3-6 - And So The Same Mistakes Were Repeated

“You stay in this room and behave yourself.”

After being escorted away by the knights, I was roughly thrown into a room containing nothing but a bed.

“Hey, what are you planning to do with me?”

“Shut up! Just stay in that room and keep quiet!”

“At least tell me why.”

I tried to press them for an answer, but the knights ignored me. They mercilessly shut the door. Still unwilling to accept the situation, I rushed toward it, only to hear the lock click from the other side.

“Hey, wait! Come on, answer me!”

I kept shouting for a while, but there was no response. Eventually, I gave up trying to get their attention and sat down on the edge of the bed in the corner of the room.

…Seriously, what the hell was going on? Had Caroline-san somehow found out about my discussion with House Sphiel? No, even if she had, there was no way she could have acted this quickly.

Then was it about the succession? But I thought we’d already settled that matter.

In that case…

“Ha! Serves you right.”

A mocking voice suddenly rang out. Looking up, I discovered what appeared to be a small observation window in the door, through which Blake was peering at me.

“…What do you want with me?”

“Watch how you speak to me. You’re in no position to defy me anymore.”

“Defy you?”

“That’s right. I know all about those little schemes you’ve been plotting.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“Ha! Don’t play dumb with me. You’ve been after my position, haven’t you? I know you’ve been whispering things into Father’s ear and scheming behind my back. That’s why you took Claire to House Sphiel this time, isn’t it?”

…Oh, I see. So Caroline-san had interpreted my claim that I wasn’t interested in becoming the heir as a lie intended to conceal my true intentions.

I wasn’t nearly that ambitious, and I certainly wasn’t some master schemer. Wasn’t she giving me a little too much credit?

Anyway, Blake really was something else. All I had to do was ask a few questions, and he’d happily tell me everything I wanted to know. What a nice guy… No, scratch that.

Even sarcastically, I didn’t want to call someone who’d tried to hurt Alice a nice guy.

“I don’t know what you were plotting, but you’d better give up now. You’re never getting out of that room for the rest of your life.”

“The rest of my life…? What about my marriage into House Sphiel?”

“There’s no telling what you might do if we let you loose. Mother has ordered that you be confined for the rest of your life.”

Confined for the rest of my life…? Was he serious? There was no way they could… Wait, come to think of it, I’d basically been confined since birth.

This was bad. I certainly wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life in a room like this. I needed to find some way to speak with Caroline-san and clear up this misunderstanding.

“Hey, could you let me talk to Caroline-san?”

“Ha! Why should I let someone like you see Mother? Besides, it’s far too late to start regretting what you’ve done.”

“No, this whole thing is a misunderstanding. If you just let me talk to Caroline-san, I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“Shut up! I’ve heard enough. You can spend the rest of your life regretting your actions in there!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Can’t you at least listen to what I’m saying!?”

I hurriedly tried to stop him, but Blake simply shut the observation window.

…Man, what a mess. With Father, Claire-nee, and the promises we’d made to House Sphiel, I doubted they’d actually keep me locked up forever… But there was also the matter of Alice.

I needed to clear up this misunderstanding and get out of here as soon as possible, or things would get ugly. Unfortunately, despite my hopes, several days passed without anything changing.

Then, one day, something finally happened.

My monotonous routine, in which a taciturn maid merely brought me my meals, was finally interrupted. Instead of the usual silent maid, the person delivering my food was someone I knew—Michelle.

“Michelle!”

“Shh! Please keep your voice down. I’ll have your meal brought in now, so please try not to make too much noise.”

“…Got it.”

I didn’t know what was going on, but I trusted Michelle and nodded. Shortly afterward, the door opened, and a black-haired maid slipped into the room carrying a tray. Once she was inside, Michelle closed the door again.

Come to think of it, I didn’t recognize this maid, but there was something strangely familiar about her… Wait a second.

“Could it be… Claire-nee?”

“Hehe, that’s my little brother. You figured it out right away.”

“Just a hunch… Wait, is that a wig?”

“That’s right. If anyone saw my real hair, they’d recognize me immediately.”

With a practiced motion, Claire-nee removed her wig. Beautiful platinum-blond hair spilled out from beneath the black covering.

“Well? Don’t I look cute dressed as a maid?”

“Are you seriously saying that about yourself…? Well, you do look cute.”

In this world, blond hair was practically a sign of nobility, so seeing a maid with platinum-blond hair felt a little strange. If anything, she looked more like one of the girls who worked at a maid café.

“What do you mean, I look cute but…?”

“I was just thinking you could become a star maid in no time, Claire-nee.”

“A-a star maid? That’s supposed to be a compliment, right?”

“Don’t worry, it definitely is. Anyway, putting that aside, could you explain what’s going on? You’re not here to help me escape… are you?”

“Unfortunately, no. There are guards stationed in the corridor outside, so there’s no way I can get you out.”

“Then could you at least explain the situation?”

