I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 5

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 5
“An engagement ring? Now that you mention it, the design does look familiar.”
Of course it did.
It was the ring they’d had made for their engagement ceremony.
Since Aiden had run away, it had never left its case from the day of purchase, but Olivia had kept it with utmost care.
The reason was simple: the two of them had ‘not yet’ annulled their engagement.
She knew full well how pathetic an excuse that was—like desperately clutching at a thread that one person had already let go of.
But she harbored no regret.
After all those years of patience, the ring had finally found its rightful place, hadn’t it?
Since it had found its owner again, she had no lingering sorrow left. Olivia laughed brightly.
“Anyway, you’re not normal either. Actually, this is perfect. I had something to tell you anyway.”
Aiden pulled the ring firmly as he spoke.
“……What? Why won’t it come off? What’s going on?”
“It won’t come off for three days.”
The commander of the Imperial Mage Division cast a special enchantment on it for me.
At her hushed words that followed, Aiden jumped back in protest.
“There’s no such thing as that.”
No such thing? It’s right here.
Thanks to Eugene’s help, Olivia had managed to obtain a ring that would not slip from her hand for three days, not once.
There was only one reason she’d enchanted the ring this way.
“Three days.”
Olivia answered thus and smiled faintly at him.
Strange.
She really was happy to see Aiden.
Genuinely so……
But something roiled inside her chest, hot and turbulent.
The feeling soon showed on her face.
All her brightness vanishing, Olivia spoke each word deliberately, her expression brimming with sorrow.
“It’s the time that passed between when we both signed the engagement papers and when you ran away.”
So at the very least, for that span of time, the engagement was something both of you had agreed to maintain.
Since you never wore the ring back then, shouldn’t you make up for it by wearing it for three days now?
Olivia truly believed this.
His expression shifted abruptly, as though her words had given him much to consider.
The restless fidgeting stopped, and he now regarded her with eyes that had grown calm and settled.
He spoke to her quietly.
“Let’s sit for a moment. We should talk properly.”
He removed his military overcoat and spread it on the ground with an air of grave deliberation.
He’d forgotten every courtesy imaginable, yet some manners he remembered still.
Thinking of this eased her sorrow, just a little.
Olivia settled onto his coat without a word.
Facing each other in military uniforms rather than formal dress and gowns felt oddly unfamiliar.
The rustling of leaves against one another, the chirping of birds probing between branches not yet fully grown.
The earth warmed by spring sun seemed to pulse with life, and yet amid all that silence, there arose a sense of clamor.
“It’s been three years. We haven’t seen each other like this since the day we parted.”
Breaking the spring silence, Aiden at last began to speak of the hollow past that lingered between them.
Olivia recalled that day.
A day like any other, when they had dined together and taken a walk, imagining the life that awaited them after the engagement.
“Olivia. I’m sorry, but no matter how much I think about it, I don’t think it will work.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“……The annulment document. I’ve already signed it. You just need to sign and submit yours.”
“Explain yourself. We were only engaged three days ago!”
“Exactly. That’s why it can still be undone.”
After leaving Olivia numbed by the shock at her home, Aiden vanished the very next day.
Naturally, both families were thrown into upheaval.
Not only the Kishier Marquis Household but the Oblivion Duchy Household too scrambled in alarm at his recklessness, setting out to find him.
But they never did.
Aiden had submitted a request for dispatch duty with the Knight Order that same day and departed to parts unknown.
“I never thought he could be so irresponsible, how could he do something so ridiculous! Annul it. I’ll find you a better husband. There are far better people than him-”
“No.”
“What?”
“I won’t annul the engagement. No matter what happens.”
“Olivia!”
Her parents had tried every conceivable method to persuade Olivia since then.
Reasoning, pleading, threats……
They had left nothing untried.
But Olivia would not bend. If anything, the more they pressed, the more stubbornly she dug in her heels.
For this reason, the Kishier marquess and marquise came to despise Aiden intensely.
The greater their trust had been, the deeper their sense of betrayal.
