[Past Life]
It was about a month in of her transfer that I heard about her again.
"Lady Arielle, that Lady Kaya is up to no good," a female classmate told me.
"Yes? Remind me again...Who is Lady Kaya?" I asked.
I had never heard of such a foreign name before.
"Arielle, she is the transfer student with black hair and eyes that everyone is talking about," Charlotte explained. "She is a Baron's daughter but kept her mother's last name, so she goes by the name Kaya Ouchi."
Normally, an heiress would have changed their last name...
She was that girl who only surrounded herself with handsome men, so she was already strange to begin with.
"Ah, I remember now."
"Have you spoken to her?" Charlotte asked.
"Only once," I answered her. "Why did you even mention Lady Kaya?"
"She is following His Highness Prince Erik around a lot lately," the classmate told me.
"Maybe she wants to add him to her harem?" I guessed.
"Arielle, be a bit more serious about this," Charlotte complained to me.
My fiancé aside, she is rather a power hungry young lady.
"I will ask him about it at lunch," I told Charlotte.
Prince Erik and I sat outside underneath a tree again for lunch.
I asked for Prince Erik to not prepare anything so that I could make some sandwiches for the two of us.
"They are beautiful!" Prince Erik praised.
"Goodness...They are rather average."
"They are also delicious," he said after he took a bite.
I could not help but feel a smile on my face.
"I am glad."
It was worth getting up early in the morning.
"That face was a bit too cute," he said as he gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
I felt my face become flushed.
"Ah! I almost forgot to ask. What do you think of Lady Kaya Ouchi?" I brought up abruptly.
"Hm? That girl?"
He knows of her?
"Yes."
"I have seen her speaking casually with various men before."
Prince Erik looked rather annoyed while he was speaking of her.
"Has she approached you?"
"The thing is..."
"What a surprise seeing you here, Prince Erik!" a high pitched voice chimed in.
The voice belonged to Kaya Ouchi.
"What a surprise seeing you here, Prince Erik!" a high pitched voice chimed in.
Prince Erik likes to fool around a lot, so we had chosen somewhere very far from the classes and the eyes of other people using private land to have our lunches. He practically designated this area as his private area and has only allowed few including myself to enter.
Everyone else should know this place is restricted area. Did he invite her?
"You must be the new girl who transferred here," he started with his usual polite tone.
"I'm glad that you remembered me! Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked.
She is really asking that?
"Of course," Prince Erik said with a smile. My heart felt like sinking. "We were just leaving anyways."
Prince Erik had picked up the basket of sandwiches and taken my hand.
She looked rather baffled as we left her.
I gave a sigh of relief. He is not interested in her...
My heart is heavy for some reason. It was the first time I saw a female being so upfront with Prince Erik that it left me feeling perplexed.
"How rude of that girl," Prince Erik said. "I will get more guards around this place. Until then, I will take the rest of these sandwiches."
"You are going to take them?"
"Of course! It is the first time that you have ever made anything for me."
I saw Lady Kaya again later in the afternoon while I was sitting waiting for Charlotte to finish her lessons with a book and some tea.
"Greetings, Arielle," Lady Kaya said.
I ignored her disrespectful way of addressing me.
"Greetings, Lady Kaya."
"I wanted to talk to you," Lady Kaya said as she sat down before getting my permission to.
She poured herself some tea, using the cup I had prepared beforehand for Charlotte.
"What is it?" I said as I was losing my patience.
She took a sip of the cup and exhaled without any sign of grace.
"Give him to me," she ordered with an innocent smile.
"Excuse me?" I said as I rested my teacup down.
"Give me your fiancé...I love him."
She loves him? They have only known about each other for a month.
"His Highness is a member of the Royal Family. I do not own him. If anyone, you should be asking for his permission. That is, if your seduction techniques work on him, you could be one of his concubines," I said coldly.
"I do not want to be a concubine. I want to be his official wife."
Asking for that position is also another way of declaring war on me. She wants to be a Queen. Marriage is equivalent to politics. This girl offers nothing to him, yet she acts as if she has some definitive that allows her to be together with Prince Erik.
"Why go through the trouble of asking me?" I inquired her.
"I do not like the thought of sharing my husband."
Monogamy?
Does she believe Prince Erik will love her enough to choose monogamy over a politically advantageous polygamous marriages? This woman sure has confidence...
"I cannot give you what you are looking for."
It is really up to Prince Erik who he chooses to bed even if that person is not me.
"You refuse to cooperate with me then?"
"I will offer no support, nor will I stand in your way."
"You are so cold. I bet you haven't given yourself to him yet."
How dare she ask that! This girl is beyond crude and unruly.
