Your Majesty, Please Don’t Kill Me Again - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Would he like me if I acted like that to him?

Sucking up to him. Laughing and rubbing my palms in front of him. I looked into the raccoon’s weird eyes and realized it was a terrible idea to compare myself with the animal.

How did you become the bad guy’s pet? I asked myself, but the beast just moved its evil eyes because it was impossible for him to read my mind.

“Where’s Tori?”

“Oh… her stomach hurt, so she went back.”

Rupert rarely let Tori away from his sight. She hasn’t been gone that long, but he’s already looking for her… it kinda makes me sad. We’re both his maids, but isn’t he showing too much favoritism?

“You seem to like Tori a lot.”

Rupert looked at me with his eyebrows raised when he heard my words. He frowned and looked at me with a ridiculous expression.

“Not really.”

Even though he doesn’t like her that much, he still keeps her beside him.

Is he maybe embarrassed?

Even though he’s been growing at a frighteningly quick rate lately, he still looks very young because he’s grown so slowly. However, he’s already fourteen years old. Even Lehan had started to act weird around this time.

It’s probably when one starts to long for spring – puberty. It’s the age where a girl or a boy starts feeling ‘like’ toward the opposite sex at least once. I couldn’t find any evidence of such feelings between Tory and Rupert yet, but they have a connection that I couldn’t figure out.

I’m not knowledgeable about these kinds of things, but also maybe because he’s a tough nut to crack. It was hard to even imagine that he was a person capable of such fond emotions, so it was hard to believe.

“You like her.”

I sat down next to Rupert, unsure of whether or not his answer was the one I expected.

“What are you seeing and hearing?”

Rupert sat up completely, wearing a raccoon as a scarf. He put his back against a big, old tree and rested his chin on one arm on his lap. I rolled my eyes because Rupert was too boyish to play as a girl.

“If you sit that way, I might be able to see the inside of your skirt.”

“Take a look if you want to.”

Even if they would pay me a lot, I don’t want to see the inside of a skirt of a fourteen-year-old boy pretending to be a girl. I sighed and shook my head.

Maybe because of the rigorous classes I took under Mrs. Crissy, but somehow I was so sensitive to how a noble girl should appear, inside and out.

“Nobles don’t sit like that.”

“It’s also not proper etiquette to sit on the dirt like this.”

And, we’re back to the beginning.

“Anyway, you do love Tori, that’s true.”

“Does everything you treasure, you also love?”

“Shouldn’t it be the opposite? You like it, so you treasure it.”

When I asked Rupert a question, he paused.

His lips were pursed as if thinking hard with a serious expression, and the raccoon climbed up to his nape.

“Just because you like something doesn’t mean you love everything about it.”

“If you like it, then you should cherish it.”

“Would you?”

“Almost everyone would.”

I couldn’t understand Rupert’s question.

What part of ‘if you like it, then cherish it’ doesn’t he understand?

Whether you like it or not, it’s inevitable that you’d cherish it if you really like it.

“I guess it’s not possible most of the time.”

“Are you implying no?”

I don’t know what he meant by that. But it might help me understand his heart better, so I tried listening.

“I only know how to take care of what’s mine.”

Mine.

Rupert would often do this, almost as if he were talking to himself.

What’s his and what isn’t.

What’s within his grasp and what isn’t, as if they’re different. As if they exist in completely separate worlds.

“It makes no difference whether you like it or not.”

Whether you like it or not, if it is yours, it shows that you care about it.

I got up and moved closer to Rupert, who put the raccoon down as if ready to go back to the palace.

“Do you own Tori?”

I know the answer. He owns both Tori and Guri. That’s why it’s a given that he loves them. But his reason isn’t something like possessiveness or obsession. It seemed like he cherished them not because he liked them but because they were the only ones he had.

“Yeah.”

“Me?”

I’ve been told the answer to this question before. Time went by quickly, and soon it was spring. But even the warm sun of spring couldn’t melt the frozen edge of his day. Still, it was silly to wait for his answer, so I laughed out loud as if I were reassuring myself.

I hate this kid more than anyone else, and it’s annoying that I’m eager to get close to him.

As I waited for Rupert’s answer, I had to hold back a nervous laugh.

“You.”

Rupert’s small mouth took its time to open. He seemed to be slowly smirking at me while my eyes lit up, and I waited for an answer.

“No.”

“But I’m your maid.”

“You’re given to me by the palace.”

“What if I want to completely become your lady-in-waiting?”

