My hand faltered for a split second, but I naturally continued brushing through her hair.
Aria, still with her back to me, waved her hands in a frantic rhythm.
“It’s absolutely, definitely not that I dislike my brother!”
“I know. But you wished you had a sister?”
“Yes… I like my brother, but I used to have a maid who had a sister. I was always envious of how close they were…”
Aria clenched her fists and jerked her head up. Her round, wide eyes seemed to signal a desperate desire to be understood.
“She told me she could always see her sister whenever she went home.”
Come to think of it, my fiancé was always busy in the book, constantly hunting for treatments or medicine for his younger sister.
Beyond that, he was a man burdened by duty—managing the affairs of the Duke and protecting his territory from monsters.
Naturally, it must have been rare for him to spend time with his sister alone.
A faint sense of longing and loneliness seeped through Aria’s voice.
Instead of pointing it out, I calmly steered the conversation elsewhere.
“I see. What is that maid doing now?”
“That maid is…”
Oh dear. Had I picked the wrong topic?
Aria’s shoulders slumped in an instant, a sharp contrast to the girl who had been so animated moments ago.
‘…It’s clear something happened between her and that maid, no matter how you look at it.’
Before I could hastily interject, Aria waved her hands again.
“Anyway, I’ve imagined having a sister, a whole lot!”
For a remark made so abruptly, her voice felt strangely nuanced, almost profound.
Is it just my imagination?
‘…Sigh, I hear you. If you’re talking about me, it would really be great if you could help me out.’
I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud, so I pressed the thought down deep inside.
“I see. I always wanted a younger sister myself.”
That was the truth.
Whenever that jerk of an older brother, Yoon Ji-Hoon, bullied me, I used to fantasize about how nice it would have been to have an older or younger sister.
Back in elementary school, I had even written in my diary that if I had a pretty younger sister, I would never treat her the way Yoon Ji-Hoon treated me.
‘After that, I kept pestering Mom to give me a younger sister and only got a scolding for my trouble.’
At that moment, Aria turned completely around to face me.
“…Duchess-To-Be, why do you like my brother?”
“Pardon?”
It was a direct hit I hadn’t expected.
Weren’t we just talking about how we both wished we had sisters? Her sparkling gaze left me momentarily speechless.
“I—I was just curious. What part of my brother do you… like so much, Duchess-To-Be?”
In truth, wasn’t this a question Charlize should answer, not me?
I was only clinging to him so desperately because of the goal I had been assigned. Because I wasn’t the real Charlize, I couldn’t easily articulate why she had loved her fiancé so much.
Even if I scoured Charlize’s memories, her precise feelings remained elusive.
Silence stretched as I struggled to find an answer.
…I shouldn’t delay this response any further, should I?
I quickly opened my mouth. The problem was, in my haste, my inner thoughts slipped right out.
“His face.”
I felt flustered the moment I uttered it.
Hello, me? What kind of nonsense was that?
Another silence followed. I braced myself to offer an excuse, but the moment I drew breath, a clear, bubbling laugh erupted from Aria.
“That’s true, my brother is handsome.”
“Oh… right?”
That much was a fact.
I had already met the male lead and the second male lead from the book, and he possessed looks that didn’t pale in comparison to either of them.
“He was very, very pretty even when he was little.”
Not just “didn’t pale”—he was so striking he could rival the male lead for the top spot.
Listening to Aria, it seemed he had been the same way as a child.
Aria said with a bright, beaming smile.
“I envy your honesty, Duchess-To-Be… I really do!”
“…I don’t think being honest is always a good thing, you know?”
“No, I want to learn it!”
…No, you most certainly should not learn Charlize’s brand of honesty, my dear.
It is the fast track to burning every bridge and dismantling every professional relationship you have.
Though I was horrified on the inside, I managed to stop Aria with as much calm and natural grace as I could muster. I weighed my words carefully, terrified of any misinterpretation. My skin prickled with cold sweat as I desperately tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“Is that really something to say just because the Duke of Remut is handsome?”
“Hmm, it’s true that my brother is handsome, but…”
Fortunately, Aria tilted her head, easily following the shift in the conversation.
