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When our parents were away we went by age order. In other words, we organized a hierarchy with Theo, the oldest, at the top.
After seeing our parents off, we sat down side by side and started eating dinner.
“Ciel. You didn’t forget our promise, did you?”
As evening approached, Isaac hurried me along as if he had been eagerly awaiting tonight.
“I didn’t forget.”
“What promise?”
Louis, tactless as ever, cut in. Since this was a good opportunity, I carefully checked Theo’s mood as I hesitatingly began to speak.
“We came to play around, so I thought it would be nice if we all slept in one big bedroom together. Doesn’t that sound fun, Sister?”
Since I’d already come this far, I clung to Clara like a water ghost. [1] My naive older sister, who was completely unaware of what I was doing, agreed with me.
“It was such a pity that we weren’t able to come here together in the same carriage.”
“Great! Well then, sleep next to me, Sister.”
“Ciel, what about me?”
Isaac, who had originally intended to sleep next to me, quickly objected.
Naturally, it was decided that Clara and Isaac would sleep on either side of me.
Clasping my innocent sister’s hand tightly, I stealthily signaled to Theo.
“How about you, Theo?”
“If this is what you want, Ciel, then it can’t be helped.”
Despite what he said, I could hear him from happiness on the inside. Acting indifferent, my older brother wasn’t being honest at all.
Still, even if he ‘coincidentally’ ended up next to Clara, it was obvious that our little lump of innocence, Theo, would be so overjoyed that he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
“Ciel. Louis. Father isn’t here, so you two will have special training with me starting tomorrow. Isaac, you teach Clara some basic self-defense skills.”
“Okay, Brother.”
Since he could continue to stick to me at night, even Isaac obediently followed Theo’s orders.
Even if he pretended not to be, I knew Louis would be disappointed if we left him out while we all hung out together, so I secretly poked my troublemaking youngest brother in his side.
“What are you going to do, Louis?”
“I-I will..!”
He didn’t want to ask to be included first, but he would be hurt if he was left out by himself.
I could understand Louis’ complicated feelings. He hadn’t been able to bring it up first, bottling everything up inside instead. After I took the initiative, that prickly kid said that it couldn’t be helped and that he’d sleep with us.
“Shall I prepare the largest room for you?”
“Yes!”
The caretaker of the villa set up the bedroom right away at my request. When three king-sized, guest beds were pushed together the bed became large enough to sleep seven people in an instant.
It was less work with all of the children gathered in one place to sleep, so the other employees seemed quite pleased as well.
The mountain of pillows all piled up was a jaw-dropping sight. It was like going to a training camp. My heart fluttered with excitement.
“Ciel, take this!”
“Brother!”
As I took a bite of the late night snacks that had been prepared for us, a pillow flew into the back of my head.
Louis, who had climbed onto the bed one step ahead of the rest of us, started a pillow fight. Hey punk, are you ready to lose?
“Clara, please be the referee. Isaac, attack Theo!”
“Yes, Ciel!”
I didn’t think I’d be able to win on my own, so I shamelessly dragged Isaac into the fight.
“Take this!”
Theo, who had been reading a book by himself, suddenly became the victim of a pillow attack.
“Good job, Isaac!”
Theo needed to up his game if he was facing off against the strong teamwork of the Ciel-Isaac Alliance.
“Let’s give it a try, shall we?”
It seemed that Theo didn’t want to back down today because his beloved Clara was watching.
The other side is strong too, but I have no intention of losing. After throwing two pillows at us, Louis lost his balance and fell onto bed.
As we were battling like crazy in our pillow fight, Meryl came running in making a huge fuss.
“We’re in trouble, Miss! Ack!”
A pillow that Louis had thrown at me missed and flew straight towards Meryl’s face.
“Meryl!”
Fortunately, Theo used his magic to stop the flying pillow before it could hit Meryl.
“What’s going on?”
Sensing that something was strange, Louis rushed to the window to figure out what was happening.
“It looks like a troublesome visitor has arrived.”
“Who is it?”
“I can see a carriage bearing the imperial crest.”
A visitor at our villa… at this time? And it was weird that, of all people, it was someone from the imperial family.
No matter how much I think about it, there’s no one who would visit us. Mom and Dad weren’t around, so why would someone suddenly show up here?
I instinctively took up a defensive position inside of Isaac’s arms.
***
Stan let out a long sigh. Now, no matter the time or the place, a vision of Ciel would appear before his eyes.
After being banned from meeting her, he’d hadn’t seen a single trace of her in quite some time. Ironically, he had run into Ciel again at the banquet to honor Alex, the person who was now his romantic rival.
Looking like a doll that had come to life, Ciel had entered holding her parents’ hands.
With shiny blonde hair, emerald eyes, and a shy smile, Ciel clasped her beloved parents’ hands and beamed happily.
