2671-chapter-16
Chapter 16
“Young Lady, are you awake?”
‘It’s Anne.’
I slowly opened my eyes at the familiar voice.
“Mmm, I’m awakeee….”
After hearing my answer, Anne entered the room with a warm smile.
“You must have been very tired.”
“What time is ittt?”
“It’s already past twelve, Young Lady.”
“Huh? Then why didn’t you wake meee?”
Normally, Anne would wake me if I slept past noon. When I asked in confusion, Anne picked up the blanket I had kicked off and placed it back over the bed.
“You attended the banquet yesterday, after all.”
“Ah! Come to think of it, how did I get back?”
‘I remember falling asleep in the carriage… but how did I end up in bed?’
As I tilted my head in confusion, Anne smiled brightly.
“The Duke carried you back himself.”
“Duke-nim did?”
That was unexpected. I thought he hated his daughter, but apparently not enough to leave me abandoned in the carriage.
“I seeee.”
As I nodded, Anne gently combed through my tangled hair with her fingers and asked,
“Aren’t you hungry? Should I ask Sir Puichi to make you a sandwich?”
“Mm… no.”
I wasn’t exactly hungry, but I did crave something sweet. As if reading my thoughts, Anne delivered wonderful news.
“Young Lady, Sir Puichi baked a fresh apple pie.”
“Really? As expected of Puichi!”
Puichi truly understood Roxina perfectly. Had he climbed into my brain and taken a look around?
“Shall I bring it up here? That would probably be better, right?”
The reason Anne asked so carefully was probably because she worried I might run into Renzard again. I appreciated the thoughtfulness, but—
“No!”
I couldn’t avoid him forever anyway, and after seeing the medal, there was something I needed to do.
Maybe it’d actually be better to keep bumping into Renzard until the awkward feelings faded.
That had to be better than suddenly shoving the medal at him later.
And above all else, I absolutely could not give up freshly baked apple pie!
“Let’s go downstairs.”
Wait for me, pie.
I’ll eat you properly!
“Oh! Young Lady, you came down yourself. I was just about to bring it to your room.”
Puichi looked genuinely surprised to see me in the dining room.
“Puichi pie tastes best right away.”
Seeing a four-year-old speak so seriously while climbing neatly onto a chair must have been amusing, because Puichi burst into his usual hearty laughter.
“Hohoho! Young Lady truly knows her pies! A pie made by this Puichi absolutely must be eaten fresh!”
When I heard the oven ding, I shouted toward Puichi’s back as he headed into the kitchen.
“Don’t cool it this timeee!”
“But it’ll be hot. You might burn the roof of your mouth.”
“That’s how pie is supposed to tasteee!”
“I see! Young Lady is absolutely right! Hohoho!”
This time, Puichi brought the pie out immediately without letting it cool.
Golden brown and steaming hot, it looked far more delicious than last time.
“Waaah! It looks sooo good!”
Just as I stabbed the pie with my fork, I suddenly remembered it was lunchtime.
“But isn’t Puichi eating?”
“I’m fine, Young Lady. Please eat as much as you’d like. Hoho!”
Puichi smiled and said there were several more pies still in the oven, but I knew how hard he worked to satisfy the demanding tastes of the ducal family.
“No. Puichi eat first. You made it.”
Puichi widened his eyes slightly in surprise before smiling even more gently than before.
“I already tasted several pieces while baking, so I’m quite alright.”
“If Puichi doesn’t eat, I’ll keep holding my arm up foreverrr.”
As I dramatically patted my shoulder with my free hand while holding up the fork and whining, “Ahh, my arm hurts!” Puichi hesitated briefly before finally bending down with a helpless smile.
“Aaah!”
I fed him a bite and waited expectantly for his reaction.
Puichi held his forehead and laughed loudly.
“Hohoho! It tastes even better because the Young Lady fed it to me! Perhaps I should open an apple pie shop!”
“Really? If Puichi opens a shop, I’ll come every single day!”
“Then I suppose I’ll never have to worry about sales!”
Still laughing heartily, Puichi gestured for me to hurry and eat already, so I brought my fork back toward the pie.
Just as I carefully cut a piece so the layers wouldn’t collapse—
“Roxina…”
‘Haaah?’
It was Renzard, fresh off yesterday’s fierce battle with Pleury.
“So this is where you were. You weren’t in your room, so I spent forever looking for you.”
“Why?”
He only sided with me in front of Pleury because he couldn’t tolerate House Tanzeric being publicly disrespected, right?
Surely he wasn’t trying to hold that over my head now.
He was really putting effort into teasing his little sister.
“Tsk tsk.”
As I clicked my tongue and turned back toward my pie, Renzard hurried over to me.
“Roxina! I came because there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
When I ignored him and kept staring at my plate, he spoke even faster.
Well, he tried to.
Until I interrupted him.
“Tell me later.”
“Huh?”
Renzard blinked in confusion, so I stared at him coldly.
“I said later. Can’t you see I’m trying to eat pie right now?”
“Ah.”
Only then did Renzard notice the pie-loaded fork in my hand.
“This tastes best while it’s still warm.”
“R-Right. Eat your pie first. I’ll wait.”
“Hmph.”
I sharply turned away from the dazed Renzard and lifted my fork again.
The moment I stuffed the pie into my mouth, sweet apple fragrance and a richer cinnamon scent than before spread across my tongue.
‘Ahhh, this is it!’
Because it was warm, the flavor was definitely deeper, and the sweetness of the apple filling stood out much more strongly.
“It’s sooo good….”
The thought of all the pie I’d eaten cold before suddenly felt tragic.
While I carefully cut tiny pieces to make the pie last longer, Renzard stood nearby fidgeting endlessly.
