Looks Like Spring Is Coming #3
Deciding to break my engagement with Victorica Arclight was, for me who had become Victor, practically destiny itself.
Imagine I had become a character in a movie about boarding a luxurious cruise liner. Call it Titanic 3. If I, as one of the characters, somehow discovered that this majestic ship was doomed to sink—what would I do first? Obviously, I’d avoid getting on the damn boat.
The Arclight family was no different from a ship already confirmed to sink. Had I become Victor back when I was a child newly taken in by the family, things might have been different. But the holes were now too large for even me to patch.
That was why I chose to abandon the ark named Arclight. Earning Victorica’s contempt in the process was simply an added bonus. A grand escape carried out even while being denounced by the girl considered the most beautiful in the entire school.
“Victorica, if the two of you truly haven’t broken up, holding hands should be easy, shouldn’t it? All engaged couples do at least that much, don’t they?”
“Of course. Holding hands is nothing. For engaged couples, everyone does…”
Then why does the ship keep following me? I got off the ship and fled to safe land, yet it feels as if the ship has chased me all the way ashore!
“Sister, is it really natural for engaged people to hold hands?”
“What are you saying? Of course it is. You’ve stayed only in Ludens even during vacation, so you don’t know how the world works? These days, before the wedding, people even have a child as part of the dowry… Wait, perhaps this story is too early for you.”
“I was simply asking. I know that much already.”
Since I had become Victor, escaping the shadow of the name Arclight might have been impossible from the beginning.
It was then. Lost in thought, I felt Victorica suddenly extend her hand toward me.
“What is this?”
“What do you mean? My sister says she cannot believe my words. Isn’t holding hands between engaged couples something ‘normal’?”
“That is true.”
That was true. We were engaged, after all. One could say we were dating under the premise of a marriage approved by both parents and families.
It would not be strange for amicable engaged couples to hold hands or even display greater intimacy.
But the story was different for Victorica and Victor. These two originally rarely even spoke to each other, let alone held hands.
“……”
“……”
“……”
A heavy silence surged over us like a wave once more. The cramped club room felt unusually vast. The gazes of the two similar-looking women stung sharply, as if trying to pierce Victor’s hard Steel skin.
“Victor, what are you waiting for? My sister is watching, but holding hands should be easy. Am I wrong?”
Holding hands was easy. All I had to do was reach out and take it. Yet even that simple act was something neither I—Ha Seungri—nor Victor had managed once across our long years.
Suddenly I grew curious. Was it truly that easy? Holding a woman’s hand. Perhaps it was even harder than repaying a debt of two hundred million Rene.
Then Flora spoke.
“What are you two doing right now? As expected, you really have broken up, haven’t you? Victorica, and you too, Victor—after this semester ends, return to the main estate and explain the situation to Father.”
Return to the Arclight main estate? Meet that monstrous Cain? It was no different from telling me to go die.
I thought I had fled to a mountain no ship could ever climb. Yet here was the Titanic chasing me all the way up that mountain. At this point, perhaps a ship willing to scale a mountain just to board me deserved to be ridden. Still, I would rather die than board that vessel.
In this situation, following Victorica’s lead was correct. So I reached out my hand in one swift motion.
The hand I grasped was smaller and more delicate than I had imagined. It felt so fragile I wondered, ‘Is she truly living in this world with hands like these?’ It was utterly different from my own hand as a man.
Both Victorica and I froze the moment our hands met. The trembling was likely coming from Victorica’s hand. It was only natural she would hate being forced to hold hands with me after I had arbitrarily broken our engagement.
While I wondered if I should say something, Victorica gathered her courage.
“Sister, what do you think? This should be enough for you to believe me, right?”
“Hmm…”
“More importantly, sister, we must go now! You still have new semester procedures to handle. It’s your final year at Ludens—you should be more thorough.”
With a swift motion, Victorica shook off my hand, pushed her sister Flora’s back, and left the club room.
Flora Arclight. Eldest daughter of the great and righteous Arclight family. At the same time, a third-year student in her final year at Ludens. Although she had never passed the screening to become a student council officer or even a representative during her entire time at the academy, Flora was reasonably satisfied with her life.
Having lived in the shadow of an excessively talented older brother and a strangely rigid, tactless younger sister who wasn’t considered cute, she believed she had done her best in her own way.
Then, one day during vacation while she was lounging on a sunbed in the family garden, astonishing news arrived.
“Broken engagement? Victorica was the one who got dumped?”
It was unbelievable. Flora knew better than anyone—bone-deep—just what kind of man Victor was.
At the same time, she was furious.
