Saying You Have a Crush That Easily Is Not Fair (1)
The Seynt Lionheart I had heard about through the grapevine was a man as cold-blooded as the northern grand duke, almost to the point of seeming devoid of feeling.
And yet, what was he like now?
When it came to anything involving his fiancée, Isabella, he grew anxious like a child and lost the ability to make rational judgments.
“Brother Theodore, do we really need to be watching this from here?”
“If it were Your Imperial Highness, he would definitely notice my presence. It will be easier to point out his mistakes that way.”
I answered the saintess, who was secretly watching the crown prince and Isabella from between the bushes.
Seynt would undoubtedly realize that I had intentionally left my presence uncanceled.
Which meant that if I sent a signal, he would understand.
“As expected...! Brother, you really had a plan all along!”
“Shh. You’ll be heard.”
I lifted a finger when I saw the saintess raise her voice.
No matter how sharp my senses might be, if someone was chattering right beside me, there was no way I could eavesdrop properly.
“From how you two talked last time, I thought your relationship didn’t seem all that bad.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, if someone really hates another person, they cut them off completely. It’s the exact opposite of how you always look after me, Brother.”
“...I see.”
I nodded at Astoria’s words for now.
If you asked whether I disliked Astoria, the answer was no.
As one of the families that took imperial salaries, we were simply in an awkward position to be associated with some great figure from the Holy Kingdom.
And since she had been transparent since childhood, I couldn’t help feeling pity whenever I saw how exaggerated her expressions and gestures were.
“So, do you know what they’re talking about now?”
“Probably something about their childhood. I’ll summarize the conversation for you.”
I pricked up my ears and tried to catch what the crown prince and Isabella were saying to each other.
“Isabella, are the rose I gave you all right?”
“...Yes, they were beautiful flowers, black and red. I transplanted them to the windowsill beside my bedroom.”
“Haha, that’s a relief. I was worried you might dislike them, Isabella.”
“Who in this empire would dislike a gift from Your Imperial Highness?”
Seynt Lionheart brought up a casual topic and studied the changes in the Isabella before him.
Her fingertips were trembling, and her breathing was unstable.
Was something making her uncomfortable?
Since childhood, she had always shown a maturity that didn’t suit a child, carrying herself with the air of someone already detached from the world.
...It wouldn’t be strange if she hated me like this.
That was why Seynt had misunderstood, believing that his fiancée might not like him at all.
Even though Isabella had often been the one to approach him first and make her feelings known, he had pushed all of it away.
After reading romance novels, Seynt had at least come to understand what love between a man and a woman was like, if only through books.
It might not match reality perfectly, but even so, he had a rough idea of what kind of feelings Isabella might have held, and what she might have felt.
“Isabella, was there anything I did that upset you?”
“What reason would I possibly have to be upset with Your Imperial Highness?”
“No, don’t say that. Be honest with me. We weren’t like this before, were we?”
A little frustrated, Seynt was asking his fiancée to speak plainly.
When he was younger, he had often come to her estate to play with the frail Isabella.
Though, to be fair, the problem had been that Seynt excelled at everything, which made him lose interest in things almost immediately.
“...I have no reason to be upset with Your Imperial Highness.”
“Really? I was pretty awful as a child, even by my own standards.”
“You were a child. Everyone makes mistakes and regrets things at that age.”
“Your tone is too stiff, Isabella.”
Seynt looked at her, still rigidly formal and keeping her distance, and felt his spirits sink.
After all, the fiancée he remembered had been someone far more approachable.
Though because of her weak constitution, she had often seemed timid and blunt at first.
Isabella Florence was, above all else, a gentle and kind girl.
“...Seynt, is it all right if I call you that?”
“Yeah. That’s much easier.”
When Isabella sighed and changed how she addressed him, Seynt finally broke into a grin and sipped his tea.
“Seynt, I heard you’ve picked up a new hobby lately. Is that true?”
“Hm? What are you talking about?”
“Helping a man and woman get together so they can fall in love. I also heard you’ve been donating to orphanages.”
“Ah, that? Yeah! Watching other people’s love stories is definitely the most fun thing ever!”
“...You really are as consistent as ever.”