It had been a long time… It had been a really long time…
Stan had just wanted to ask how she was doing, but Ciel’s scary brothers hadn’t allowed him to get close to her.
And her entrance into the palace had been decided. The apparent reason was Ciel’s adopted sister, Clara Valentine, but Stan was skeptical.
No matter how talented she was, she was still just a novice pharmacist. So why was Alex so insistent about taking her in as an exclusive pharmacist?
Among the nobles it was a widely known fact that Ciel adored her adopted older sister, whom she shared not a drop of blood with.
“ it.”
He hadn’t expected Alex to shamelessly use Ciel’s older sister as bait like that to draw her in. He had tried to come up with various methods to prevent Ciel from entering the palace, but no clear solution had appeared.
After spending day after day monitoring the Valentine family like a stalker, Stan eventually decided to seize the last chance he had.
“They said that they were going on a summer holiday to their villa.”
Regardless of whether it was the season for summer holidays, as a rule, the imperial family steadfastly remained in the palace.
Of course, rules were meant to be broken. As soon as he obtained intelligence on where they had gone, Stan ran to his mother, Princess Lotte.
“Mother!”
“What brings you here?”
Princess Lotte was infinitely kind towards her son, Stan. Normally her son couldn’t even be bothered to come by to see how she was doing, so when he came to visit her first she put down the paperwork that she had been looking at and greeted him.
“The sun might rise in the west. [2] I didn’t even call for you, but you came to greet me first.”
“What were you looking at?”
“I’ve been thinking about renovating my palace for a while now.”
The Emperor had given an order for Alex’s palace to be renovated. Not wanting to be outdone, the Imperial Princess immediately decided to decorate her own palace.
If Ciel entered the Imperial Palace, she would inevitably encounter his mother. Stan stealthily checked his mother’s mood as he tried to sound out her intentions.
“Are you doing this because Lady Valentine is entering the palace?”
“I simply thought it would be nice.”
Princess Lotte cherished her son Stan dearly. She nodded as she pushed her paperwork aside, gently gazing at her son whose strawberry blonde hair resembled her own.
“My beloved son, it seems you still like Ciel.”
Stan nodded in response to his mother’s question. It was possible that the boy would change his mind as he grew older, but for now he only had eyes for Ciel.
“Well, she is quite pretty.”
Princess Lotte let out a long sigh as she looked at her son, who was stuck on his foolish, one-sided crush. The human heart couldn’t be changed by force. The sight of her son, who had chosen such a tough opponent, was frustrating.
“You need power to get what you want.”
“But, Mother…”
“What could have prompted that little girl to enter the Imperial Palace?”
From the perspective of the Valentine family, it might have seemed natural to pair their ducal princess, the only one born in a hundred years, with the next emperor.
“Ciel isn’t like that.”
“You never really know what’s inside of someone’s heart.”
Stan became pointlessly upset in front of the Princess, who spoke as if she had already made her mind up. The Princess was constantly disappointed in her son’s lack of ambition.
He knew what his mother wanted to talk about. As the reality that he would need to give up on Ciel if he was unable to surpass Alex began to set it, a stubborn, fighting spirit was born within Stan.
He had never been greedy for the throne, but it was a different story if Ciel was involved. Stan calmly brought up the subject that he had come prepared with.
“I’ve heard that it will be a good time to go hunting starting next week. It’s been quite a while, so I’d like to go.”
Princess Lotte frowned disapprovingly at Stan’s proposal.
“Rather risky, isn’t it?”
At some point Stan had become about a handspan taller than his mother, but despite that, Princess Lotte still treated him like a young child.
“It seems like an excellent opportunity for His Highness Stan to show himself off.”
Morrigan, Princess Lotte’s close confidante and Stan’s nanny, stealthily slipped a word in. Having embraced Stan’s earnest heart since his childhood, she had always been his stalwart ally.
“Hunting, you say….”
“If High Highness Stan is able to properly show off his abilities, then it will be easier to beat that dim-witted, illegitimate child.”
Princess Lotte’s anger dissipated as she listened to Morrigan’s words. As usual, she reiterated that Stan lacked nothing in comparison to Alex. Therefore, there was no real reason to object to his current proposal.
“Just be careful. It will be a big problem if you get hurt.”
“Of course. I’ll be careful.”
Standing next to his mother, Morrigan secretly gave him a wink. With a grateful nod, Stan rushed off in a hurry to begin his preparations.
Under the pretext of going hunting, Stan followed the Valentine family’s summer holiday route.
Notes:
[1] A water ghost is the spirit of someone who that will lure living people into the water, pull them under, and them as well.
[2] An idiom used after seeing something unexpected. Essentially, if something seemingly impossible happens, then anything could happen… even the sun rising in the west.