IMRMHE 04

His name is Kai Brozel. The second son of Viscount Brozel.

Twenty-six years old. Notable characteristics: heavily in debt and physically frail.

His appearance was described as light brown hair and similarly light brown eyes.

I needed to remember that.

I couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

But even after the appointed time passed, the door remained closed.

I fiddled with my teacup and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall.

Fifteen minutes had passed.

He’s late.

Had he collapsed on the way here?

Since he was supposedly frail, perhaps he had fainted from motion sickness in the carriage.

Or maybe his creditors had caught him.

Or perhaps…

Did I get rejected before the date even started?

An ominous premonition crossed my mind.

Had he heard rumors that the Black Reaper would be there and gotten so frightened that he ran away?

If so, we had a serious problem.

My wounded pride was the least of my concerns.

If Father and my brother found out that I’d been stood up, they would hunt down that man named Kai Brozel and make sure he regretted it.

I was seriously worrying about whether the limbs of my blind date—whose face I hadn’t even seen yet—would remain intact when it happened.

Rustle.

It was an almost imperceptible sound.

Outside the café, someone had stepped on a branch in the flower bed, producing the faintest crack.

An ordinary person wouldn’t have heard it, but to my ears—ears trained to detect the breathing of enemies even while asleep—it sounded like thunder.

I reflexively turned my head.

The sound had come from the window, not the entrance.

An intruder.

This café was on the first floor.

That meant anyone who wanted to get inside through a window could easily do so.

My body reacted before I had time to think.

The ordinary Regina disappeared, and the instincts of the Black Reaper awakened in an instant.

Rrrr-creak.

The window opened cautiously. The moment a shadow began to step inside—

Whoosh!

I launched myself from my seat.

Before the intruder could react, I seized him by the collar, threw him off balance, and slammed him against the wall.

Thud!

“Ugh?!”

The man let out a startled groan.

I pinned both his arms against the wall and leaned close to his neck, growling in a low voice.

“Who are you?”

An assassin?

Or a petty thief?

Either way, he’d picked the wrong target.

He was going to pay dearly for interrupting my blind date.

“Well, this is awkward… I didn’t realize someone had arrived before me.”

The man trapped in my grip gave an uneasy chuckle.

But something about his voice was strange.

There was no fear or bewilderment at all, despite having been subdued by a stranger.

Instead, he sounded far too calm, languid, and gentle.

Puzzled, I raised my head to examine his face.

And for a moment, I froze.

…He’s handsome.

I’d spent my entire life surrounded by my father and older brother—in other words, handsome men.

I considered myself practically immune to good looks, and for the most part, I was.

But this man was different.

His features were so delicate and noble that it seemed as though a god had painstakingly sculpted him with the utmost care.

Even his disheveled hair looked like a deliberately crafted work of art.

And most striking of all was his overwhelming coloring.

His golden hair shone brilliantly in the sunlight streaming through the window, as though it had been sprinkled with gold dust.

And his eyes, which gazed down at me with amused interest, were a clear, arrogant gold, as brilliant as precious jewels.

Gold?

A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.

Who is he? His description sounds strangely familiar…

I was certain I’d heard something about those features before, but the memory remained just out of reach.

Don’t tell me that the description of brown hair…

As a possibility began to form in my mind, the man chuckled.

He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by my hand gripping his neck.

He merely looked down at me with languid eyes and spoke.

“Let go of me. Surely you know who I am?”

There was something strangely arrogant about his tone.

As though his face itself were a passport that granted him unrestricted passage.

He spoke with the absolute confidence of someone who believed that there was no way anyone could fail to recognize him.

At that moment, the puzzle pieces in my mind were forcibly shoved into place.

He was late, but it was still around the time of our appointment.

He had apparently climbed through a window to avoid someone—probably his creditors.

And then there was his question: Don’t you know who I am?

I slowly loosened my grip on his neck and asked, still uncertain,

“Ah, wait. Are you… Kai?”

At my question, the man’s previously relaxed expression twisted in a peculiar way.

“…What?”

He stared down at me with a look of utter disbelief, as though he’d just heard a foreign language he’d never encountered in his life.

“Kai, right? You look like him.”

“I am, but…”

The man looked utterly bewildered.

“It’s just been a very long time since anyone called me by that name.”

He briefly covered his mouth with one hand before lowering it again.

“So that means I was right.”

In response to my words, the man said nothing and simply nodded.

“Then sit down. My neck hurts from looking up at you.”

Still holding him by the collar, I gestured toward the sofa opposite me with my chin.

Kai’s expression turned peculiar, and I immediately realized my mistake.

Habits really were terrifying things.

I’d let my old battlefield habit of ordering my subordinates around slip out during a blind date—with a man I’d just met, no less.

Judging from my previous encounters with the noblemen of the capital, Kai would surely flush with anger or take offense at being ordered around by a woman.

I’ve ruined it from the very beginning.

Is this man going to run away in disgust, too?

But then—

“Pfft—Hahahahaha!”

Contrary to my expectations, the man—or rather, Kai—burst into laughter, clutching his stomach.

His golden eyes widened, and his shoulders shook with genuine amusement.

“Sit down, you say? Yes, I suppose I should. Since your neck hurts and all.”

Without a word of protest, he plopped himself down on the sofa.

Then he rested his chin on one hand and looked up at me with sparkling eyes.

“What next? What else are you going to order me to do? Perhaps tell me to pour the tea?”

He didn’t sound sarcastic.

His eyes genuinely resembled those of a child eagerly anticipating the next instruction.

“No. I’ll take care of my own tea.”

I answered curtly and picked up the teapot.

Glug, glug, glug.

Since I still wasn’t accustomed to handling delicate tableware, the stream of tea was somewhat forceful.

Interest flickered in Kai’s eyes.

He watched my clumsy movements as though he were witnessing some rare and fascinating performance, then pulled his teacup closer.

“Then I’ll pour my own.”

He picked up the teapot.

Without thinking, I followed his movements with my eyes.

A thin, steady stream of tea flowed quietly into his cup.

His movements were strangely different from the etiquette I’d seen the so-called high-and-mighty nobles of high society show off.

There was none of that artificial stiffness about the angle of the wrist or the positioning of the fingers.

His movements were simply as natural as flowing water, and yet…

He looks far more refined.

I tilted my head in confusion.

He was supposedly the second son of a country viscount, so why did he look more elegant than the table manners of nobles from distinguished ducal houses?

Was that just my imagination?

Or perhaps I simply knew so little about etiquette that I was mistaken.

Hmm. The latter seemed more plausible.

“Did you come in through the window to avoid someone chasing you for repayment of your debts?”

At my question, Kai’s eyes widened once again.

He stared blankly at me for a moment before suddenly slapping the table and bursting into hearty laughter.

“Ahahaha! Debts! Yes, that’s right. I was avoiding my creditors. They’re absolutely relentless.”

He laughed so hard that he even wiped tears from his eyes.

For someone being hounded by debt collectors, he seemed far too cheerful.

Had the psychological shock been so severe that he’d lost his mind?

“You were late for our appointment, but if it was because of your creditors, I’ll let it slide.”

I decided to be generous.

Being chased by debt collectors was probably similar to being pursued by a monster-hunting squad.

But Kai tilted his head, looking intrigued, and asked,

“But what kind of appointment did we… have, exactly?”