Chapter 20

After kissing Jason on the lips, I didn’t pull away right away. I only broke the kiss after ten whole seconds had passed.

“Why are you making it so long? Hurry up and pull away.”

“It’s up to the person doing it.”

Once again, Jason had no comeback, so he fell silent. I took full advantage of that and kissed him dozens of times to my heart’s content.

“Oops, I accidentally kissed you 51 times. I guess we have to start over from the beginning. Sorry, Jason.”

I deliberately miscounted the number and made us start all over again. Jason shouted at me, accusing me of doing it on purpose and asking if I had no conscience, but I calmly denied it.

In the end, we only managed to finish after kissing a total of three hundred times.

“Ma-ri!”

On a peaceful afternoon, Jason unexpectedly came to my room, stomping around to show just how angry he was. He even pronounced my name slowly and clearly.

“Jason, what’s wrong?”

“What did you say last time?”

“If you mean yesterday, I told you that I liked you.”

Recently, I had been telling Jason that I loved him every day and openly showing him affection. Every time I did, he would get embarrassed, snap at me, and run away, but watching him react that way had become the highlight of my day.

“You said it would probably wear off after about a week, didn’t you? But it still hasn’t worn off!”

Ah. I had lied to him and told him that the effect wouldn’t disappear immediately, but would take some time. I suppose Jason had every right to be angry.

“…Well, I guess that can happen. Maybe stories really are just stories.”

“…I’m never believing anything you say again.”

I shrugged.

It didn’t matter if he didn’t believe me. I just had to make him believe me somehow.

“Oh, right. We’re having a guest today.”

Just then, Jason suddenly brought up something completely unrelated.

A guest? Out of nowhere? Who on earth was coming?

“Who?”

“The young master of Baron Hayes’s family. He’s a kid, the same age as us. He’s going to be staying here for a while.”

“Why is he coming? Having someone here means we’ll have to worry about him too. Why did you agree to it?”

If this were the Jason I knew, he would normally have ignored such a request.

“I didn’t want to agree either, but that damn emperor said that if we didn’t accept, he’d go to war with a country we’re currently under a truce with and make us participate in the war.”

“…Hah. I guess I’d better think of some lies in advance.”

“Yeah. We can say we’re busy with work during the day, and that children go to bed early in the evening.”

“Are there really children who go to bed at six?”

I had never heard of or seen a child who went to bed at six in the evening. Unless they were truly babies, nobody went to sleep that early.

“We’re young, so it could happen. Or we could run around and play like crazy during the day. Then it would make sense.”

“Oh, right. If we ran around so much that it would be surprising if we weren’t sleeping, people would believe it. We’d just have to endure being sleepy in the evening and finish the work we couldn’t do during the day.”

“…If the two of us do it together, we’ll finish quickly. We only have to suffer for one month.”

I decided not to activate the stamina-enhancement item for a month.

Otherwise, I might collapse from overwork after only a week and have to start everything over from the beginning. That would be tragic.

While I worked and waited for our guest to arrive, I heard that he had already come after only twenty minutes of work.

I wanted to work a little longer, but I couldn’t make a guest wait, so I stopped and went outside.

When I reached the entrance, I saw a handsome red-haired boy standing there. I extended my hand toward him.

“Hello, I’m Mariana Valentine.”

“Hello, I’m Jason Valentine.”

“Hello. My name is Lapis Hayes. It’s really nice to meet you! I hope we can become good friends during the short month I’ll be staying here.”

Oh, he was incredibly friendly and energetic.

Somehow, I felt like our personalities would get along well.

“But you didn’t come with your parents?”

“No. My parents are busy.”

I nodded in understanding.

“Our parents are busy working too, so they couldn’t come out. Let’s have fun together anyway. And you can speak casually with us.”

I naturally let him know that he wouldn’t be meeting our parents.

Lapis nodded repeatedly with a bright smile.

“First, go put your luggage down and come back.”

Our admirable Jason had said his first words to Lapis—apart from the initial greeting.

Following his instructions, I showed Lapis to the guest room so he could put down his luggage. Then, before we went off to have fun, we headed down to the dining room to fill our stomachs.

Several delicious desserts completely covered the table.

What should I eat first?

As I quickly scanned the desserts—

Strawberry cake!

There was my favorite strawberry cake.

I reached toward it, but Lapis picked up the plate first.

And there was only one piece.

“Huh?”

Did Lapis like the same things I did?

I stared at the strawberry cake with an incredibly disappointed look.

Then Lapis stood up and placed the strawberry cake in front of me.

