I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 6

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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 6
She had assumed there must be an extraordinary reason.
Some grand objective that could only be achieved by destroying this relationship, or a value too precious to ever abandon.
They had spent more than ten years together.
Even if Olivia were not Aiden’s fiancée and Aiden were not Olivia’s fiancé, they were childhood friends and companions who had walked through more than half a lifetime side by side.
If he had simply cast aside that history, that relationship they had built together all these years, surely he owed her at least that much of an explanation.
But what did he say?
“Because I’m your friend’s sister?”
Her voice had grown cool and measured.
With Olivia’s gaze turned cold as an unseasonable frost, she stared straight ahead; Aiden, unbothered, pressed on with casual eloquence.
“Olivia. You’re my one and only friend Caesar’s sister. That means you’re someone incredibly precious to me too.”
“Is that why you threw the Dissolution of Engagement Document at someone precious to you?”
“I can’t possibly see my friend’s sister as a woman — and besides, I don’t even believe in the emotion of love in the first place.”
Can’t see a friend’s sister as a woman? Doesn’t believe in love?
Olivia stared at him, her eyes wide open.
The sunlight blazed fiercely, but beneath the shade he had cast with his hand, she felt no glare; the chill rising from the cold earth was blocked by the uniform he had laid beneath her, and never reached her.
That was love.
Not something grand or exceptional, but the care to observe another person closely and offer what they did not even need to ask for.
All of that was love, or so she believed.
Olivia bit her lip hard.
“It’s true I wanted to get engaged. I needed it. After the engagement, I planned to fulfill only the bare minimum obligations toward each other, and if we married later, I’m sure it would have been the same. For me, an engagement or marriage meant nothing more than that.”
“Ha.”
“But what’s the point of this conversation? I never managed to dissolve the engagement, so that discussion never happened in the first place.”
He still didn’t understand that wasn’t the important part.
Fool.
That’s what Olivia muttered under her breath.
Aiden hadn’t heard her properly and asked, “What did you say?”
“What I mean is, that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Olivia. I—”
“That you could engage or marry just about anyone who fit the right conditions, so easily. That you could do it without a second thought.”
“…Olivia.”
“That marrying me—just signing the same documents and fulfilling minimum obligations—is somehow more difficult, even though it would be easy with anyone else.”
“Well, of course. You’re—”
“Because I’m your friend’s sister? How infuriating.”
She didn’t need to hear another word.
Olivia struck his hand away sharply and rose to her feet.
“That ring will come off in three days.”
“I know. You said so.”
“I’m going to complete this practicum successfully, and no matter what happens, I’m joining the Luxes Knights.”
“What? Olivia! Don’t be like this. Even if I infuriate you, how could you make such a reckless, dangerous choice!”
Thump.
Olivia’s footsteps halted just as she was turning toward the Dormitory.
“Olivia?”
Olivia turned slowly to face him.
Her voice and bearing had been dripping with anger mere moments before, but now her expression was its complete opposite.
A smile as bright as spring blossoms, and cheeks flushed from the sunlight.
In the small dimple on her cheek, a shadow gathered so faintly it was scarcely visible.
Aiden stood frozen, unable to form a word, and simply gazed at her.
“Who said I hated you?”
Well, it was true that she did hate him.
But—
“I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully. I don’t hate you.”
“What—what?”
There’s an old saying: give more pie to the one you resent.
Using that ancient proverb as her compass, Olivia chose to endure and try once more for this foolish first love of hers.
“I like you.”
“You…”
Aiden was badly mistaken.
He believed that only something fierce and desperate could be love, that the affection he carried was merely tenderness toward someone close to him, not love itself.
So Olivia resolved to keep trying until he recognized his own feelings. Only then would an answer come, one way or another.
“So let’s start over from the beginning. From our first meeting, all the way to marriage. Understood?”
Then she prepared to run.
Remembering the look on Aiden’s face in Professor Seton’s office just moments ago, she knew her best strategy was to flee first.
“Our second beginning should happen at the Luxes Knights. So I’ll be going now. See you later!”
