Today…… Aren't You Going to Annoy Me?

Chapter 153

We walked side by side toward the entrance of the botanical garden.

The moment we opened the glass doors and stepped inside.

Whoosh──!

'Gasp.'

Hot, humid air enveloped my entire body, making me wonder whether this was a botanical garden or a sauna.

The moment I entered, my breath caught, and I nearly coughed.

I'd thought the greenhouse managed by Viscountess Müller at the Academy was quite hot, but this was on an entirely different level.

Perhaps because this area was packed with tropical plants, sweat had already beaded on my forehead after I'd walked only a little.

'Ah. It's hot.'

It was so hot that I felt an urge to throw decorum out the window and loosen my tie, but I couldn't do that.

As a compromise, I discreetly undid only the buttons on my outer coat.

But Sophia, walking beside me,

"Wow……."

was completely different from me.

They said she had chronically cold hands and feet, so the stuffy, blazing temperature of the greenhouse was Sophia's ideal climate.

Her shoulders, which had been slightly stiff outside, relaxed comfortably, and I could see her expression becoming much more lively.

'Did my brother deliberately plan this route? No way, right?'

I got chills all over again at our family's Intelligence Department's meticulous information-gathering abilities.

"Young Master, look over there! That petal pattern is so fascinating."

"Indeed. That is rather fascinating."

"Here too……."

Sophia smiled brightly as she slowly looked around.

I followed behind her at an easy pace, observing her back.

Last time, at the restaurant, she had seemed desperate to force a smile onto her face.

But the Sophia before me now was much brighter and was radiating joy with her entire body.

She was even walking much better than before.

'At least I won't have to worry about her breaking anything today.'

Maybe it was because we'd once shared a drinking match and spoken so openly with Lucius.

After confirming Lucius's true feelings, I could even sense a lightness in Sophia, as though one knot in her life had been undone.

Sophia approached a cluster of bright yellow flowers blooming among the broad-leaved tropical plants.

"……."

She bent slightly at the waist and carefully stroked the petals.

Then she turned her head away from the flowers and looked at me with a radiant smile.

A yellow dress, yellow flowers,

and brown hair that looked almost blond beneath the warm sunlight.

'Oh.'

For a moment.

'She's so beautiful.'

Pure admiration slipped out from deep within my chest.

Naturally, the face of Elysia smiling at me last night came superimposed in my mind.

'I'm really living a bizarre life.'

Once I realized it, I almost let out a hollow laugh.

Last night, I had been fooling around with a duke's treasured daughter.

And today, in broad daylight, I was strolling through a flower garden and fooling around with the sickly daughter of a count's house, a girl burdened with all sorts of circumstances.

It was a crazy schedule I could never have imagined before realizing I'd been possessed earlier this year.

Before that, I thought I'd grow old and die alone, digging potatoes in some backwater territory.

As I stood there looking at her, Sophia took her hand away from the flowers and hurried over to me.

"Young Master Farne."

"Yes."

"It's a flower I really love."

Sophia looked up at me and whispered in a voice full of anticipation.

"Would you like to smell it?"

She turned around and pointed with her hand toward the spot where the yellow flowers bloomed.

"Ah, yes. Let's do that."

I nodded and headed with Sophia toward the cluster of flowers she had pointed out.

Then, when I leaned forward slightly, naturally,

her shoulder and my arm ended up a precariously close distance apart, almost touching.

A rich floral scent rushed into my nose.

And mingled with that floral scent was a subtle fragrance from Sophia's hair.

I know this sounds fucking perverted,

but whatever the scent was, it was more pleasant than any other fragrance in the world.

Of course, even more pleasant than the flowers' scent.

* * *

Beneath the glass dome where sunlight poured down,

Sophia was bending toward a cluster of bright yellow flowers blooming among the broad-leaved tropical plants.

Warm light scattered across the bridge of her nose.

"……."

I stood one step behind her, watching her profile as she bent over and quietly savored the texture of the petals.

A pleasant blush colored her once-pale cheeks, perhaps thanks to the botanical garden's warmth, while her slender shoulders were as delicate as flower petals.

Somehow.

I'd always thought words like 'ditzy charm' and 'sickly beauty' were nothing but bullshit that existed only in novels.

'Guess not.'

I've learned a great many things since falling into this world.

If watching Lily, who had claimed the sofa in my lab and kept having food stolen by palm-sized animals, taught me that ditzy charm was genuinely a kind of beauty capable of disarming people,

then now,

through Sophia, who wore a yellow dress that looked as though it weighed no more than she did and softly breathed in the scent of the flowers, I came to feel keenly that such precarious, delicate sickliness itself could be a beauty that ensnared people's gazes.

So this is what sickly beauty really is.

It doesn't just stimulate one's protective instincts—it grabs you by the collar and shakes you.

'Ah, damn. Stop fantasizing.'

Having thought that, I realized how perverted my inner monologue sounded, so I gave a small cough and opened my mouth.

"Is there a reason you like that flower so much?"

"A reason…… Yes, of course."

