The Oblivious Younger Brother - 5
I shoved a piece of soup-soaked bread into my mouth. Ever since that storm of a scene at the café, my head had been foggy and my appetite nonexistent—but if I suddenly skipped a meal, more than a few people would start fretting. The kitchen staff especially would start frantically combing through their memories, wondering if they had somehow made a mistake.
Of course I was always satisfied with the kitchen staff. That was exactly why I had asked them to simply send a light dinner up to my room, so they wouldn't jump to any unnecessary conclusions.
I'm going to lose my mind.
I stared at the food still half-finished on the tray and let out a sigh. The kitchen's skill was outstanding as ever, but even an excellent meal couldn't settle the tangle in my chest.
If food had been enough to calm this feeling, I would have settled it back at the café.
It wasn't... a joke.
For a fleeting second I even entertained the fantasy that Sera and Zenobia might have been teasing me—pure escapism—but I shook the thought out of my head almost at once.
No matter how rattled I was, I couldn't think like that. They had gathered their courage to confess. To dismiss that as a joke? That would be unforgivable. They had shown me their hearts in earnest, so I had to answer them in earnest too.
I had loved someone once myself, after all. It had been an unrequited crush that ended without a single confession—and precisely because of that, I could imagine how much courage those two had needed.
"I love you, Erich. Let me say this clearly so there's no misunderstanding. Not as an older sister loves her younger brother—I love you, the man named Erich, as a woman."
"I-I've loved you for a long time too."
The blunt confessions rose up again in my mind, and a low sound escaped my throat of its own accord.
I did care for both of them. Sera as a childhood friend who had grown up on the same estate; Zenobia as a childhood friend from another Imperial Count family. But if someone asked whether that was romantic feeling, I could only shake my head. I had never once looked at either of them that way. They were far too precious as friends—and for that very reason, I had never been able to imagine them as anything more.
How did I never notice?
Another sigh slipped out; I had long since lost count of how many. If they had only started feeling this way recently, maybe I could have understood. But they said they had loved me since long, long ago.
I had no idea. We had been that close, that much like friends—people I saw more often than anyone in my life except family and household staff—and I still never knew.
I was the only one who didn't know.
If they had hidden their feelings so thoroughly that no one could have noticed, I might at least have an excuse. But that wasn't it either.
"Did you have a good time?"
"Ah—yes."
"Good. Rest well in your room. The more tangled your thoughts become, the better it is to decide at your leisure."
The moment I returned to the castle, Mother had patted my back as if she already knew everything. Beside her, my old nanny had nodded along without pause. Even the servants I passed on the way to my room bowed when I was looking and whispered the second I turned away.
Yes. I was the only one left in the dark. Zenobia had hardly ever visited our territory, so she could be set aside as an exception—but everyone in the castle had known about Sera's feelings.
Everyone but me.
No.
Just as the sticky self-loathing was about to swallow me whole, a single ray of light came to mind.
My brother. I still had my brother. If anyone could be as clueless as me, it would be him. This was the man who, when a whole string of future sisters-in-law had confessed to him one after another, had come out with the insane line that if they all married at once, every one of them would be the first wife. Someone like that could not possibly be more perceptive than I was.
With trembling hands I took hold of the communication orb. If my brother was as ignorant of Sera's and Zenobia's feelings as I was, I could ask him for honest advice. Anyone else I went to would look at me like, Wow! Young Master can't even read their hearts and still can't make up his own mind—what a hopeless case! But with my brother, we could be shocked together, and then he would give me counsel.
That was what I believed.
The belief collapsed.
"I already knew?"
"Huh?"
I could only blankly echo his flat reply. What was he talking about? How would he know that?
Seeing my reaction, my brother gave me a look that said I was hopeless and opened his mouth again.
"I knew you liked Luise before you ever said a word. Something like this is easy."
My breath caught—and yet I had to concede the point. It was true. Back when the Baking Club had only just been formed, he had been the first to notice that I had fallen for Luise.
"And they were practically broadcasting it right beside you. How could anyone miss it? Everyone in the club knew except you."
The moment I heard that, the faces of the club members flashed through my mind.
Ainter. Ryutis. Later. Tanian—those guys knew too?
I'm worse than them?
A different kind of self-loathing and despair settled over me. Until now I had assumed we were all more or less equally pathetic.
I had been wrong. I was the lowest of the lot. Being low-ranking in station was one thing; I hadn't realized my social awareness was rock-bottom too.
"Still, the fact that you called means you got a proper confession. I was worried you might put it off out of embarrassment, so that's a relief."
Even through all of that, the way he spoke made it sound as if he had shoved Sera and Zenobia into confessing. I nearly flared up—then forced the feeling back down.