‘The daughter of the Arclight family, discarded? Such a thing cannot happen twice.’
‘No matter the reason, Father will scold Victorica. He’ll say she has tarnished the family name. That is the kind of man he is.’
Old painful memories resurfaced, but she could not stay still when she thought of her sister who might be suffering the same sorrow.
Flora immediately boarded a ship and arrived at Ludens. The story she heard upon arrival was even harder to believe.
“Sister, you saw it just now, didn’t you? Victor and I only pretended to break up. Otherwise, how could we hold hands like that?”
“Hmm…”
Her younger sister pushing her from behind somehow felt untrustworthy. That face, red as a perfectly ripe carrot, looked exactly like a shy maiden’s.
‘They’ve been engaged for over ten years, yet they’re this embarrassed just from holding hands?’
There were suspicious parts, but she thought it was impossible for Victor to hold hands with a woman he had supposedly broken up with. That Victor, of all people.
‘When I was dumped and felt utterly miserable. When I asked him to comfort me, even if only once…’
Even now, remembering that day made blood rush to her face and cold sweat break out. It felt as if she had been rejected by two different men on the same day she was dumped.
‘This is ridiculous. Who asked to be hugged? Who asked to hold hands? Was saying a single comforting word really that difficult?’
She had known Victor was that kind of man. But to say such things to a sobbing Flora right in front of him? He was an impossibly rigid and inflexible man.
He resembled their father Cain far more than their older brother and heir, Orca. Since even Father thought so, he planned to hand the family seat not to the perfect eldest son Orca but to the son-in-law Victor.
That was why, when she heard about Victorica’s broken engagement, her head spun.
‘But if a man like that is willing to hold hands… does that mean they haven’t really broken up? Are they only pretending? But why?’
Flora could not understand. So she asked.
“Just who is this enemy that you two have to put on such an act?”
“The enemy… is in many places. Perhaps even inside the Arclight family.”
“That’s truly ridiculous. If it were those sneaky Blackstar family bastards, maybe, but how could anyone from our own family be an enemy?”
“I used to think the same. However…”
Her younger sister Victorica closed her mouth. This girl always tried too hard at everything; that was her flaw. Flora laughed lightly and said,
“If the situation is so bad that you can’t even trust family, then I might be your enemy too. You can tell me the truth, can’t you?”
Her younger sister Victorica answered immediately, as if she had not even needed to think.
“That’s fine. You’re an idiot, sister. You could never be my enemy.”
“What did you say!”
Flora flared up, but it was true. From the start, she had no interest in things like enemies or allies. It gives me a headache.
What truly stimulated Flora’s interest was the other matter.
“Still, you and that Victor even held hands. That stiff, wooden man—he seems to have done everything he could, huh? Just how far have you two gone?”
“Eh, ehh? W-well, like any other engaged couple, normally…”
“Normally? You don’t mean—?!”
Watching Flora squeal with excitement, Victorica looked as if she was growing dizzy. In a way, this woman might be even more frightening than their unknown enemies—because she had no malice at all.
“It feels like the typhoon has passed.”
The club room that Flora and Victorica had stormed into now resembled an old shack after a typhoon had swept through. So many people kept coming and going as they pleased. Shouldn’t they at least hang a sign saying No Unauthorized Entry?
More importantly.
‘I hope Victorica handles it well.’
Despite her sharp appearance, Flora was a noble lady with a refreshingly clear mind. Sandwiched between a seemingly perfect but black-hearted older brother and a rigid but excellent and upright younger sister, she had given up on many things and decided to simply live as she pleased.
In a way, that might be the survival strategy of an ordinary person caught between geniuses.
‘Still, meeting her in person is rather moving.’
Flora had been a reasonably popular character. Her exclusive side episode, Miss Ludens, Lady Flora, had a bright and cheerful atmosphere that left a strong impression. It was the story of the protagonist Luke helping Flora, who had always been at the bottom, win the Miss Ludens contest in the second semester.
The reward Flora gave Luke for helping her was the Miss Ludens Trophy.
Special Reward Item
Grade: Tier 1 Furniture
Effect: Excellent decorative item with outstanding performance when placed in a residence.
“Our house doesn’t have anywhere to display something like this. Junior, you should take it.”
It really was excellent as home decoration furniture. Being first-tier, that was only natural.
I wish I could be the one to receive it instead of Luke.
“I should lay some groundwork in advance.”
There were things I wanted to talk about with Flora. I also wanted to find out why she disliked this Victor so much. And I was curious about the internal situation of the Arclight family now that rumors of the broken engagement had spread.
So I composed a letter addressed to the dormitory room number that Flora would soon occupy.