The More the Male Lead Hates Me, the Wider My Smile
Scratch, scratch.
The only sound filling the room was that of a young girl dipping her quill in ink and carefully covering the parchment.
My childish yet fierce staring contest with Prince Michael stretched taut until that sound finally stopped.
Only when Celine escaped the piercing gaze of the terrifying prince who had been watching her so intently did she recover her composure enough to focus on the letter.
“……I’m finished.”
Before long, Celine set the quill down on the table and whispered softly.
At the same moment, I deliberately dropped the cocky stance I’d been holding—one hip cocked—and stepped out of Michael’s line of sight.
“There. Our young lady’s letter to her father is finally complete.”
I wriggled the fingers of my bandaged hand and flashed Michael a sly grin.
“I’ve opened the way for you, so by all means, Your Highness—conduct the inspection you’ve been so desperate for.”
My shameless mockery made Michael’s brow crease hard, but he only let out a short, heavy sigh, as though even exchanging words with me was distasteful.
“……Very well.”
Michael answered coldly, approached the table, and took the parchment Celine held out to him.
His eyes slid swiftly across the page.
It was filled with the still-wobbly, slightly crooked handwriting of a ten-year-old child.
Most of the letter consisted of longing for her father, ordinary well-wishes, and small boasts about studying with Teacher Yuno.
Not a single line contained any code or military secret meant for communication with an enemy nation.
As he finished reading, Michael’s eyes wavered.
He set the letter down and looked back and forth between Celine, who stared up at him across the table with frightened eyes, and Lady Erpe standing quietly at her side, shielding her daughter.
“……”
After a brief silence, Michael bowed his head deeply.
“I overstepped.”
And he apologized with genuine sincerity.
“Under the pretext of upholding military law and principle, I ended up suspecting and intimidating even a child’s pure heart directed toward her father. My lady, and young Lady Celine—forgive my discourtesy.”
Then Michael dropped to one knee so that his eyes met Celine’s level.
“Especially the fact that I carelessly tore open with my own hands the seal of the letter from your father—the one you said you had been looking forward to most. I offer my deepest apologies. When the Grand Duke’s next letter arrives, I will ensure that you yourself are the one to break the wax.”
“Ah……”
In that instant Celine’s cheeks flushed bright red.
A dazzlingly handsome prince who looked as though he had stepped straight out of a fairy tale—with his red hair—was kneeling before her and apologizing in a gentle voice.
Even I could see clearly how the ten-year-old girl’s heart was pounding at the sudden change in the prince who until moments ago had shown her only frightening eyes.
“I-it’s all right…… R-really, Your Highness……”
Celine covered her reddened face with both hands, overwhelmed by embarrassment.
Oho. So our little lady Celine’s first love is turning out to be Prince Michael.
I watched the innocent scene with mild amusement.
Come to think of it, the setting of the original novel The Political Marriage That Starts a War If We Divorce came back to me faintly.
Even in the original, the special bond that Yuno and Michael formed with Lady Erpe, Sabre’s wife, had begun when Michael comforted a lost and crying young Celine at a palace party.
Moreover, original-story Celine had fallen hard for the handsome Michael and taken on the adorable little villainess role of jealous sniping at Yuno.
Fate may have twisted strangely, but in the end she falls for the one she’s supposed to fall for.
Having soothed Celine’s heart, Michael remained on one knee and opened his mouth with extreme care.
“Young lady, it is shameless of me to ask right after apologizing, but…… would you be willing to add just one more thing to this letter of yours?”
“A request? To the letter for Father?”
“Yes.”
Michael’s expression grew endlessly serious.
“In the remaining space on this letter…… I would like you to write, as honestly and exactly as you experienced them, the outrages and tyranny that Royal Guard Captain Botis committed in this mansion.”
“……!”
The moment that name was spoken, the flush drained from Celine’s face in an instant.
Botis.
The memory of the day he had forced open the door of her bedroom while fully armed.
Celine’s body began to tremble.
Tears welled quickly in the child’s eyes.
“Hic…… sob……”
“Ah! Damn it……! I-I’m sorry! I’ve misspoken again……!”
