Chapter 53
Chapter 53
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 53
Chapter Title: Villainess Lady Sensing Crisis (3)
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People truly feel respected when others fulfill their desires.
But just as important as giving someone what they want is refraining from doing what they wish you wouldn't.
And since Arthur had been told not to cross the threshold, he came through the window.
If Tiona's feelings toward Arthur were purely ones of rejection, she would have felt even greater anger toward him for coming in through the window.
"Are you treating this like a joke? Are you mocking me?"
But.
Tiona didn't purely want to reject Arthur.
"Come. But don't come."
His actions were the perfect response to her two contradictory desires.
"Eek...!"
Yet the anger surging through her upon seeing his face was also her true feeling.
"I don't want to see you. Why did you come? This is all because of you!!"
A man approaching a lady's bedroom window.
It was a scene that frequently appeared in the romance poems Tiona loved.
A princess locked in a tower somewhere, or a woman whose parents had arranged her marriage, visited by a suitor.
What followed was one of two paths.
The woman lets the man into her room, and they enjoy a sweet rendezvous. Then her belly swells, and their secret is discovered by her captor.
Or the man pulls the woman outside for a joyful time, then returns her before dawn.
Either way, once they meet, they soon end up in the same space—inside the room or out.
But Tiona clutched the curtain and said to him outside the window.
"Why did you come."
At this distance, voices carried through the glass, albeit muffled.
"To ask you something."
"Ask? Ask what!"
Tiona's fist tightened on the curtain. Why was that his first question?
She didn't like it. She didn't like Arthur.
She didn't like Cynthia. She didn't like Diana, or Lea.
No, she didn't like any of the countless women he associated with. Why did this man have such a skewed ratio of female friends? Didn't normal people have more same-sex friends? Didn't he have any ordinary male friends?
Back at the academy, she'd been furious seeing so many women recognize him. Even when that elf nearly reverse-raped him at the main gate, she'd been deeply displeased. If his clothes had been stripped off, she might have kicked his butt in rage and burst into tears.
A whirlwind of emotions. Too many, multifaceted, too complex for her to grasp.
People think feeling emotions is something anyone can do.
That's true. Anyone can feel them.
But accurately gauging emotions is a skill.
And like social skills, the ability varies greatly from person to person.
Tiona, surrounded from childhood by narratives in romance poems but with scant experience of emotional exchange with real people, sorely lacked the ability to clearly measure and name the feelings in her heart.
She knew sadness, but what exact shade was she feeling now? Was it sorrow, injustice, disappointment, betrayal? If mixed, what combination and in what proportions?
Why was she feeling it precisely?
What would someone do to make it go away? Could she resolve it alone? Even if she could, would help make it faster?
Was there a perpetrator? If so, what could they do to earn forgiveness?
Those adept at emotions know the answers instantly and act. "Mr. So-and-so, that makes me uncomfortable. Could you not do it again? Thanks."
Conversely.
Those underdeveloped in the skill don't even know their own state, so they huff and sulk.
They can't articulate it because they don't know why themselves—what's there to say? Forcing it just comes off as tantrums.
It's what people face daily with seven- or eight-year-olds.
The problem was that Tiona wasn't seven or eight.
"Are you alright?"
"Does this look alright to you!?"
"...No."
"It's all because of you, Arthur! You and...!!"
Tiona thumped her chest.
It hurt. Not from the thumping. She had to thump because it hurt.
"Before you came...!!"
Before he came.
Nothing had happened.
She'd laze about daily reading romance poems, nag maids whose names she didn't know after years, munch on snacks they'd bought from the market all day, shedding crumbs on bed and sofa.
Sleep when sleepy, wake when ready, skip meals without appetite.
Freak out for no reason now and then, repel intruding tutors like a goalkeeper, savoring the triumph.
No one forcing her to do anything, no nagging.
That life.
"Before you came...!"
She hadn't felt.
The slightest loneliness.
"I never had to feel this irritating emotion!!"
Loneliness stems from absence of people, so those with no one around naturally don't feel it.
She pressed her hand to the glass. Cold. That coldness irritated her too.
"If I hadn't met you...!!"
She would have stayed cold too.
Days like yesterday, tomorrows like today, drifting by. Knowing nothing else, dreaming of nothing else.
"...Lady Tiona."
Arthur pressed his hand too. Their hands aligned across the glass.
At this spot, body heat transmitted through, faintly.
"I'm sorry for making you feel so much displeasure."
"Displeasure!? Who are you to speak like you know my heart? That's even more displeasing!!"
"I know."
Arthur gave a wry smile through the glass.
"I've come to know quite a bit about your heart, milady. When you feel joy or sorrow. What you like and dislike."
Time didn't make voices clearer through the glass.
But time made the warmth beyond grow more vivid.
"You know so little and never listen. You scheme with obvious tricks, throw tantrums, and are picky with food. You love sweets but hate brushing, so I'm worried sick about cavities every day."
She aligned her fingers. Thumb to thumb, index to index, the rest overlapping.
His slightly larger hand enveloping hers. Protecting her.
"Teaching you is a daily ordeal. What novel nonsense today? What outrageous act to twist my guts? But, Lady Tiona."
His wry smile softened. Grew affectionate.
"I've never once wanted to give up teaching you."
Slow, but she followed.
When shown a solution, she tried.
And daily, she improved bit by bit.
"Lady Tiona."
Visible progress kills thoughts of quitting.
People want to cheer those advancing, however slowly.
"I'm sorry for troubling you today. I ignored your goodwill toward me too long."
Goodwill.
A vague word. Chosen deliberately.
"Could you tell me what I should do to ease your anger?"
"... ."
Tiona pulled her hand from the window.
Then she looked at Arthur. Gazed. Watched. Glared.
"Are you truly reflecting?"
"Yes. Truly."
"Then first, make me sweets."
"Understood. But please brush your teeth."
"And today, you read romance poems to me yourself. Until I'm satisfied."
"Of course. Until my throat hurts."
"And finally."
Tiona opened the window.
The glass barrier vanished. Inside and outside air mingled.
The chill air was now early winter, not late autumn. Sunset-hued leaves gone, white snow's season arriving.
The single season of their first meeting fully passed, a new one beginning.
"Tonight, sleep with me."