“…What? Wait. Olivia! Stop right there! This is different. Just talk to me for a moment!”
“No!”
Olivia shouted stubbornly and bolted away, evading Aiden’s attempt to grab her.
Olivia was the fastest runner among the Knight Studies Department students.
Her light, nimble frame was an asset.
Thanks to that, she was able to gradually widen the distance between herself and Aiden without getting caught.
Of course, Aiden was relentless enough to pursue her just as doggedly, but it made no difference.
“Olivia! Stop right there! Reconsider this! This isn’t right!”
“I don’t want to! Break up with my brother! Stop saying things like ‘friend’s sister’!”
“What? You—what are you talking about! Why would I break up with him!”
“Why not! You asked me to dissolve the engagement, so why can’t you break up with my brother!”
The two of them disappeared in a clamor of raised voices, leaving only afterimages in their wake.
The problem was that this scene had been witnessed by Bennett, reputedly the most loose-lipped student in the Knight Studies Department.
“…What was that just now? Olivia and… who was that other person?”
Bennett stuffed the bread he was holding into his mouth and tilted his head.
“Could it be her fiancé?”
But he was chasing after Olivia, trying to catch her?
He hadn’t seen much else, but one thing was certain: the man pursuing her had strikingly blonde hair.
Bennett’s sharp instincts were telling him something.
This was a very suspicious scene indeed.
He committed what he’d just seen to memory and hurried toward the Dormitory.
He had to share this astounding news with everyone as quickly as possible.
If Olivia had known, she would have challenged him to at least ten duels.
And from that very night, a new rumor began to spread through Veritas Academy.
“Have you heard? About Olivia’s mystery fiancé? Apparently he’s no ordinary person either.”
“What?”
“Bennett saw it yesterday. Olivia was running away from him ‘like mad’? And what’s more—”
“What’s more?”
“Apparently there’s something going on between him and Olivia’s brother.”
“…Good heavens!”
The rumor suggested that Olivia’s fiancé was no less formidable than she was, so there was no need to pity either of them; moreover, he apparently had some sort of questionable relationship with her brother.
* * *
Training day arrived.
The graduating students of Veritas Academy were about to be put through three months of intensive training by the Training Instructors.
Even those who had managed to survive every course of study had occasionally dropped out—a handful of students every few years couldn’t endure this final ordeal.
There was no guarantee Olivia wouldn’t be one of them.
“Alright. I can do this, Olivia.”
Olivia stood before the mirror, clenching her fists and holding them up to her chest in a power pose.
“I can do it, I can do it, I can do it.”
Then she recited the incantation she hadn’t missed a single day since switching to the Knight Studies Department.
Today, Olivia would begin the first great journey toward joining the Luxes Knights.
The Training Instructor would be Aiden.
From today onward, Olivia could spend time with Aiden ‘legitimately.’
Everything was perfect.
There had been the unfortunate incident yesterday when Aiden chased her all the way to the Female Dormitory, but apparently he had accepted the dorm mother’s rebuke and left without further complaint.
‘A day has passed—surely he’s had time to compose himself?’
…At least, that’s what Olivia had believed until then.
But the moment she arrived at the Training Grounds, she realized just how naive that assumption had been.
“Olivia. That instructor over there… doesn’t he look absolutely furious?”
He does. My eyes see it too.
“And he’s staring right at you. What did you actually do to him?”
She had done something, that was for certain.
Now that she thought about it, she’d probably scratched him quite thoroughly in her uncontrolled rage.
Olivia only now felt genuine regret.
She should have realized earlier that Aiden was the Training Instructor!
But it was too late.
They say that the hottest flames burn blue, don’t they?
That’s exactly what his eyes looked like.
Those blue irises burned as though set ablaze, fierce and bright.
Thump. His footsteps rang out like thunder.
Aiden smiled widely, just as Olivia had the day before, and spoke.
“Welcome to hell, everyone.”
This wasn’t the military, though.
Olivia’s quiet protest was swallowed up in the anxious murmuring of the pale-faced students around her.

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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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