I mumbled and crushing the crumbs of cookies with my fingertips.

  "Men are……"2

  "Cough!"

  Perez, who heard me talking to myself, coughed beside me.

  I met Perez after a long time and came to the Palace to play my role.

  But it wasn’t in Poirak Palace that I met Perez.

  It was the garden of the Central Palace, which was opened to all visitors.

  I didn’t commit a crime, and there’s no reason to be stuck in Poirak Palace all the time.

  Caitlyn and Kylus set the tables and chairs in the best sunny spot near the fountain.

  This time again, the cake I bought from ’Caramel Avenue’ was put on a pretty plate.

  White milk was placed instead because I don’t like the drink that much. Perez or the tea, both are growing.

  But now I didn’t feel like eating cake.

  I stared for another piece of bread and flicked it far away with my fingertips.

  "……Tia?"

  Perez called me with a slightly bewildered look on his face, but I didn’t answer.

  Seriously, Vestian is trying to create distrust of men.

  The wind with that smiling face.

  "Well."

  Perez looked at me in low pressure for a moment and suddenly looked around.

  Then he got out of his seat, walked a little far away to a flower bed, and picked up many flowers.

  It was a flower with soft, small white petals blooming like a round bouquet.

  And hold it still in my hand.

  To be honest, I couldn’t stay anymore.

  He’s so kind-hearted.

  Perez, who looks closely into my eyes, is literally "a crazy beauty that relieves anger."1

  I sighed softly and smelled the flowers with a half-surrendering.

  The sweet but long-lasting scent of flowers on the tip of my nose seems to calm my swollen stomach a little.

  "Thank you, Perez."

  "Are you feeling better now?"

  I feel a little sorry.

  I feel like I shouldn’t have taken it out on Perez.

  I explained with embarrassment.

  "I didn’t get mad at you from the beginning."

  "I know."

  "Then why did you give me the flowers?"

  "If sweet things don’t work out, I wonder if flowers that look good will make you feel better."

  "Ahh."

  "Tia loves flowers."

  Well, that’s true.

  It was a little strange because Perez seemed to read my mind.

  Especially when those red eyes look at me without any movement, I think they’ll reveal all the secrets.

  It’s going to make me feel weird again.

  I sipped the milk, sneaking away from his gaze.

  Then I looked with my side eyes, Perez was shaking off the grass on his clothes while picking flowers, and Caitlyn, standing next to him, was helping.

  Far from that, Perez was getting more and more handsome.

  Even now, it feels like he’s just rubbing his clothes, but his nose and sleek jawline like sculpted ones keep catching people’s eyes without realizing it.

  Looking at it, I said half impulsively.

  "Perez, you shouldn’t cheat later."4

  Stopped.

  Perez and Caitlyn stopped moving.

  The same with Kylus, who was organizing the cake bowl he had eaten.

  Three people looked at me without saying a word.

  Why. What.

  Kylus was the first to respond.

  He bites his lower lip, swallows his smile with emoticon-like eyes, and hides his face.

  Caitlyn opened her eyes round and blinked a few times, looking surprised, and took turns looking at me and Perez.1

  And Perez.

  "Are you…… are you okay?"

  I tapped the back of his hand and asked.

  Then his icy face caught fire in an instant.

  It was really about to blow.

  The white skin heated up from the bottom of the neck to the end of the ear.

  "Oh, yeah……"

  Perez nodded slowly.

  What’s wrong with everyone’s reaction?

  Did I say something I shouldn’t say?

  "Your face…… It’s really red. What if you catch a cold?"

  Is it a little cold to sit outside?

  "Oh, no. It’s okay."

  Perez replied, covering his face with his hands.

  His hands are so big that his face goes in.

  "I’m surprised."

  "Don’t cheat?"

  "Uh……?"

  What about it?

  "But now Perez’s at that age, isn’t he?"

  "That age?"

  "Hmm. Age to be interested in women?"

  It’s time to hit puberty.

  Perez slowly lowered his hand that had covered his face and asked me.

  "So what?"

  "So if you ever get into a relationship, you should never cheat."

  "……that’s what you meant."

  Perez murmured in a low voice.

  "Whoa."

  "Sigh."

  Kylus and Caitlyn sigh at the same time.8

  "What’s wrong with everyone?"

  I asked, but Caitlyn and Kylus avoided my eyes.

