It"s at last a month before the wedding, inside the Royal Castle a visibly busy atmosphere and celebratory mood have begun hanging in the air.
In the country called Wilhelm occasionally engagements are broken off just before the wedding (now I understand it"s probably because the Royal Flower ceremony failed), but this time I"ve already been given the Royal Flower, so cancellation is impossible. For the sake of the day that will surely come, everybody is moving busily.
Court ladies are busy preparing guest rooms for the visitors. If I go to the kitchen, I can see Bart and the cooks repeatedly sampling food that will be served at the debut.
The Prime Minister and my father, who I pa.s.s by in the corridors, is thinking over the ceremony program while grumbling.
Clara happily did the final checks of the dress, that had finally been completed, and the decorations, and together with court ladies attached to me she now has lively exchanges of ideas about what to do regarding my makeup on the very day.
Although Glenn"s engagement got formalized with the King"s approval, the official engagement ceremony was decided to be held after our wedding, now he"s racking his brains over the security on the day of the wedding.
Will seems to have his hands full with the magical arts he"ll flas.h.i.+ly shoot up at the night of the wedding, Sion too seems to be occupied by something.
I thought I could play with Rena, but she seems to be asked by court ladies to help as much as she can. It isn"t a problem because she herself wants it, but… when I noticed, I was alone in my free time.
Freed?
He"s recently busy entertaining foreign envoys who come every day to congratulate on our marriage.
The public announcement was made half a year ago, every country has already confirmed their attendance at the wedding or lack of thereof.
But, it"s a custom that before wedding envoys come with congratulatory gifts.
Under the usual circ.u.mstances it takes places around two weeks before the wedding, but this time it"s certain that the wedding will take place, so the envoys have been visiting the Fafnir Castle one by one from a relatively early period.

"Congratulations. His Highness the Crown Prince will attend from our country. This is the congratulatory gift from us…"

With such words the gift listings are read out. And, as a concerned party in the wedding, Freed has to deal with every one of them.
I also offered to help if he wanted, but it seemed impossible for me whose status is still a fiancée, so I was politely refused.
I can"t go to the kitchen. Freed is busy. Freed being busy dealing with envoys naturally means Brother is even busier. Because, Brother deals with Freed"s usual work.
While everybody is busy, I alone have nothing to do. In that case I thought of returning to the ducal residence to at least not be a hindrance. But Cain had forbidden it, and when I suggested that to Freed just in case, he rejected it with a smile.

"Lidi, why won"t you give me a reward for coming back tired? I couldn"t stand a life where there"s no Lidi when I come back anymore."

Even I think I"m beyond foolish to be a little happy to have been told but, but I still tried to somehow object.

"B… but, Freed, you"re busy till late every day… So that I don"t get in the way, it"s better if I…"
"Lidi, there"s no way you"d get in the way. If you aren"t here, I"ll be greatly troubled, and supposing you return home, I"ll immediately go bring you back, even if it"s the middle of a night. Hey Lidi, I want to see your face when I come back. I know I won"t be able to work hard on the next day if I can"t sleep hugging you, Lidi."
"… Liar. You don"t have any intention of sleeping anyway."

When I scowled at my lover, who devotes himself to s.e.x without sparing time for sleep, he returned a laugh with a very good, sweetly smiling face.

"Then can I say this? Lidi, if I don"t embrace you, I won"t be in a good condition. Besides, I also sleep at least a little."
"… Freed…"

Freed gently hugged me, who was dumbfounded by the overly straightforward words.

"Anyway, you can"t go home. I won"t allow it. Lidi, this is your residence now. Be still in my arms."
"… Uu."
"Lidi, I love you. That"s why I want to be with you all the time, but is it different for you, Lidi?"

Asked so, I couldn"t say that it"s different.
Inside Freed"s arms is where I want to be the most in the world. I don"t know any other place where my heart beats so fast, yet I feel so happy.

"I, I love you too, Freed. I want to stay with you."

When I conveyed that with all my might, Freed said "In that case."

"Don"t say something stupid like you want to return home anymore, even as a joke. Stay here until the wedding… Then, let"s move to the new room together?"
"… Yup."

Happy to be suggested that, I was coaxed truly easily. Of course, what happened afterwards was the usual… But I was happy, so it couldn"t be helped… Yup.

Anyway, it"s always like that, so I have nothing to do.
If I came to marry from a foreign country or if I were a daughter of a n.o.ble with low status, I"d be extremely busy with the royal education, where you study the common sense of this country and knowledge necessary for royalty, but for better or worse I completely finished it thanks to Father.
I"m truly at leisure.
Since it couldn"t be helped, I idled about or tried reading books, but after all there"s a limit.
But if I go outside, I may inconvenience everyone who"s busy.
In the end, I couldn"t do anything, and today too I meaninglessly loitered around the room.
Without any particular meaning I tried opening a desk drawer.
Inside were a bunch of letters I"d received before. To kill time, I reread them one by one.

"Ah…"

Seeing the sender"s name of one of the letters, I suddenly recalled.
About Milly who loves Freed.
Before, she asked me if I love Freed… And I couldn"t answer clearly. Because I still wasn"t aware that I loved Freed. She got angry at my vague att.i.tude once, still she later apologized and said she wanted to be friends. And in response to those words I became friends with Milly.

"d.a.m.n it…"

Come to think of it, I still haven"t reported to her that I love Freed.
Of course, after I became aware that matter happened, so we couldn"t talk afterwards, but now that I have time before the wedding, I want to report it to her.
That I properly love Freed.
It"s something I think I should do after not properly answering to being thrown that question at first.

"… Yup. I don"t want to get married like that while Milly misunderstands me, so let"s properly tell her I love Freed."

Milly is neither Freed"s ex-lover nor his ex-fiancée. So thinking about it normally, I don"t need to notify her.
However, since she was seriously in love with Freed, I don"t want to ignore her.

"If I mention tea party, I wonder if she"ll come."

I thought a little and decided to pen a letter.
The gist of what I wrote is that since we"ve become friends, I want to have a tea party with just the two of us.
It shouldn"t be a lie and I want to become friends with her in the true meaning after talking properly.

"Lidi? What are you doing?"

To be edited