Chapter 3: Vegetable Delivery

It had been a few days since I’d started learning magic from Raphael, but my tiny dark dot hadn’t gotten any bigger. I hadn’t made much progress on the Dark Covenant either.

Speaking of things that I hadn’t made progress with, I still hadn’t discovered the identity of the other secret character in the game, the one I’d learned about in my dream. One of them was Cezar, but the other one remained a mystery. Asking Maria hadn’t helped so far.

In order to get my mind off all of the things that weren’t going as well as I wished them to, I headed to the fields. Working on the crops always made me feel better—that’s why having a hobby you enjoy is so important.

“That’s some harvest we’ve got here. What are you going to do with all this produce?” I asked Cyrus, the field’s owner and my farming mentor, as I admired the field full of ripe vegetables.

“Same as e’ry year. Gon’ get ’em to the orphanage,” he replied while drying off the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. When Maria wasn’t there he always let his guard down, and his accent showed through.

“Wow! All of these?!”

Back home, whenever I harvested vegetables, I split them between my friends, the servants, and the kitchen, and that was it. I’d never donated them before.

“Ain’t nobody know ’bout this li’l pastime o’ mine here. Can’t go round handin’ out veggies left and right. I got this friend though; he done know ’bout it, so I give ’em to him and he brings ’em over to the orphanage.”

“Oh, that explains it.”

Cyrus was born to a noble family in the countryside, and that was where he was raised until the age of fifteen, working the fields just like any other farmer. When he came to the capital to attend the academy, he took great care to mask his origins, and he did it so well that now everyone held him in high regard as a cool, aloof, and handsome guy. Little did they know that he spent his free time tilling the soil in the Ministry’s outskirts.

“I heard that donations to the orphanage are mainly to be made in money. I didn’t know that you could give them vegetables too,” I explained, remembering what father told me about how he periodically donated money to orphanages and commoners’ schools. He explained that doing so was expected of a good noble family. He also told me that, since different places have different needs, it was better to just donate money and let them decide how to use it.

“If yer from a fancy family like the Claes be, sure. But just ’cause yer a noble, don’t mean ya got the coin to spare. Most folks give stuff ’stead of money.”

In this world, it turned out, being a noble didn’t necessarily mean that you were fabulously rich. Back at the academy, some of my younger schoolmates from the student council said that they couldn’t even afford a dress for the ball. If Cyrus’s family had to work the fields, that must have meant that they weren’t as wealthy as the Claes family. I had been generalizing a bit too much. This also meant that donating vegetables wouldn’t have been weird, and I thought that maybe, next time, I could donate some of the yield from my own crop too.

“I don’t tell ’em I’m a noble o’ course. Up here in the city nobles don’t donate no greens. I tell ’em I’m a merchant,” Cyrus added.

So it is a bit weird for a noble to donate vegetables after all.

“If you tell them you’re a merchant...does that mean that you actually deliver the vegetables yourself?” I asked, surprised. I had assumed he’d have a friend, or someone else, do it in his stead.

“’Course I do. I done water these here crops with my own sweat and blood. I gotta make sure they get where they ought.”

“M-Mister Cyrus, that sounds so cool! I totally get what you mean!” I agreed with him, moved by his passion. As a farmer, you can’t help but be worried about your little vegetable babies! I always even worried about how people cooked them, and if they liked them.

“Ya do?!”

“I do!”

We nodded at each other in an emotional moment of understanding, mentor to mentee.

“I reckon ‘s about time we harvest, and then I can deliver ’em on my next free day,” he said as he looked at the field with love in his eyes.

“Say... Would it be okay if I tagged along for the delivery?”

“Huh? Sure, I don’t mind,” he answered, a bit surprised.

“Yay!”

Having helped with the farming, I also wanted to make sure that the vegetables, one could say, got where they ought, but there was another reason why I was so happy about being able to go with him.

“Just know that, since we gon’ go like merchants, the folks there won’t be treatin’ us like nobles. And the li’l ones always come ’round asking to play with ’em. That fine with you?”

“More than fine!” I replied with a smile.

I had done my fair share of pretending to be a commoner (in order to learn about farming), and I loved playing with children. If anything, a few times I’d been scolded for playing too hard.

“Hmm... Checks out, I guess,” he pondered, staring at the kerchief I was wearing over my head.

Cyrus and I then promised to meet on our next free day to deliver the vegetables to the orphanage. Having that to look forward to made me feel much better about all the stuff that was going wrong in my life. I was very excited at the idea of this new experience—pretending to be a merchant and going to the orphanage.