“Yes. I also have many things I wanted to say.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“No. You should go first. Mine will take a while.”
Aiden gazed down at Olivia without answering, then began to speak slowly, exhaling a brief sigh.
“I heard the annulment document was never submitted.”
It was not what she had expected.
Who had told him this?
It couldn’t be that from some dispatch post where even letters couldn’t pass save for official business, he’d somehow managed to leisurely track whether the annulment had been processed.
Either someone had informed him, or he’d had reason to verify it himself.
Olivia desperately hoped it was the former.
If it were the latter, she feared she might become very angry indeed.
“How did you find out?”
Aiden gave no answer.
But Olivia sensed what his silence meant.
She had hoped it wasn’t so.
Truly, she had hoped for anything but that.
“Don’t tell me—you were trying to get engaged to someone else?”
Then you really are garbage.
Swallowing those words, Olivia clenched her fists tightly.
“Just tell me you were curious whether the annulment had been properly filed.”
“……Olivia.”
“Please tell me that, at least!”
This was too degrading.
Olivia loved Aiden.
From childhood, which she barely remembered even now, until this very moment, there had never been a time when she did not love him.
It was a love that seeped in quietly, gently soaking through her, until she realized that her heart held nothing but affection for him.
She had no thought of letting him go. Yet neither had she escaped unwounded.
Though she had loudly proclaimed that she would be the one to end things, the truth at the bottom of her heart was a wound of rejection and a crushed pride.
Aiden’s movements grew flustered as though he’d been caught off guard.
“Olivia.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Olivia, just listen to me.”
Listen for what good?
Hearing what he had to say wouldn’t heal the wounds Olivia had suffered.
Her first love—the future she had dreamed of with someone she cherished, the happiness she had known—had ended in an annulment document after just three days, for reasons she never understood.
The love that persisted still was in truth something closer to resentment, and Olivia both loved and hated him.
‘Are you going to kill your fiancé?’
As if.
But truly, sincerely, she did hate him.
To the point where violent impulses sometimes arose within her.
Of course, Olivia was also a noblewoman meticulously educated by the Kishier household, so she kept those impulses firmly in check.
“Olivia.”
Aiden knelt on one knee before her, meeting her eyes as she sat hugging her knees.
Seeing him in that posture made it seem as though he were making a proposal, and Olivia felt a pang in her chest.
“Don’t place too much meaning on things like marriage or engagement.”
“Brother. I’ve learned a few crude words since coming here to the Knight Academy. What people call this kind of thing—ugh.”
“Dammit. All those Knight Academy brats are the same. They’ve filled your head with strange ideas.”
No, it was you who filled my head with the strangest ideas of all.
As Aiden reached out his hand, Olivia’s mouth was covered, and she bit down hard on his palm with a face full of spite.
Startled, he withdrew his hand from her mouth and spoke as though making an excuse.
“I did consider the engagement. But it was born of necessity.”
“So you’re saying your plan fell apart because I wouldn’t annul it?”
“That—ugh. Yes. To put it bluntly, that’s right.”
In other words.
While Olivia was at the Knight Academy, rolling about in all directions and enduring hardship upon hardship, Aiden had been preparing to start a new life with another woman.
She was no longer even sad.
She simply could not understand.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why was she acceptable and I wasn’t?”
What exactly was I lacking compared to her?
All that remained in Olivia’s heart now was stubbornness and rage.
Flames of fury kindled in Olivia’s eyes.
“Do you love her?”
“What? Don’t talk nonsense. I don’t believe in love.”
“Then?”
At Olivia’s persistent questioning, Aiden fell silent for a moment, regarding her steadily.
Just then, the clouds parted, and spring sunlight poured down once more.
The light filtered through the leaves and fell across Olivia’s hair.
Seeing her thus, Aiden narrowed his eyes slightly and held his hand above her head to shade her from the sun.
And at last, after three years.
“It’s because……”
“Because?”
“You’re my friend’s younger sister.”
He gave his reason for the annulment.
Of course, it was a transparently hollow lie.

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