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The Appearance of a Demon [Part 4]
“It’s booklice.”
Completely oblivious to Joshua’s internal conflict, Emma stared fixedly at his freckles.
She finally connected the memory to when she first met Joshua, in which she said, “Your freckles look like a lot of booklice. How lovely,” and Minato’s memory of reading a story written by a specter researcher in the Edo period, which stated that Azuki Arai’s true form was a booklouse.
“Booklice?”
What’s that? Oliver furrowed his brows.
“N-Nee-sama! Please let go of your hand. Joshua is…”
“He’s probably not breathing!” William shouted.
“Huh? Ah, I’m sorry! Joshua… are you alright?”
William’s shout made Emma finally notice that Joshua’s face was a bright red.
It probably hurts because I grabbed his face forcefully. Emma apologized as she released her hold.
“Haaa… I’m… alright. I’m alright…”
Joshua took a deep breath while collecting his shaky and crumbling reason.
“Emma-sama, as I’ve said before, you should never do this to His Highness or other friends in the academy, okay? Lèse-majesté is no joking matter after all. …Please only do this kind of thing with me. Only me, okay?”
“Ah, uhh… I’m sorry? Joshua.”
“Lèse-majesté has scary consequences, alright? …For example, some even say that it’s ten times more terrifying than Hilda-sama‘s lecture…”
“Eep! Joshua, I… I’ll be careful, okay?”
“Yes. I think it is advisable not to touch other men than me…”
“Even to that extent… The aristocratic world is harsh, indeed.”
“It is alright to touch me as much as Emma-sama likes, you know? Only me.”
He came up with such a brilliant comeback that it was hard to believe his reason had been on the verge of collapse until just a few seconds ago.
“Ah, that guy… he’s already hopeless.”
“Nii-sama… So you haven’t let go of the hope that Joshua can still be saved, huh?”
George and William gazed at the two with eyes full of melancholy when their surroundings suddenly turned dark.
“Hm? Huh?”
“Kuh!”
Thinking, ‘Weird, why is it so dark?’ The brothers turned around, only to find a furious Leonard right behind them.
“Joshua-kun? I wonder if you can lend me those cheeks for a little…?”
With veins popping, he forcibly raised the corners of his mouth and smiled.
“F-Father! Calm down!”
“Joshua! Hurry up and apologize! You’ll be flung away again, y’know!”
George and William shouted at Joshua in a panic.
“No, let me make it clear right here, right now. I love Em—…”
“HuUhHh? I can’t seem to hear yOuUU?”
Leonard went gangsta on Joshua.
“Wahhh! Come on, Nee-sama too, stop Father… Eh, HUH?!”
Joshua’s in trouble! As William thought so, he turned to the main culprit, Emma, for help, but she had already moved on to explain booklice to Oliver happily.
“…And so, the booklice will settle on the sliding door and make a shoki shoki sound…”
“Huh? Insects? But there were no such things there, though?”
“Booklice are tiny insects, that’s why… Ah, how about I go to the mansion right now to check…”
“Wait, Nee-sama—!”
‘How can you talk about insects in this situation…’ muttered William, but this was just Emma’s usual operation.
“Oh? It seems like… I have come at a bad time?”
Fukushima appeared right at the moment when Joshua was grabbed by Leonard by the neck. Fukushima went to Edo earlier for a meeting in Edo Castle and had just returned.
“Ah, Fukushima-sama. You’re back early… I thought you were going to take your time in Edo. Did anything happen at the meeting?“
Leonard noticed Fukushima’s arrival and gave him a welcoming smile, still with that demon-like face.
“Your face is scary!!! I-It was nothing. At the meeting, the discussion led to the rewarding of House Stuart… The Emperor and Shogun have also expressed that giving a reward is an absolute must, so I would like to invite everyone to Edo to—… Eh?“
Leonard’s demon face turned pale when he heard Fukushima’s words.
Emma, who was going on and on about booklice to Oliver, George and William, who were trying to rescue Joshua from Leonard’s clutches, and Melsa, who was commenting, ‘Oh, dear, oh, goodness,’ with a mood like that of a spectator, all shouted at Fukushima in sync,
“ “ “ “ “We don’t need any rewards!” ” ” ” ”
♠♠♠
Author’s words: It was supposed to be a chapter on ‘whether to return to the Kingdom or not,’ though…