Chapter 12
Seductive Gaze
He tilted his head in confusion when the man blew a soft breath into his ear.
Renar followed my movement, tilting his head the same way and smiling faintly.
Then he bent down.
His lips came close enough to touch mine, but at the last moment they changed direction and returned to my ear.
This time, his lips were even closer to the rim of my ear.
Along with his warm breath, his low voice reached me.
“Is it okay if I speak casually when people are around? Everyone thinks I’m the real prince.”
Renar whispered and nodded twice.
Following his gaze, I saw the porters carrying luggage and the maids standing behind me.
When I nodded, Renar straightened up.
In the process, his cheek brushed against mine.
Renar was smiling with satisfaction.
“Let’s have breakfast together.”
It was the first thing he said after I allowed him to speak informally.
“Do you like seafood, Archduchess?”
“What kind of salad dressing do you like?”
“Have you ever eaten whale steak?”
Throughout the meal, Renar kept asking me trivial questions like that.
“Among land meats, what do you like?”
“Have you ever tried roasted veal?”
“Oh, I like veal too. Maybe we’re soulmates. What about lamb?”
When I read the original story, I never thought Renar was someone who talked a lot.
But the Renar in front of me kept speaking to me whenever the conversation seemed about to stop.
Honestly, it was nice.
Thanks to that, things never became awkward.
And all I had to do was answer his questions.
It was comfortable.
And having these meaningless conversations felt a little…
fun.
It felt like chatting with a friend.
I’d hardly had the chance to enjoy something like that, either in the real world or even after growing up as Eloise.
And Renar felt comfortable.
Maybe because we had met when we were young.
“Do you like looking at the stars?”
Renar had been talking about ornamental starfish that Count Anansel imported from another continent when he suddenly asked about the stars.
Our conversation wandered across many topics.
“The stars?”
I had never really been interested in stargazing, either in the real world or in this one.
But the stars I saw yesterday were very beautiful.
After seeing them, I realized maybe I had simply never liked looking at stars because I didn’t know how beautiful they could be.
Just like how I hadn’t liked flowers in the real world but grew to like them here.
“Maybe.”
“Really? That’s good. Then do you know what those porters were carrying earlier?”
“No. What was it?”
“What do you think?”
“What is it?”
“Something you and I will do tonight.”
Renar suddenly clasped his hands together and rested his chin on them.
His gaze was seductive.
The morning sunlight shining through the dining hall window made his reddish-brown eyes sparkle.
Knock knock.
I had dozed off while reading when I heard someone knocking on the door.
“…Who is it?”
“Archduchess?”
The whispering voice outside the door was Renar’s.
Renar…? Why is Renar…
I had already refused his suggestion earlier today.
He had asked me to watch the stars with him tonight because a meteor shower would occur.
A meteor shower.
A phenomenon where meteors—shooting stars—fall across the sky like rain.
In this world, meteor showers occurred when a planet called Irianek, which resonated with the mana of mages, approached Earth.
The large luggage that arrived at the mansion this morning contained an astronomical telescope and equipment for observing the planet Irianek.
Renar had said the meteor shower was something that could only be seen once every several hundred years.
That was why he had suggested we watch such a mysterious and beautiful sight together.
But I refused.
It felt strange to watch such a romantic scene with just a friend.
And for some reason, the way Renar looked at me when he suggested it made him seem like a hunter setting a trap.
And now that hunter was standing in front of my room.
After hesitating, I walked over and opened the door.
But what I saw wasn’t Renar’s face.
A sweet smell.
On a large ceramic plate was something piled up like a mountain.
Cookies…?
While I was staring blankly at the pile of star-shaped cookies, Renar suddenly peeked his head out from beside them.
“Archduchess?”
Lowering the corners of his eyes, he called out to me in a soft and gentle voice.
“Come watch the stars with me.”
If he had simply asked me to watch the stars, I wouldn’t have followed him.
But he was clever.
He offered sweet cookies as a bribe and made a request.
To help with Olendo’s astronomy homework.
“To be honest, asking you to watch the stars with me was just an excuse. I need to calculate the orbit of the planet Irianek, but it’s a bit difficult for me… Since you graduated second in the academy, Archduchess, I thought you’d be able to solve it easily.”
