The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 21
“Then, I shall take my leave.”
“…I’m sorry I can’t escort you out, my lady.”
“…”
“…See you again.”
To his words added with an anxious face, Roxelyn nodded with a slight smile and bowed her head.
Turning around, Roxelyn walked down the long and splendid corridor, guided by a servant.
Click-clack.
As she walked, the gazes around her concentrated.
Roxelyn scoffed at this basic breach of decorum.
“Oh, where are you hurrying to like that?”
Suddenly hearing a voice, Roxelyn abruptly stopped.
She widened her eyes and quickly turned her head towards the sound.
***
“G, Good afternoon, Your Majesty,” Arma greeted nervously.
“Ah… there you are, my youngest.”
Arma awkwardly smiled at the Emperor’s mischievously grinning face, incongruent with his age, and scratched his cheek with his gloved hand.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Have you been well?”
“When the children don’t need me, they don’t even show their faces. How could I be well?”
“…Ahaha, I apologize. I’ll visit more often.”
Thinking how well he parrots empty words, the Emperor shrugged.
“Let’s end this uninteresting performance, my child. I’ve sent everyone away.”
Arma blinked and then smiled warmly, his eyes curling.
“That… I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand what you’re saying, Your Majesty…”
“…Good grief, what a boring punk.”
The Emperor waved his hand in the air.
A faint presence in the ceiling soon disappeared.
Arma approached the curtain with an innocent face and slowly drew it.
“So, my youngest, I didn’t summon you, what brings you here?”
The office darkened rapidly as the curtains were drawn.
Only a sliver of light and the chandelier lit the room.
Arma, who had drawn the curtains, slowly turned around. The young man, looking like a boy in the backlight, smiled quietly.
He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back.
The face without the bangs no longer showed the sun-like innocence of a young boy.
Instead, a somewhat cynical young man was visible.
It was just a change in hair and a slight alteration in expression.
Arma, instead of answering the Emperor’s question, entered a small pantry in the office.
Moments later, he came out with a steaming kettle and sat cross-legged on the sofa opposite the Emperor.
Arma poured tea into a cup with a red lipstick mark, set down the kettle, and picked up the cup.
“What conversation did you have with the lady?”
Arma asked softly, holding the cup with an inscrutable smile.
“She wants to break off the engagement with you.”
“And?”
“I told her she could.”
“…”
Arma paused, bringing the cup to his lips marked with red.
“Why?”
“She offered me something I need, so I agreed to let her have her way if it’s confirmed.”
The Emperor smiled slyly at Arma’s frost-like cold eyes.
“She was more valuable to me than you are now. Just that.”
The Emperor leaned back leisurely, sipping his tea.
“What did she propose?”
After a silence, Arma asked, tilting his cup.
The Emperor reached for the teapot Arma had brought.
“Well, I promised not to tell.”
As the Emperor’s cup filled, Arma spoke.
“You poured the tea I brought, so tell me.”
“…Isn’t that petty?”
“You were the one who started being petty.”
“Negotiations with Kaluta and the investigation of the disappearance cases.”
Clack.
Arma set his cup down at the Emperor’s terse response.
The Emperor looked at the red lipstick left on his son’s lips and shrugged nonchalantly.
“The lady has changed.”
She used to be someone who blushed and stumbled just by making eye contact.
But all day today, she looked straight into Arma’s eyes.
She spoke without stuttering and didn’t smile shyly like usual.
“But, right. As long as it doesn’t bring her any harm, it doesn’t matter.”
Arma slowly rubbed his lower lip with his thumb.
The lipstick from the teacup lightly transferred to his lips, slightly smudging and adding a hint of color to his pale countenance.