“U-Um, thank you for the other day.” This earned me a suspicious look from him. Oh? Seems like he didn’t understand my meaning. I hurried to explain myself. “When you told me I was unaware that I was hurting Jeord, I realized my behavior up to that point was wrong. So thank you for saying that.”
If he hadn’t said those words, I might not have ever realized my error. Since then I’d thought to myself that, if I met him again, I needed to thank him properly. I was glad to have done so. I raised my head to look at the man again, breathing a sigh of relief at having achieved my objective, only to see that, for some reason, he was standing frozen to the spot, his mouth hanging wide open.
“Erm, what’s the matter?” I inquired without thinking first.
“What do you mean, ‘What’s the matter?’” he snapped, glaring sharply. “You must have something wrong with your brain, to thank me for saying something like that.”
“Eh? But it was because of what you said that I understood where I had gone wrong, so I feel grateful,” I clarified again, since he still didn’t seem to get my point.
“Are you serious...? I really wonder what’s going on inside your head. I knew you were odd, but not this odd...” Then he started muttering to himself.
I wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. In the absence of a good answer, I just stood there in front of him, holding Pochi in my arms.
Come to think of it, this is my first time seeing him in full view. I guess I should expect this from one of Jeord’s relatives, but he’s tall and in great shape, I envy him... Ah, but something about him...
“Hey, enough already, hurry up and leave.”
While I was busy being captivated by his looks, he fixed me with another icy glare and shooed me away.
“Ah, yes, of course,” I finally replied, and was about to head back when I saw him already turning on his heel. Without thinking, I grabbed his arm.
“Huh? What?” he said with a severely perplexed expression.
I know what he means. What am I even trying to do here? The truth was that I myself didn’t quite understand why I stopped him. It was like my hand suddenly reached out on its own.
“Eh? Erm, I just thought I might get lost...” were the words that tumbled out of my mouth.
“Huh?” He looked more and more perplexed.
“Eh? Um, somehow, that thought just occurred to me,” I said, getting more and more flustered for some reason.
He scowled, then a look came over him like he was pondering something. Then he slapped my hand away and, with his hand now free, proceeded to swipe at my head.
“Eh? Eh?” I spluttered, confused, only to see leaves flutter down from my head toward the ground. It appeared that, when I forced my way through the bushes, I got quite a few leaves stuck in my hair.
He was brushing the leaves off my head, I thought, but before I could finish that thought, he had already whirled around and started walking away. Ah, I have to thank him for getting those leaves off my head.
“Thank you very much,” I said to him as he walked away, but there was no reply.
Pochi whined sadly as he watched the man walk away.
“Pochi, could it be that you came to see him?” I asked. But, as expected, he just looked back at me with his big round eyes, and made no reply.
The plot thickens.
Feeling somewhat bewildered, I stumbled back through the palace’s grounds with Pochi in my arms, until I was near the front gates. I still knew so little about that young man. I had been convinced that he disliked me, but he was kind enough to brush those leaves off my head. Pochi also seemed pretty cozy with him.
Perhaps if I ask Jeord or Alan, I might find something out, I thought dimly as I walked.
Suddenly, I heard some women shrilly saying some curious things.
“You simply must accompany me.”
“Why don’t you join me on this outing?”
“Please allow me to invite you to my home.”
The palace isn’t usually this noisy, unless there’s a party on, I thought, looking in the direction of the commotion to see a number of women surrounding a single man.
The man’s back was turned to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell that the women were the daughters of nobles. Their gaudy dresses and jewelry spoke to their high social status. Since I was surrounded by popular guys myself, I was used to this kind of commotion, but even so, these women seemed exceptionally assertive. I might even call them pushy.
I think we may have a little situation on our hands.
As I was Jeord’s fiancée and a duke’s daughter, my words carried some weight. I thought to myself that I should give these women a warning. Having decided that, I got Pochi to hide inside my shadow again before I walked over to the group of women.
“Excuse me, but I don’t think you should be so pushy,” I said.
The women immediately turned to fix me with sharp glares. Then a few of them recognized me and quickly composed their expressions, but there were others who maintained their hostile gazes.
Looks like this might come to blows, I thought, preparing myself. Then the man the women had surrounded turned to face me. Our eyes locked, and my mouth immediately fell open from shock.
Oh, yeah. Though I should have remembered that he was currently visiting the palace, I was so overwhelmed by Pochi’s disappearing act and my meeting with that young man that I had temporarily forgotten.
Here was a beautiful yet sexy man with tanned skin, black hair, and black eyes (which were actually gold in color, but he hid this by covering them with glass). It was Cezar Dahl, Prince of Ethenell. We had become acquainted during the International Assembly, then had run into each other again during the incident in that harbor town. And now he was here, studying in Sorcié. I had more or less accepted that I probably wouldn’t get to see him, so I was really shocked by this sudden encounter. Cezar must have felt the same way, since he was looking at me with eyes as wide as saucers.
After observing our reactions, the women who had been circling Cezar seemed to realize something.
“Excuse me, but do you know each other?” one of them asked Cezar.
“Yes, we do,” Cezar answered after a brief silence. “She was a great help to me at the Assembly, so I was hoping to see her again while I’m here.”
Once again, the women all fixed me with piercing glares.
Wait a minute, Cezar. How could you say that? I’m already the subject of a lot of jealousy for being engaged to a perfect prince. This will surely make things worse! I shot a glance at Cezar to express these objections, but he evaded my gaze with a wry, carefree grin, before turning to face the women again.
“So, would you allow me to excuse myself? I will be sure to contact you again later,” he said. He called each woman’s name in turn, fixing them with a winning smile before communicating something to each of them in hushed tones.
As soon as he had done so, each of the women blushed brightly and said things like, “Well, that’s all right then.”
Then they all withdrew. His handling of the women was so expert that I couldn’t help but murmur a soft “Wow.”
I guess there was no need for me to get involved.
Once the women were far enough away, I spoke to Cezar.
“That was an amazing trick.”
He smiled.
“When it comes to women like that, if you only give each of them a suitable compliment, and say that you’ll call on them another time, you can usually escape unscathed.”
That princely smile he’d just given the women somehow reminded me of how he’d been when we met for the first time at the Assembly, so I couldn’t help but be my genuine self as well.
“I think it’s amazing enough that you managed to remember all their names, but you said you gave them each a suitable compliment... What sort of things did you say?”
I couldn’t help but lean forward as I asked this.
Again, Cezar smiled.
“Well, as for that, I took note of any details about their home lives, as well as the dresses and accessories they were wearing, and otherwise I just relied on past experience.”