Whenever we were alone, Renar went back to speaking politely to me.
But how did he know I graduated second?
Renar seemed to know more about me than I thought.
As if embarrassed about asking for help with studying, he scratched the back of his head and smiled brightly.
He looked like a carnivorous animal pretending to be a small, harmless creature.
“You know about it, right?”
If this really was Olendo’s homework, then Renar had found exactly the right person.
The Cowell family had once invited an academy professor to privately teach me astronomy.
I was probably the only person in the empire with such specialized lessons.
But I had one question.
“Why are you doing Prince Olendo’s homework?”
As I tilted my head, Renar raised his finger and poked my cheek to straighten it.
Then he laughed as if it amused him.
“Our prince is a terrible student. Because I often attend his classes as his guard, he started making me do his homework at some point. Power has its advantages, doesn’t it?”
There was something bitter in Renar’s last words.
But regardless of that, I was shocked.
How could Olendo even think of making someone else do his homework?
Olendo was my real fiancé.
Even if Renar’s existence isn’t known yet, Olendo is still the empire’s only heir before the crown prince appointment…
The empire’s future looked bleak.
Of course, doing Olendo’s homework might actually be a good thing for Renar.
In the original story, he had always been thirsty for knowledge.
Even though his biological father was the emperor and his biological mother was a princess from another empire, he had never received proper education.
So if he did Olendo’s homework, he would still gain knowledge.
“These cookies—I baked them myself. For you.”
Renar said something unbelievable.
“You… really did?”
Why go through the trouble?
“I thought you’d like them more that way.”
Imagining Renar, with his long legs twice the length of the young maids’, running around the kitchen made me chuckle.
The servants who thought he was the prince must have been in a panic.
“Oh? You smiled.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re more shameless than I thought. But I should be paid for that smile, so you’ll help me, right? The cookies are a bonus.”
Renar grabbed my hand and made me hold the plate of cookies.
Then he didn’t let go.
“…Let go.”
“You’ll help me, right?”
“Why are you holding my hand?”
“In case you run away. You’re not really going to refuse, are you?”
Renar, who was twice as shameless as I was, eventually forced my surrender.
There really was a theory he didn’t understand, so it was hard to refuse.
That was why I said he was clever.
If he truly needed to understand it, then helping him would increase his knowledge.
And if it was just an excuse, then he still succeeded in watching the meteor shower with me.
I didn’t know what watching it with me meant to him.
But it wasn’t a deal where only Renar benefited.
Helping him meant making him indebted to me.
Someday, the kindness I gave him would surely become useful.
“Archduchess, you’re really smart. How does this formula come out here?”
In the wooden attic that still smelled faintly of the forest, Renar and I worked on Olendo’s homework.
We calculated together and examined the telescope.
Renar kept praising me.
When I glared at him playfully because his flattery embarrassed me, he looked momentarily stunned before smiling again.
Renar was a very studious student.
Whenever I taught him advanced theories from the academy, he wrote them down eagerly with sparkling eyes.
Unlike when he flashed that charming, flirtatious smile, at times like this he looked just like a child.
Seeing that made me excited too.
Without realizing it, I started teaching him more and more.
Even things unrelated to Olendo’s homework.
Then Renar would become even more excited and ask to learn other knowledge.
Eventually, I decided to set aside time to give him private lessons.
Not just astronomy, but other advanced studies he wanted to learn.
Since I knew from the original story how jealous Renar was of Olendo’s education, I couldn’t simply refuse him.
When I promised to teach him for a while, Renar looked as happy as a child meeting Santa Claus.
At that moment—
“Archduchess! Look over there!”
The meteor shower began.
Through the large attic window, long-tailed stars filled the sky.
A deep blue night sky.
Sparkling starlight.
My chest swelled as if a new sprout had begun to grow inside it.
At that moment, Renar quietly took my hand.
“You should look at the stars, not me. It’s a spectacle that only appears once every several hundred years.”
When I glanced at him, Renar said it without taking his eyes off the window.
I had no choice but to agree and turned my gaze back to the sky.
“It’s truly magnificent… breathtaking…”
When I turned my head again at the sweet sound of his voice, I saw Renar looking at me, not the stars.
Just then, an especially bright shooting star streaked diagonally across the window.
It was a beautiful, magical night.