I had been to an orphanage before, but that was for official visits as part of the Claes family. Only the most well-behaved, slightly older children had come to see us, and they were all very stiff, since they knew they were dealing with nobles. They had also cleaned up the place and only showed us around the best parts, probably to give us a good impression. In a sense, my next one was going to be my first proper visit to the orphanage.

After graduating from the academy and starting to work at the Ministry, I realized how little I knew about this world surrounding me. With so little knowledge, even if I managed to escape death and imprisonment and was exiled from the kingdom, I wouldn’t be able to make it by myself. So far, I’d only been able to enjoy the fields and the harbor as a (pretend) commoner, but now I needed to see the city as a whole, including the orphanage.

I didn’t want to be a spoiled, pampered noble lady who knew nothing about real life. I wanted to be able to hold my own in this tough world, and in order to do that I needed more knowledge and more experience, as a commoner and as a farmer.

This vegetable delivery is the perfect chance!

I was so grateful to Cyrus that I wanted to thank him in some way. My usual go-to thank-you gifts were sweets, which he didn’t like that much, and vegetables, which he had no shortage of.

Oh, that’s right! He’d probably like it if I invited Maria! I’m sure he’d enjoy chatting with her while we go and deliver those vegetables, and they’ll have a lot of opportunities to talk there, as opposed to here in the fields. Perfect. I’ll go with that.

Before long, it was time to go to the orphanage with Cyrus. He was standing, his face wrinkled up, next to three carriages lit by the morning sun.

“Katarina Claes, do you have a moment?” he addressed me. I walked toward him, fully aware that he was mad at me.

“I’ll go straight to the issue. How did this happen?” he inquired, pointing at a spot not far away where my friends were happily chatting with each other. It was Keith, Jeord, his brother Alan, Alan’s fiancée Mary, Sophia and her brother Nicol, and Maria.

All seven of them were dressed up as merchants, ready to go.

“Well... I told my brother that I was going to go, and he said that he wanted to come with me because he was worried I might get in trouble,” I explained.

“I imagine that your brother would say that. Having someone to look after you certainly helps,” he replied.

“As for Maria, I invited her for you.”

“For me?!” he shouted, blushing.

“I thought it was a good opportunity for the two of you to get to know each other better...”

“I don’t remember ever asking you to do anything like that!” he yelped, but I totally saw him smile when he noticed that Maria was there. “A-Anyway, that explains your brother and Maria. But what about the rest? Why are the princes and the chancellor’s children here?”

“You see, I ran into Sophia and Mary right as I was inviting Maria, and since we’d promised to meet on our next free day, they decided to come with us too... And the others just kind of invited themselves.”

Knowing how busy Jeord, Alan, and Nicol always were, I was genuinely surprised that they’d come.

“Fine... We can’t tell them to go home now that they’re all here. There’s enough noble blood in this party to run a whole country, but the place we are going to isn’t that dangerous anyway...” he mumbled to himself while he held his hand to his forehead. “But there’s one more thing I need to ask you,” he added. “How did you explain all of these vegetables to them?”

“Don’t worry! I just said that someone had a lot of extra vegetables that they needed to get rid of and they asked you to deliver them!” I knew how much Cyrus wanted to keep his hobby secret, and I’d never tell a soul about it.

“I see...” he intoned, staring into nothingness with blank eyes.

As our “little talk” was over, we approached the others.

Keith, Jeord, Mary, and Alan were all talking together.

“I know well how much your important duties keep you busy, Prince Jeord, and you really should not bother with such trivialities as looking after my sister. My protection will more than suffice.”

“I would never relinquish the task of protecting my fiancée to another man, my dear Keith.”

“Sorry to interrupt you two, but why is Prince Jeord here in the first place today? I don’t recall any of us inviting him.”

“Oh, Mary, that’s delightful. You truly believe yourself to be the only one constantly gathering information about Katarina? And don’t forget that my little brother is a terrible liar.”

“Prince Alan! You gave information to the enemy?!”

“I didn’t tell him anything... Wait, did you say ‘enemy’?”

“Asking the servants proved to be enough.”

“You sneaky, treacherous...”

“Are you, who always uses Alan to spy on me, really one to talk?”

A few steps away, Maria, Sophia, and Nicol were talking while standing around some sort of box.

“Oh, is that our lunch box?”

“Yes. My brother was so excited by this that he started preparing it last night.”