When Celine teared up, Michael flailed in great panic, at a complete loss.
The sight of Valerian’s First Prince floundering helplessly before a little girl’s tears was almost comical.
“Your Highness, what kind of cruelty is this!”
At that moment Yuno, who had remained silent until now, glared at Michael.
Just as I had seen her do in the original, she poured sharp condemnation upon him.
“Knowing full well what terror Lady Celine has endured all this time, do you still intend to force the child to relive those horrible memories with her own hand? Is surveillance not enough for you—will you now dig into a little girl’s wounds as well!”
At Yuno’s rebuke Michael could offer no excuse and only hung his head.
“Please stop, Teacher Yuno. His Highness surely did not mean it that way.”
Lady Erpe calmly soothed Yuno.
Then she smoothed her skirts with elegant grace and slowly approached Michael.
“Your Highness. I understand your intention to use Celine’s writing to inform my husband of Botis’s atrocities…… yet if that news reaches the Grand Duke, it will surely become poison that returns to His Majesty Valeran.”
Just as Lady Erpe said.
If Sabre learned that his family had been harassed by the captain of the Royal Guard right in the middle of the capital?
He might not turn his army around and march on the capital immediately, but the distrust and rage he would harbor toward the Valerian imperial house would be beyond imagination.
For the First Prince Michael to deliberately send out information that would become poison to the emperor……
“No, my lady. Covering the truth and hiding the darkness…… that is what will become the poison that gnaws the empire from within in days to come.”
But Michael shook his head.
“Right now every piece of information leaving Valerium is under control. Not a single private letter that does not carry the palace’s order can pass beyond the walls. In other words…… General Sabre, currently serving as temporary Grand Duke, has no idea whatsoever what treatment his family is receiving here in the capital.”
Yuno and I were both shocked by those words.
King Valeran was not content merely to bind Sabre; he meant to blind and deafen him as well.
“But my lady, this one letter written by your daughter today. This single letter alone I will personally guarantee and ensure is delivered to Grand Duke Sabre.”
Michael clenched his fist tightly.
“I…… I fear that the lord I serve—my father, His Majesty Valeran—will no longer be someone I can take pride in. I do not wish to cover with my own hands this darkness that takes a meritorious subject’s family hostage and torments them for the sake of justification. Only when the Grand Duke knows the truth can he check the imperial house’s excesses and restore proper balance.”
That confession—so transparent and upright it was almost foolish.
Watching it in silence, I laughed inwardly.
Ha…… he really is a man so straight it makes you want to scream.
Yet strangely, that rigidity was not entirely bad.
To be honest, it was something I could live with.
In a RoFan world constantly swarming with cunning schemes and backstabs, if a simpleton knight whose every thought was laid bare like glass sat on the next emperor’s throne……
At least under the empire he ruled, people would be able to smile without fearing a knife in the back.
But…… right now he’s still far too stiff. Even steel snaps if it stays too straight.
I knew that well enough from having bent without breaking myself.
Michael still did not understand political flexibility.
That pure, zero-flexibility prince who believed exposing the truth was all that mattered lacked the knack for navigating a snake pit of nobles.
And Lady Erpe, the mistress of the house, began to supply that knack.
“Your Highness’s ideals and honesty are truly dazzling. To glimpse first the light of the world Celine will live in is an honor.”
Lady Erpe smiled gently as she spoke.
“Yet even honesty must choose its time and place. If, as Your Highness said, Celine writes only of Botis’s tyranny and sends it to my husband…… even if it is the truth, even if it is Your Highness’s ideal—it will produce results that are by no means good for Your Highness’s position.”
“What do you mean……”
“The Grand Duke will fly into a rage and seek to make the entire imperial house his enemy. When that happens, Your Highness, who delivered the truth, will also be swept up and wounded by that wave of fury. Therefore……”
Lady Erpe’s eyes flashed sharply for an instant.
“We must use Celine’s handwriting to inform my husband of Your Highness’s fine deeds as well.”
“Pardon?”
“We will report the darkness, but we will also write how, within that darkness, Your Highness became light to us mother and daughter—how you rescued us from Botis’s tyranny and provided us with security. If we do that……”
Lady Erpe bowed her head smoothly toward Michael.