What would protesting change? Even if my brother had given them a push, the love they felt for me was their own. And if he had felt the need to step in, it meant he had found the situation unbearably frustrating to watch.
Besides, if something like this was going to happen eventually, better to face it sooner rather than later.
"Brother."
"What."
"...What should I do?"
Of course, facing it sooner didn't mean solving it sooner.
"They, uh, said I could take my time thinking it over and answer when I was ready—but honestly, my head's a mess. I don't even know my own heart."
In that helpless state I poured something that was not quite a complaint into my brother's ear.
If the confessions had come from complete strangers, I wouldn't have been this confused. I could have simply said I was grateful for their feelings but had no interest in romance or marriage yet, and that they would surely find someone better.
But those two were not strangers. They were people I knew better than anyone, people I was closer to than anyone, people I liked more than anyone. I was afraid to cut them off with a clean rejection, and I felt guilty about leaving them any hope.
Even I could see how half-hearted that was. If I had no intention of accepting, the right thing—rationally speaking—was to refuse, even if it made things awkward, even if they ended up hating me.
"What's the right answer here?"
My brother stayed silent.
Looking at him through the orb, my senses came back to me. I had unilaterally contacted a man on his honeymoon and unilaterally dumped relationship counseling on him. That was an outrageous imposition.
"Just forget I said any of that—"
"There is no right answer. You do what you want to do."
My hand, which I had been waving in a hurry to take it back, froze in midair.
"You said it yourself a second ago. They told you to take your time. So why the rush? Did they say they'd split you in half if you didn't answer fast enough?"
"That's not it, but..."
"Then think slowly. Of course you're going to feel tangled if you try to force an answer when there isn't one yet."
His voice was still flat, but he was kindly giving me advice, and I nearly teared up.
So this was the dignity of a man of experience—someone with no fewer than six lovers. As expected, my brother was superior to his younger sibling in every field.
"Brother."
"What now."
Filled with respect and awe, I bowed my head toward him.
"When you said that if you all married at once, every one of them would be the first wife—I'm sorry I called you crazy."
I had been the fool. If my brother had said something like that, there must have been a good reas—
"Shut up."
"Yes."
At that firm reply I hastily raised my head again.
Right. Simultaneous marriage was still a crazy statement no matter how you sliced it. He hadn't been in his right mind back then either.
I tucked the communication orb away and stared up at the ceiling.
That little bastard.
Where had he learned the manners to bring up someone's black history right when things were going well? If he had been standing in front of me instead of on the other end of the orb, I might have punched a Sky Slash into the air.
Still, it was a relief. Sera and Zenobia had managed a proper confession. I had genuinely worried that, like some old romantic comedy, the moment they tried to confess some deafening noise would drown them out and the whole thing would get postponed indefinitely.
Looks like the world isn't quite that determined to get in the way.
This was the normal state of things, really. Being cursed with that catastrophic lack of awareness was already punishment enough—if even confessions refused to land, that would mean Enen himself had decided not to tolerate Erich's descendants.
What's the right answer here?
I recalled Erich's words and let the corner of my mouth lift a little. It was good that the confessions had succeeded—but it was also encouraging that Erich was taking them seriously.
He might be confused for now, but time could change anything. Sera and Zenobia hadn't been born loving Erich. They had treated him as a friend first, then begun to see him as a man, and that feeling had grown into love.
So now it was Erich's turn to walk that same path. Having received their confessions, he would no longer be able to see them as mere friends; he would start recognizing them as women—and that recognition could, in time, become love.
"Did it go well?"
"Ah—yeah."
Mar, who had been holding her breath behind me, stepped closer to ask, and I nodded on reflex.
Things had gone according to plan, so in that sense it had gone well. The only problem was that the outcome itself lay outside the scope of our planning.
From here on, we leave it to the heavens.
I had truly, truly done everything I could. The only way to help more than this would be to summon the northern lords, kidnap Erich, and force him into marriage.
If even after all that it still didn't work out, that would be fate. I would have to accept it with humility.
Several days after Erich's counseling session and the thank-you message from the nanny—
"It has been some time, Brother. I trust you have been well."
Cardinal Alexandriana, whom I had completely forgotten about for a while, paid a visit.
Right... people like her exist too...
Shameful. I had been so busy looking after that wretched little brother's romantic prospects that I had genuinely forgotten.
"By the grace of Enen and the Great Emperor, I have been spending my days in happiness."
"What glad news."
I answered as casually as I could manage, and the Cardinal smiled softly.
Come to think of it, she had vanished after saying there would soon be good news. And now she had returned—which meant—
"It is my honor to be able to bring even gladder tidings to such a Brother."
Apparently the discussions regarding canonization within the Holy Kingdom had concluded.
And in a rather favorable direction at that.