ITCYLITCOTRGC CH 01

“Not eating the cake? You like it.”

I looked at the cake sitting on the table. At first glance, it looked like a gesture of reconciliation, but something this small wasn’t enough to make me forgive him.

I stared at the cake, then at the man, alternating between the two. At the man’s words, my older brother sitting beside me quickly gave me a meaningful look.

‘Just eat it and get this over with! Hurry!’

As my twin brother, Shasha’s expressions were as easy for me to understand as words. But I stubbornly shook my head. I even made a deliberate little “Hmph!” with my mouth.

“I don’t want to eat it, Young Duke.”

At my answer, the platinum-blond man’s face turned bright red.

He wasn’t angry.

He was desperately holding back his laughter.

He knew that if he laughed here, he would really make me angry.

‘So annoying. Geez.’

Between me, who was deliberately scowling, and the man, who was desperately suppressing his laughter, the only one suffering was Shasha, whose expression clearly said that he desperately wanted to leave this place.

“Young Duke, huh? It’s been a really long time since I’ve heard you call me that.”

His sparkling eyes remained fixed on me without wavering. His unwavering gaze was making me uncomfortable, so I turned my head away.

A handsome face framed by platinum-blond hair.

Violet eyes that shimmered strangely, as if amethysts had been embedded inside them.

As far as his face alone was concerned, he deserved a million points.

I believed the saying that there were people blessed with such magical beauty that simply looking at their faces could make your anger melt away.

After all, I was witnessing it firsthand right in front of me.

Just as the man had said, it had been quite a long time since I had called him ‘Young Duke.’

For some reason, remembering the days when I used to call him that made me feel strangely nostalgic.

“Young Lady, you’re quite strange.”

But the man stubbornly played along with my stubbornness.

‘Young Lady.’

It had also been a very long time since he had called me that.

He must have been thinking something similar to me.

So that’s how you’re going to play it?

I stubbornly nodded.

“If Lord Armin says so, then I suppose it must be true.”

“Ha. First it’s Young Duke, and now it’s Lord Armin?”

“Can’t either one of you just give up first? It’s exhausting being stuck between the two of you.”

Unfortunately, Shasha’s muttering had absolutely no effect on either of us.

“Shasha, I’d like to give up too, but Young Lady Roha is unbelievably stubborn. She always acts differently outside and at home, so I can’t exactly give up.”

The corners of the man’s eyes curved into crescents.

His gentle-looking face was filled with amusement, and his perfectly balanced violet eyes sparkled with delight.

“What was it that the young lady called it again……”

Crossing his legs, Armin Gray leaned his upper body toward me.

From experience, I knew that when he smiled like that, he was a little dangerous.

I asked in a slightly trembling voice.

No matter how hard I tried not to be intimidated, I couldn’t help instinctively getting nervous whenever Armin smiled like that.

“W-What……! What are you talking about?”

“The first day we met.”

“The first day?”

Shasha, who had looked exhausted just moments ago, suddenly lit up.

Armin Gray was bringing up the story of that day—the story Shasha had asked me about several times, only to receive vague, evasive answers from me every time.

That was cheating!

Total cheating!

At the sudden reminder of my embarrassing past, I burst into a loud “Wahaha!” and grabbed a fork.

“Oh my! This black tea cake looks absolutely delicious. It’s my favorite, too! How did you know to buy this for me?”

It was a lie.

The heavens knew, the earth knew, that man Armin Gray knew, I knew, and my older brother knew that I absolutely refused to eat cake unless it was whipped-cream cake.

And just as clearly, everyone in this room knew that I was desperately trying to change the subject.

“Lord Armin, just ignore Vivian and continue. Yes, what happened that day?”

“Brother! You should try some too. Hmm?! Black tea! You like black tea, don’t you?”

I desperately sent Armin a pleading look.

It was my silent declaration of surrender.

‘I was completely wrong, so please let’s stop here.’

“I vaguely remember you saying something about being a ‘corner-of-the-room warrior,’ but well, that isn’t important right now.”

Running a hand through his platinum-blond hair, the man kindly asked,

“It tastes good, doesn’t it? I got it from a dessert shop that’s popular in the capital these days.”

“Oh my! Oh my, of course! It’s so delicious that if two people eat it together, they wouldn’t even notice if a third person died beside them.”

I secretly glared at him when he looked away for a moment.

But as soon as Armin turned his head back, I quickly buttered him up.

I wasn’t completely lacking in common sense, after all.

Perhaps satisfied with my tearful flattery, Armin seemed pleased.

And judging by the fact that he didn’t say anything more even when Shasha urged him to continue, it seemed my strategy had worked.

If I’m going to tell my story, I suppose I should start with the incident that happened when I was about four years old.

No.

First, I should probably introduce my family.

My family name is Roha.

I was born into a family that wasn’t quite as insignificant as a baron’s, one of the five noble ranks, but wasn’t nearly as impressive as a count’s either.

We were moderately wealthy.

A perfectly average rich family.

Even my appearance was average.

In a world overflowing with blond and silver-haired people, I sometimes wondered whether anyone would even recognize someone with plain brown hair like mine as a noble.

Anyway, that was how I was born.

As Vivian Roha, the younger twin sister of the heir, Alexandros—usually called Shasha.

Why am I talking about myself as though I’m telling someone else’s story?

Because, as I said, it all goes back to what happened when I was four.

When I was four, I once crossed the River Jordan, made a U-turn, and came back.

That was what happened after I fell from the second floor while playing with my older brother, slipping through the railing.

Because of that near-fatal accident, my older brother was scolded by our father so severely that it was the first time in his life he had been reprimanded nearly to the point of death.

As for me, apparently, I remained unconscious for several days.