“My husband will feel genuine, profound gratitude toward Your Highness, and when the day comes that Your Highness ascends the throne…… Sabre will become Your Highness’s strength.”
Whoa…… she’s no ordinary player!
Right now Lady Erpe was, under the guise of political advice for Michael’s sake, drawing Michael into their faction.
In exchange for turning the massive military power that was Sabre into Michael’s ally, she was proposing a mutually beneficial arrangement that would make the next emperor Michael into the Kalista family’s protective shield.
Even under the emperor’s surveillance she was securing their safety and investing in the future; I couldn’t help but click my tongue at that brilliant game of moves.
With this much justification and practical benefit offered, even a clueless Michael should normally have snapped it up with an “Ah, thank you, my lady!”
But.
“……I cannot, my lady.”
Michael frowned and shook his head firmly.
“It would be an act of distorting and using young Lady Celine’s pure heart to shore up my own private political standing. It is a base trick that violates a knight’s oath. I can never have such false merit written into the letter.”
……Ah, fuck.
I barely managed to keep the curse from escaping my lips.
You stubborn prince! Show some flexibility already! The lady has the whole meal cooked and is spoon-feeding you!
I felt ready to explode from frustration.
That foolish sense of justice was determined to sabotage itself.
Then.
“……I can’t stand listening to this anymore!”
Yuno, unable to endure it any longer, raised her voice sharply.
Outrage was plain on her face.
“Is that scrap of honor so important? Do you not realize that the longer Your Highness stubbornly drags out this refusal, the more anxious and hurt the heart of Lady Celine, caught in the middle, becomes!”
Yuno snapped.
“Is it not already a fact that Your Highness saved us from Botis! You are not fabricating something that never happened—what is there to fear! If you do not wish to make the child cry any longer, stop this useless obstinacy at once, accept the lady’s proposal, and settle the matter!”
Yuno’s sharp scolding and rebuke.
Just like in the original, the heroine’s signature refreshing outburst slammed cleanly down onto the thick-headed male lead’s crown.
Michael flinched at Yuno’s tirade, looked down at Celine’s tear-streaked face nestled against him, then finally let out a deep sigh and surrendered.
“……Lady Yuno is right. I have once again burdened the child with my stubbornness.”
Michael was broken at last.
He lowered himself again to Celine’s eye level and made the request in a careful, thoroughly embarrassed voice.
“Young lady. As Lady Erpe said…… please write to the Grand Duke of Botis’s tyranny and…… of my……”
Michael’s face flushed scarlet with shame.
Asking with his own mouth for his own good deeds to be recorded seemed utterly mortifying to him.
Yet he forced the words out.
“……of my meager contributions as well, just a little.”
Then Michael’s gaze turned toward me.
His lips trembled as though convulsing.
“And…… please write of Lassen’s contributions as well, the one standing over there. That he played a part in driving Botis out is…… a fact I cannot deny.”
Well now…… looks like saying my name is worse than dying for him.
I laughed inwardly.
The more he hated me, the brighter the future of the empire I would live in became.
More than anything, the pained expression he wore while acknowledging my merit was rather entertaining.
Celine sniffled, then nodded stoutly.
“I can’t tell lies! So…… I’ll write every bit of the wonderful story of how Your Highness helped us—for real!”
Just as Celine reached for the quill again, Lady Erpe gently stayed her hand.
“One moment, Celine.”
The lady flipped the parchment of Celine’s letter that lay on the table and instructed her to finish writing on the reverse side.
Then from her bosom she drew out another blank sheet of parchment of identical size and softly laid it over Celine’s letter.
“My lady, that is……?”
When Michael asked in puzzlement, Lady Erpe smiled with her eyes and whispered quietly.
“Did Your Highness yourself not say so? Even if you guarantee the letter’s export, others of the imperial house along the way might still try by some means to intercept and inspect it.”
So she prepared in advance.
Michael, I, and Yuno all could only stare blankly at Lady Erpe, who displayed an adult’s practiced skill beyond our own.
“Now then, let us seal the two sheets together.”
And so, inside the study of Kalista Mansion, one secret letter was completed.