“Eat it, Mariana. I like nut tarts more.”

“Thank you, Lapis. From now on, you can call me Mari.”

I gave him permission to use my nickname out of gratitude.

“Mari, enjoy your cake.”

Lapis smiled warmly and gently brushed the strands of hair that had fallen over my face behind my ear.

BANG!

At that exact moment, an enormous crash rang out.

“Jason?”

Jason had slammed his fist down on the dining table.

“There was a bug.”

“Oh.”

If another bug appeared, there might not be much of the dining table left.

Even though Jason had struck it with a child’s body, I shook my head as I looked at the table, which now had a deep dent in it.

“Getting jealous despite himself.”

“…Huh?”

I looked at Lapis after hearing the surprisingly quiet remark.

He was smiling calmly as though nothing had happened.

I must have heard him wrong.

“Stop chatting and eat.”

“Okay.”

At Jason’s command, I shut my mouth and ate.

Normally, I would have ignored him and continued talking, but Lapis said ten words for every one word I said, so I was getting mentally exhausted and automatically kept my mouth shut.

After finishing our meal, I quickly thought about what we should do for fun.

“Do you want to go horseback riding?”

Running around energetically should use up plenty of stamina.

If they still looked full of energy, I could suggest going hunting too.

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

Fortunately, both of them agreed.

We headed to the riding grounds.

From among the many horses, each of us chose one we liked and led it out of the stable.

I was stroking a beautiful white horse and telling it that we should run well together when Lapis, already mounted on his horse, looked down at me.

“Mari, can you ride?”

“Yeah, I’m good at it. Jason is good too.”

“That’s a shame. I like riding together with someone.”

“Then you can ride with Jason. What do you think?”

I sincerely thought it would make a wonderful sight, so I even clapped my hands enthusiastically as I suggested it.

The expressions on both their faces immediately froze.

“…I’ll just ride alone.”

“Are you crazy?”

I had expected Lapis to dislike the idea of riding with Jason, but Jason’s equally strong reaction made me laugh.

We rode around the grounds separately, first walking slowly and then racing around excitedly.

Sometimes, we even competed to see who could ride the fastest.

Later, while I was taking a leisurely ride by myself, Lapis’s horse gradually moved closer and closer to Jason’s.

At this rate, the horses would collide and both of them could get seriously hurt.

“Huh? Lapis, it’s dangerous to get that close!”

“But this guy keeps ignoring me.”

Lapis ignored what I said and continued moving toward Jason.

Jason told Lapis to keep his distance and tried to move away, but Lapis followed him quickly and persistently.

Eventually, the two horses collided, causing both boys to fall off.

“Jason! Lapis!”

I quickly dismounted and ran toward the two of them.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”

I was terrified that they might have been seriously injured.

If the male protagonist suffered a major injury and died, I would have to start everything over from the beginning, so I was extremely worried as I checked Jason’s condition.

Jason held his head and slowly got up.

At least there didn’t seem to be any bleeding.

Had he avoided injury by using a proper breakfall?

“You really think I’d get hurt from something like this?”

“Haah, you scared me.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

He was speaking normally, and he wasn’t swaying on his feet, so it seemed that he really was fine.

“Mari, I’m hurt here.”

Just then, Lapis groaned.

Ah, right. I need to check Lapis too.

I turned around and looked at him.

He seemed to have injured his leg and was pointing toward it.

When I gently touched his leg, he let out a pained groan.

“Your leg is injured. You need to get treated right away.”

I crouched down and offered Lapis my back.

Even Jason, who appeared unharmed, could have suffered internal injuries, so I needed to use my abilities to make sure they were okay.

“Don’t carry me. Just help me walk. I can walk by myself.”

“Are you sure you can?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

I carefully helped Lapis to his feet and supported him gently.

His leg seemed to hurt quite badly, because he leaned his entire body against me.

On the way back to the ducal residence, I told one of the servants what had happened. As soon as we reached his room, the family physician came and examined him.

The doctor determined that Lapis had probably sprained his leg.

So we decided to stop playing outside and have him rest in his room.

I also tried to persuade Jason to get examined, but he stubbornly refused, insisting that he was fine.

Jason sat on the sofa reading a book, while Lapis rested on the bed and I stayed beside him to take care of him.

“Mari, can you feed me some snacks?”

Lapis opened his mouth and asked me to feed him some of the fruit the maid had brought.

Seriously, what on earth was going through this child’s mind?

I was debating whether I should indulge Lapis’s spoiled behavior when Jason spoke firmly.

“Did you hurt your arm or something?”