Chapter 1
I have memories of my past life.
I didn’t have these memories from the beginning. They suddenly came back to me by chance while I was learning to roll over.
My head hurt so badly that I cried desperately. Perhaps the sound of my own crying startled me awake and helped me regain my memories.
It seemed that a baby’s crying was the trigger. After all, in my previous life, I had been a kindergarten teacher.
In my previous life, I was an orphan.
It was already miserable enough to live in poverty all the time, but after working countless nights of overtime, I eventually died from overwork.
Maybe God felt sorry for me, because the family I was born into this time was quite wealthy.
The clothes I wore, the size of my room, and the huge number of toys I had were all amazing.
My father was a count who owned a vast amount of land, and my mother was a beautiful woman. They had given me both wealth and beauty.
Everywhere I stepped was my father’s land, so my future looked bright. I would live a life far removed from poverty.
But there was one problem with my wonderful new life.
The problem was that the world I lived in was actually the world of a novel I had read in my previous life.
Our house was the place where the male protagonist of a novel called First Love spent his childhood.
Then, was I the heroine?
Unfortunately, no.
The male protagonist was supposed to develop a romantic relationship with my friend while staying at our house.
In other words, I was nothing more than the bridge that brought the two together.
To make matters worse, I was supposed to be the wicked childhood friend who fell in love with the male protagonist at first sight and became jealous of the heroine.
And what happens to a villain?
She gets dealt with by the male protagonist!
The male protagonist promised the heroine that he would return to her and then went to the capital.
While he was gone, I continued to bully the heroine.
Then, when the male protagonist became an adult and returned to take the heroine away, he punished me.
That was how the early part of the novel went.
Ugh, absolutely not. Not my peaceful life.
The male protagonist exposed the corruption of my family and confiscated our property.
Because of that, my family fell into poverty and eventually became so ruined that we had no choice but to sell even our title.
In short, my life would become a mess the moment the male protagonist arrived.
But that was the story of Yveline in the novel.
I just had to avoid living the same way.
I only needed to avoid falling in love with the male protagonist at first sight. And if I didn’t bully the heroine and instead helped the two of them get together, that would be even better.
As for me, I could spend the meantime studying hard to become my father’s successor, inherit his wealth, and enjoy a carefree noble life!
I imagined the wealthy life of someone who didn’t have to work and my eyes lit up.
“Yay!”
I clenched my tiny fist and shouted.
The nanny, who had been dozing off, jumped up in surprise.
“Lady? Did you call me?”
“Umm, it’s nothing.”
I shook my head with a silly grin.
There were still several years before the male protagonist would come here to recover.
Until then, I just needed to focus on growing up healthy.
“Would you like a snack?”
“Yesh!”
I excitedly raised both hands.
The nanny opened her mouth in delight at how cute I looked.
That’s right.
Before worrying about the male protagonist coming here, I needed to make sure this tiny body grew properly.
Besides, today’s snack was red velvet cake!
Babies had to eat and sleep well to grow quickly.
“Hehehe.”
Just thinking about the cake I was about to eat made a suspicious little laugh escape my mouth.
Perhaps the nanny thought I was making that expression because of a runny nose, because she brought a handkerchief to my nose.
“Now, blow your nose! Blow!”
“Hoonng!”
Right. Forget the male protagonist and everything else.
First, I needed to grow!
I grew up healthy and eventually turned ten.
During that time, my clumsy pronunciation became perfect, and I had grown quite tall.
Since I was the tallest among the children I played with, I seemed to have taken after my father.
“Yveline, come here.”
My mother called me over after I had just finished taking a bath.
I ran over to her and happily hugged her.
My mother smiled warmly.
“Oh my, our Yveline gets prettier every time she takes a bath.”
Mother, honestly.
She was obviously praising me on purpose because she was worried that her young daughter might hate taking baths.
I pretended to be happy and giggled.
“Yesh! But Mommy is prettier!”
My mother smiled happily at my words.
Of course, if my mother was beautiful, that meant her daughter—me—was beautiful too.
Mother immediately sat me down in front of the vanity and began brushing my hair herself.
She also made sure to give me a cup of warm milk so I wouldn’t become restless.
Of course, I wasn’t as wild and energetic as other children my age.
Even so, Mother always gave me milk after my bath.
I casually blew on the milk to cool it before gulping it down.
“Yveline.”
“Yes, Mother?”
I looked at my mother through the mirror after she suddenly called my name.
She smiled brightly and spoke.
“A guest will be coming sometime next week.”
“A guest? Who is it?”
I asked casually while swinging my feet from the chair.
I had already finished my milk, so all I had left in my hands was the empty cup.
“He is the son of someone I was very close to in the capital before I got married. Apparently, he isn’t in very good health. He’ll be staying at our castle for a while.”
Crash!
I accidentally dropped the mug I was holding.
My mother was startled and immediately picked me up, while a maid hurried over to clean up the broken pieces.
“Yveline! Are you hurt anywhere?”
Mother carried me over to the sofa and asked worriedly.
