He told me that he had to go back to work for today, and I had to go back to my room at the Ministry as well, but we promised to meet the next time I had a day off.
Lady Katarina, who had been listening the whole time, was crying harder than either of us.
“Dat’s so sweed! I’b so glad!” she blubbered, sharing all of my happiness.
“Thank you so much. I would not have been able to do this if it were not for you,” I told her, and she sprang forward to hug me. Her embrace felt incredibly warm and undeniably kind.
★★★★★★★
“Sniff… Sniff…”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you. I feel much better now,” I answered, blowing my nose in my handkerchief.
I had just learned about Maria’s family situation, and seeing the love that she and her father shared for each other had moved me so much that I’d started crying harder than either of them. I cried so much I even made Maria worry about me.
Her father had to leave for work, but, before doing that, he commented that, “I see that you’ve made some good friends.”
If that was his way of describing the weird wailing girl grasping at his daughter, I figured that he was a really kind and understanding man. Had it been my mother, she would have scolded me for having my face covered in tears and snot in public. After calming down, I followed Maria inside her house, where she made me a cup of hot tea.
Thank you so much, Maria…
While I was sipping my tea, my friend was writing a letter to her mother, telling her what had just happened. Maria said that she wouldn’t be able to tell her in person, since she always came home very late.
“She seems to be enjoying her work so much that she keeps at it until the evening,” she explained, sounding very happy as she did so. I hoped that she would soon start sounding like that when talking about her dad too.
“You know, it’s hard to believe with all that’s happened, but it’s still early in the afternoon. I wonder if we should just go home,” I pondered.
Our original plan was to go shopping in the castle town, but what I actually did was go to Dewey’s house, get attacked by Sarah in the forest, check back in on the Percy children, and meet Maria’s dad. I felt kind of exhausted already, and, come to think of it, I hadn’t even had lunch. My brain informed my stomach of this sudden realization, receiving a loud growl in response. I actually had made plans about what restaurant to go to, and I was looking forward to stuffing myself with desserts.
Cakes, cookies, ice cream, and… Ugh, just thinking about those made me even hungrier.
“Actually, you know what? Why don’t we go and have a few sweets before heading back home?” I suggested, and Maria, giggling at the sound that my stomach was making, quickly agreed.
“Okay, here we are.”
Our inconspicuous carriage had safely brought us to the fanciest part of the capital, the one closest to the castle.
Actually, before setting out for the capital, I was so hungry that I couldn’t resist and bought some bread from a bakery close to Maria’s house. It was so good that, if it had been closer to my house, I would have probably become a regular. However, since I also wanted to enjoy the sweets from downtown, I made sure not to make myself full with just that. It wasn’t easy, but I restricted myself to just a few kinds of bread.
“Now, Maria, let’s decide which shop we should go to first!”
“Yes! Oh, now that I think of it… Do you still want to buy that tea I talked to you about?” Maria asked, reminding me of the tea that allegedly relieved drowsiness, which was actually the whole reason I’d decided to go shopping in the first place.
“Right! Buying that was the whole point. Let’s go buy that before focusing on the sweets then.”
Maria guided me to the store where she had found the tea in question, and right outside, we saw a familiar face.
“Here you are, finally. I thought you wouldn’t come at all, or that maybe I’d missed you,” Alan brazenly greeted us as he sent off a white bird that had been perched on his hand.
“What?! Why are you here? And what’s with that bird?”
“I heard that you would be shopping downtown, but since you weren’t coming, I found one of the shops you’d be likely to go to and remained on the lookout near it. The bird is to signal that I’ve found you,” he replied.
“Oh, I see… No, wait, I don’t! First of all, how did you know I’d be coming into town?”
“Well, that’s not so important. Anyway, everyone’s dying to see you,” he said, and, just as he did that, I saw yet another familiar face running in my direction. It was Mary, who jumped at me and quickly hugged me.
“Lady Katarina! I’m so glad I was able to see you. I couldn’t come here before lunch, so I was worried we wouldn’t be able to meet at all!”
It’s been a while since I’ve last met her, but I’m glad to see she hasn’t changed one bit.
She kept saying, “Lady Katarina! Lady Katarina!” embracing me with her sensually curvaceous body, until someone dragged me out of her arms from behind.
“I ask that you refrain from hugging my fiancée in public, Lady Mary. And you, Alan, do something about your own fiancée instead of just staring.”
“Prince Jeord?!” I exclaimed, surprised that Mary and Alan weren’t the only ones there.
“We are here too,” Sophia chimed in, popping up out of nowhere with Nicol behind her. She looked as cute as always, and her brother’s smile was as potent as I’d come to expect.
Ugh, his attractiveness is out in full force today, I thought, trying to catch my breath as I barely resisted his charm.
“Except for a certain somebody who is so obsessed as to have come here first thing in the morning, bringing his work with him, we actually all gathered not long ago,” Keith, also appearing out of nowhere, smirked. He looked kind of sweaty, which just made him even sexier than usual.
“Has nobody ever introduced you to the concept of efficiency in one’s work, Keith? As your future brother-in-law, I would be happy to teach you.”
“I politely decline the offer in consideration of how I have no plans of becoming your brother-in-law.”
While Jeord and Keith went at it as they usually did, Sophia came closer to me and explained what was going on.
“We all wanted to meet you, even for just a little while, so we did our best to finish our work early.”
I thought they all had a day off… I’m flattered they’d do something like that for me.
“Well, why don’t we all go and have sweets together?” I suggested, and everyone quickly agreed. As for the tea, my friends had already bought it for me beforehand. I gratefully accepted it and looked forward to drinking it before the start of my next afternoon shift.
We all walked into a pastry shop, and I couldn’t help but feel that our group—despite everyone’s best attempts to dress down to the level of townsfolk—was extremely conspicuous. All my handsome and beautiful friends were getting quite a lot of stares.
“Wow… They all look so delicious…”
“Hehehe. We should order several and then share them between us, Lady Katarina.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Mary! Let’s do that!”
“Do not forget about us!”
“Of course. We can share them between the four of us!”
Since there were so many of us, we had to split: the boys at one table and the girls at another.
“I came here specifically to be with Katarina. Why do I have to sit here with three other men?”
“I’m afraid there is no other option now. Please have some of this cake, Your Highness.”
“Oh, this is pretty good.”
“You have cream on your face, Prince Alan. Here, take my kerchief.”
“Thanks, Keith.”
“As I’ve said before, I think that you would really make a great mother, Keith.”
“As I’ve said before, I’m a man, Nicol.”
Judging from what I could hear, the boys were having fun at their table too.
As I took a brief pause from eating, Mary asked me a question.
“Incidentally, Lady Katarina, where have you been up until now?”
I realized that, in my excitement at seeing my friends after so long, I’d forgotten to tell them about all that had happened during the morning. I gave a very cursory explanation of how we’d run into Dewey and gone to his home, I’d been attacked with Dark Magic, Dewey had made up with his brother, and Maria had made up with her dad.
Mary held her head in her hands. “I’m sorry, but that recounting raised more questions than it answered… May I ask you for some more details, Maria?”
W-Was I that bad at telling the story?!
Maria, after giving both me and Mary a slightly concerned look, masterfully retold all that had happened. The boys also came next to our table to listen.
Once Maria was done with the story, my friends took turns at expressing their dismay.
“Katarina, you really cannot help yourself, can you?”
“Big Sister, what am I going to do with you?”
“Lady Katarina…”
“There you go again…”
“Lady Katarina…”
“Katarina…”
I thought I did great today! Why are they mad at me?!
And so, several appalled remarks later, my day off was over.