“What’s wrong with you? Need to poop?”
“N-No.”
“Then stay still. You’re distracting.”
“S-Sorry….”
At my scolding, Renzard immediately straightened up.
Watching awkwardly from the side, Puichi offered him some pie as well, but Renzard simply shook his head.
‘What’s with him all of a sudden?’
And after some time passed—
Once I’d thoroughly wiped every last pie crumb from my mouth with a napkin, I finally turned toward Renzard.
“So what did you wanna say?”
“Ah!”
Renzard jerked his head up and lowered the corners of his eyes pitifully.
‘What’s with those fake puppy-dog eyes?’
As I stared at him with obvious suspicion, his voice gradually grew quieter.
“W-Would you rather talk upstairs?”
Judging by the way his eyes darted around, he clearly didn’t want to speak in front of the servants.
Too bad.
“Doesn’t matter. Just say it.”
“…I wanted to apologize to you….”
“Apologize?”
Caught completely off guard, I repeated the word, and Renzard nodded firmly.
“Yeah.”
Renzard clenched and unclenched his fists for a while before taking a deep breath and continuing.
“I think I spoke too carelessly to you before, and I really wanted to apologize.”
When I said nothing, he kept going.
“Like you said… Mother didn’t die because of you, but I forced the blame onto you anyway. I was just so devastated after losing Mother that….”
“Wait.”
We were really having this conversation here? This suddenly?
Maybe it really would’ve been better to talk privately in a room like Renzard suggested.
Listening to his confession in silence, I crossed my chubby little arms and cut him off.
This wasn’t the kind of situation I wanted.
Honestly, fighting would’ve been easier.
To deliberately provoke Renzard’s temper, I started nitpicking his wording instead.
“First, there’s something you need to correct.”
Renzard swallowed nervously.
“W-What?”
“It’s not that you ‘think’ you spoke carelessly. You DID speak carelessly. And it’s not that you ‘think’ you forced the blame onto me. You DID force the blame onto me.”
“Ah….”
Renzard opened his mouth like he’d just achieved enlightenment, and I internally screamed.
‘No! Don’t act like you’ve reached some deep realization!’
“Right. Let me say it again. Mother didn’t die because of you, but I still forced the blame onto you. I was so overwhelmed by losing Mother that I resented someone completely innocent. I’m truly sorry.”
Part of what surprised me was how unexpectedly sincere his tone sounded.
But more than that, seeing Renzard acting this serious made me raise one eyebrow.
“I thought about it a lot. Why did our mother really have to die? And after thinking about it over and over, I realized that no matter what, it wasn’t your fault.”
Even while nervously fidgeting with his fingers, Renzard kept speaking.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me from one apology alone. But even so, I really wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
‘What on earth happened to him over the last few days?’
I did want our relationship to improve, but this suddenly? Without warning?
I’d even been mentally preparing myself for full-on fights, so this left me feeling strangely empty.
And somehow uneasy too.
‘Did Heinox scold him?’
I immediately shook my head at my own theory.
No way. If Renzard’s personality could be fixed just because Heinox told him to behave, he would’ve changed ages ago.
‘Maybe Chedman? Renzard does seem to listen to his older brother.’
Even in the original story, Renzard had a severe brother complex.
‘Then Chedman seems the most likely….’
I stared intently at Renzard while thinking.
‘Could it be dark magic? No, impossible….’
Dark magic was illegal in the Empire. And very few people even awakened magical ability to begin with, much less fell into dark magic.
When I still continued eyeing him suspiciously, Renzard lowered his head again.
“I’m really sorry. I mean it.”
Seeing him bow deeply enough that I could clearly see the crown of his head made my feelings complicated.
I had wanted him to stop treating Roxina with hostility.
But that didn’t mean I’d ever wanted an apology for everything he’d done.
‘I’m not qualified to accept this apology.’
Because the person who should be receiving it was someone else.
The one Renzard was apologizing to was the younger sister he’d tormented all this time—Roxina Tanzeric.
And I had only been here for three weeks.
Which meant forgiving him or not wasn’t my decision to make.
So there was nothing I could really say to him except—
“I can’t forgive you.”
Renzard’s apology sat heavily in my chest like a stone.
Standing before him as he kept repeating how sorry he was, my throat tightened so painfully that I couldn’t force out another word.
“Young Lady, the Young Master is outside again….”
“Renzard again?”
“Yes.”
After that day, Renzard never bullied me again.
But that didn’t mean he stopped bothering me.
For several days now, he’d been circling around me awkwardly, constantly watching my reactions. He never properly approached me, only stared from a distance, then startled whenever our eyes met.
‘He probably just doesn’t know what to do since I won’t accept his apology.’
I sank deep into thought.
Maybe this was the exact situation I’d wanted, yet somehow still disliked.
I needed to get along with Renzard and Chedman.
And eventually Heinox too.
If I wanted to live peacefully as a member of House Tanzeric, it was necessary.
But even though Renzard approached me first, I couldn’t accept it, so things had become awkward in a completely different way.
‘It’s time for me to make my stance clear.’
Maybe the problem was that even after deciding to live as Roxina, even after setting goals for surviving happily in this body, I still kept separating myself from the original Roxina.
‘But Roxina….’
What would Roxina have done?
Would she have accepted Renzard’s apology?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know what kind of child Roxina had originally been.
But one thing was certain.
She would’ve been happy about Renzard’s apology.
‘Because she wouldn’t have to be lonely anymore.’
And honestly, that made me happy too.
Because Roxina was me now.
“Anne. Tell Renzard he can come in.”
“But you’ll probably ignore him again….”
Anne looked at me worriedly, so I grinned confidently.
“I’ve got a plan.”