  Perez, who seemed to have regained his composure, asked me instead.

  "Is that why you were in a bad mood today?"

  "Yes, I have some matter to do."

  "Man?"

  Because Vestian is a man.

  I nodded.

  But Perez asks again.

  "……a man?"

  Oh, I told you so.

  I nodded again.

  But Perez’s atmosphere was strange.3

  I think it’s cold and burning.

  The breezy wind stopped and the air became heavy.

  "Tia."

  "Huh?"

  "Your boyfriend……? Did you have?"

  What is he talking about?

  "What did I have?"

  "A man."

  "No, not yet."

  I’m only 11 years old.

  "Then what did you mean a while ago?"

  "Oh, not me. Someone I know."

  I didn’t want to talk about the family to someone outside Lombardy, so I roughly talked about it.

  "Ahhhh."

  Perez washed his face with one hand and gulped down the milk.

  I looked at Perez and said.

  "You shouldn’t hurt a woman’s heart. All right, Perez?"

  Perez eventually emptied a glass of milk and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

  And he replied in a slightly sour voice.

  "I don’t think you have to worry about that."

  "I know, I know. That you’re not such a bad person."

  Of course, of course.

  He’s no match for Vestian.

  I explained quickly before Perez misunderstood.

  "But……"

  "But?"

  "I’m advising you as a friend just in case. You’ve been growing up a lot lately."

  When I think of the first time I met him, Peres changed so much that I couldn’t think of him as the same person.

  Now, he has a certain appearance of a Prince.

  It wasn’t just about height or appearance.

  "At the Pellet banquet. I hear a lot about you."

  Being young was comfortable.

  Unlike Lombardy adults, who are persistent in their eyes wherever they go, I was still relatively free.

  So I could hear the conversation at the banquet.

  Astana and Perez were frequent topics for the aristocrats.

  "Most of them picked you up because Astana hasn’t been officially named Crown Prince yet."

  "……me?"

  Perez looked a little surprised.

  Well.

  Peres didn’t realize he was a Prince so far.

  "Like the last incident, your academic achievements seem to be leaking out quite a lot."

  I don’t know if it leaked out or someone was spreading it on purpose.

  Other than my grandfather, who was supporting Perez, there were a few who could benefit from such rumors.

  For example, the Emperor, who is weighing Astana and Perez and getting a lot out of Angenas.

  "And there’s nothing we can do from the beginning. Anyway, besides Astana, you are the only surviving Prince who has grown up."

  The Emperor didn’t have a concubine, but his lover has been steady.

  There couldn’t have been only Astana and Perez.

  But Perez is the only one who ’survived’.

  The Empress was as thorough and heartless as she was.

  She would do anything to make his son the next Emperor.

  For such an Empress, Perez is an unbearable thorn.

  "Is she put more pressure on you to go to the academy?"

  "……The Empress called me not too long ago. And she told me to go to the academy."

  Perez’s voice speaking is unusually low.

  "Did that happen?"

  Sneakily, I read Caitlyn and Kylus’s minds.

  I’m sure there was more to it than that, seeing their faces visibly stiffened.

  Perez said no more.

  He didn’t seem to want to mention it again.

  If so, there’s nothing we can do.

  I nodded with a sigh and said to Perez.

  "Maybe that will happen more often in the future. Until you get out of the Palace and head for the Academy."

  "But I don’t want to go to the academy."

  "Yeah, that’s your choice, by far. No matter how Empress is, she can’t force you to enter the Academy."

  The law was designed to prevent those who were pushed out of the family’s succession structure from being forcibly handed over to the Academy as if they were accepted.

  Academy admissions must be made by ’self’.

  Otherwise, the Empress would have thrown Perez into the Academy a long time ago.

  "So She’s trying to convince you."

  "……Then it doesn’t matter."

  Perez answered silently.

  "If she doesn’t force me, I won’t be admitted to the academy."

  It was a tough stance, unlike him.

  The conversation was cut off for a while.

  Perez is lost in thought, what he’s worried about.

  I wondered if there was any way I could cheer Perez up, and suddenly I remembered the gift in my bag.

  I was brought it to give to Perez.

  I took out a black palm-sized box, put it in front of him, and sipped the milk nonchalantly.

  "What is this……?"+

  Perez asked bewilderedly.

  I didn’t answer.

  "I picked it up on the way."