The Post-Assembly Tea Party

With the Assembly behind me, I decided to hold a tea party with my friends in Claes Manor.

The weather was clear, so I had a table prepared in the garden. It was nothing fancy, though, since the only guests would be the usual ones: Keith, Jeord, Alan, Mary, Sophia, Nicol, and Maria.

“Big Sister, I think our guests will be here soon,” Keith informed me right when all the preparations were complete, and I went to welcome them.

“Thank you for the invitation, Katarina,” Jeord said, casually kissing the back of my hand. He looked exhausted right after the Assembly, but he was clearly more than fine now, full of the usual sexiness that befitted a main character like him. The party hadn’t even started and I was already blushing.

“Hey,” said Alan, who had come with him. He looked the same as usual.

“I am most happy to be invited here, Lady Katarina,” followed Mary with a huge smile. She didn’t seem the least bit tired from the Assembly.

“Thank you so much for having us, Lady Katarina. I have brought you the latest novel, you see, it is a wonderful story about...” Sophia then started rambling. During the Assembly (or rather, during her whole stay at the castle), she had been deprived of her beloved books.

Now that she was able to read them again, her enthusiasm was greater than ever. She kept talking with sparkles in her eyes while she hugged her book.

“Calm down, Sophia, you’ll have time to talk about novels once the tea party starts,” her brother Nicol, calm as always, interrupted her. “Thank you for inviting us,” he then said to me with a smile.

That smile, too, was as powerful as always. Just seeing it made me black out for a second. I thought I’d gotten used to it, but Nicol must have become even more attractive after our stay at the castle. Stop, please.

“Lady Katarina, thank you so much for having me. I have made these for you,” Maria, my cute Maria, said while handing me some homemade sweets. I’d secretly hoped that she’d bring some, so I was more than happy to accept them.

“Thank you, Maria! Let’s go and eat them,” I said, and added them to the table as we all sat around it.

“To a successfully finished Assembly!” I said, raising my teacup in a sort of workplace toast.

Jeord and Keith both raised their cups with ironic smiles.

“Huh?” Alan asked, perplexed.

Mary and Maria smiled happily while raising their cups, and Sophia, who was excited at being able to read novels again, raised hers even higher than me. Nicol did it too, but without changing his expression.

Thus began our tea party.

“I’m glad nothing bad happened during the Assembly,” I said while stuffing my mouth with Maria’s sweets.

Everyone around the table replied in unison.

“What?!”

Did I say something weird? I thought, and saw Keith bring his hands to his head.

“Big Sister, you said the same thing on the trip back home from the castle. Do you remember what I told you then?” he asked me with a grave voice.

I knew my brother well enough to understand that when he spoke to me with that voice I was at risk of getting scolded, so I tried my best to remember.

“You said that, uhm... tearing my dress apart and climbing up a tree were major screw ups? Something like that?”

“I’m glad you remembered,” he said with a smile on his lips but dread in his eyes.

Okay. He’s 100% mad at me. He’s just holding back momentarily because everyone’s around. I can expect to be scolded later.

“I find it unfathomable that barging into a room with two kidnappers, by yourself, hardly registers as a bad thing to you. Your perception of things is incomparable to ours,” Jeord said as he stared into nothingness.

“I agree with him. The whole dress-tearing, tree-climbing, and kidnapper-chasing thing? We considered that to be bad, yeah,” Alan followed, nodding to what his brother had said.

Ugh... That’s right, I made everyone worry during the Assembly...

It’s not that I’d forgotten about it, of course. But well, spilled milk and all that. And that happened during the Assembly, but nothing bad happened at the Assembly, technically.

“I’m really sorry for making all of you worry,” I said, lowering my head. I could have tried to make an excuse for what I’d said, but my friends were right, so I just apologized. I only now realized how worried everyone had been.

“But,” Maria interjected, hardly after I’d finished my apology, “it was all my fault that Lady Katarina found herself in that dangerous situation. I am sorry,” she said.

I was surprised. It was true that I’d gone into that room in order to save her, but she still had no reason to apologize. She was just a victim, dragged there by those two stupid noblemen.

“You shouldn’t be sorry for anything!” I shouted, standing up from my chair.

“She’s right, Maria. You were but a victim, and have nothing to apologize for,” Jeord calmly agreed.

“Yes, don’t worry. My sister just ran off on her own. It’s not your fault,” Keith added.

“Yeah. This idiot is completely responsible for whatever stupid stuff she does. Don’t worry,” Alan continued.

“That is completely true,” Nicol finished.

Sophia and Mary were silently nodding.

They kind of made it sound like it was my fault, but, well, it was. So I joined in the nodding.