But I couldn’t answer.
My mouth remained wide open in shock.
Seeing that I looked pale, Mother hurriedly called for a doctor.
While a servant rushed out to get one, I slowly called for my mother.
“Mommy.”
“Yes, Mommy is right here.”
“What’s his name?”
“Hm?”
“I mean the person who’s going to stay here for a while. What’s his name?”
I looked at Mother nervously.
Who this guest was would determine the course of my future life.
With a desperate hope in my heart, I clasped my hands together and waited for her answer.
But…
“Oh, you mean our guest? His name is Cassis Ren Urquio. He is the young master of a ducal family.”
As expected, there were no exceptions.
The male protagonist was coming to our house.
He was really coming.
What should I do?
Hearing that name suddenly appear made me realize once again that this was the world of a novel.
Ever since Mother told me that Cassis was coming, I often found myself lost in thought.
Since I already knew the future, there shouldn’t have been anything difficult about it.
Unlike Yveline in the novel, I wouldn’t fall in love with the young male protagonist.
I simply had to bring the two main characters together as I had planned.
I had firmly made up my mind about that.
But now that it was actually happening, anxiety kept creeping into my heart.
Perhaps everything felt more intense because I was still in a child’s body.
When the children my age saw that I had no intention of playing while sitting on the bench, they all started playing tag.
Among them, I looked at a girl who seemed to shine especially brightly.
The girl’s name was Elissa Poem.
She was none other than the heroine of First Love.
I stared at Elissa with a sulky expression.
Her flowing blonde hair, which was hard to believe belonged to a country girl, and her beautiful green eyes made her stand out wherever she went.
But what about me?
I had ordinary light brown hair and violet eyes.
My face was just as pretty as Elissa’s, but that was about it.
Unlike Elissa, I didn’t seem to have any particular charm that naturally drew everyone’s attention.
“Yveline!”
Elissa suddenly stopped playing tag and hid behind my back.
Philip, who had been chasing her relentlessly, stopped in his tracks.
“That’s cheating!”
“I’m tired.”
Elissa smiled sweetly and asked him to understand.
Philip hesitated for a moment before his ears turned bright red.
“Just this once!”
He shouted before returning to the group.
Being the heroine really makes life easy.
Lucky her.
I looked at Elissa enviously before turning my gaze away.
The reason Philip couldn’t do anything and had to leave was because the place where I was sitting was a resting spot.
It was a place where the children could sit and rest when they became tired from playing.
And I was the one who used it the most.
I was also the one who made it.
This body was still that of a child, so it had an endless supply of energy and needed to play frequently.
Then, whenever my mind suddenly became clear, I would feel embarrassed about myself.
At those times, I needed some time to convince myself that everything was fine.
That was what this bench was for.
Here, I would usually repeat things like:
I’m a child.
So there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
Finding things fun is a completely normal and natural part of childhood development.
No matter how much my mind remembered my previous life, my body was still that of a child.
So whenever I was hungry or tired, I would suddenly behave like a child.
In other words, if I didn’t keep my mind under control, I was bound to act like a kid.
Even when I was happy, I acted like a child.
Was this what people called the mystery of the human body?
Perhaps this was also why children suddenly started acting strange when puberty arrived.
Elissa sat down beside me while breathing heavily, then naturally leaned against my shoulder.
Her body moved up and down with every breath.
She must have been running around a lot because beads of sweat had formed on her forehead.
“Elissa, you’re breathing really hard.”
“Hehe, I guess I ran too much.”
Elissa replied with a bright smile.
I took a handkerchief from my pocket and casually held it out to her.
“Use this to wipe your sweat.”
“As expected, Yveline, you’re so kind.”
Elissa accepted the handkerchief with a touched expression and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Then she quickly put the handkerchief into her pocket and said,
“It has my sweat on it, so I’ll buy you a new one next time.”
“You don’t have to. Just keep it.”
I answered casually.
A blush appeared on Elissa’s cheeks.
In the novel, Yveline and Elissa were friends too.
They lived in the same area, but there was another reason they often met.
Elissa’s parents worked under my father, so they frequently came to our estate.
The Yveline in the novel didn’t particularly like Elissa because she stood out more than her.
So she kept Elissa by her side and treated her like a maid.
But I had no intention of doing that.
No, why would I be jealous of such a cute and lovable girl?
Wouldn’t it be much better if we simply got along well?
“Yveline, can I come over to your house tomorrow? I’ll even bake those cookies you said were delicious last time.”
Elissa suddenly grabbed my hand as she spoke.
Tomorrow was the day Cassis was coming.
“Ah, I don’t think you can come tomorrow because we’re expecting a guest…”
“A guest?”
“Yeah. Apparently, he’s an important person coming from the capital. I heard he’s around our age, and he’ll be staying at our house for a while.”
“At your house?”
“Yeah. I’ll introduce you to him once he’s settled in.”
I smiled suspiciously as I imagined bringing the two of them together as quickly as possible and then peacefully planning the rest of my own life.
