I’m a Villainess but So Popular

Editor: Aru

Side Story 10: Castle with a Summer Lake (3)

“Oh, Yerine. And Your Majesty.”

I waved at Eugene, who greeted us.

“You arrived first.”

“Yes, I was here early because I thought it would take a long trip.”

Yssius also greeted Eugene with pleasure, calling him “Uncle Duke.”

Aster, who has been looking at Chaerine quitely, also walked forward and greeted us.

“Your Majesty the Emperor, and Her Majesty the Empress, how are you?”

He was as polite a child as ever.

I looked at him, bent his knees, and smiled at his sparkling blue eyes.

“I’m fine, how are you, Aster?”

“I’m fine too, Your Majesty.”

“Well, that’s good.”

While exchanging greetings with Aster, Chaerine clasped her hand, slightly clung to my leg. Keeping her golden gaze on Aster.

‘Is it still a little awkward for her?’

It may be like that when you meet someone after a long time.

Even if you meet someone you used to be close to again, isn’t it difficult to greet first if the period of time you haven’t met is quite long?

It’s been almost a month and a half since Chaerine and Aster met again, so it makes sense for shy Chaerine to hesitate.

Still, seeing Aster flapping his lips, unlike before, he seemed to want to say hello first.

Aster also took a step back when he saw Chaerine then take a step forward.

‘Maybe he’s afraid that Chaerine will be surprised if they get too close like last time.’

I was wondering if I should help a little, but then, Chaerine pulled at the hem of my dress.

“Mom.”

Chaerine covered her mouth with her hands and whispered so those around her can’t hear.

“I, that…”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll give it to you now.”

When the summoning magic was activated, a flower wreath made by Chaerine appeared in the air.

Chaerine hid the flower wreath behind her, held it in her small hand, back and walked towards Aster.

Everyone’s eyes were on Chaerine.

Yssius, in particular, opened his mouth and looked very surprised.

Cassius grabbed me smiling and gloatingly looking at her and whispered hastily.

“Yerine, that boy staring at her again……….”

“Oh, he’s just trying to say hi. It’s okay.”

I hugged Cassius, who was watching Cherine, tightly so that he wouldn’t do anything nonsense.

“He, hello.”

Aster’s mouth opened when he heard Chaerine’s greeting.

Surprised but pleased at the same time, there was a light of joy in Aster’s blue eyes.

Looking at the children with a nervous face from behind, Eugene smiled lightly and slightly pushed Aster’s back.

Aster, who understood his father’s intention to go with a nod, took out a greeting with a blush.

“Hello……Chaerine.”

Hearing her name, Chaerine matched her sparkling gold eyes to Asters.

And for a while, the two children didn’t talk.

Aster, whose face turned red like a tomato, hesitated to speak.

While staring at Aster, who was unable to speak easily unlike the last time, she took out the flower wreath that she was hiding behind her back.

Aster’s eyes were wide open when Chaerine held out a flower wreath woven from purple flowers and grass.

“Here, take it.”

Aster picked up the flower wreath with a puzzled face when Chaerine told him to take it.

‘Maybe he didn’t expect Chaerine to give him a present, either.’

As she watched the smile slowly spread across Aster’s face, who had received the wreath, Chaerine smiled with a happy smile.

“Because Aster gave Kael a pretty one, too.”

Chaerine said in a placid voice.

“Kael too wanted to give Aster something pretty.”

I was blinded by Chaerine’s broad smile.

Except for my family, people in the palace, or Erica, she was a child who never showed such a bright expression.

I want to think that she was finally able to smile like that in front of others.

“Tha, thank you……!”

Aster’s face was also in full bloom when he saw Chaerine’s smiling face…

Even though his face was still dyed as red as a tomato.

Seeing the two children smiling cutely warmed my heart.

Eugene also had a kindly face, not like his usual self.

Cassius, on the other hand, quivered and gnashed his teeth.

“I can’t believe another boy got a flower wreath while she didn’t even make one for me……….”

What can I do about that silly comment?

“Cassius, stop it. How can I stop them when she says she likes him?”

“That Eugene’s son, to my daughter, I raised like gold..….”

“Really, you always go too far.”

Shaking my head, I scolded Cassius.

Then Aster came up to Chaerine, and carefully grabbed her right hand with both hands.

Cassius literally hardened at the sight.

“Excuse me……”

Aster, who had been carefully acted, took a look at Chaerine’s countenance.

But Chaerine didn’t knock out Aster’s hand and showed no signs of dislike.

Rather, she listened to Aster’s story with her head glancing.

“I want to play with you……….”

At that, Chaerine nodded silently.

Then she took Aster’s hand and started walking together in the grass.

“Let’s go play over there.”

It was awkward when she first greeted him, but now she seems to recognize Aster as a close person to her.

