𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕: 𝐌𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲
Felix-sama, with a stern face, stormed into the room and confronted Diederick-sama.
“Ojii-sama, what did you say to Ellen? I should have repeatedly told you that I will decide about myself. Please stop doing as you please.”
“It’s because you never decide on a fiancée that I just asked Ellen how she feels.”
“How dare you involve Ellen without my permission. There’s a limit to rudeness!”
Sigh, a quarrel between grandfather and grandson has begun. I want to become invisible. I want to run away.
“Felix-sama, please calm down. Why don’t we take a walk in the garden to change our mood?”
“Ah, let’s do that. Ojii-sama, excuse me.”
As we walked through the spacious garden of the Duke’s house, Felix calmed down considerably. Seeing this side of him, who is usually cheerful, has me a bit shaken.
“I’m sorry. My grandfather shouldn’t have done that. It was rude to you.”
“I don’t mind, but if you don’t decide on a fiancée soon, it will cause concern for those around us.”
Our tone returns to how it used to be, and we speak frankly with each other.
“That’s true… I need to decide. Have you decided, Ellen?”
“Not at all. Sometimes, I even think about not getting married and raising an adopted child as my successor.”
“Isn’t that not allowed?”
“Do you think it’s possible to continue having children without fail for nearly three hundred years? I wonder if there were adopted children once or twice. I’m thinking of checking the family tree next time.”
“Hey, what’s your top priority?”
“First is improving my skills as a pharmacist. Next is raising a successor and having them inherit my knowledge and skills. Marriage comes after that.”
We sat on a bench together.
“I see… You know, I really don’t want to say the same thing as my grandfather, but am I not a candidate for your fiancé? I can support your passion for medicine from behind.”
“Felix, would everyone in the Duke family agree with that? Would they allow me to immerse myself in medicine and treatment without making connections in society? Would they allow me to teach our children how to handle poison?”
Felix is deep in thought.
“If I get married because you say you’ll support me, and then end up being asked to be a normal wife by those around me, that would be the worst scenario. It’s a story where no one becomes happy.”
“That’s true…”
“Why would you say such a thing all of a sudden when we meet for the first time in eight years? You were the one who distanced yourself from me, right? Suddenly, you stopped replying to my letters and stopped coming to my house. I was quite hurt when I was twelve. There’s no way I can respond positively to what you said after meeting for the first time in eight years.”
“Can I make an excuse for that now?”
“Go ahead. As much as you like. I’ll listen to the end.”
We sat on the bench again. Well, let’s listen. If that will satisfy you.
“The last time we met, you were training to drink diluted poison to build resistance. You were making a blue face and vomiting into a bucket. I couldn’t bear to watch. It was so painful to watch that I stopped going to your house.”
“That’s nothing. The suffering of someone who has ingested real poison is nothing like that. I just had a simulated experience with diluted poison. It’s much more dangerous to become a pharmacist without building resistance.”
“At that time, I couldn’t forgive your mother for letting her child do that.”
“You might have thought so as a child, but my mother was managing it properly. But you know, it seems that boys often can’t endure that pain, mentally. Girls seem to be able to endure it better. That’s one of the reasons why pharmacists are inherited through the female line.”
“One of them? Are there other reasons?”
“It seems that men are more likely to get involved in factional disputes. Can you imagine what would happen if someone with knowledge of poison joined a factional dispute? There are good reasons for the rules established in the long history of pharmacists.”
We got up from the bench and started walking again.
“Could you watch your cute daughter drink diluted poison and vomit?”
Felix-sama thought for a while before answering as if squeezing out the words.
“…No, probably not.”
“Right? That’s why I can’t marry you. Above all, the wife of the Duke family has a lot to do. It’s impossible for me, a pharmacist. If I marry you, I will lose both you as my husband and you as my friend.”
Felix-sama stared at me with his deep red hair and red eyes.
“When I heard you were engaged at fifteen, I thought many times that it should have been me, if I hadn’t run away from you.”
“You’re wrong, Felix. There was never a connection between the Duke family and my family from the start. My father and mother decided that it wouldn’t work with me. It was the right decision.”
“You’ve changed. You used to be more timid.”
“A lot has happened, so I’ve changed a bit. Felix, stay my friend as you were before. You are my precious childhood friend. Let’s chat like this again someday.”
“I’ll chat anytime.”
“It’s not your fault. I can’t be Duke-sama’s wife.”
“…I see.”
We both sighed.
“Marriage is difficult, isn’t it?”
“Don’t say that, you who rejected me.”
“I’m sorry.”
This time we both laughed, sat side by side on the bench, and looked up at the sky. The road to my marriage is long.
・・・
『”𝙰𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜.𝚌𝚘𝚖” – 𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚊 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚍𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎, 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚞𝚕𝚐𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕e𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 “𝚍𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝚞𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜” 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚝𝚘 “𝚊𝚍𝚟𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜”.』
・・・
After that, I attended several evening parties. I talked to a few people, but what they wanted was a wife who would protect the household, bear children, and prosper the house. Not a wife who is fascinated by poison and obsessed with making antidotes.
That’s normal. It can’t be helped.
“Do I have to get married?”
I muttered in the carriage on the way home from the party.
When I arrived home and got off the carriage, Stephan said, “You’ve worked hard.”
“I’m tired…”
I ended up being spoiled, even though I thought I shouldn’t complain. Stephan was smiling with a troubled face.
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