Chapter 4

After the prince left, I sat alone and thought things through.

Since I had never pursued the prince’s route, I knew nothing about his past, nor did I know what was going to happen to him from here on. Would he meet the heroine and have his emotional scars healed, or would there be some contact with the heroine before entering the academy?

Ah, I really should have asked my best friend more about this.

Even though I knew it was too late to regret it now, I hadn’t expected him to be carrying such a deep darkness. The knight I had pursued tended to be on the more positive side, and his worries hadn’t been nearly this serious, or so I felt.

Besides, the heroine had been together with him since they were little because they were childhood friends.

If the prince were to meet the heroine right around now, just like the knight did, that would still be fine. To put it crudely, it would be great if she could just handle all of his therapy for him.

However, after talking with the prince for a month, I didn’t get that kind of vibe at all, and it was hard to imagine that a prince with a fiancée could go around meeting other girls. On top of that, the heroine was still a commoner. Could a commoner heroine still somehow manage to meet royalty by sheer good fortune? Bertia, having spent nine and a half years in this world, knew the answer to that. It was impossible. Even if this world happened to be an otome game, that was simply out of the question.

If I deduced it that way, the prince would never get to meet the heroine until he entered the academy, meaning he would have to spend the remaining five years or so while still carrying his wounds.

Wasn’t that just far too cruel, no matter how you looked at it? He would just spend the rest of his time with a fiancée he didn’t even like, waiting for a savior to reach out. Unless he crossed paths with the commoner heroine, he would never be saved. Naturally, things were bound to get twisted for him.

And in the meantime, all I could do was stand by and watch. Leaving a wounded child unattended for years.

━━That was out of the question.

In my past life, I was the eldest of five siblings—two younger sisters and two younger brothers—which was rare these days. My two younger sisters were good girls and didn’t require much looking after, but my two younger brothers were a real handful. Instead of my dual-income parents, I would rush straight home without going to club activities so I could do the chores and take care of my brothers. No matter how much I scolded them over boyish fights or dangerous games, I only ever got temporary apologies before they came back covered in new injuries.

The brother closest to me in age was particularly sullen and wouldn’t listen to a word of my warnings. Having grown up watching a brother like that, my youngest brother—six years my junior—had also grown into an insolent brat.

I was still just a high schooler myself, completely overwhelmed by my wild, foolish brother. My best friend helped out whenever she could, but with her short temper, she would immediately start brawling with him.

“Don’t you dare cause trouble for your older sister! Shape up or I’ll blast you into next week!”

Furious, she had yelled and punched my brother right across the face. Panicking, I rushed over to my bleeding brother, but he shoved me away and stormed out of the house.

At the time, my heart had been in my throat wondering if he had run away from home, but he returned safely, so I let it slide. Though he refused to speak to me for a while afterward.

However, on the birthday of my youngest sister. Neither of our parents could come home from work, so the five of us siblings had dinner together. When I served the omurice our sister loved so much and tried to wrangle my rowdy brothers into eating, she suddenly burst into tears.

“Why aren’t Mom and Dad coming?”

Nobody could say a thing. Even among us siblings, even our foolish brothers wouldn’t touch upon that topic. It was an unspoken rule for us, seeing as we were still just children. But my youngest sister was too young to understand. Even if I told her they were working, she certainly wouldn’t accept it.

A heavy, cold silence fell over the tiny living room. Everyone’s expressions grew dark, contrasting sharply with our innocent sister. As I hesitated over what to say, my brother—whose hair was dyed blonde—suddenly stood up and shouted:

“Obviously it’s because they couldn’t care less about us! They’ve forgotten all about us!”

With that, he kicked his chair away.

“They’re never home anyway, and they don’t give a damn about us!”

With a harsh, ear-piercing crash, I realized my brother had punched the wall. Blood was seeping from his hand because he had hit it too hard.

“Stop that!”

“You’re just as bad, Sis!”

I flinched slightly under his sharp glare. A thin film of water pooled in my glaring brother’s eyes.

“Why can you just smile like that? How can you take care of someone like me? You gave up kendo because of us, didn’t you? You should just dump us like Mom and Dad did.”

Tears finally overflowed from the eyes of the brother who shouted those words.

I don’t know him. I don’t know a brother like this.

“I want to ditch you guys and get out of this house, too. I don’t need parents who never come home… But nobody ever gives up on me—”

With that, he broke down crying, dropping his tears onto the floor, and I was utterly incapable of offering any excuses. Everything my brother said was right. I, too, had wanted to live however I pleased and enjoy my youth just like anyone else. I had wanted to practice kendo as much as I wanted. I had even resented my parents, wondering why it always had to be me. I had felt the crushing loneliness of having no one to rely on.

Yet the option of giving up on them simply didn’t exist.

“Idiot!”

There was no way I could ever give up on them.

“You’re… really an idiot.”