“He can also cook? That is incredible!”

“Not at all. I’ve just helped out the cooks a bit. Feel free to try it, Maria.”

“May I? It’s an honor.”

“We’re ready to leave!” I shouted to everyone, waving my arms around.

“Very well. Here, Katarina,” Jeord said, offering me his hand. I appreciated how princely he always was, but I had other plans.

“I’m sorry, Jeord, I have to attend to some matters with Maria,” I told him, before going over to her and elegantly offering her my hand, just as Jeord had done with me, to escort her to the carriage.

“Oh?”

She stared at me with a confused look on her face.

Hmm? Did I do anything weird?

“Big Sister,” Keith whispered to me, “exactly what mischief are you planning this time around?”

“Mischief? Please!” I whispered back. “I just want to help Cyrus find love. I must make Maria sit in the same carriage as him.”

“Oh, I see...” Keith, although surprised, seemed to be convinced by my explanation. “But I think he’s onto your plan. He’s sitting next to the coachman,” he continued, and when I turned around to look at the carriage, I saw that, indeed, Cyrus had decided to ride on the carriage instead of in it.

I hurried toward him.

“Mister Cyrus! Why are you sitting over there?”

“I thought that I could help with directions, since I’m so familiar with the road to the orphanage.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I think your time would be best spent inside the carriage, with Maria! I’m sure she wants to chat with you too!”

“Lady Katarina, do you really expect me to spend such a long time in such a confined space, alone with such a beautiful girl? I couldn’t. I would probably pass out. I refuse,” he protested, without giving me the time to talk back to him.

I could tell from his face that he wasn’t joking either, so I had to give up. I realized that Cyrus was even less comfortable around girls than I had ever imagined.

“I’ve baked these sweets for you. Please have them,” Maria said, handing me a basket full of delicious-looking goodies.

“Have this too.” Mary showed us a kettle. “It’s tea I brewed this morning from specially grown tea leaves.”

“Please accept this too. These are some romance novels I am sure you would love,” Sophia added as she dropped a large and clearly heavy bag in front of me.

I was grateful to all of them—the sweets looked tasty, the tea smelled wonderful, and the novels sounded interesting. I just thought they’d all gone overboard with the amounts.

Cyrus was still determined to sit with the coachman, so the rest of us split up, with boys in one carriage and girls in the other. My “help the great-with-work-but-terrible-with-girls Cyrus get comfortable around Maria” plan failed, but I was happy that I could spend some time chatting with my friends.

“Thank you, everyone! Let’s eat!” I cheered, and we all shared Maria’s sweets, which turned out to be as yummy as they looked, and Mary’s tea, which had the perfect light taste to complement them.

I was actually very hungry, since I’d had to wake up very early and hadn’t had time to eat breakfast. Now happy and fed, we started talking.

“Nicol was so excited! He even prepared food that we could eat while traveling. Feel free to partake.”

“Did your brother make this? He’s so good!”

“I had a taste earlier, and it was very delicious.”

“He’s really a man of many talents.”

“Is he not? My brother can do just anything.”

“You really love him, don’t you, Sophia?”

“Of course. Oh, but I love you too, Katarina!”

“Aw, thank you!”

“Lady Sophia, please don’t make it sound like you are alone in that. I love Katarina just as much.”

“Thanks, Mary!”

“M-Me too. I also love Lady Katarina very much.”

“Thank you too, Maria! I love all of you back!”

“L-Lady Katarinaaa!”

“M-Mary?! Why are you hugging me all of a sudden?!”

“Sorry! I could not control myself.”

“No problem. The food is safe. I managed not to drop anything!”

We had a lot of fun riding together, enjoying some time between girls.

I just have to remember to compliment Nicol. This is delicious.

★★★★★

How did it come to this?

I, Jeord Stuart, let out a sigh as I gazed upon my fellow coach riders. My younger brother Alan was there, as was Katarina’s brother Keith, and Nicol, the chancellor’s son. I had known all of them for at least ten years now.

It all started when I noticed Alan’s recent behavior: I could not tell why, but he was clearly acting strangely, as if he was nervous. I started questioning the servants, which led me to discover that he was planning an excursion with his fiancée Mary. This was already suspicious, as the two of them almost never met alone if not on official business, and even overlooking that, Alan had no reason to be nervous about it. I kept looking into the matter, and as expected, the aforementioned excursion was to also include Katarina and her other friends.