“Of course. But we don’t have much time, so I’ll keep it brief. You already know that Mother was the one who had you locked up, right?”

“Yeah, Blake came by and told me.”

“I see. That makes things easier. I tried convincing Mother to release you, but she wouldn’t listen to a word I said. Father seems to be trying to mediate, but that doesn’t appear to be helping either.”

“I see… What about you and Alice, Claire-nee? Are you both okay?”

“Alice is still living normally in the detached building for now. It seems Father has been protecting her.”

“I see. Thank goodness…”

Learning that Alice was safe, I let out a heartfelt sigh of relief.

However—

“But as for me… Hey, little brother. My marriage has finally been decided.”

“…Huh?”

“My husband will be Marquis Gramp, the man I told you about before. The one who’s eighteen years older than me.”

“B-but that won’t be happening for a while yet, right?”

“Not until I turn twelve. That’s… about six months from now.”

“There’s still six months! Anything could happen in that time, right!? If our plan works, I’m sure Carlos-san will find some way to help!”

“It’s impossible. You know that too, don’t you? Even if we started acting right now, there’s no guarantee we’d make it in six months. And with you locked up like this, there’s nothing we can do, is there?”

“But… But there has to be another way!”

It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand what she was saying. But accepting it felt like admitting that Claire-nee would disappear from my life, and I simply couldn’t bring myself to do that.

“…Listen, little brother. I came here today to say goodbye. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be undergoing bridal training, so they won’t let me move around freely like they used to.”

Claire-nee gave me the faintest smile. It was the kind of smile worn by someone who had accepted every sorrow life had dealt them, a smile that made my chest ache just looking at it.

I… I knew that smile all too well. After all, in my previous life, I’d spent so much time watching Saya smile in exactly the same way.

“…Claire-nee. Is there really, truly nothing we can do?”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be fine, little brother. Carlos-san will find a way to help you, and I’ll ask Marquis Gramp to put in a good word for you too.”

“That’s not what I mean! You’re the one I’m worried about, Claire-nee!”

When it came to Saya, all I’d been able to do was watch over her.

She’d suffered from an incurable disease that had completely defeated modern medicine on Earth. There had been nothing I could do except pray to God… All I could do was watch over Saya as she accepted her approaching death.

But things were different now.

I didn’t need to pray to God to save Claire-nee. All it would take was changing someone’s mind. Knowing that, there was no way I could simply accept Claire-nee giving up on everything.

“There has to be something. There has to be something I can do.”

“…There is. Just one thing. Something you… No. Something only you can do, little brother.”

“Tell me! If it’s something I can do, I’ll do anything!”

“Then I want you to be my first.”

I caught my breath at Claire-nee’s words.

“…D-don’t make jokes like that at a time like this.”

“Do you really think I’d joke about something like that at a time like this?”

“…Are you serious?”

But we were brother and sister. Or was that just a trivial detail to Claire-nee? No, more importantly, why was Claire-nee asking me to do something like that…?

“Little brother. I love you. I have ever since the moment we first met.”

As though answering my unspoken questions, Claire-nee uttered those decisive words. Hearing them left me deeply shaken.

“…You love me, Claire-nee?”

“That’s right. I’m attracted to you, not as your sister, but as a girl.”

Was she serious? Did that mean all those affectionate remarks she’d made jokingly in the past had actually been genuine? Did Claire-nee truly want to give me her first time?

If that was the case, what was I supposed to do?

Because I retained the memories of my previous life, I still thought of myself as Yuya, while Leon was merely the name of the new body I’d been given. And since Claire-nee had grown up living somewhere else, I didn’t have much sense of her being my biological sister.

So I’d be lying if I said I’d never looked at her as a member of the opposite sex.

But that was beside the point. Finding my sister attractive enough to make my heart skip a beat was one thing, but actually seeing her as a potential romantic partner was another, wasn’t it? At the very least, I couldn’t look at Claire-nee that way.

That was why I couldn’t return her feelings.

Even so, there was something that troubled me. There was a chance I might never see Claire-nee again. If I hurt her now, I might end up regretting it just as I had when I lost Saya.

As I found myself trapped in that dead end of conflicting thoughts, Claire-nee gently cupped my cheek in her palm.

“—I love you so much, little brother.”

Claire-nee’s lips brushed against my cheek as she whispered those words into my ear. Then she immediately stood up.

“…Claire-nee?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to go now. I really don’t have much time.”

“Huh? But—”

If she’d intended to give me her first time, surely we would have had a little more time together—just as that thought crossed my mind, I saw the lonely expression on Claire-nee’s face and understood everything.

Claire-nee had told me from the beginning that we didn’t have much time. All she’d wanted was for me to accept her feelings.

Once again, I had made the same mistake I had with Saya—

“Claire-nee!”

“…Bye-bye, little brother.”

My outstretched hand never reached Claire-nee. She avoided my grasp and walked straight out of the room.