“I don’t believe that.”

It’s only natural to feel disappointed. Rupert turned around and started to walk away without telling me to follow him when he saw that I was getting upset. The tunnel’s distance seemed like a million miles. The darkness kept going on, no matter how much I walked.

Still, I needed to choose, so I got up. I will follow you even if I have to rub my paws together like that sneaky animal and smile a humiliating smile.

“…Ette… LARIETTE!”

“Eugh…”

I couldn’t sleep soundly because I was so sensitive. After two nights of barely even falling asleep, I finally slept well and had a warm and fuzzy dream. I tried to ignore the voice of someone who seemed to be calling me, and I fell back into the abyss of my dream.

I was eighteen in my dream. Although the Emperor was still Rupert Raspereich I, he did not hate the Bellua. I was so happy on this ordinary day when I was eighteen, which I had never thought was so important before.

…is this a hand?

After that, I felt like someone was really holding my hand and really grasping it. My hand shook continuously as if someone was shaking it as I slowly realized the bitter truth that, in reality, I had never gone on a walk alone before, let alone holding a man’s hand. I slowly opened my eyes at the fuzzy line between dream and reality.

Ugh, I just fell asleep.

My anger grew as I felt my mind coming back to the real world.

“LARIETTE! LARI…”

When Tori’s voice woke me up and was telling me to get up, I barely managed to swallow my irritation and turn my head.

She was staring at me while standing in the small space between the old olive wall and my bed.

I didn’t think anyone would be standing there, so for a second, I was scared and felt like I had seen a ghost, but I quickly recognized her.

“Tori?”

The pure white light of the moon shines on her frizzy hair. She’s been out for a long time because her face is tanned and her cheeks are freckled. Her clothes kept getting wet because tears kept falling from her eyes. I was frozen stiff, and I couldn’t even get away from her when she grabbed me and shook me for no reason.

“What, what? What happened!”

“La… Lari…”

I used a hoarse voice to try to calm her down. I woke up grumpy, but Tori grabbed me out of bed and helped me regain my balance. She’s crying so much that I thought someone had died.

“Her Highness is acting weird… hic… She’s… she’s having a bad dream and couldn’t breathe.”

“Tori, calm down, don’t cry.”

Rupert was probably breathing, but Tori also said it didn’t look like he was. She was crying so hard that she couldn’t even breathe. It was as if a nightmare had swallowed her up.

I patted Tori’s shaking back and frowned. Tori’s concern is that he can’t sleep. But maybe it’s just something that keeps him from falling asleep.

A nightmare, perhaps?

“Did you already call the Imperial physician?”

“I…I can’t… Her highness doesn’t want… HUHU, Her highness can’t wake up because of her fever… WAAA!”

“For now, I have medicine for fever and pills to help me sleep.”

I ran by Tori, who was starting to cry again, and quickly ran to the chest of drawers to find a first aid kit. I knew a lot about medicines because I was often sick as a child. Going back in time wouldn’t have helped my fragile health, so I brought a lot of medicines with me when I went to the Palace, just in case.

As I tried to keep up with Tori, who was moving so quickly, I thought I was going to fall. I had the bitter thought that the medicine wasn’t worth it. Dr. Ailee would only give me medicines made by Champagne Pharmaceuticals, and since they were all expensive, I would only take one pill when I really needed it.

An old saying goes along the lines of ‘a person gives an extra piece of bread to a person in need,’ but this medicine is much more valuable than bread.

And Rupert is even a bigger jerk.

I’ll have to charge him later in a different way. After I finished my calculations in front of Tori, who seemed to go crazy because she was worried about her sick master and other stuff like that, I went over to Rupert, who was gasping for air.

“Your Highness?”

Originally, his skin was so pale it could turn blue. He was shaking his weak limbs and sweating a lot. He couldn’t move and had difficulty breathing, as if something hard was pressing on him.

I couldn’t feel sorry for him.

I knew that if I saw a feeble, weak, damsel in distress in such pain, I would be sorry for them, but strange as it may sound, I felt a wave of relief while looking at Rupert like that.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling when I saw him lying so helplessly. A feeling of profound shame rushed in without giving me a break. I’m not someone who takes great pleasure in watching someone get hurt, but this boy in front of me made me like this. I wasn’t only afraid of him, but I hated him so, so much. I’m afraid of the monster growing in this child and the cruel nature hiding in this thin and fragile body. 1

E/n: Lari… you’re very unlikeable right now. Calm your rage down, please. ↩️