A Lying Ally

How did this happen?

Thanks to the heavy warmth on my shoulder, I couldn't relax at all. I froze, unsure of what to do, unable to move even a finger. Sometimes the wind blew toward us and messed up Lord Phillip's hair, tickling my neck with the soft strands. At the same time, a sweet scent would also waft toward me. I had no idea how long we sat like that for.

Eventually, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a maid approach us. She was holding a teapot in her hands and likely planned on refilling our cups. But as soon as she saw us, her face flushed crimson, and she turned back around.

Considering her reaction, she must've greatly misunderstood the situation. I had little doubt that she would spread misinformation to the other maids. I felt embarrassed at the prospect of meeting their eyes in the future. We couldn't sit like this forever, though, and I racked my brain for something to say to Lord Phillip. Before I could open my mouth, he beat me to it.

"Thank..."

"H-Hmm?"

"Thank you for coming today. It made me happy."

He murmured the words without raising his head from my shoulder. Why was he saying something like that at this moment?

All I could say in my state of confusion was, "I should be the one thanking you."

After a few more minutes, Lord Phillip slowly raised his head from my shoulder and suggested that we should leave. Then we returned to the carriage together, and I was dropped off at my home. Our eyes never met again for the rest of the night.

***

Three days after our outing, I was reading my favorite book in my room when someone knocked on my door and informed me that I had a guest. I wasn't expecting anyone today, and there were only so many people I knew who would drop by unannounced like this. It was probably Jamie, sore from a recent rejection. With that prediction in mind, I descended the stairs.

The guest was waiting in the reception room rather than the parlor, which made me tilt my head. But I made my way over to the reception room anyway. As soon as I saw who was waiting for me inside, I unconsciously stepped back, for the person I wanted to see the least right now was staring right at me.

"Hey there, my adorable little Vivi. I missed you." He was sitting on the couch with his long legs crossed, and he was waving his hand at me.

Why is he here?

"I'm sorry... Who are you?"

Upon hearing my question, his eyes widened before he smiled irritatingly brightly at me.

"Ah, right, you don't have your memories or something, huh? Your father told me all about it just now. Man, you have it rough. I'm your cousin, Rex."

Rex Dowland, my cousin, was five years my senior and the son of an earl. People consider him the kind of genius who was born once every generation or something, and he was working as a civil official within the royal palace. Not only that, but he was sociable and handsome, and with blond hair and green eyes, he was incredibly popular with the ladies.

However, I never liked Rex very much. He had a rotten personality. Despite that, Lord Phillip and Rex had been friends since childhood, and they still apparently met up every once in a while for meals.

"Are you all right? I hear that injuries can suddenly start to hurt after a while, so you should watch out for that. My old wounds, for example, still bother me from time to time."

"Thank you...for your concern..."

Rex was so laid-back that it was like he thought this was his house. He looked at the maid and said, "Ah, you don't have to pour tea for Viola."

"Huh?"

"We're going to go to her room now, so she'll take it there."

"Wait, what—?"

Rex stood up from the couch after making his presumptuous order, then walked up to me while I was still frozen at the entrance. He gave me a small smile and then leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

"You're the one who'll be the most inconvenienced if we continue to chat here, aren't you?"

I immediately understood everything when I heard those words. So I quietly followed him back to my room.

This is why I didn't want to see him.

When we got there, Rex had the maid prepare our tea, then ordered her to leave. I requested that the maid follow his command and then let out a deep sigh.

"Hey, so why are you pretending to be an amnesiac?"

He asked me with a smile the moment we were alone. His eyes shimmered like a child's when presented with a new toy.

I never thought I'd be able to pull the wool over his eyes, so I gave up and asked, "When did you notice I was faking it?"

"As soon as I saw your face. When you saw me, you grimaced a little. If you didn't have your memories, then that would've been the first time we met, right? No woman would ever make the face you did upon seeing a man as handsome as I."

