sigh.
When I flicked my eyes open, I found before me a familiar man with hair of sunshine gold. My instinct to cringe at the rude comment was overcome by a pounding headache that accompanied the questions gnawing at my mind.
Whose memories are these? Who am I now?
My headache turned into a thundering migraine, my breathing growing fast and shallow. Standing felt like an impossible task. I took a faltering step, finding nothing and no one to steady me.
“But you can fake an illness, apparently. You won’t get out of this so easily,” Blondie coldly remarked.
I bit my lip. Can’t you see how much pain I’m in?! Why do I have to contend with your rudeness on top of that? My eyes met the eyes of the bastard—Prince Ignacia. I recognized him instantly. The hottie with the sharp tongue was my fiancé and the principal love interest of a certain dating sim. While I took some deep breaths to steady my nerves, his flawless face twisted in disgust as if his fiancée’s face were the most revolting thing in the world.
Now that I’d calmed down a little, I was starting to understand the situation I was in. Apparently, I retained memories from both this world and my previous life on Earth. In this life, I was Charlotte Cocoriara, daughter to a duke in this kingdom of Farblume.
As Charlotte, I seldom expressed my emotions. Most people assumed that, as a young lady in high society, I had been trained to school my features. As it turned out, I just never bothered to exercise my facial muscles unless I was genuinely intrigued.
Tonight, my meticulously conditioned milk-tea blonde hair, which usually flowed down to my waist, was held up by a rose hairpin in a tastefully elegant bun with one loose lock. My A-line, shoulderless dress was a burgundy that matched the ash red of my eyes and my rose hairpin. Black lace and jewels lined my décolletage, while fabric was gathered at the dress’s waist and decorated with a ribbon rose, and the skirt was veiled with layers and layers of lace. My sleeves were in the shape of rose buds, complementing my short ivory-colored gloves. Knowing that I never would have had a chance to wear a dress like this on Earth, I suddenly felt out of place in it now.
Then, there was my upbringing as Charlotte. Long story short, the only things I had going for me were that my father was a duke and I was engaged to the crown prince, Ignacia. Our parents had arranged our marriage back when we were children, and now we were both sixteen and standing here at this fateful ball.
This is the worst. I sighed, careful not to let the prince see me do so. With my headache, memories of my previous life in Japan had flooded back to me, providing me a lot of insight into this world that I had apparently been reborn into. I was now a character in the story of a dating sim I had played in Japan. The kicker of it all was that I, Charlotte Cocoriara, was the villainess of the story. I couldn’t even force out a self-pitying chuckle. Not that I held myself in such high regard as to think I should have been the main character, but did I really deserve to be reincarnated as the villainess?
“Are you going to remain silent all night?” the prince demanded.
“No, Your Highness. Forgive me.” I finally regained the wherewithal to take in my surroundings—a ballroom. Chandeliers holding magic stones hung from the high, vaulted ceilings, illuminating the pillars along the walls etched with designs of flowers and vegetation. Numerous guests filled the expansive space, chatting and dancing and dining. Prince Ignacia and I were watching them from a dais, a step above the rest. It was safe to assume we were in the royal castle. I recognized the exact scene I was about to live out, and that wasn’t a good thing.
Prince Ignacia Farblume was still standing beside me without a trace of enjoyment on his face. His dark blond hair was parted down the middle and tied in a ponytail that rested on his shoulder. He had light-blue eyes, but I wouldn’t compare them to a clear sky or anything. They reminded me more of a cold, hard glacier. He wore a navy blue jacket accented with light blue, and an indigo half cape that covered his right shoulder. When his mouth wasn’t moving, he was a young man with pleasant enough features. However, the crown prince of Farblume—dubbed the “kingdom of flowers”—was head over heels for a certain lady who most certainly wasn’t his fiancée.
What a piece of work, I thought. I only knew where his intentions lay because I had just regained my memories of playing the game. After the ball Charlotte ends up... I traced my memories for what was to become of me in this world and was relieved to remember that my future wasn’t entirely hopeless. This dating sim wasn’t the kind of game to kill off its villains or anything. Whether the player was successful in wooing the prince or not, Charlotte was always exiled from the kingdom but faced no other punishment. In other words, that much of my future was locked in. Exile did seem like a harsh enough punishment for a noble lady like Charlotte. While I would surely receive the bare minimum of accommodations, I could imagine how difficult it would be for me to live in a foreign country with no title and hardly any money...if I hadn’t had all sorts of lucrative knowledge from my previous life!
Another thought came to mind. That game had a feature that was pretty unique for a dating sim that—
A girl cried out right next to me, derailing my train of thought.
“Huh?” I turned my head to find a delicate girl, the game’s MC, tearfully staring at me.
What’s going on? I wondered. Having freshly regained my memories, I was barely aware of who and where I was. Can we hold the theatrics for a second?
The MC—if I recalled, her default name was Emilia—wore a white dress brightly stained with red wine. It was clear to see that the contents of her glass had tragically found their way onto her attire. She must have approached to speak with Ignacia.
I restrained myself from groaning out loud. “Are you all right, Lady Emilia?”
Before she could respond, the prince placed himself between her and me as though I were about to beat her senseless. “How dare you throw wine at Emilia?”
“This dress was a gift from Prince Ignacia,” Emilia whimpered.
Come again? The look of astonishment on my face must have been a sight to behold. I hadn’t moved an inch from where I was standing, lost in my thoughts. Forget throwing wine on her; Emilia, the one who had been holding the wine in the first place, hadn’t so much as bumped into me. Still, in an attempt to maintain ladylike decorum, I strained my face to break my habitual look of apathy into a smile.
“We didn’t so much as touch—”
“I tire of your excuses, Charlotte. It’s obvious you’re enraged by my gifting of this dress to Emilia,” Ignacia interrupted, not letting me get a word in edgewise.
Patting myself on the back for not pointing out the prince’s scummy move of gifting a dress to a lady who wasn’t his fiancée, I shifted my focus to Emilia, trembling behind him, and her wavering emerald eyes. She was the very picture of submissive innocence, as long as she kept her mouth shut. The dark brown hair cascading to her waist was speckled with pearls that matched her off-shoulder, A-line dress. Decorative flowers adorned her waist too, and her skirt shifted to blue gray toward the hem, undoubtedly to match the prince’s blue garb.
Emilia was a commoner. One day, Prince Ignacia had just so happened to sneak out into town where he’d just so happened to get injured, and Emilia—who’d just so happened to be there too—had healed him with magic. Their love story had begun with all the contrivance you would expect from a dating sim.