"I have no reason to tell you anything..."
"You have not! Poor Prince Erik. I guess you won't mind me using my entire self to seduce him then?"
I kept silent as she left.
The tea that I had poured for myself had grown cold along with the rest of my body.
She is going to use her body, huh? I was not an idiot. I understood how Prince Erik kept advancing on me because he wanted my body.
He held back because I was scared. It will not be long until he gets tired of me and gets what he wants from someone else.
What kind of man would refuse?
Charlotte showed up a few minutes later after Lady Kaya left.
"Sorry, I am late..."
I touched my face and saw that I was leaking from my eyes.
"I am sorry, but I have to leave," I said as I ran away.
"Arielle!"
The thought that he might do the same things he does with another girl upsets me...
I went to the library to relax. I had checked out a story book and had situated myself on the floor in one of the furthest most back aisles.
Coincidentally, Garett was sitting on the other side of one book shelf aisle.
"Are you checking up on me?" I asked him.
"I was here first," he replied curtly.
"I refuse to leave from this spot," I said sternly.
I was not in the mood to spare his feelings.
"I will return those words back to you..."
"Fine then..."
I had opened my book and began reading by myself. Garett was quiet as well, so I assumed that he just went back to doing whatever he was doing before. Out of curiosity, I peeked over to my side and saw his shape also leaning against the wall.
After I met Prince Erik, I became acquainted with Garett because our fathers. We would often hang out together in my family's library and read books to ourselves in silence. This situation reminds me of back then. Only this time, there is an awkward distance between us.
He used to be much kinder to me. I think it was when he found out that I was engaged to Prince Erik that he began to treat me coldly...
"You are not with His Highness?" Garett asked.
I was slightly surprised because he was the one to break the silence and because he spoke to me without his usual nasty tone.
"Must I always remind you about speaking casually to a betrothed younger woman alone?"
Ah, my tone become harsh from habit...
He clicked his tongue.
"It was a simple question. I would hardly call a library where students are always roaming about alone....It is not as if I accompany him at all times. I would have no freedom if I did so."
He likes to spend his free time in the library just like back then.
I suppose the reason as to why I feel so relaxed in a library is probably because being here reminds me of those days with him.
"Ah, I understand now...The same is with me. I have freedom for now, so I would like to use it."
"When you become a Queen, that will also be the end of your freedom," he said curtly.
That is the cold hard truth.
"Have you ever fell in love with someone before?"
"I have..."
I felt my eyes widen.
"I was not expecting that answer to come from you."
"...What do you view me as?"
"A cold hearted tycoon with an evil eye," I replied.
"...Despite your appearance, you say some rather savage things."
"Your harsh words go well with your looks..."
"You..."
"Is she a lady that I know of?"
I can only imagine Garett liking someone like himself.
I tried imagining a female version of Garett and felt a shiver down my spine.
"She is someone who is completely out of my reach...someone who belongs to another man."
Garett suffers from an unrequited love?
I never thought that I would hear about something so bittersweet from him.
"A married woman?"
"She will be...She is betrothed."
"Have your feelings for her changed ever since she became betrothed?"
"If anything, they have only gotten stronger. It's troublesome having feelings towards a person that only knows how to bring trouble."
"What does it feel like to be in love?"
"It's a deeply painful thing. Your heart receives a sense of joy when you see them, and when you don't, you feel like dying. Just seeing them makes you want to do everything for them," Garett explained. "It's a sickness."
This man equates love to a disease...
"I have only ever known about my engagement and a few men in my entire life. As for whether I am truly in love, I do not know about such things."
"The reason that you are telling me such things...Are you asking for me to take you away?"
I felt my heart leap out of my chest.
"That's a distasteful joke."
"Yeah, a joke."
"As expected..."
"Who would ever want such a troublesome woman like you?"
"You still fell in love with a troublesome woman," I said. "How do you hide such a troublesome love if it is a sickness?"
"...I act as though I hate her in order to not let her find out my true feelings for her."
My ears suddenly perked up.
"What do you mean..."
I quickly got up and tried walking to the next aisle. A window was open from where Garett had sat. Garett was gone like the wind.
He sure does know how to escape fast...
I approached the window and found a piece of paper being held down by a small rock. I picked up the rock and paper. I turned over the paper and found a doodle of a miniature Garett sticking out his tongue at me.
"Is this a new form of harassment?" I said as I angrily threw the rock out of the window with all my might.
Instead of crumpling up the sheet, I folded the sheet of paper into a bird and flew it out of the window.
Goodbye to the only other person that was able to move my heart...
If I was not engaged, surely I would have wanted to fall for you.