Despite how ridiculous the claim was, he was completely serious.

"Well, that was a joke...orrrr maybe it wasn't. Anyway, I became certain of it after we actually spoke. When I mentioned my old wounds, you looked at my left arm without hesitation, even though I didn't even bring up where I'd gotten hurt."

I couldn't refute that, and he continued, "You will never be able to deceive me, especially at the level you operate. I'm actually surprised no one else has seen through you. Miracles do exist!"

I had no response, but Rex kept pestering me, asking me why I was doing all this. So I put my big girl boots on and decided to tell him everything. It was far better to do that than risk him getting upset at my silence.

I told him about how I wanted to break off my engagement by feigning amnesia, as well as how Lord Phillip started coming up with bizarre lies. After I finished telling him everything, Rex began to laugh, clutching his stomach. He was even crying at how funny this all was to him.

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? This is hilarious!" he said, putting the blame on me.

I wished that he would put a hand to his chest and reflect on his own actions before asking me that.

"But still, he sure made a bold move," Rex muttered as he wiped away some of his tears. "It wouldn't be strange if Phillip also saw through your terrible acting, but I guess that's a bit of a tall order. He always seems to lose his brain cells around you."

"Hmm?"

"Oh, I guess that explains why he asked me the other day about date spots you might like."

Rex nodded to himself after he said that, and I looked up at him. When I asked what he said in response to Lord Phillip's question, he laughed and gave me the answer.

"I didn't know where you like to go, and I figured Phillip didn't have the guts to invite you out. So I told him that you try to keep it a secret, but you actually really enjoy fishing at the river. Annnd I may have told him that you're really into hunting for insects in the forest."

"Wait a second."

Seriously, can he stop for once? So it turned out Lord Phillip suddenly inviting me to go fishing at the river was Rex's fault. I was eternally grateful that Lord Phillip didn't go with the second option. Lord Phillip chose the wrong person to ask to begin with, and he should know better than to never take Rex's idiotic jokes seriously by now. There was something seriously wrong with these two. Granted, fishing had been pretty fun.

This meant that when Lord Phillip took me fishing the other day, he had been acting out of a genuine desire for me to have a good time. It made sense, then, why he had looked honestly surprised when he saw my inability to use a fishing rod. I'd thought that he was an amazing actor, but that wasn't the case at all.

A little bit of guilt at how suspicious I was of him started to well up inside of me. But he had actually lied to me several times now. There was no longer any way for me to tell what was true and what was false. I told Rex that we really did go fishing thanks to his lie, and he started to laugh loudly again.

"H-Ha ha, I-I can't breathe! Ahh, man, Phillip's the best."

"Please stop messing with us."

Once he finally calmed down, he took a sip of tea and then looked at me. "So, why do you wanna break off your engagement again?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's not like you hate the guy or anything, right?"

I had told Lord Phillip that I hated him in the past...but that wasn't how I felt anymore. I wanted to separate from him because I knew he hated me and that I wouldn't be a suitable partner for him. More importantly, every time we were close to each other, the air was so awkward that it was suffocating.

Seeing my silence as I thought about Lord Phillip, Rex's lips curled in a smile. "Well, he'll never do you any harm, so you can rest easy on that. It's not every day you get a chance like this, so instead of reading books like that, why don't you approach this as a literal blank slate and try falling in love?"

Rex's eyes turned to the book that I was reading earlier that I had left out on my desk. It was an incredibly fluffy and sweet romance novel titled A Prince Just for Me ♡. I wished that he would mind his own business.

"Oh, shut up," I said. "Stop acting like this doesn't concern you."

"Because it doesn't concern me. Even so, I'm on your side, Viola."

Liar. Instead of saying that out loud, I sighed and then glared at him. "Why'd you even come here today anyway?"

"Oh, right. I almost forgot." He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an invitation.

Upon seeing Rex's big smile and the wax seal on the envelope, I started to get an incredibly bad feeling.