Chapter 6.5

author’s note: It’s getting sweet now. Well, this is still little. It’ll be much much sweeter later.

Today, we were going for an outing with everyone. Yeay!

I won the game1 again as usual, so I requested to go out of the Inner Palace. No matter how spacious and exquisite the structure of the Inner Palace was, to always be stuck inside, it could become boring.

I’ll say it clearly, I got bored.

That’s why we were going out. Well, with a prince and high noble sons, the places we could go were pretty much limited.

By the way, the game this time was ‘charade’. As expected, everyone didn’t know what a charade game was. I was simply unrivaled.

So here we were, boarding the luxurious carriage for royals heading towards one of the royal villas. This villa was built as a summer palace, so it also had wide ponds where you could play in the water, and trellis were installed where flowers can be seen trailing down2, giving a sense of coolness.

For us who had only been playing inside the inner palace, we were really excited for this outing. It would take us around 2 hours one way with the carriage, but everyone’s spirit had shot through the roof.

“Whoa, so big~”

”

”

That’s my first comment once we arrived at the villa. The inner palace I was familiar with was already so large and spectacular, but the spectacle of this villa belonged to an entire different level.

To think that this place is only in use during summer, what a total waste. Of course I couldn’t say that out loud, but this was simply using the tax so lavishly.

“Then, let’s hurry and play!”

It took us two hours for a one way trip, if we didn’t rush to play, it would be soon time to go back. Currently, we were sitting down on a thick cloth sprawled on the ground near a lake.

“Hey! What are you doing, Fania?” Al came all the way to my side and talked loudly to me.

“Al, you’re so loud.”

“I’m not being loud. I’m asking why you are removing your clothes.”

“Eh? we’re playing in the water, of course I’ll remove them.” I hastily continued to remove my clothes.

It was now the hot summertime.

In front of my eyes, was a beautiful well-kept pond.

Around me were all boys.

Following the above conditions, of course I would play in the water!

In this world, there was apparently no concept of bathing suits. When kids played in the water, it was a given to just turn buck-naked.

Besides, just think about it. We’re all seven-year-olds. Was there any inconvenience by us getting naked? Only cute wieners3 were visible, was there anything to say about it? Look, around me, they all had wieners!

“Hey~ I’m telling you, don’t take them off.” Al grabbed my clothes, and tried to put them back on me.

Why was he stopping me?

“Eh, Al~ I can’t take them off if you do that.”

“Don’t take them off. Don’t remove your clothes in front of other people!”

“Why~ I can’t go play in the water then.”

“You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!” Al didn’t seem to listen to me. He was the epitome of a tyrant.

While Al and I were quarrelling for no reason on this side, everyone else had already stripped buck-naked, and already were having fun in the pond.

“I want to play in the water~ Stupid Al!” I spitefully glanced up at Al, I ended up talking bad towards an honourable member of the royal family, but I didn’t think that I did anything wrong.

“Ugh. You, that face is a foul play…” Al faced sideways with a red face, but his hands kept clamming on my clothes.

“Your Highness, please look at that side of the pond. It’s shaded by a tree, so everyone else cannot see that side. If it’s over there, Fania can play in the water without being seen by anyone.” Nozart, the grand chamberlain intervened while we were still quarrelling.

“No, no choice then. If, if it’s only Fania and I going, then it’s okay to play in the water. You can play, but only over there. You cannot go where anyone else can see.” Al snorted, and pulled my hand to go to the other side of the pond.

“Ehh, I wanna play with everybody~!” He paid no heed to what I say.

What’s with that stubbornness? With more ‘friends’, I thought his tyrant self had been under control, but that didn’t seem to have any effect at all.

I was disgruntled, but I still wanted to play in the water. I sulkily went along with Al to the other side of the pond, then quickly removed my clothes and entered the pond.

“You, you… why is your skin so white?”

“Uwo, don’t turn over here, hide it a bit!”

“I told you, don’t get close to me”

“Whoaa, don’t stoop down, don’t squat, don’t open your legs!”4

So noisy.

Al was just soooo noisy. With his red face, Al just continued nagging non-stop. Just what was wrong with today’s Al? This was supposed to be a fun time playing in the water, but it felt like being with a sister-in-law.

In the end, Al kept being noisy until the time we had to return. A fun outing was totally ruined. In the return trip on the carriage, the other three kept looking worriedly at the disgruntled me and forever red-faced Al, but this intolerant me wouldn’t even care to mend the situation.

What can I say, I am only a seven-year-old!

author’s note: Until here is the 7-years-old arc. From the next chapter, we’ll jump to the 12-years-old arc. I’ll try my best to make it overly sweet

chocolala: With this, the opening act before the main event closes its curtain, they’re only a bunch of seven-year-olds after all!