Chapter 1. The Villainess’s Circumstances

To my dear friend, Miss Nanari Drian of the Drian household.

Your letter, filled wall to wall with “lol”s and “haha”s, arrived safely. How wonderful that my misfortune brought you such joy.

It seems you were quite eager to mock me for being dragged around by a worthless man, but what shall we do? That incident was no misfortune for me either.

If anything, I had been eagerly awaiting that day.

It was the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet. His Highness appeared with my younger sister Georgiana on his arm and, instead of a greeting, shouted this:

“Viviana, I am requesting our engagement be broken off!”

You really should have seen the Crown Prince’s face as he crowed with such self-satisfaction. I had a dreadful time keeping the corners of my mouth from curling upward.

“An engagement annulment……?”

Still, I was relieved that a rather plaintive voice came out. All that pinching of my forearm had paid off.

His Highness puffed himself up and declared:

“That’s right! I cannot entrust the position of crown princess of this nation to a woman like you, who is heartless even to her own younger sister.”

“I see.”

Ah, what a relief. The wedding had been drawing so close, and yet he showed no sign of calling off the engagement, so I had been on edge wondering if we would actually end up married. How fortunate that the Crown Prince broke it off in time.

“Understood, Your Highness. I accept your request to dissolve our engagement.”

Dabbing at my eyes with the back of my hand, I gave a nod, then immediately unleashed everything I had wanted to say to the Crown Prince.

“However, since you have made such a one-sided request for annulment, you will of course be paying compensation as well, yes?”

“Th, that’s right!”

Perhaps conscious of the many onlookers, the Crown Prince blurted out his agreement before even calculating the sum. I smiled sweetly.

“The standard compensation amount is typically twice the agreed-upon dowry between the two families.”

“What?”

Miss Nanari, as you well know, Father had prepared a diamond mine as my dowry. Can you imagine what an enormous sum twice that figure would be?

“Th, that’s… unavoidable, then.”

I could practically hear the gears turning in the Crown Prince’s head. He must have thought that even if it was double, Georgiana’s dowry would offset it to some degree.

Since Father had already promised that the compensation would go to me, I found myself feeling quite generous. Generous enough to do a worthless Crown Prince a favor.

“Your Highness, in consideration of the time we have shared, I would like to inform you of one thing.”

But the Crown Prince’s capacity was narrower than I had anticipated. He recoiled from me as though I were some kind of insect and began shouting.

“Do not come near me! How could I trust a villainess like you?”

“Then may I simply say it loudly here, where everyone can hear?”

“Go ahead!”

If he would not take the consideration I offered, there was nothing to be done. Left with no choice, I raised my voice.

“The Georgiana beside you is not my biological younger sister! I recommend you cut ties before it all comes to light and you end up looking like a fool. Farewell.”

“What? What does that mean! Viviana!”

A tremendous uproar followed, but I grabbed my skirts with both hands and ran out without looking back. It was my first sprint since the age of twelve, and it was enormously fun.

After that, well, I have been hiding away in secret, writing this letter to you, Nanari, my dear friend.

Strange, isn’t it? We have not seen each other’s faces since childhood, and among all my pen friends, you are the most distant, yet here I am, writing so freely about my recent circumstances.

You asked what I planned to do with myself after stepping down from my position as the Crown Prince’s fiancée.

You may think this sounds ungrateful, but I am honestly tired. Tired of the lavish lifestyle, the exhausting game of reading the room in high society, and the tedious life of sitting demurely and haughtily.

I have resolved to live simply, doing the things I want to do.

Cooking, for instance.

Miss Nanari, do you believe in past lives? In my previous life, I was probably a very, very ordinary person, someone who quietly worked away in whatever place they were given. But even ordinary people have their own dreams.

In that past life, rushing off to work early in the morning, I would stop dead in my tracks at the sight of shops just switching on their lights and beginning to prepare for the day. And thoughts like soap bubbles would come rising up, one after another.

