I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 14

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 14
* * *
Today was truly a lucky day!
Olivia recalled the Daily Fortune Reading rankings she’d checked this morning.
“Olivia. You’re still looking at that stuff?”
“My ranking is very high today. Good things are supposed to happen. I’ll get to meet someone I’m glad to see, and they say the lucky color is green.”
“……Are you sure you’re not interested in a bracelet? There’s supposedly a wonderful mineral that boosts vitality and romantic fortune.”
“Panya. I’m not an idiot. I don’t believe in unscientific nonsense like that.”
“Then what’s that in your hands…….”
“Just a little mood lift?”
It was worth the effort of carefully choosing the Green One-piece Dress. Whether by chance or fate, she really had run into Aiden after all.
Olivia’s cheeks flushed softly with delight.
“Olivia. I know it looks like a misunderstanding, but hear me out first.”
“I’m not misunderstanding anything.”
“Your face says you are, though.”
“No way. So this situation is…… you know?”
“Wh-what situation.”
“My brother, jealous of me growing close to other people, remembered a conversation from days ago and followed me all the way to the Opera House. That sort of delicate situation?”
“……You ARE misunderstanding!”
Then why on earth was Aiden here right now? Olivia tilted her head in confusion.
“Come over here for a moment.”
Aiden’s gesture as he drew her along was urgent.
Olivia followed him obediently toward the Kishear Family Lounge attached to the Opera House, studying him quietly the whole way. And soon she was certain.
‘See. It’s all the same as before.’
The fact that everything remained unchanged.
Aiden Oblivion, who would seek out the Kishear Family Lounge even when the Oblivion Duke Estate had its own.
Memories with the Kishear siblings, carved into him under the name of habit.
Since none of it had changed from before to now, Olivia found it rather endearing.
Click. The door shut. Now, finally. It meant they were truly alone in this space.
Olivia asked in return with a bright smile.
“Shall we have a proper conversation now?”
“Listen. I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not it.”
“Could this be what a date is?”
“Yes, this is a da—No, what on earth are you talking about!”
Pity. Olivia clasped her hands together on her lap and smacked her lips playfully.
Well, teasing him was enough for now. Olivia shrugged lightly as she spoke.
“I’m joking.”
“What?”
“Joking. It’s Cesare’s doing, isn’t it? The only person your acquaintance who’d know I was coming here is Cesare.”
He was more than capable of it. Cesare was one of the few people who supported the connection between Olivia and Aiden.
Since he couldn’t not know of Aiden’s return, he must have arranged this too.
“That’s a pretty tasteless joke…….”
“Well, I’ve suffered quite a bit because of my brother. I suppose I felt a little vengeful.”
How many times had she been beaten down in his hands? Just counting the hits from a wooden sword during sparring would require more than ten fingers to tally.
“That’s being generous, actually.”
“……So what did you want to talk about? Do you have something else to say, instructor?”
Olivia demoted Aiden from ‘close brother’ to ‘instructor’ to pay the price for being caught red-handed. At that, Aiden’s brow creased with displeasure.
“Outside, calling me instructor is a bit— No, fine. Since we’ve met, let’s just talk. Seriously.”
“All right. I had something I wanted to ask you too.”
This was sincere. Throughout his time at the Academy, Aiden had made an effort to treat Olivia as a ‘student,’ and it had been surprisingly effective.
Thanks to that, aside from the first day, they’d barely had a real conversation. Olivia regretted it.
She even caught herself wishing she’d talked more properly on that first day if she’d known it would come to this.
But an opportunity like this had presented itself! It was wonderfully welcome and joyful.
Aiden cleared his throat and opened his mouth carefully.
“There’s something I’ve been curious about for a while.”
“Go ahead.”
“Did you really decide to become a knight because of me?”
Huh? This was an unexpected question. A flicker of bewilderment crossed Olivia’s face.
“Pardon?”
“Bennett told me. He said you transferred because of your fiancé.”
“Mm.”
“Did you apply to the Luxes Knight Order for the same reason, too?”
It was an unexpected question, yet not entirely surprising either.
Olivia fell into quiet thought.
‘Because of Aiden?’
It was true that she’d transferred because of Aiden. It had been a promise with Eugene, after all.
But as for whether she’d decided to become a knight because of him…….
“No, it’s not that.”
It wouldn’t be, surely.
It was true that Aiden had been the beginning. But was that all there was to it?
Olivia remembered the days when she’d had to watch Aiden and Cesare’s training endlessly. At the time she’d thought she was only envying what ‘I couldn’t do,’ but looking back now, it was longing.
It seemed she’d wanted to hold a sword for a very long time.
Her resolve to become a knight had been sparked by what happened with Aiden, but now she clearly understood that this was something she truly desired.
“I want it. From the day I watched your and Cesare’s training every day, or perhaps even before that—it’s something I’ve wanted.”
“But you—”
“Brother.”
Into the lounge streamed the golden light of early summer’s evening, wavering softly as it poured through the windows.
Aiden stared at Olivia as if transfixed by something. In response to his gaze, Olivia’s heartbeat began to quicken slightly.
She couldn’t tell whether it was because of Aiden, or because of what she was about to say.
“Don’t I look happy to you?”
“……What?”
“Rolling around in the sunlight every day, building up quite a bit of muscle. Hardly befitting a young lady of the house. My parents dislike this version of me so much that I haven’t set foot in the Kishear Family Territory in a good while…….”
Olivia rolled up her sleeves with a proud smile.
“But now I finally understand what it means to be alive.”
* * *
Now she finally understood what it felt like to be alive.
The moment those words reached him, his mind went reeling as if struck from behind. Aiden opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, finding no words to speak, and finally chose to remain silent.
“I don’t mean that my years as merely the Kishear Young Lady were hellish.”
Olivia’s voice continued steadily. It was Aiden himself who’d lost his composure.
“Only that I can never return to what I was then. Because now I truly understand what I’ve been giving up all this time.”
Olivia’s green eyes were tinged as deeply as summer foliage, sparkling with vitality and light.
‘Was it giving up?’
Olivia had always been consistent from childhood.
Obedient, kind, composed.
Though she occasionally did unpredictable things, those actions never crossed the line drawn by the Marquess and Marquessa Kishear. She would walk the edge precariously and turn back, never venturing beyond.
So Aiden had assumed that Olivia’s nature was simply ‘the way she was.’
Now he finally understood. That wasn’t the case at all.
The Olivia before him, smiling brightly as she recovered the sense of living, was strangely unfamiliar, yet his heart raced nonetheless.
“Olivia. I…….”
“Don’t you want me to become a knight either? Like our parents?”
“No!”
The answer burst out instinctively.
“I don’t dislike you becoming a knight. I just— I don’t want you to get hurt. Damn it. Why can’t I say this right?”
“But you want me to give it up.”
Because the knight order you’re aiming for is the Luxes Knight Order.
“……There are other knight orders you could choose.”
“Other knight orders?”
“Everyone says you have a remarkable talent. Olivia, I’ve watched you for such a long time, yet I didn’t notice it.”
Aiden hadn’t picked up on the fact that the emotion in Olivia’s eyes as she observed their training every time was longing.
“Olivia.”
“Yes?”
“You have talent.”
He had to admit it, finally. That Olivia possessed genuine talent.
But that alone didn’t solve everything.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————