The Prince's Fiancée Was Far Too Tsundere
As soon as the crown prince handed a rose to his fiancée, Isabella, she fled as if she were running for her life.
Only I, watching from a distance, could see her clutching a fan over her mouth and hurrying away with the hiccuping little steps of someone trying very hard not to be noticed.
“...I suppose this method was wrong after all.”
“It seems to have been effective, though.”
I offered the crown prince some comfort as he slumped in place, looking utterly defeated.
If she had truly hated it, that would have shown on her face right away.
Her cheeks had gone red, her voice had shaken, and her obvious embarrassment looked, no matter how I thought about it, like a positive reaction.
She probably just didn’t want to be caught liking hiccups and hurried off before anyone could see her.
“At the very least, she did accept the rose. If she’d disliked it, she would have refused it on the spot.”
“She might still throw it away on the way to class...”
“A gift handed to her personally by Your Highness? I doubt there’s a single hard-hearted person in this world who’d toss that into the trash.”
I was soothing the crown prince, who had completely lost the ability to make a rational judgment.
If Isabella had really hated Shainte, she would have done everything in her power to break off the engagement.
Besides, her attitude when I’d spoken with her had not been bad at all.
It seemed Shainte, for all his genius in every possible field, had simply hurt her feelings by being cold to her ever since they were children.
There still seemed to be more than enough hope of turning things around.
“Now, now, shake it off. You need to get ready for your next class.”
“Today is the social class, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’ve heard it teaches the etiquette and dignity that nobles are supposed to learn. I have no idea what the commoners at Grancia Academy think of it, though...”
“They probably think that if you know etiquette and practice it, you can overcome the difference in status and become close.”
“Yes, it sounds terribly soft to me. The difference is in your very birth...”
To be honest, I was skeptical of the equality Grancia Academy claimed to represent.
Even if I had been an ordinary person who died and reincarnated after living in the modern twenty-first century, I had already adapted to a society built on rank.
Even among living people, the weight of a commoner and that of a noble were not the same.
The discrimination that grew out of that tiny difference was far too vast to put into words.
“Aren’t you being a little too negative? Maybe far in the future, commoners really will behave like nobles.”
“...Are you predicting a coup?”
“No, not exactly. I just believe in human effort. Just as you, Theodore, surpassed my own genius.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed saying that out loud?”
“A little. Still, I do feel better.”
As it turned out, Shainte, the man who would one day become emperor, had a surprisingly open mind.
He must have believed that if commoners received proper education, they could become no different from nobles.
It was still a long way off, but I had the feeling Shainte would make a good emperor.
* * *
The first social class I ever attended was a little unusual.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Vivian Chester. Do I really need to introduce myself?”
Because the one teaching etiquette here in person was Vivian Chester herself, the legendary “poisonous snake” of high society.
...According to my father and brothers, she was supposedly so strict that I must never make a mistake in front of her.
“Today, I’ll be teaching you the basics of tea-time etiquette.”
With her exaggerated curls and those sharp eyes fixed on us, her charisma was enough to overwhelm even me.
She wasn’t even wrapped in mana or aura, so how was she doing that?
“Within this academy, there will come a day when commoners and nobles alike sit together as equals.”
A commoner sitting across from a noble, eating scones or cake, drinking tea, and chatting away.
For someone like me, who had already bent myself completely to the rules of this world, it was a rather absurd premise.
In fact, even talking about tea-time etiquette in a medieval fantasy setting was contradictory.
The actual etiquette of tea time had not been forged in the Middle Ages at all, but in the noble society of nineteenth-century Britain.
I remembered seeing a documentary once saying that even during the Second World War, British troops would suddenly stop fighting and enjoy tea time in the middle of battle.
Is this another setting meant to prop up the female lead, Alice?
I watched Vivian’s movements with a faintly displeased look on my face.
“First, tea time is divided by hour into eleven o’clock tea, afternoon tea, and high tea.”
Vivian began by lifting one finger and explaining.
Tea time, as enjoyed by nobles and other members of the upper class, usually referred to afternoon tea.
It meant drinking tea with light snacks between four and six in the afternoon.
“So I’d like you to avoid the prejudice that commoners don’t enjoy tea time.”
As Vivian explained, even the lower working class in Britain often had tea time that doubled as a meal.
High tea was the difference: something hearty enough to serve as supper as well.
Of course, this was the world of a romance fantasy game, so there was no reason to expect even such small bits of historical accuracy to be preserved.
“But teacher, we don’t even have enough money to buy tea...”
As if proving my inner thoughts, a somewhat shabby-looking boy raised his hand and asked a question.