At my question, Sophia took her hand away from the petals and looked up at me.

A faint longing passed through her eyes.

"My mother."

She whispered with a gentle smile around her lips,

"They say it was the flower she loved most."

Huh.

I was about to nod without thinking, but then I suddenly sensed something strange in the way she had ended her sentence.

'It's the flower she likes most,' not 'They say it was the flower she liked most.'

No matter how I looked at it, it was in the past tense, and the indirect wording sounded as though she had heard it from someone else.

That caught my attention.

'Right. So there wasn't even a lady of the house in that family.'

As far as I knew, Baron Hamel, her paternal uncle, held the real power in House Rohanna, while Lucius precariously guarded his position as heir under that threat.

Yet whenever I saw the sorry state of that household, there wasn't a glimpse of their mother anywhere.

This world only looks medieval on the outside; at heart, it's a romance-fantasy setting, so women's rights and their voice in society were absolutely not at the level of those in the oppressed medieval era of history.

If the lady of the house, who helped guide the family's prosperity, had been alive and keeping a sharp eye on things, there was no way her own children would have been so helplessly victimized by that greedy uncle.

As my speculation chased its own tail, Sophia continued in a calm voice.

"My mother died not long after giving birth to us."

"……."

I barely managed to swallow the sigh that was about to escape.

It was too heavy a subject to casually offer words of comfort over.

Sophia turned her gaze back to the yellow flowers and murmured quietly.

"So I have no clear memory of my mother. But strangely, ever since I heard that this was the flower Mother loved most."

Her white fingertips carefully stroked the petals.

"I've kept looking for this flower, and in the process, naturally came to like it, but……"

Sophia turned her head toward me and gave me a faintly sad smile with her eyes.

"I don't know whether I truly like this flower. Or whether I only want to convince myself that I like it because I want to create a connection with my mother……"

Her candid confession left a weight in one corner of my chest.

A mother who had died giving birth to her.

All the years she had spent longing for someone whose face she had never even seen while battling illness.

It suddenly became clear why Lucius was so blindly fixated on his twin sister.

"You must have been through a lot."

I pulled my hand from my pocket and answered evenly.

"No wonder the affection between you and Lucius is so unusually deep."

At my words, Sophia opened her eyes wide, then nodded deeply.

"That's right. Other people tell me that's not the case, but I still couldn't shake the guilt that my mother died because of me……"

A deep attachment to her brother welled up in her blue eyes.

"Having one person who can fully share that pain with you is a tremendous comfort to anyone."

"……."

I was speechless.

Sophia spoke calmly, wearing a smile that was somehow terribly pitiful and sad.

Just looking at that expression made my heart give a heavy thud of confusion.

What was this feeling?

Surely the sickly beauty I'd muttered about earlier hadn't exploded into a fourfold critical-hit event.

A sharp ache spread through one corner of my chest, and my gaze remained fixed on Sophia, unable to pull away.

This sensation was strangely sticky and clinging—too much to call mere pity for someone who seemed pitiful.

Was my heart gradually, and uncontrollably, being drawn to this person?

'……Was I really this quick to fall for someone?'

"Then, my lady."

"Yes?"

"Today, perhaps we could pick a few of those flowers, and……"

I pointed with my chin toward the employee waiting for us on the far side of the greenhouse.

"Shall I ask that employee over there to arrange them in a pretty vase for you?"

We couldn't take a connection to her mother home from the botanical garden, but at least we could place that connection intact on the table before us for today.

At my proposal, Sophia's eyes widened slightly, then began to sparkle with clear moisture.

"……I like that."

Sophia smiled brightly and bobbed her head.

"I think I'd really like that."

* * *

The tea house was a beautiful place, with sunlight pouring through its wall-to-wall windows.

Inside the tall crystal vase set on the marble table,

the two bright yellow flowers Sophia had admired earlier stood prettily arranged.

"I shall prepare your tea."

The employee tilted the teapot and poured a clear tea.

A fragrant tea aroma spread across the table.

"Mmm."

I murmured in quiet admiration at the scent brushing across the tip of my nose.

It was the rich scent of tea leaves, yet somehow it blended perfectly with the lively floral fragrance filling the greenhouse, without feeling out of place at all.

Reading my expression, the employee set down the teapot and explained politely,

"This is a blended tea personally designed by the capital's finest perfumer with the botanical garden's environment in mind. Its fragrance harmonizes exclusively with Argen Botanical Garden."

Having finished his explanation, the employee quietly withdrew.

I ran my fingers over the teacup's handle and clicked my tongue inwardly.

'As expected. Money really is nice.'

I couldn't even begin to estimate how much my brother had shelled out to set this place up.

I carefully lifted the teacup.

The instant the warm tea moistened my mouth and went down my throat,

"Excuse me, Young Master Farne."

"Yes."

With the teacup at my lips, I turned my gaze, and Sophia, seated across from me, was staring intently.

The corners of her eyes curved playfully.

"Today…… aren't you going to annoy me?"

Cough.

I nearly sprayed the tea in my mouth.