Chapter 2: The Villainous Nobleman Siraiya
I was already facing another issue—how to find my next fiancé.
Ending my first engagement made me less “pure,” but that wouldn’t put me at a disadvantage so long as I wasn’t marrying into the man’s family. I was the eldest daughter of a viscount. Young noblemen with no titles to inherit would be desperate to be my husband. Many of them had given up on being anything other than a knight or a civil servant someday. But once I emerged single, they weren’t about to let a lucrative opportunity like me slip away. Thus, they began to pursue me aggressively.
Even men who’d been smirking at me on the day Eddie confronted me at school changed tunes, now denouncing the way he treated me.
But I wasn’t going to waver from something so trivial, of course.
“I just have so many candidates. It’s exhausting.”
I sighed those words. I was standing behind the schoolhouse, a vacant part of campus where I could be alone. The flowerbeds were empty, and there weren’t even any benches to sit on. I imagined this path was only used by groundskeepers coming to trim the grass or campus employees looking for a shortcut.
I’d fled here to escape the constant pestering from boys at my school. I needed to observe each one carefully to make sure I didn’t end up with another failed engagement, but with so many candidates, the prospect was exhausting.
Even though I tried giving extra scrutiny to these boys’ personalities and lifestyles, the memory of how my last engagement fell through overnight still haunted me. It was a massive undertaking to get to know every last candidate in full.
“I wish I could see the character backstories for my prospective husbands…”
Unfortunately, I’d only read the backstories for the heroine’s love interests.
There was no point in getting to know boys who were already engaged. I definitely didn’t want anyone whom the heroine might be interested in.
I was strolling around behind the schoolhouse, lost in thought, while I looked for somewhere to sit, when I noticed a male student not too far ahead of me on the path. I could have turned around if I spotted him a bit earlier, but now that we were so close, it was best to just keep going and pass him by.
He was seated on one of the many staircases leading to the back doors of the school. If he chose a place like this to spend his time, he either appreciated solitude or had no friends to speak of. Not that I was much different…
The sunlight streaming in between the trees above made his silver hair sparkle. Yet something about the impression he gave off was different than most… His bangs had grown out, obscuring his eyes, and his uniform was the wrong size. Once I got closer, I could see that it was wrinkled and somewhat dirty.
That was when I realized something. I’d seen this boy before.
He’s the student who… No, he’s a game character! He’s the third son of a duke who shows up in the crown prince’s route!
The crown prince had the most robust story as the game’s main route. It was also the route that featured evil noblemen in addition to the standard evil noblewomen. Villains and villainesses in one game!
The boy before me was a yandere character in the story. He was obsessively in love with the heroine, so he tried to ruin her relationship with the crown prince and claim her as his own. In the end, the crown prince imprisoned the boy for everything he’d done.
If the heroine failed to win over the crown prince, the yandere boy kidnapped her and forced her to drown with him in the frigid ocean—the murder-suicide bad ending.
I believe his name was…
“Lord Siraiya Brooke.”
Oops. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. All the chaos of the past few days must be getting to my head.
When he heard his name, he raised his head and looked straight at me.
His sparkling bangs parted to reveal a pair of green eyes hiding beneath. He was very attractive, as one would expect of a main villain in an otome game. It felt like a waste to hide such a beautiful face under those bangs.
“…Lady Cynthia Rhuddlan. Do you need something?”
He sounded a bit annoyed by my interruption.
Perhaps he was displeased to have a woman from a lower-ranking family address him by his full name. Since I was the one who started this, I needed to find a way to backtrack.
“I apologize for calling your name like that, my lord. I only feared you may be ill, since you were sitting on the steps and hanging your head.” I’d managed to come up with a pretty good excuse in the heat of the moment.
“…I see. Thank you for the consideration, but there’s nothing for you to worry about, so be on your way.”
He spoke to me concisely, despite being a yandere character who dumped all of his emotions onto the object of his obsession. I really appreciated that after the past few days of being hounded by the other boys throughout the school.
Now that I thought back on the crown prince’s route, it was the heroine who made the first move on Siraiya. She won him over with sweet words to earn his trust, and once he actually fell for her, she pushed him away, revealing she was never interested in him in the first place.
Sure, the heroine had to do this to move forward in the game, but now I could see her manipulative personality for what it was.
Siraiya also had an incredibly sad backstory.
Not a soul within the school respected him, despite his being the son of a duke. He was even mistreated at home. This was all due to the fact that he was the product of an affair between his father and a maid.
His birth mother went on to abandon him, leaving no one to show him love. Siraiya lived a life of total isolation.
Desperate for some form of familial love, he poured his time into studying and maintained the top grades in our class to earn his father’s approval. However, the duke refused to look his way, and Siraiya remained the victim of his brothers’ and stepmother’s torment.
It was during that period of despair that the heroine appeared in Siraiya’s life.
He was the character who could help the heroine with her academic struggles and improve her grades. She wanted to be an outstanding student—someone who was worthy of becoming the crown princess. It was only natural that the lonely Siraiya grew attached. After all, the player had to study with Siraiya in the library every single day.
The heroine became the first person to ever lift the veil of loneliness shrouding Siraiya’s life. The adorable young lady trusted him, smiled at him, and didn’t treat him like his existence was a burden.
It was only a matter of time before he fell for her in a deeply unhealthy way.
Hang on a minute. Could this be the person I’m looking for?
Eddie’s grades were abysmal, but Siraiya was always at the top of his class.
Eddie didn’t know how to work hard, but Siraiya never slacked when it came to bettering himself.
Eddie was indecisive—so much so that he was willing to give attention to any of the cute young ladies who swarmed to him. But Siraiya got so attached to the object of his desire that it drove him to madness. In other words, he had no eyes for any other woman.