Without arguing back, I gently pulled my weeping, sobbing brother into an embrace. He let himself be held, and I heard the sound of him sniffing back his snot.

Beckoning our younger sisters, who had started crying buckets when they saw us, I pulled them into the hug as well. Even my cheeky brother came over obediently for once. He was biting his lips to keep from crying, but his face was already an absolute mess of tears and snot.

Feeling the warmth of my siblings, tears started welling up in my own eyes, too.

“Why are you crying, Sis…”

Having stopped crying, my brother glared at me. His eyes were bloodshot red, making him look completely unthreatening.

“You keep telling me to do whatever I want and just abandon you guys, you know. But how could I ever do something like that?”

I tried to sound cheerful, but my voice inevitably came out all teary. How pathetic.

“Because we’re siblings, aren’t we? You’re my only little brothers and sisters in this entire world.”

When I said that, my brother’s face crumpled up as if he were about to cry all over again.

I hugged all four of them with every ounce of strength I had. They all complained that it hurt, but I didn’t care.

“What would happen if your big sister abandoned you all?! Because I love every single one of you!”

Hearing myself say that made me burst into a full-on bawl, too. After all, my blonde brother was hugging me back. Pulling a move like that was just playing dirty.

“I-I love you too!”

Cracking his voice, the brother six years my junior blurted that out. Following his lead, my sister three years younger and my youngest sister both chimed in.

“I-I love you too!”

“Miyu too! Miyu loves everyone too!”

Naturally, everyone’s gazes converged on the blonde one. He froze, his bloodshot eyes wide, with an expression that seemed to say, Wait, me? Unable to withstand everyone’s staring, he tried to make a break for it, but I had him locked in a solid hold so he couldn’t escape.

“Ngh, of course I love you guys, too! If I didn’t, I wouldn’t even be here, you jerk!”

He shouted with his crying-red face turned even redder. The “you jerk” part was totally uncalled for, but I wondered how many years it had been since I last heard the word “love” from this brother.

Feeling happy, feeling lonely, yet ultimately happy, the five of us siblings cried our eyes out even though it was our sister’s birthday. Clinging to each other, we huddled into a single weeping ball.

On that day, I touched upon the loneliness of my siblings for the very first time. My brother growing sullen, and my sisters holding back their selfishness—though the forms differed, I believed they were both expressions of a certain kind of loneliness. My brother wanted someone to look at him. My sisters wanted to be praised.

Watching the prince reminded me of my brothers. Having looked after them, I could understand that kind of loneliness more or less. In truth, I had felt lonely without parents, too. To fill that void, I played kendo, and I worked hard because I had my best friend. Just like my other siblings, my brother had started hanging out late at night, and my sisters often went out to play with friends. I recalled feeling a pang of heartache, as if they were desperately trying to run away from home.

However, the prince seemingly had nothing to distract himself from his loneliness.

I couldn’t become the heroine. To my brothers and sisters, I was “Big Sister” right up to the end. I could never be their one-and-only mother. Therefore, just like the heroine, I probably wouldn’t be able to heal the prince’s wounds.

Even so, taking his mind off things was something I could manage. …Probably.

By hanging out, by talking, I could fill the void of his loneliness so his wounds wouldn’t spread any further. If it was just that, surely even I could do it.

If he had any hobbies, I figured he could just pursue those, but I didn’t see any sign of that in the prince as he was now. Or rather, he gave the impression of being indifferent to everything.

So what should I do?

Honestly, making a friend was the quickest shortcut. A friend you could consult about anything. A trustworthy friend. Relationships with people always came down to fate, so meeting a friend you truly clicked with was difficult. Would that delicate-looking boy have any candidate for a friend who was attentive to every little detail? The answer was yes.

As it happened with incredible good fortune, there was one child right here bearing the name of a fiancée. Furthermore, her insides belonged to an adult woman. It would be a crime not to make use of this.

Being friends with the prince, huh… Wasn’t the difficulty level a bit too high?

How on earth had the heroine captured the prince’s heart? How had I become friends with Ashwad back then?

Hmm, I thought, and the sparkling images and lines of the heroine and a young Ashwad floated into my mind.

“Won’t you become my friend?”

…That was quite the direct fastball.

No, at this point, maybe a direct fastball was the only way to go. It was being said by a heroine packed with every ideal a girl could dream of. It was bound to be the correct answer.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like there was no better solution than that. I had no choice but to go in with a frontal breakthrough. It was fine. The me right now was an elementary schooler!

Even a temporary pain reliever was fine. Until the heroine showed up, I would just have to drag the prince along somehow.

Even if my engagement got broken off eventually, right now I was his fiancée, and he was my fiancée, too. If that was the case, it wouldn’t hurt to push him around a little bit. He didn’t like me anyway. If he hated me, well, I could just throw caution to the wind and boss him around without holding back.

Prince, just you wait. I am going to be your friend number one.

The execution date was tomorrow. I’ll name it—Operation Best Friend!