This, in a sense, explained Alan’s nervousness: Mary had probably told him to keep their plans a secret from me, and, at the same time, to spy on me too for good measure. My brother, being little more than a docile servant to his fiancée, would surely have obeyed. This was clearly a mistake on Mary’s part however, as that responsibility had weighed on Alan so much that I ended up finding out what he was trying to hide. She had sadly overestimated his ability to lie and deceive.

Owing to this, I successfully invited myself to the excursion which, originally, was meant to involve everyone except me. I imagined myself sitting next to my dear Katarina, but...

“Oh! You really cooked this yourself, Nicol?!”

“Wow. This looks delicious.”

“I only just helped the cooks, really... But do try it out.”

“With pleasure... Oh! It is delicious!”

“I’ll try one too then... I must say, Nicol, you’re incredible. I didn’t know cooking was one of your skills.”

Alan and Keith were eating what Nicol had prepared. He received their compliments without changing his expression, but I could somehow feel how pleased he was. I personally had not been able to eat breakfast that morning, as our departure was set very early so that we might help with this delivery. Bringing food for everyone was a very considerate thing to do, but at the same time, the weirdness of the situation—two men happily praising another man’s food while riding together in a small carriage—irked me to no end.

Once again, I had to ask myself how things had come to this, and I thought back on what had happened earlier. Katarina, refusing my offer to escort her, took Maria with her. Keith then said something to her, and Katarina ran toward Cyrus Lanchester. I could not hear their conversation, but, after talking with Cyrus, Katarina looked disappointed. I tried to approach her so that I could relieve her of that disappointment, but some of my powerful rivals spoke before I could. They offered her gifts of food, drink, and entertainment, quickly turning her frown into a smile.

“Let’s have Maria’s sweets with this tea then. We four girls should ride together,” Mary told her, smiling as well. Sophia seemed to agree, which meant that her brother, who was sickeningly attached to her, automatically agreed with the idea as well. As a result, all of us non-girls had no choice but to ride together in a different carriage.

Maria, who had been escorted by Katarina moments earlier for some mysterious reason, seemed enthusiastic at the idea of sharing the trip with her friend, although she probably had no ulterior motive. Someone who definitely had ulterior motives was Mary Hunt, who sent me a gaze full of mockery and satisfaction. I could imagine the four of them having fun riding together, chatting and enjoying their tea.

“What are you spacing out for, Jeord? Come back down from the clouds and try Nicol’s lunch. It’s amazing,” Alan remarked while grabbing more food out of the lunch box.

Seeing his nonchalantly happy expression annoyed me so much that I hit him on the head with the side of my hand.

“Ouch! What are you doing?! Look! I dropped it!” he grumbled, hurrying to pick up the food that was now on the floor. “I’m sorry, Nicol...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nicol replied.

“Please excuse my stupid brother,” I added, as was my responsibility, and Alan stared at me with contempt.

“It’s all your fault!”

“You should have been more careful.”

“I swear, Jeord...!”

Keith, meanwhile, was looking for something inside of his bag.

“Here, Alan, you can throw the food away in this bag. And use this handkerchief to clean your hands,” he declared, handing my brother those two items. Alan, in response, looked at him, shocked.

“Wow, do you always go out prepared like this? What are you, a housewife?” Alan shot back with a hint of sarcasm.

“Oh, it’s just... I’m used to this kind of thing,” Keith replied, looking down in embarrassment.

“Keith would make a wonderful mother. Anyone would want someone like him as their wife,” Nicol complimented, or maybe insulted, him.

Alan burst into laughter, and Keith shook his head.

“Nicol, you might have noticed that I am a man. I could never be a mother, and I have no plans to become anyone’s wife either.”

“I see. That is a shame,” Nicol, dead serious, replied.

“Truly a shame,” Alan agreed, still laughing.

My first free day in so long, and I had to spend it not with Katarina, exchanging sweet words of love, but with these three men.

All in all though... I could enjoy that for what it was. Years ago I would have hated every moment of this trip, but maybe I had changed. I welcomed change, as it helped expand my horizons. And the catalyst for my change, of course, was Katarina.

I deemed it a good time to join whatever was going on.

“Should you ever change your mind and become someone’s wife, Keith, just let me know. As your brother-in-law, I will happily provide you with the most beautiful wedding gown in the whole kingdom,” I promised with a smile, and Keith furrowed his brow.

“I need no gown! And I do not see you becoming my brother-in-law either!”

“Aw, what are you saying now? I will marry Katarina, which will make me your brother-in-law.”