“To be honest, I prefer someone who is… more masculinely handsome, rather than my brother’s style.”
“Is that so?”
I pictured my fiancé’s face.
It wasn’t that he lacked masculinity. On the contrary, his broad shoulders and massive frame left no room for doubt. It was simply that his features possessed a beauty so pristine it transcended masculinity—or perhaps, it transcended gender altogether.
‘Could it be that Aria dislikes it because she looks too much like her brother?’
That would make sense; she would feel like she were staring into a mirror every time she looked at him. I began to process this in my own way.
“I personally like the type that looks like the Duke of Remut.”
“Really?”
“Yes. If anything, um… I’m not into the type that looks fierce. Not at all.”
In truth, when I read novels or comics, it hadn’t mattered who it was as long as they were handsome. But the reason I had developed such a specific distaste was entirely due to that tyrant of an older brother.
I hate everything that looks like that man!
Ugh. Perhaps it’s a remnant lingering in Charlize’s body. It felt like I was agonizing over the nauseating question of whether Yoon Ji-Hoon could ever be acceptable as a man. For the record, whenever I fought with Yoon Ji-Hoon, I believed with absolute certainty that whoever he brought home would be the most pitiful woman in the world.
“Ah, then…”
Aria was about to say more, but at that moment, the door clicked open. A familiar figure appeared in the threshold.
It was my fiancé.
Our eyes met. For a moment, Askin stared at me before naturally shifting his gaze toward his sister.
“Brother!”
I exhaled a silent sigh of relief.
‘…Thank goodness. No room for a misunderstanding today.’
I had checked Aria’s hair just in case, and perhaps it was thanks to the craftsman-like effort I’d put into brushing it? Her hair held more luster than usual.
Whew, well done. See? You can do it if you try. Looking at the improvement, I felt a strange sense of pride.
“Aria. You weren’t in your room.”
“Yes, I came to see the Duchess-To-Be, Brother.”
I watched the siblings with a fascinated gaze. Come to think of it, was this the first time I had seen Askin interacting with Aria in a moment of peace?
Askin wore an incredibly gentle expression. I realized that if you stripped away the coldness he wore like armor and the anger buried deep beneath it, this was the face he possessed.
‘Looking like an Ice Prince… I didn’t know he could make such an expression.’
Earlier, I had briefly likened this man to a rabbit while looking at Aria—a thought that felt unfitting yet oddly harmonious—and seeing him like this gave me a glimpse of how he usually looked at her.
‘That’s right. I suppose he was only an Ice Rabbit to me.’
It wasn’t that I could ever truly hate this man, but I pouted inwardly at the unfairness of it all.
“Right. You’ve been outside too long. Go back to your room now.”
“But…”
“Aria. If you get sick, I’ll stay up all night until you recover.”
“…”
Aria looked at me with an expression that suggested she was on the verge of shouting, “Hmph.”
Soon, she offered a sullen goodbye and took her leave.
Honestly, she was so cute that I felt the urge to poke those cheeks, which looked ready to puff up at any moment.
‘Next time we meet, I’ll give her a comb as a gift and ask if I can poke her cheek just once.’
I stifled a laugh, remembering her skin—pale, porcelain-smooth, and prone to flushing a soft, delicate pink.
As soon as Aria disappeared, Askin’s expression shifted.
It was the look I had known all too well. A small, fleeting sense of regret stirred within me.
“What is your business here?”
Though, I suppose it couldn’t be helped. I inadvertently wrinkled my nose at his icy demeanor.
“Is there any need to frown and blush like that?”
“……Have you become dull-witted now, too?”
Was he asking if I had forgotten everything about the past? I clicked my tongue inwardly.
I wanted to tell him again and again that the girl from the past was not me.
On the other hand, seeing my fiancé acting exactly as he always did brought a sudden wave of relief.
‘……Fortunately, it seems he hasn’t heard the rumors.’
With that thought, any disappointment I had felt a moment ago vanished.
I felt genuinely happy. Yes, he couldn’t have heard them.
To think I would feel such joy at seeing him exactly as he always was.