I reflected that my destiny might be to live life as a shut-in, locked in my childhood bedroom for the rest of my days. And then, unfortunately, I remembered the news my father had delivered not long ago:
“Actually Luke, something did come up. You have an offer of engagement from House Lennox. Her name is Mia, and I believe you’re in the same year at Aslan, so you might well have met—ah! That look on your face! This upsets you, then? I see you’re displeased, Luke! Right, I will refuse their offer posthaste. Don’t you wor—”
“Father…might I have some time to think?”
The fact that my father had come to pour fuel on the fire just as I was pondering my future really only made things worse.
It does make me think there might be something like fate. Father knew I would be exhausted in both body and mind after the Aslan attack, so he waited until I got home to bring this topic up. I’d expect nothing less. He’s way more considerate than those foolish guards at the academy were.
Ugh.
My stomach hurts.
Where did this ridiculous talk of an engagement with Mia even come from? How did this happen? Seriously, I really don’t understand. Why…just why…?
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find the answer.
But Father did say that the choice was mine…so in other words, I can turn this down. Not to mention that House Lennox apparently claimed they’d be happy with a concubine position.
…I don’t get it. What’s an influential royalist family doing, making this offer in the first place? Why do they want this so badly that they’d even make the compromise of having their daughter become my concubine? Is it because Mia’s their third daughter? Has House Lennox been wanting to switch sides all this time? If so, why?
There was just too much about the situation that was incomprehensible.
What the heck is going on?
I went through the possibilities in my head, but there was too little information to go on. I couldn’t conjecture too far on this. I did, however, understand that the root cause was almost certainly my attempt to make Mia into one of my pawns.
That’s gotta be what started all of this. That’s when everything got weird. I don’t know much about the original story, but I think Mia was meant to be on Abel’s side, not mine. Ah…now I remember. When she experienced her first defeat, Abel was meant to be the one to comfort her in the depths of her despair and help her climb back up from rock bottom. I guess Abel and Lily did go to see her that day, but I sort of ruined it by getting there first. I see…so that was when they were meant to become friends, and I took that chance away from them.
So what, is this karma? I took advantage of Mia in her weakened state, became her false savior…all so that I could turn her into a loyal pawn. This is the result, then. In a roundabout way, that’s led to this proposal that she become my concubine.
Ah, damn it. See? This is the fate I was talking about. All these phenomena converge in a way that, in the end, always leads “Luke” to hole himself up in his parent’s house and shut the door tight. It might be a bit eccentric of me, but if this is some light-novel fantasy-book world, then this course of action should definitely be on the table… I’m just so sick of thinking about all this. The problems just keep coming, one right after another. I can’t keep putting them off, though. I have to seriously think about this engagement and face it head-on.
Refusing would be easy. All I’d need to do is tell my father I don’t want to do this. But…would that really be for the best?
I pondered that for a moment.
To aristocrats, marriages aren’t only about emotion in the first place. Deep links between two houses can be the foundation of real power and lead to greater things for both parties. That’s especially true with an offer from an influential house like this one. There’s also the fact that, for some unknown reason, House Lennox is clearly making significant compromises. Refusing in spite of that could worsen relations between our two families.
And, well…Father did agree to my request to spare the academy after the recent attack, but I caused him real trouble by doing so. My pride won’t allow me to be any further indebted to anyone in this world—not even my own father.
But that’s not the true reason I’m hesitating like this. It’s Mia herself who’s the problem. How do I put this…? There’s something unsettling in her that scares me. Not even I know what she might do if I refuse. If I knew that turning her down would just make her one of my enemies, then it would be a moot point. Whatever. Fine, bring it on. But I’m not so sure that’s how she’d react. She’s unpredictable. I can’t quite fathom what’s going on in her head enough to anticipate her actions, and that makes it difficult to decide what to do. If I turn her down, I’ll be leaving an unstable element out there, studying right alongside me at the academy, and I’ll never be sure whose side she’s really on.
Screw that. No. That’d be so much stress. What does Mia even think about this engagement offer, anyway?
Then there was also the issue of Alice and the rest of House Lonsdale…
I really don’t know what to do. Why do I have to waste my time fretting over all of this anyway? I just want to get strong and be happy in life…but I guess things aren’t that simple.
At the very least, all my agonizing led me to a conclusion in the end: I decided to talk things over with Mia in person before making up my mind, thus completely kicking the can down the road, leaving the matter to my future self.