Strangely, Alan reacted to my words before Keith himself did.

“Huh... So Keith would become my younger brother-in-law...”

“Alan! Do not join him in his delusions!”

“But isn’t that the truth? You are younger than both of us...”

“Of course I am younger than both of you, but you’re missing the point!”

It had been a long time since the four of us had all been together. It was a noisy, rowdy trip...but I enjoyed it.

★★★★★

“We have arrived.”

The coachman announced the end of our trip, and we left the carriage, finding ourselves in a relatively wide garden. A path led to a large building—most likely, the orphanage. The building itself was bigger than the orphanages I’d seen in the capital, but, other than that, it wasn’t that different. Orphanages in Sorcié were run by the country and financed with regular donations from nobles, so they were usually clean and well-kept. The children there went to school, and after graduation, the orphanage would recommend them for various jobs.

An old woman was walking in our direction, coming from the building.

“Thank you for coming this year too. We appreciate it a lot,” she greeted Cyrus.

“You didn’t need to come all the way here to meet us—thank you. These here are the people that I told you would be coming with me to help,” Cyrus said, pointing at us.

“Oh my, that is quite a few more than I had expected. All the better! My name is Maggie, and I run this orphanage. It is a pleasure to meet you all,” the woman spoke with a smile.

Before coming here, Cyrus had told me that the orphanage’s director—the woman who was now in front of us—was the only one to know about his true identity. It was safe to assume that she also knew about us, but if she did, she certainly didn’t let it show.

“Let’s bring those veggies in, shall we?” she asked us with a smile.

Since there were so many of us, the carriages were empty in no time. However, Maggie wanted us to help with something else... Something surprising.

“We have to teach the kids?” I asked Cyrus, shocked, and he nodded.

“Orphanages send the children to school, but they do not have the resources to hire individual tutors. That is why, whenever a guest stops by, they usually stay a little longer to help out the children with their homework, or to teach them about sewing and other housework. I personally do it every time I come. Knowledge is paramount to a successful future for these orphans.”

In this world, or at least in wealthy and advanced Sorcié, everyone went to school, where they could all take the same classes. However, there was no individual tutoring, nor were there any classes about sewing, cooking, or any other skill like that. You would need someone to teach you those things outside of school, so what Cyrus had said made sense, except for the fact that I’d never seen anything like that on my official visits to orphanages.

Cyrus shrugged when I asked him about it. “Do you really think they would ask nobles to do it? That would make the children so nervous that they wouldn’t learn anything anyway.”

He has a point. I know I’d be nervous if I were a commoner meeting a noble. That being said, I had no idea we’d have to help the children study...

“I will be helping them with homework, as I always do,” Cyrus told us. “What about you?”

“I will do the same. I do not know enough about sewing or cooking to be able to teach anyone,” Nicol replied.

“I believe I could teach them sewing,” Sophia interjected, timidly raising her hand.

“Me too. I know a bit about sewing myself,” Mary declared. I knew that not to be true, however, since she knew everything about sewing. They didn’t call her the lady among ladies for no reason.

“I could teach them cooking, although I’m not exactly an expert,” Maria, who definitely was an expert, humbly followed.

“You two are very good teachers. Won’t you join me in overseeing the children’s homework?” Nicol asked Jeord and Keith, who quickly nodded in agreement.

Wow, everyone’s already decided what they want to do. As for me...

“Okay then, I’ll go with Maria and teach the children how t—”

“Big Sister, no. No cooking.”

“The orphanage probably needs their kitchen, Katarina.”

Keith and Jeord stopped me right in my tracks.

Aw, c’mon... I only destroyed the academy’s kitchen by accident! Well, and the kitchen in Claes Manor too, but that was also an accident! I cook without any accidents most of the time...

“But I can’t help children with homework, and the last time I tried sewing I gave myself sutures! Cooking is the only thing I could help with!”

I only barely made it through the academy with average grades thanks to my smart friends, and as mother always said, letting me sew was a very good way to turn fabric and thread into garbage.

“Th-That’s true... There’s not much you could teach children...”

Is that pity in your eyes, Keith?!

“You should take care of cheering us on, Katarina.”

That doesn’t count as helping, Jeord...

I was sure that I was able to do something useful, and I asked Maggie whether I could help with cleaning or doing the laundry.

“We already have people hired to do that...” She thought for a while. “Oh! Of course!” she then said, clapping her hands together.

“Why do I have to come with you and play with children?!”

“You said it yourself, Alan: you aren’t great at teaching things to others,” I explained to him.