Isabella covered her mouth with her fan, hiding her expression as best she could while she answered.
She hated seeing the man who didn’t even understand his own heart smiling while helping other people find love.
Seynt Lionheart had always been like this.
He was the kind of person who would act as though Isabella didn’t matter at all, then quickly chase after some new source of amusement.
He was probably the same even now.
So Isabella thought he was only putting on an act, pretending to understand feelings.
“That said, I’ve been trying to pair up the Baskerville family’s third son with Saintess Astoria lately.”
“...What? Have you lost your mind?”
But that answer shattered her assumptions too.
The black-haired, golden-eyed Theodore Baskerville surfaced in her mind—the one who had come to her when she’d tried to leave the commoner hanging onto Seynt alone, and told her that if she didn’t want to regret it, she had to give it her all before approaching him.
“Why that family of all people, one of the swords that protects the empire? Though I did hear the youngest son mostly stayed shut away in the mansion and rarely left it, unlike his brothers...”
Even if Theodore’s family held little territory and less power than the other imperial swords,
it was still not the sort of family one should casually drag into the ridiculous business of making them date a saintess.
“Just as you said, the saintess is like an agent of Lord Atra. Ordinary people can’t even get close to her in the first place.”
Watching Isabella’s face fill with disbelief, Seynt calmly explained his reasoning as if it were nothing.
Astoria was currently under the protection of Lord Atra.
And there was a legend that if anything impure tried to approach her or harm her, fate itself would twist aside and keep her safe.
“...And you have proof of that?”
“Of course. The fact that the saintess’s head is full of flowers is proof enough. No matter how you look at it, she’s a high-ranking figure from the Holy Kingdom of Valentia.”
In fact, Astoria had shown no understanding of politics, court intrigue, or even indirect speech.
It was likely she had never suffered much hardship in her life, protected as she was by cardinals and by the god she served.
“So you’re really planning to get Saintess Astoria and the Baskerville family’s third son together? What do you get out of it?”
Isabella frowned slightly as she looked at Seynt.
The crown prince she knew did not do anything that brought him no benefit.
He had awakened and mastered things quickly since childhood, and because he understood the world so early, he behaved like an adult.
“Who knows? Maybe nothing at all. It could even fall apart later over something trivial.”
Seynt didn’t give her a definite answer.
In truth, the reason he helped other people’s romances was simple: he longed for pure love.
Money, status, birth, power.... The more one grew up and came to understand the world, the further one drifted from pure feelings and pure people.
But if such a feeling—if that innocence called love—could somehow overcome the world, then wouldn’t that be wonderful?
“If I can see a love that rises above status, religion, and even the prejudice of this world, that’s enough for me.”
That was why he admired it.
Even though he thought that, as the crown prince, he would never be able to have such a love himself.
Seynt couldn’t bring himself to say such embarrassing thoughts to Isabella, so he shut his mouth.
“So that’s why you’re doing such a stupid thing?”
“Don’t you think it’s better to be a fool than a genius?”
“...Well, I’m not sure.”
Isabella still held her fan before her mouth, but she couldn’t hide the fact that the mood between them had softened compared to earlier.
For the first time, her fiancé seemed to truly realize his own feelings and try to understand others.
“Right, why did you suddenly give me roses today? You never send gifts like this.”
“Ah, that...! T-Theodore recommended it. He said to try winning over my fiancée since you’ve been so cold.”
“Really? That doesn’t sound right.”
Seeing Seynt’s awkward behavior, Isabella immediately realized he was making excuses.
For someone who normally maintained his composure so well, this was the first time she’d seen him flustered to such an extent.
“Looks like you’ve gotten pretty close to the Baskerville family’s third son. You and his family haven’t exactly been close for a long time, have you?”
“It does feel like Theodore’s influence over his brothers has grown quite a bit.”
“So, is the one watching us from behind right now someone you sent too, Seynt?”
Isabella noticed the gaze lingering on her back and asked whether it might be another one of her fiancé’s schemes.
And at that exact moment, Astoria and Theodore burst out of the bushes.
“...Lady Isabella, you’re still in love with the crown prince, aren’t you?”
And then, with no warning at all, they shouted those words.