I felt better at the thought that my daughter made her first friend of her age.

It was none other than Yssius who broke the warm atmosphere surrounding the grass.

“No, you can’t.”

Yssius shouted and blocked Chaerine and Aster.

Yssius, who pulled Chaerine, who did not know the situation, glanced at Aster with a wary look on his face.

“You can’t play with Kael.”

Aster looked embarrassed at Yssius’s harsh words.

“Huh……?”

“Kael is a princess. You can’t play with her as you want.”

“Princess?”

It is difficult for a four-year-old child to know the exact meaning of the word princess.

Aster saw me and called me Empress because Eugene answered Aster’s question about how to call us.

He just knows that there is an expression of Empress or Emperor, but he doesn’t know exactly what it is.

Looking at Aster, who looked confused, Yssius replied with a slight frown.

“She’s a princess with a very high position, so to speak, she’s just not like any ordinary princess.”

Aster looked very surprised at Yssius’s answer.

Such an innocent guy.

“She’s a princess so she should only play with the same position, princess or prince. And because you’re not a prince, you can’t play with her.”

Yssius was a child who usually said that people with good abilities should be hired by the Imperial Palace regardless of their status, and that’s what he taught by the tutor and me as well.

And even when we went to the marketplace, he would talk freely with a commoner child.

So purely because he didn’t want Aster to have a crush on Chaerine, he brought that reason.

‘The blood is thicker than the water.’

Aster, meanwhile, looked very shocked.

I felt a little sorry for the way he opened his mouth in a slightly shaky voice.

“The, then….”

“And since you’re not a prince, you should speak respectfully to Chaerine.”

Every time Yssius added a word, Aster became noticeably depressed.

In the end, Yssius also looked a little conscience-stricken, as if his soul had escaped after looking at the appearance of Aster, who seemed to have lost his soul.

Just then, Chaerine opened her mouth.

“No, Oppa.”

Chaerine shook her head and said.

And until then, she took out the other hand, which she had been hiding behind her back.

Yssius’s eyes grew when he saw the white clover wreath in Chaerine’s hand.

Chaerine lifted the wreath with her hands in silence and got it over her head.

The child then approached Aster, staring blankly at him, and put the wreath on Aster’s right hand to his head.

“Ka, Kael, what are you doing?”

Yssius cried out in surprise.

Unlike Yssius, Chaerine spoke softly with an unperturbed, placid face.

“When Kael puts something on Kael’s head, everyone calls Kael the Princess.”

At first, I didn’t really know what Chaerine said.

And it wasn’t until about three seconds later that I knew the meaning of the word.

It’s about the crown.

When I go out with my children to Imperial Palace events, I always put a crown on them.

Usually, they never use a crown, but only for official occasions.

At that time, I, Cassius, and other people who call her comfortably also treat her formally and as a princess, so she must have thought so.

“So if I do this, I’ll be a princess. And Aster is a prince.”

Chaerine eagerly explained, pointing to the flower wreath slightly crooked above Aster’s head.

How did she come up with such an angelic idea?

She’s my daughter, but she’s so cute.

“So he’s the same as Kael, a prince, so he can play with Kael, and he doesn’t have to speak respectfully.”

Aster, who had lost his hope, glowed his eyes at Chaerine’s words.

Chaerine nods at the brighter look on Aster’s face. Then she grabbed Yssius’s collar and said.

“So, Oppa, we can’t play with Aster……?

Chaerine asked with a really desperate look.

Chaerine is not very good at asking for things.

Very occasionally, she only asks when she’s so desperate for something.

No one in my family could not fall apart in those eyes, especially Yssius, who was the weakest for Chaerine’s gaze.

“Uh……….”

And when Aster looked at himself with desperate eyes, Yssius couldn’t stand it.

“Oh, okay. All right. Let’s play together.”

In an instant, the faces of the two children in flower crowns on their heads brightened up.

Chaerine’s light began to float around the children who smiled and held each other’s palms.

“But if you make her cry again, I won’t let you!”

Yssius retorted, but Aster nodded hard and answered vigorously.

“Yes! I’ll never do that, Hyung.”

“Who’s your Hyung?”

Yssius blushed and whined, but Aster did not give in.

“Then what do I call……?”

Aster, who asked naively, asked carefully, covering his mouth with his hands.

“Do I have to speak respectfully to you, Hyung……?”

“………”

“Then should I call you hyung-nim………?”

Yssius sighed at Aster’s unsure comment.

“Just call me Yssius Hyung.”

Yssius spoke coyly and turned his head away.

“And you don’t have to speak respectfully.”

Yssius said, covering his ashamed face with his hands.

Chaerine and Aster, hand in hand, followed behind him.

‘I’ve gained the strength to live today…….’

I thought to myself when I saw children who looked like angels.

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