Chapter 47: CH 46

Clack— clack— clack—

The slow saunter echoing from the ground gradually arrived in front of the spot where Fran was hiding.

“I found you, my darling.”

She said those words right after bending down to get a better look. And, true enough, her eyes found one man hiding behind that piece of furniture.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘darling’…!”

“Why ever not? When you’re my darling.”

“Why on earth am I your darling…!”

“What should I call you then?”

“No, seriously, why am I your darling?!”

“Because you are.”

The conversation just kept going around circles and ending at the same spot. Fran eventually shouted in frustration.

“W-What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Hm? Which part?”

Reina smiled innocently and feigned innocence.

“Don’t you hate me?!”

“Oh, why are you so sure about that?”

Fran paused.

“Look at it this way, maybe I just acted that way so that I wouldn’t show my true feelings, right?”

“…But you like His Excellency Ethan though!”

“Ah~ That? When it comes to my love, the more the merrier, right?”

“The more… what?”

“The merrier.”

With her eyes curved like crescent moons, Reina tilted her head to the side. And in response, the man before her flinched and could feel cold sweat running down his back. He backed away immediately.

“Oh my.”

Reina followed anyway. Not more, not less. Just one step.

“S-S-Still, isn’t your da…darling His Excellency Ethan…!”

“Ethan, my love?”

“…Yeah.”

“By chance, is my darling jealous?”

“W-What?”

“That’s cute, too.”

“No, like hell I am!”

“Don’t worry. You’re the only one I call ‘darling’.”

Then, she slightly turned to the side and winked at him.

Immediately, Fran stepped back with a face flushed bright red with embarrassment. He also started hyperventilating as a bonus.

“Don’t run away. Come hang out with me, my darling.”

And her words just made his face an even brighter shade of red. So, Reina became certain of it.

‘You must really like stalkers, huh.’

How fast was his heart beating for his face to blush as fiercely as that?

‘Omg he can’t even breathe properly, look. Does he like it so much to the point that he couldn’t breathe?’

Who else would have thought like that though.

One accidental success shouldn’t have been enough.

However, thanks to the lucky break she got from doing her attack-pursuit of Ethan, Reina now had only flowers in her head.

* * *

After Reina’s ‘successful’ first step towards pursuing Fran, she flirted with him without any rest yesterday.

“Fran!”

“Uuuugh…! W-Why are you in my room…!”

“My my, it’s your room? Oh, but I thought this is my husband’s room~”

What do you think was Fran’s reaction when she said that line? He was sweating profusely while blushing—really excited, in short.

“You’re truly magnificent, Reina Chantra. Truly superb.”

Reina commended herself as she recalled how his hands were even shaking so much out of his excitement. This really cemented the fact in her mind that she managed to hit Fran’s ideal type to a tee.

“Dang though, he’s got really unique tastes. I’ve never met anyone else in my life whose ideal type is a stalker.”

Hmm, but why can’t I find neither hide nor hair of him today?

Reina went around and continued to look for him relentlessly. She started her search this morning, and it’s already been three hours since then, but she still couldn’t find him anywhere.

“Ah, I know… Maybe this is a game of hide and seek?”

Now that she thought about it, didn’t she hear that he played that same game for three years with the maid who was his first love?

“Oho.”

This guy. He must really miss those days.

“Then it’s only a matter of course for the seducer to satisfy the seducee’s wants and needs.”

As she came to that decisive conclusion as fast as a radish chop, Reina proceeded to renew her search for Fran everywhere, complete with a wide grin on her face.

“Fraaaan~ Are we playing hide and seek again~?”

Clack— clack—

“Come out come out wherever you are. Or else, I’ll get really angry.”

Trying to coax out the man, whose location she wasn’t certain of, she snooped around here and there at the main building and the detached building of the Cressen villa they were in, where pink flowers bloomed beautifully.

“Huh? It’s you, Reina.”

She wanted Fran to come out, and yet he didn’t. Instead, the person she wanted to avoid was the one who greeted her.

Reina’s body creaked unnaturally as she turned around to face the person who called her name.

Tanned skin, dark brown hair that had been styled upwards, thick and dark eyebrows that had a slight cut on one of them, and then large eyes that had an unmatched cool stretch at their corners.

It was Letis of House Stymist, a man who was popular with both men and women of all ages.

“……”

Ugh, what should she do now. She wasn’t ready to deal with Letis yet, but she stopped what she was doing and faced him.

‘I heard this guy’s one heck of a punk…’

Her eyes wandered along the smooth copper skin of the man. A light concern flashed through her mind.

As far as she could remember, this man puts the ‘crazy’ in ‘crazy seme’.

‘He’s not the obsessive type though, but… Still, he’s an unpredictable one… Haa.’

Even as she was in the midst of her contemplation, the man approached Reina without any hesitation, acting on his curiosity whether or not Reina was flustered by his presence.

“Who are you looking for?”

Unlike the juvenile demeanor he carried himself with—hands inside his pockets, posture crooked—that smile on his face made it look like he was being genuine as he struck a conversation with her.

‘Well, I mean, Letis is one of the targets on my list of bachelors who recently had their engagements broken…’

So, it was only right for her to keep up an amicable relationship with him, to a certain extent.

As Reina reluctantly concluded, the corners of her lips soon turned up into a smile. Her stiff expression from before was now gone.

“Oh my, it’s you, Letis? Fancy seeing you here. It must be our fate.”

But as expected, Letis was one hell of a guy, too.

“Right? That’s what I also think.”

Not only did he take Reina’s forced acting in stride, but he also took it a step further by naturally placing one arm over Reina’s shoulder.

‘…With the way things are going, it’s important for me to prepare my maiden heart now.’

And besides that, look at him, sneakily initiating skinship just like that.

“Haa… Letis.”

“Hm?”

Reina pouted a little, then she looked up at him with a slightly displeased expression.

“I’m sorry, but can you stop clumsily slinging your arm over my shoulders like this? Can’t you just hug me straight away?”