I had noticed how, while all the others were going ahead and proposing to do this or that, he had looked anything but enthusiastic. Of course, I took advantage of that.

“Sure, I’m not great, but that doesn’t mean I have nothing to teach them...unlike you.”

“Now, now, don’t make a fuss. We’re going to play with children! What’s not to like?” I answered brightly, trying to stop his grumbling.

Children who were too young to go to school played amongst themselves under adult supervision, Maggie explained, but they really had a lot of fun whenever an adult actually played with them, and so she asked us to indulge them. That was definitely something even I could do, so I gladly accepted, bringing Alan with me because, one, he had said that he wasn’t great at teaching, and, two, being the only adult there wouldn’t be as fun.

The others, when they heard that I was going to play with children, suddenly decided that they wanted to do that too. It was no surprise that they’d rather play than teach. However, Maggie told them that they didn’t need that many people for such an easy task, and they had to give up. I could see the envious looks they were pointing at Alan though.

I’ll do their share of playing too then!

“So, what kind of game do you want to play?” I asked the children.

I was told that the children often played indoors, but, since we had such good weather today, we could go out in the garden. The place reminded me of the playground in my previous life’s school, except that it was covered in well-trimmed, soft grass so that the children wouldn’t hurt themselves falling.

All the kids looked like they were used to having adult guests, so they immediately took to us.

“Tag!”

“A race! I wanna race!”

“Let’s do hide-and-seek!”

They all sounded enthusiastic, but they couldn’t agree on a game.

“Okay then! We’ll play all those games one at a time. Let’s start with tag,” I announced, and I struck a menacing pose. “I’m it! And I’m gonna get youuu! Run for your liiiife!”

“Wahhh!”

“Hahaha!”

“Yeeek!”

The children, amused, started running in every direction, and I chased after them.

They’re just little children. I’m going to catch all of them in no time, I thought, but...

“Gotcha!” I said, putting my arms around a girl so small that she barely reached my waist. She was squealing with delight, but I was almost out of breath. They were a bunch of swift young whippersnappers, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t have had any problem had it been one or two, but with so many of them this was getting to be a real workout.

I have to do something...

I saw Alan, who was looking at our game of tag without participating.

“Alan! Join us!”

“Huh? Me?”

“Who else? You came here to play with the children, so come and play!” I invited, trying to force an unenthusiastic Alan to help me.

“Everyone! Now, you’ll have to run from both me and him!”

The children were very excited at the news.

“I never agreed t—”

“Perfect! Let’s start!”

“Sheesh... Fine, whatever. I’m going to catch everyone in no time!”

Alan started running after the children, and he was exceptional—he really caught one after the other. I couldn’t let him do all the work though. I saw him chasing a very quick boy, so I headed for the direction where the two were going and hid behind a tree, planning an ambush.

“Hehe! You can’t catch me!”

“Ugh! You fast little...!”

“Aha! You fell into my trap!” I shouted when the two were close enough to the tree, and I jumped out toward them.

“Oh! That was close,” the kid exclaimed, swiftly dodging out of the way and past my side. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to stop, and I ended up running straight into Alan.

“Eek!”

“Gahh!”

I heard Alan scream, and I anticipated a painful fall to the ground.

Hmm? That wasn’t painful at all.

When I opened my eyes, instead of the green grass, I saw something pink. Instead of the flat terrain I was expecting, behind me I could feel all sorts of bumps.

“Would you get off already?”

I heard Alan speak directly into my ear, and, when I looked more closely, I realized that the pink thing I saw before me was his face. When I looked around even more, I realized that I was not resting on the ground at all. I was resting on Alan.

“Ohhh! Sorry!” I apologized, quickly getting off of him.

“Can’t you be a tiny bit careful?!” he snapped, breathing heavily, with a hand to his face. More than pink, right now, he was red.

“I must have hit you so hard that your whole face turned red! I’m so sorry!”

My face slammed straight into his face, so that must have hurt.

“No, this is... Don’t worry about it. Go get some rest. Your legs must be tired,” he suggested before running off toward the children once again.

Maybe the reason I couldn’t stop myself in time was because, as he had said, my legs were tired. If he hadn’t been there to soften the blow, I’d have dived into the ground face-first.

He’s always complaining about stuff, but deep down he’s a really kind guy. He’s been like this since we were kids! I guess I’ll take his advice and go rest for a while.

I sat down in the shade of a tree and watched Alan chasing after the children. They already seemed to be having a lot of fun playing with him.