Fortunately, I hadn’t fallen directly on my head, so my physical injuries weren’t particularly serious.

Once I regained consciousness, I was able to return to my normal life almost immediately.

But from that moment onward, I had a secret I couldn’t tell anyone.

Even now, I sometimes wonder about it.

Perhaps the afterlife in this world was round like Earth, and maybe the River Jordan here was somehow connected to the Sanzu River in Korea.

You’re wondering what my secret was?

After I woke up, I remembered my past life.

At first, I was incredibly confused.

I had never imagined that the story of the romance-fantasy novels I had spent 100 or 200 won at a time reading in my previous life would somehow apply to me.

Personally, I had been an atheist.

There was no way I would have believed in things like reincarnation or transmigration.

But with the memories of four-year-old Vivian Roha still perfectly intact inside me, denying reality wasn’t exactly easy.

Right before falling from the railing, I had been a quiet and shy little girl.

Timid, reserved, and not very talkative.

I suppose that’s probably how I still appeared to others.

All thanks to the desperate acting I had done because my parents had begged me,

“Vivian, please, don’t ever behave like that in front of other people!”

As a result, when people mentioned the twin siblings of the Roha family around here, we were fairly famous.

Vivian Roha, known for being feminine and graceful—

Ugh, I feel sick even saying it—

and Shasha Roha, the talented young man everyone believed would rise even higher than his father.

But things were different inside the house.

Because I was what you might call a ‘warrior of the corner of the room.’

“Vivi, you took the next volume, didn’t you……. When did you take my clothes again?”

A month ago.

That day, Shasha entered my room without even knocking and frowned as he shook his head in disbelief.

It had been an ordinary day, no different from any other.

After the accident when I was four, I had grown up under my parents’ excessive protection.

As a result, my parents had, at least when it came to their daughter, completely failed at raising me properly.

Being ladylike?

What was that?

Was it something you wrapped up and ate?

Whatever I did, they always indulged me.

Thanks to being raised as the pampered child, I was practically the queen and the one in charge inside our household, the Viscount House of Roha.

That day was no different.

I had secretly stolen one of Shasha’s oversized pairs of pants and was wearing them instead of pajamas.

A nightgown?

Who would wear a nightgown to bed?

Baggy pants were the ultimate sleepwear.

The people around here really didn’t know anything.

By now, Shasha had become immune to it.

He didn’t even bother trying to take his clothes back anymore.

He simply let out one deep sigh after another.

“Vivi, please. I’m begging you. Leave my clothes alone.”

“But they’re so comfortable. What can I do?”

“Haa……”

Another sigh.

The words that inevitably followed it were so familiar that I didn’t even need to hear them.

I mimicked my older brother’s tone and teased him.

“‘Then what are you going to do when you get married?’ Is that what you were going to say?”

Perhaps because I had copied his tone too perfectly, Shasha’s face turned bright red.

Having been tormented by me since childhood, his illusions about women had been completely destroyed.

He snapped irritably,

“If you know what I’m going to say, then stop it. You’re already over twenty-one.”

“I’m only twenty-one. The next volume is on the desk. Take it if you want.”

I rolled around on the bed and stuffed an entire cookie into my mouth.

Shasha sighed and picked up the book from my desk.

It was one of the secret hobbies of Shasha Roha, who was quite popular among the young women around us.

If everyone found out that my older brother was a huge fan of romance novels, they’d probably whisper that they had lost all respect for him.

When you got right down to it, everyone in this world was putting on a little act of some kind.

Calling it pretending made it sound a little shallow, but there was nothing strange about calling it a form of social survival.

I simply happened to be one of the more extreme cases.

My family, however, seemed to have a different opinion.

Shasha looked at me disapprovingly before walking toward the bed.

When he dragged over a chair and sat down, I instinctively knew that today was going to be one of those days when his lecture would be particularly long.

“Vivi, I’m not saying this as a joke. What are you seriously planning to do with yourself?”

“Ah, why are you suddenly like this again? I behave perfectly well outside!”

“That’s exactly the problem. Whenever you go to social gatherings, everyone says the same thing. They say you look like an angel descended from heaven.”

“Oh my! Really? Who? Who said something so nice?”

I giggled and rolled over.

Watching me, Shasha pressed a hand against his forehead as though he had developed a headache.

“Do I look like this kind of person when they say I’m like an angel?”

I immediately switched to my ‘public’ eyes and looked at Shasha.

Gentle, innocent, and filled with moisture, giving me an almost pitiful look.

My older brother, who was completely defenseless against his little sister’s act, recoiled one step with a startled,

“Ugh!”

“That’s what I’m telling you. I’m not getting married.”

“Do you really think that makes any sense? Now that you’re past the age of majority, Mother and Father will probably start looking for a marriage partner for you soon.”

I slowly straightened up at my brother’s lecture and sat upright.

Though, considering the crumbs around my mouth from the cookies, I probably didn’t look particularly refined.

“Absolutely not! Just imagine if I actually got married. What could bring greater shame to our family than that? And what about the poor man? Aren’t you even considering his feelings? That would practically be a fraudulent marriage.”

“Then what do you intend to do? Live like this forever, depending on our parents and taking an allowance from them?”

I couldn’t answer my brother.

Because, realistically, no matter how long I delayed it, I was already an adult.

At some point, it was only natural that I would become independent from my parents.

The problem was that this world was an incredibly narrow-minded place where nobody even considered the possibility of women having careers.

A woman’s greatest achievement was apparently nothing more than marrying well.

And, on top of that, there was another problem.

There was no man in existence who could possibly understand the enormous difference between the Vivian Roha everyone saw outside the house and the Vivian Roha who existed inside it.