“...Thank you,” said Maria, looking up at all the people comforting her. She was blushing slightly, and she was so cute it almost hurt to look at her.

“It’s fine, Maria. I’ll come to save you if anything like that ever happens again,” I said, completely dazzled by her loveliness.

“Big Sister, have you learned nothing...?”

“I beg you, ask me for help first.”

“Are you trying to get yourself trouble again?”

“You assured us that you wouldn’t do anything dangerous anymore...”

The four boys all commented one after the other, looking at me in disbelief.

“Please try to avoid danger,” Mary and Sophia also added with sad looks in their eyes.

Ugh. I can’t really disagree with them...

I realized that I had to change the topic. The Assembly wouldn’t do, so I’d much rather talk about the seminar.

“Th-The, uhm, the seminar was hard, wasn’t it? But it was fun being all together in the castle!”

What I was trying to do was painfully obvious, but Sophia and Mary, who had spent most of their time there with me, indulged me anyway.

“Yes. Those lessons were very tiring, but it was a fun experience,” Sophia said.

“I also had fun spending time with Lady Katarina after so long,” Mary continued.

Not only did we attend lessons together, but we also ate together and our rooms were close to each other. It felt like being back at the academy.

“The shared bath was so fun too!” I said, remembering when I went there with Sophia.

“Ugh...” I heard Mary murmur while hiding her face in her hands.

“What’s wrong, Mary?”

“N-Nothing... I just remembered a sad, unfair thing that happened to me,” she explained with a sad voice.

Oh, right, she couldn’t come to the bath because she wasn’t feeling well. I’m sure she’d have liked to see the castle’s bath once. I’d better change the topic again.

“Let’s see... oh! The first day of the seminar was so hard I was close to giving up, but Keith stroked my head for the first time in a while, and that made me feel much better. Thanks, Keith!” I said, looking at my brother.

“B-Big Sister, maybe we should not talk about that right now...” he said strangely, shaking his head.

I thought it was a happy, lovely topic, but Keith looked so displeased with it that I had to think of another one.

What can I talk about? Oh, right!

“Alan actually played some songs for me one day during the seminar! I fell asleep halfway through though. I’m sorry, Alan,” I said, talking about his practice piano performance.

It was so good that I couldn’t help but get sleepy. When I woke up Alan wasn’t there anymore, so I never had a proper chance to apologize.

“...Oh, that? I don’t really mind...” he said, looking away.

Is it me or is he blushing?

I noticed that Mary was staring holes into him. I had no idea why, but this topic wasn’t a good choice either. I tried talking to the Ascart siblings next.

“Sophia, I’m sorry that I passed out when you invited me to that tea party. It was such a wonderful place, too.”

She had prepared a surprise tea party in the garden, but I suddenly passed out while we were going to Nicol’s room to invite him too. The garden looked so beautiful. It was a real shame that we couldn’t do it.

“N-Not at all, if anything, I should apologize to you,” said Sophia, looking strangely nervous as she bowed her head.

“You? Apologize to me? Why?” She hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Well, that is... you see...” She was at a loss for words, and her brother intervened.

“She must mean that she’s sorry for inviting you without noticing that you were feeling unwell,” he said coolly.

“Y-Yes, exactly,” Sophia nodded.

“Yeah, but there was no way you could know, so don’t worry. Actually, I was feeling fine that morning. You know what’s weird? I don’t even remember where exactly I lost consciousness. I didn’t go all the way to Nicol’s room, right? But I also kind of feel like I visited it...” I said, trying to recall.

“No, you never came into my room. You must be remembering wrong,” he said without changing his expression.

That was likely. Right after passing out I had a dream about the game, so that had probably confused me.

“Well, a lot’s happened, but I was just glad to be able to spend time with all of you,” I said.

We used to gather often when we were studying at the academy, but now that we were working, we didn’t have as many opportunities to meet. That made our time at the castle that much more fun, despite all that had happened. I’d had enough of assemblies and seminars, but I wished that we could all gather and have fun again.

“If you would like,” Jeord said, “you may come to visit one of the royal vacation villas. There is one of them in a lovely place surrounded by nature.”

“Really? I’d love to!” I quickly replied.

“That does sound nice. We should all go together, Big Sister,” Keith said.

“I agree,” Mary said. “Sounds wonderful, right, Prince Alan?”

“Huh? Uh... Sure does, yeah.”

“I am already looking forward to it!” Sophia commented.

“Yes, me too,” her brother agreed.

“A royal vacation villa... wow...” I said to myself, amazed. It was decided that we’d all go there together, and I couldn’t wait.

But for some strange reason, it seemed that Jeord — the one who had made the invitation — wasn’t very pleased with how things had turned out.

Nah, I’m just imagining things.