Unlike Vivian’s references to actual British culture, tea time in this world seemed to belong to nobles alone.
“During class, I’ll provide whatever tea or sweets you’d like. In return, though, you must not behave excessively toward your tea-time partner.”
Vivian maintained a kind expression even toward the commoner boy and smiled at him gently.
Maybe the rumors about her personality were different from the real thing.
“What do you mean by excessively, exactly?”
“I mean the sort of behavior that, under the old status system, let nobles look down on commoners... or, conversely, the sort of behavior where a commoner oversteps and commits an affront upward.”
Vivian was saying things that would probably shock quite a few people if they heard them at the academy.
Separate dormitories, separate dining halls, separate circles for conversation and even separate places to study—such had been the arrangement between nobles and commoners until now.
“As long as I’m here, no one is exempt from etiquette at the tea table. Even if the other person is the Northern Grand Duke or His Highness the crown prince.”
“Ha-ha-ha! What a bold woman!”
Shainte, the crown prince, simply laughed off Vivian’s allusion to himself and looked wonderfully unbothered.
Maybe he was pleased by the lesson’s premise—men and women sitting together over tea—so he was willing to let a little provocation slide.
Then what about the Northern Grand Duke?
“...How absurd.”
The man from the north, with his light blue hair and blue eyes, wore a displeased expression at Vivian’s challenge.
Even inside the empire, he was wrapped in a fur cloak, which made it clear he was sensitive to the cold.
The two powerhouses who looked like they might blow up in anger both seemed to know Vivian’s reputation and simply let it pass.
“Then I’ll begin with the most basic way of drinking tea.”
Vivian lifted the teacup in front of her with elegant poise and began her demonstration.
“You pick up the teacup slowly, without wrapping your fingers all the way around it, as if you’re pinching it between your index finger and thumb.”
Even I, who had been educated in etiquette as the third son of a noble house since childhood, couldn’t find a single flaw in her movements.
“When you drink tea, you don’t make a sound, and when you stir it, the teaspoon must not strike the sides of the cup.”
After taking a sip, Vivian immediately turned her gaze to the three-tier tray of snacks beside her.
The sweets on that tray were not arranged randomly.
They followed a fixed order, and if you didn’t eat them in that order, you would be breaking etiquette.
“The snacks are the same. The savory items are placed at the bottom, and the sweeter desserts go higher up.”
Vivian went so far as to explain every one of those rules in careful detail.
She was teaching them how to eat sandwiches with tea, then scones, and finally chocolate, so they could learn the proper sequence.
“All right, now that I’ve shown you, I’m sure you can do it. Who wants to try first?”
Vivian rose from her seat, maintaining perfect decorum until the very end.
Clearly, there was no one in high society who could find fault with her etiquette or manner and stir up trouble.
Contrary to the nickname “poisonous snake,” she looked more like a kind and gracious teacher to the students.
“Me! Teacher, I’ll do it!”
There was, however, one person who raised her hand so noisily and energetically that even Vivian’s brow twitched.
Her manners and bearing were already poor from the start.
It was none other than Alice, the female lead of this game world, flinging her blonde hair as she announced that she wanted to try.
“Student, your name?”
“Alice! I don’t have a surname!”
“Then sit down and show me. I’ll watch.”
At that posture, which seemed far removed from tea-time etiquette, Vivian let out a long sigh.
* * *
The girl inside Alice’s body thought this tea-time etiquette lesson was the best chance she could possibly get.
Unlike Theodore, who had been reincarnated into this world, she was someone who had played Royal Child and possessed the body of the heroine.
In order to catch the eyes of the male leads she was trying to win over, she believed she had to make a name for herself at the academy where the game was set.
I failed last time because Isabella, the villainess, got in the way, but I can do this much too...!
To look more refined, she balanced the teacup on its saucer and stirred the liquid with a slight snap of the wrist.
Going beyond the methods Vivian had taught, Alice was putting on as much airs as she possibly could.
“...Student Alice?”
“Yes? Is it so perfect you have nothing left to say?”
“No. Balancing the cup like that, and stirring it that way, is against etiquette. And you mustn’t leave the spoon inside either.”
Vivian looked at her with an expression of open contempt, then promptly moved as if to drag her somewhere else.
“Student Alice, you’ll come with me for a private conversation for a moment. I’ll teach you proper lady-like dignity.”
“W-wait just a moment? Teacher? Teacher Vivian... ?!”
Alice struggled and pleaded as hard as she could to escape Vivian’s grasp, but in the end she was subjected to a full half hour of blistering verbal abuse until her soul seemed ready to leave her body.