Alan would make a really good dad, I thought as I enjoyed some rest.

★★★★★★

I, Alan Stuart, was running as fast as I possibly could. I needed to do that in order to take my mind off of what had just happened. I mean, the fact that I’d have to play with children was enough of a surprise already. I thought I’d help them with homework, even though I wasn’t that good at that kind of thing, but Katarina had dragged me into this instead.

The situation itself was annoying, but I was glad I could spend time with the girl I had feelings for. Of course, she didn’t know this. Nobody did. She was my brother’s fiancée, so I had to keep it a secret. Not that I was expecting anything to play out between us, either before today or in the future. But still, just being here, looking at Katarina, was enough to put a smile on my face. While she chased after those kids, running out of breath, she was as lovely as she’d always been since I first met her when we were kids ourselves. Looking at Katarina, yeah, that would have been enough. But I was in for another surprise...

I was going after a particularly fast kid when all of a sudden Katarina jumped out in front of me from behind a tree. We crashed into each other, and I did my best not to hurt her, but in order to do that I had to sacrifice my balance and fall backward, allowing her to fall on top of me. Since we were facing each other, we ended up kind of...hugging. As if that wasn’t enough, her lips even smacked against my cheek. I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t realize it or was just pretending not to, but as far as I was concerned that was a huge shock. I felt the blood rush to my head.

I mean... Her lips! On my cheek! That’s just like getting kissed on the cheek! They’re so, well, soft. And her body pushed against me... No! The more I think about this the worse I’m going to make it for myself!

I shook my head like I wanted to make my thoughts fall out of it and went back to playing tag with the kids. I had to focus on running. By the time I’d caught all of them, I had calmed down a bit.

The girl who had made me feel so weird in the first place then had the gall to come to me and say, “You’re very good at playing with children, Alan. I’m sure you’ll make a great dad one day.”

Her words and the casual way she said them left me so appalled that I whacked her on the head.

“Ouch! Alan! What are you doing?!”

Even the way she looked mad after that, with her cheeks puffed up, was cute. I remembered the feeling of her lips on my face and got all fidgety again.

Calming down completely is going to take me some time...

★★★★★★

“Hide! One... Two...”

One of the older kids had closed her eyes and started counting. After tag and racing, it was time for hide-and-seek.

We were playing in pairs, and the smallest children had immediately paired up with the older ones, as if they were used to always doing so. One of the girls, who looked a bit too sassy for her age, chose Alan to pair up with her.

That’s one of Fortune Lover’s male characters for you. Even little girls like him.

As for me, nobody had asked me to pair up with them. It’s not that the kids didn’t like me; they just told me that they saw me trip during tag and drag my feet during the race, and they didn’t want to lose this game. The world of children was a tough but just one.

Since I was totally spent, this actually gave me the perfect opportunity to rest. I would find a good hiding spot, far away from the counting kid, and take a breather there. During my search for the perfect hiding place, I saw a kid walk all alone through the garden. This kid looked older than the ones we were playing with—definitely of school age, at least. That was weird, since the older children were supposed to be inside of the orphanage, studying.

Maybe they also send kids on errands sometimes, I thought while the kid walked away.

After running around the building’s corner, I found another person I wasn’t expecting to see in the garden.

“Nicol?!” I called out to him, and he looked up toward me dejectedly.

“Oh, Katarina...”

His expression was as neutral as always, but I could tell that he was feeling down.

“Why are you here? Weren’t you helping the children with homework?” I asked, remembering that he’d personally offered to do that.

“I was told to leave... They said that the children cannot concentrate if I’m around,” he reported sadly.

I always forgot about that, having known him for so many years, but Nicol was cursed with being so attractive that he ended up charming everyone even if he didn’t mean to. I definitely saw why he would be too much for those pure and innocent children.

I understood that, but that wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. If you wanted to place blame, you would have to blame the heavens who gifted him with that wicked charm. He knew he couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to see him so sad. According to Sophia, he was looking forward to coming here with us so much that he’d stayed up late cooking, and now he was here, alone and unable to help.

Maybe it was because I’d been playing with children for so long, but right now, to me, he looked like a small, sad child. I walked toward him and hugged his head, gently stroking his hair.

“Don’t worry, Nicol. We’ll find something that you can help with. Together.”

I could feel him twitch in my arms, but then he stopped moving and let me pat his head. Nicol had grown up so much... He was way taller than me now. But somehow, I remembered the young Nicol from my childhood.

