Yui was suspicious of his lack of a reply, so she looked up and examined his face. “El?”
Filiel was somehow able to pull his expression back to something neutral. “Sorry. For now, it’s enough for me just to be able to hear that. I promise I’ll do something about Count O’Brian, so wait just a bit longer before making a decision.” Despite what he said, he knew that this was Yui’s problem—she had to overcome it herself. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it on his own.
Still, Yui wanted to do something about it herself too, if possible. After some more worrying, she nodded. “Okay.”
Relief spread across Filiel’s face and he hugged her tightly. Yui gingerly wrapped her arms around him as well, and as she did, she felt a tinge of embarrassment. She blushed.
“Finally...” Filiel said. All sorts of feelings were contained in that single word, and he sounded as if he had finally been released from a nagging irritation. Count O’Brian wasn’t the only issue; there was still a mountain of problems he had to deal with. Like the Prince of Darkness... Or the Prince of Darkness... And, of course, the Prince of Darkness...
After a little while, the magic communicator in Filiel’s pocket started vibrating. He made a very unprincely click of his tongue. “It’s probably Cecil. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s time.” He seemed incredibly unwilling to part from Yui. “Should I skip out on the party like you?”
“I don’t think royalty should miss the party,” Yui said.
Filiel sighed deeply. “Yeah, you’re right... And I plan to introduce Cecil and Carlo to my father, so I guess I can’t very well keep him waiting.” He reluctantly let go of Yui and stood up. “What about you, Yui? Want to go together?”
Yui thought about it, then shook her head. “I don’t want to be caught by anyone, especially not the grandmaster, so I’m shutting myself away in here.” She was interested in the food that was going to be served at the party, but she wouldn’t be able to enjoy it if any of the three from the day before detained her. She didn’t think they’d try to recruit her in public, but she suspected that they’d meddle in some way or another. If she locked her room, they wouldn’t try anything. There was nothing else she could do except ask one of her friends to get her food.
“All right. But if you change your mind, I hope you drop by. The prime minister taught the grandmaster a lesson just yesterday, so he might’ve wised up and decided to behave.”
“Okay, got it... But I find that hard to imagine.”
“I’ll come back if I have time,” Filiel said. He took a lock of her hair in his hand and planted a kiss on it. Yui blushed and froze up, and Filiel calmly exited the room.
✦ ✦ ✦
When Filiel went out into the hallway, Cecil and Carlo were there waiting for him. The moment they saw his face, they exchanged looks, then grinned.
“Filieeeel, what’s going on? You look pretty happy,” Carlo said.
“Did you finally get a good reply?” Cecil asked. As they questioned him, Filiel broke into a big smile. Then he quickly furrowed his eyebrows, looking worried, before instantly making a gloomy, depressed expression. The two of them assumed that it had gone well, judging from how he looked at first, but his subsequent expressions left them at a loss for how to respond.
“Did she harshly reject you?” Carlo asked.
“No, she pretty much said she liked me,” Filiel replied.
“Then why do you look so down in the dumps?” Cecil asked.
“I was thinking about the count. It was something I knew about, but I didn’t realize it was still such a burden on her. Yui still hasn’t been able to overcome her past.”
Cecil’s and Carlo’s faces clouded over. “So he’s the main reason she’s refusing to marry you,” Cecil said.
“But she did speak frankly with you about it,” Carlo said. “As always, she hasn’t told us a thing. I know that it’s because she doesn’t want to worry us, but it still makes me feel a bit lonely.” The two of them looked depressed again, this time for a different reason.
In their younger years, before any of them had met Filiel, Yui had relied on her brothers, and she would tell them when she was feeling sad. But at some point, she had stopped speaking about her negative feelings with them or Sherina. They’d still known how Yui had felt about their father, Count O’Brian, but only because Filiel—who was the one person Yui was open with—had let them know. The same was true with Yui’s father approaching her during the tournament; they’d learned about that from Filiel as well. That had been back when Yui couldn’t meet with Filiel, so they’d expected that she would seek help from them in some way, but in the end, Yui had held her tongue and not told anyone about the incident. They’d been overcome by the desire to press Yui and ask her why she didn’t trust them, but they’d known that this would only trouble her, so they had managed to suppress it. As long as she didn’t ask them to help her, anything they did would only make things worse—this was their fear, so they had avoided bringing anything up.
And again, this time, Yui hadn’t given them a single indication of what she was feeling, but she had readily revealed her inner feelings to Filiel. They were thankful that Filiel was an outlet for Yui when she normally wouldn’t confide in others, but they would be lying if they said they weren’t slightly jealous. They were her brothers, after all.
Filiel smiled awkwardly as he watched them. “You guys still live at the O’Brian house, so don’t you think she just might not want to cause a fight between you and your father? That would make it harder for you to stay there. Especially you, Carlo. You seem like you might storm in and start shouting at him.”
“Hey, I know how I am, but I’m not that short-tempered...I don’t think.” Carlo’s lack of confidence in that moment said more than his words.
“Well, we’re only staying quiet for now,” Cecil said. “Next spring, we’ll cut all ties with the O’Brian family. When that happens, we’ll be able to vent all that bottled-up rage.” He grinned wickedly. Filiel and Carlo knew they weren’t the targets of that smile, but they still felt a chill run down their spines.
“Hey, Carlo. Don’t you think Cecil’s starting to take after the prime minister lately?” Filiel asked, whispering so Cecil couldn’t hear him. “I’ve been getting a certain demonic feeling from him.”
“You think so too? I get the sense that they were already pretty similar in some ways, but he is slowly getting more and more diabolical, just like our dad,” Carlo whispered back. “At this rate, he’ll definitely end up just like him—the Duke of Darkness.”
The Duke of Darkness—that wouldn’t be very good at all, not for Garlant as a whole. Unlike Layce, Cecil didn’t have any authority, so his impact was small, but with his ability, it was a guarantee that he’d climb the ranks in the army and obtain some sort of position of power. Then there’d be one of them in the army too.
As the two of them spoke quietly, Cecil smiled brightly at them. “What are you two whispering about?”
Filiel and Carlo shook their heads and said, “Nothing!” in unison.
Pulling themselves together, the three headed to where the party was being held.