Chapter 9 .. Complete English Translation
My smile was on the verge of freezing stiff.
But the moment I stopped smiling, it felt like only death would follow, so I gathered every scrap of life inside me and forced a grin.
“Y-Your Majesty, I’m so glad you’re here by my side. If I opened my eyes, it’s all thanks to Your Majesty’s warmth—no, Your Majesty’s very presence.”
The line I came up with wasn’t original; it was a slightly tweaked quote I’d seen once in a parenting drama. Saying it aloud made me cringe so hard I thought my limbs might fall off, but I had to endure it.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I don’t remember well, but I think for the seven days I slept in Your Majesty’s bed I only had happy dreams.”
“Did you dream of going to heaven, perhaps?”
…What a terrifying thing to say.
Still, I wasn’t going to back down there.
“No, I dreamed of running around the gardens with Your Majesty!”
If it were with Jeusia, the phrase wouldn’t be “catch me if you can” but more like “try and kill me if you can.”
“I can see the future in my dreams, you know. Everything I saw will come true.”
I babbled on about city outings with Jeusia, a trip to the sea, a family portrait—things I had never actually dreamed. I rattled off every trope-keyword I could think of from the novel.
I had to change the keywords of this story any way possible.
From a ruinous, spicy-death melodrama to an all-ages, healing sugar-floss romance!
‘Whoever said there are always bad people… no, bad emperors in the world.’
If I could change, little by little, the ruined, twisted life Jeusia had lived, maybe Jeusia wouldn’t break even more here.
“That’s bullshit.”
…She already seems pretty broken, but as long as she doesn’t spiral down to the level she had in the original, I’d call it a win.
She’d let me sleep in her bed for a whole week, so my chest felt a little warm… just a little.
Squee—.
Just as I was about to feel something tender for Jeusia for the first time, flames burst across my cheek.
I couldn’t even squeak “ow” before Jeusia pinched my cheek like a piece of taffy, pulling my cheek outward; I watched her with a stunned look.
“Your Highness…?”
“Every time you spoke your cheek moved, so I thought maybe you were hiding something in your mouth, but I guess not.”
“I—ah—i’m not a squirrel.”
Whatever I said, Jeusia, who had been staring intently into my mouth with two baby teeth gone, suddenly snorted and burst into laughter.
“W-Why are you laughing?”
Her short laugh didn’t stop; it only grew louder with time. Jeusia let go of my cheek and bent double, laughing like she’d been struck by a memory.
She laughed just like when my tiny hand had smacked her cheek the day I was born.
Only when I’d almost forgotten that I’d been sitting on her stomach since I woke did her laughter subside.
“You manage to chew out words well with that gap-toothed mouth.”
Amazingly, that was the first compliment that woman who called herself my mother had ever given me.
Jeusia, who cupped my reddened cheek, seemed about to say something more when—
“Your Majesty!”
The door flung open and a tall man stepped in.
He had a slightly dark complexion, black hair, and gold eyes that contrasted with him; he wore a white uniform. Before I could properly study him, he lowered his head and intoned his lines with a gloomy expression.
“I’m afraid there’s no more hope for the baby, in my opinion.”
“No hope? Are you talking about ‘this’?”
The man nodded slightly to the emperor’s words and slowly raised his eyes toward her.
“Yes. I was saying there is no hope for the baby currently sitting on Your Majesty—huh?”
He never finished his sentence. The man froze and stared at me.
“O-oh?”
He looked as if he had seen a ghost, unbelieving. Unable to bear the silence, I forced an awkward smile and waved my small hand. The man’s mouth fell open.
“The baby… has awakened?”
“If you’ve confirmed awakening, start with an examination.”
Jeusia flashed her teeth with a look that said, ‘Can’t you tell just by looking?’ At the command and by his attire, I realized he must be a doctor.
Had she summoned a doctor because she worried about me? The thought that Jeusia could do such a basic, considerate thing—despite my low expectations of her—almost moved me.
After all, she’d given me her bed for a week and now wanted a doctor to examine me; it meant there was still some humanity left in her.
“You standing there like an idiot annoys me.”
Sorry—scratch that previous thought.
“You find my words unbelievable?”
Putting everything aside, I felt strongly that before reforming her essential personality, I had to fix that thug-like tone of hers first.
“N-No, no! I’m sorry! I’m sorry for standing there like an idiot, Your Majesty! P-please don’t kill me!”
As if he had never been dazed a moment ago, the man leapt up and fell to his knees, begging Jeusia.
I didn’t know if the man was overreacting or if Jeusia had actually killed people for such trifling reasons before, but a chill ran down my spine.
Jeusia looked down at him with disdain and sighed before speaking.
“I won’t kill you. Why would I?”
“Your Majesty! Gra—”
“Annoying.”
The bedroom froze in an instant. If possible, I would have preferred to faint again, but the snap of tension made my mind grow clearer.
Sensing that dragging things out would be dangerous for him, the man darted over to my side.
Instead of removing me from Jeusia, he knelt and met my eyes.
“Little one, may I examine you for a moment?”
He called me “little one” too. Even if the emperor had picked me up, that didn’t magically make me the princess. I was an existing-yet-ignored child—an imperial bloodline left abandoned in a corner of the palace at Parnassus Castle with no name. The sourness of being the product of such a pitiful birth made my mouth go bitter.
Since Jeusia had chosen to care for me beside her, getting an official princess status seemed urgent. First, I’d have to ask for a name.
Instead of sighing about another mountain to climb, I smiled cheerfully at the doctor.
“Y-yes. Please take care of me.”
“…!”
When I nodded, his expression softened as if he’d just stopped turning blue.
But his softened look didn’t last long.
“How long are you going to dawdle?”
Under Jeusia’s scolding, the doctor—cowering like a meek herbivore—began the examination, holding his breath.
‘Why is this doctor so handsome?’
The man’s features, perhaps exotic because of his complexion, were sculpted and neat. Even the worried crease in his brow as he checked my little body was dignified.
So this is a romance novel, huh.
If even a palace extra looks this attractive, what are the other male leads like?
‘Not that he can match my father’s looks, but still—he’s pretty. If the extras are like this, how gorgeous are the real male leads…’
A procession of faces of the male leads who’d be involved with Jeusia and the heroine Sinope flashed through my mind.
I’d chosen, by accident, a route where I’d live in the palace while in exile and attempt to reform Jeusia; so I couldn’t avoid running into those male leads. Except for the main male lead Saffron, most of the others had ties to both the heroine and Jeusia.
“What are you staring at?”
“N-Nothing!”
I quickly bowed my head, but my gaze had already wandered up to Jeusia’s striking features, and images from the original story I’d devoured flickered by. ‘How could someone so unnervingly beautiful be like that…?’
Once the imagination started, it kept growing.
“Fortunately, apart from a lingering throat tickle, there are no major symptoms. It’s truly a miracle—gasp, blood!”
Only when I noticed red drops falling on his white indoor robe did I realize my nose was bleeding.
“Ah, little one, are you alright?”
The doctor’s composed face turned pale, and a frozen, steely voice thundered from above him.
“Hey, what is going on here?”
“Sorry, sorry! There was nothing wrong with her body earlier…! First, we need to stop the bleeding!”
“You’d better hurry. There’s no one here who can staunch her bleeding.”
I didn’t pick up the urgency in her words—she sounded almost threatening—because…
‘I’ll never admit I had a nosebleed because I thought naughty things.’