★★★★★★

I, Nicol Ascart, have sinned: I let Katarina Claes, my friend’s fiancée, embrace my head, without asking her to stop or moving away. Worse yet, I enjoyed it.

There was no doubt in my mind that Katarina’s gesture had no romantic meaning as far as she was concerned. She just saw me looking sad and comforted me in the same way she would have done with one of the younger children that she had been playing with. I could have insisted, “I’m fine now,” and that would have been enough for her to release me from that warm, sweet hug.

However, whatever her intentions, that was not something that a woman of her age should be doing to a man in such a place, with no one around. Had Jeord—or anybody else, for that matter—seen us, it would have led to incredible trouble. The rational part of me knew that I had to tell her, “I’m fine now.”

The part of me who had hidden my feelings for her for so many years, however, forbade me from speaking those words. It was wallowing, reveling in Katarina’s warmth. Though this whole incident had started through no fault of my own, I realized that it was my responsibility to act before I lost the last remnants of that composure which Katarina’s touch had already made thin. Worst of all, I could feel myself longing for more. I knew that just being there, touched by her, was bad, and I did not want to make it worse.

“Ah! Found ya!”

A young girl came out of nowhere and shouted at Katarina, at which point I hurriedly escaped her embrace.

“Aw! You found me!” Katarina, nonchalant to a degree I could only dream of, conceded, heading toward the girl.

“I can’t find the other big mister though...” the child observed.

“The big mister is very smart, so he’s probably hiding where it’s difficult to find. I’ll help you search for him!”

“Thanks!” the child replied to Katarina before pointing at me. “What about that mister over there?” she asked.

“Can he play too?” Katarina asked back.

“Sure!” the girl happily agreed.

“Would that not be a problem, Katarina?”

“Oh, don’t worry, these children are way too young. Let’s go!” Katarina responded with a smile, holding out her hand. Before I could think about what to do, my hand had already moved to meet hers.

★★★★★★

I got poor Nicol to play with us, hoping that it’d make him feel better. I thought that the kids were too young to be attracted to him, but they were all staring at him with wide eyes, going, “That mister is so handsome!” Thankfully, since we weren’t studying, being unable to concentrate wasn’t really a problem, and, once the game started, everyone focused on running anyway.

This addition to the grown-ups team had made me lose yet another position in the popularity ranking. I couldn’t blame the kids for liking the smart, handsome, and fast mister rather than the clumsy, slow miss...but it did make me kind of sad.

Right as I was starting to feel a little blue, one of the orphanage’s employees walked out to the garden to tell everyone that it was snack time. I was no kid and certainly no orphan, but I figured I’d sneak in and partake of the snacks. We all went into the dining hall, where the kids sat down to eat. Today’s snack seemed to be some simple cookies. I ate one and a mellow, pleasant sweetness immediately spread in my mouth.

“Hmm? I know this taste...” I muttered to myself.

“I’m impressed you’d recognize it,” the orphanage’s employee remarked. “It was that girl from your group, Maria, who baked them.”

That explained why the cookie tasted familiar—I’d had one of Maria’s sweets just hours earlier in the carriage.

She’s such a good cook. It’s such a simple, unassuming cookie, but it tastes great. All the kids are stuffing their faces too. Isn’t she awesome? I thought with pride, despite not having done anything to be proud of. Right at that moment, Maria walked into the dining hall, accompanied by a group of children who looked slightly older than the ones I’d been playing with.

“We made these cookies together,” Maria told everyone, introducing the kids one by one and praising them for how skilled they were, how good they were at mixing flour, and so on.

They definitely looked proud of themselves when they heard Maria’s compliments, and the smaller children were also looking up to them with sparkling eyes. Only someone like Maria could make them look like that.

“Maria,” I spoke up, walking over to her after she was done with the introductions, “you’re really incredible. The cookies were delicious, and look at the faces of these children!”

She shook her head.

“The children were the incredible ones. They all gave their best,” she deflected humbly, and then we told each other in detail what we’d been up to. Maria recounted her cooking class and I recounted playtime.

“After we finished baking, the children said that they wanted to try making something savory too. We obtained permission, so we will cook something for dinner too. We just need to go and buy some ingredients.”

“You and the children?”

“No, that would be dangerous. It will be me and some of the employees.”

“I see. Oh...! I know! Maria, there’s someone much better than the orphanage’s employees to help you out with shopping!” I told her.

This time I’m going to make it count. It’s time to repay him for all he’s done for me!