‘Ah, I want a shop of my own.’

Not someone else’s company, but my own. My own shop. And perhaps I would have opened a restaurant.

……Yes, you are probably thinking, what on earth is this, the delusions of a lady born in Goldworthy who has been pampered her whole life? Please forget I said anything.

In any case, I am going to do what I want to do now. Farewell to the days of being driven by nothing but work.

At the very least, it will be far more enjoyable than being pointed at as a villainess while serving as that foolish Crown Prince’s fiancée.

❀❀❀

To my dear friend, the beautiful descendant of a dragon soaring through the azure sky, the oldest pillar of this nation, Miss Nanari of the Drian household.

I had no idea you were so interested in my cooking.

Yes, I am going to run a small restaurant.

A place where you can wake up at a leisurely pace, stroll in unhurriedly, and have a meal that serves as both breakfast and lunch.

The kind of place that sells only tea and simple light bites.

I have decided to call the shop a café.

❀❀❀

To Miss Nanari Drian, who succeeded in astonishing me with her persistent letters.

How very warm of you to ask so eagerly for the address of the area where I plan to live in seclusion. Even my own family did not ask where I was going. Well, to be precise, I ran off before they could ask.

This is truly a secret, but since you are my dear friend, I will tell you as a special exception.

You must absolutely not tell a single soul.

Absolutely! Absolutely! Absolutely! If you break your promise, I will challenge you to a duel befitting a lady. That is how much of a secret this is!

❀❀❀

To Miss Nanari.

Excuse me?

Why is your brother here? I told you it was a secret!

Tell him to return to the capital at once!

❀❀❀

To Miss Nanari, who is itching to duel me.

Hey! At least write back! Are you really doing this? Did my talk of challenging you to a duel sound amusing to you?

No matter how much of a dragon’s descendant you may be, you will be brought to your knees before my kitchen knife.

❀❀❀

I gripped the pen and scrawled across the paper.

To the petty Miss Nanari, who stops replying the moment things turn against her.

Please tell your brother to go home! I am frightened!

That was all I wrote before crumpling the letter.

‘Ugh, it is not as though she will reply even if I send a letter.’

Still, a letter was the only means of protest I had, so I picked up the pen again.

Last chance, Miss Nanari. For the sake of our friendship……

And in the end, I crumpled the letter again. Friendship, my foot.

‘If that existed in the first place, none of this mess would have happened.’

I let out a long sigh and rose from my seat. Then I began to walk.

Thud, thud.

The creaking of the old wooden floor and the sound of my footsteps tangled together in a disorderly mess.

‘I chose this shop because I loved this vintage charm, but I never imagined my footsteps would ring out this loudly with every move I made.’

The footsteps must have already given away my approach, yet the black hair standing at the far end of the window did not stir in the slightest.

For a full week now, he had been standing there like an ancient tree. Because of him, customers had been frightened off before even stepping inside, and the shop’s revenue had fallen off a cliff.

‘What an insufferable man.’

I rested both arms on the windowsill of the slightly open window and leaned my head out.

“……Excuse me.”

At my call, a pair of metallic silver eyes, gleaming like pure silver, turned to fix their gaze on me.

I bit down on my lips before a gasp could escape, and barely managed to hold my silence.

‘What kind of eyes are that terrifying.’

Still, I had grown considerably more accustomed to them by now. The first time I saw them, I had nearly sunk straight to the floor the moment our eyes met.

‘If you sharpened a kitchen knife on a whetstone for ten hours, would it turn that color.’

Indeed. Karl Drian. Among all the descendants of the Drian family, said to be the bloodline of dragons, the man reputed to be closest to a pure-blooded dragon.

Never had I imagined I would come face to face with him here, in a quiet countryside, far from the capital. I had gathered my courage to call out to him, but now that our eyes had actually met, the words telling him to get lost simply would not come. Just facing him made my legs tremble. I squeezed my eyes shut.

‘No matter how frightening he is, I have to drive that man away somehow.’