Looking for My Fiancé’s lover – chapter 31 (spin-off 4)

He couldn’t help but stare at her white face dumbfoundedly, and Katrina parted her lips in a small voice.

“You said you were Lockherd’s friend.”

“That’s right.”

“But why are you coming to visit me?”

He felt so strange seeing her this calm, to the point that he thought she might have a split personality.
Unlike yesterday, when Nezar was prepared to hear abusive language or even get punched in the worst case.

“Can’t Lockherd’s friend come over to visit you?”

“That’s not it, but… Lockherd’s never come to visit me when I was sick.”

“Why?”

“Every time he came, I kept getting annoyed and I kicked him out.”

“How did you kick him out?”

“Shout or bite his shoulder.
Then Lockherd screamed and ran away.
If I bit hard, he would glare or scowl wherever he saw me for the next two days.
Even if he kept scowling like that, what else could I do anyway? Who told him to forcefully come to visit me, make it so displeasing?!”

Lockherd and the youngest were four years apart, so Katrina must have been eight now.
No matter how he looked at it, Katrina was extremely hostile, which was not suitable for the age of eight.
When he listened to Lockherd, the guy seemed to care about her in his own way, but Katrina didn’t think like that at all.

Did they talk to each other that infrequently? No, precisely, there seemed to be no interaction between the two at all.

“Do you hate Lockherd that much?”

“Yes.
Uh… no.”

“So yes or no?”

“I don’t know exactly what dislike is.
Does ‘hate’ mean having your face crumpled whenever your eyes meet?”

It’s nice that she’s calm now, but somehow it didn’t feel like she could communicate well.
Similar to Lockherd, she just said whatever she wanted to say.
Nezar fixed his gaze on Katrina’s wavy platinum-blonde hair.
Before long, he answered calmly just the way he should when treating a child.

“Where did you get that idea from?”

“Um…All the servants and maids are like that.
Tanya, Jason, Mrs Morcada and…”

In an instant, Nezar realised that the subject would not be very pleasant to Katrina.
He had to say something else.
He smoothed out Katrina’s hair, which had been messed up by running wild.
For some reason, he could not help but think of Ezaret.

“You had to give up on the cremation of the teddy bear you so wanted so bad in the end.
Did you even take care of it properly? You left it behind yesterday.”

“Teddy bear?”

Katrina’s face look troubled for a moment.
Soon, she shook her head lightly.

“Oh, that? It doesn’t matter.
I was just trying to get attention.
Look, see this?”

Katrina flipped her skirt over and showed him her calves.
Nezar looked down at Katrina’s words without much thought.

To think it was an act to get attention, far from being naive, wasn’t she quite sly?

But that thought vanished without a trace as soon as he saw Katrina’s red, swollen calves.

“Initially, my mother would never put her hands on me no matter what I did.
But this time… Guess I’ve gone too far.
My legs were tingling so I had a fever.”

“I guess the attention you metioned is getting a beating.”

Katrina lifted her legs and hid herself under the blanket again.
The warm shade of noon cast down through the window, dyeing her platinum blonde hair red.
The corners of her eyes, which were covered by her long hair, were curved in a fine line, but at one glance, they seemed somewhat distorted.

“Ahaha, that can’t be! I hate being sick too.
If I am locked up in a room because I’m sick, no one will come visit me anyway.”

Ah, so this was it.
This was the reason why Ezaret came to Nezar’s mind whenever he faced Katrina.

She was a noble doll in the Empress’ hands, always struggling for the attention of her half-brother, Nezar.
As the princess, in order for her to keep her white skin like snow, she always stayed indoors, having dry and tedious conversations with her mother and her escort knight.
Whenever the Empress opened her mouth, she would be busy discussing how to become a beautiful woman, so every day must have been boring, stuffy, and depressing for Ezaret.

Yet, there was nothing Nezar could do for her sake.
It was because he did not find the need to draw the empress’ attention.

“Is there anything you want to do?”

However, the situation in Ezelot was a little different.
He was about to get bored with his assignments anyway.
Still, he didn’t want to run around in the snow in this weird weather like she always did.

“There is no such thing.”

“If you don’t have one, make one.
For the rest of the four days in Ezellot, I’ll play with you.”

“Why?”

Katrina, who asked that question, was stunned.

“There is no specific reason.
Well, if you don’t like it, you can say no.”

Katrina hurriedly shook her head.
Leaving her bed with bare feet, she came close to Nezar and grabbed both of his hands with a smile that had never been seen on her before.

“I don’t hate it at all! I’d love that! I’m glad mother scolded me!”

After several days of observation, Nezar realised that Katrina Ezelot had a good reason for not being treated like a human in the castle.
First of all, this little demon did not know how to keep her body still.
Even on a day when she had to stay in her room and rest quietly, she tried to go outside by scratching the door.
As the sawdust was stuck under her fingernails, causing her to bleed, the maids had no choice but to open the door for her.

Did that mean she’s docile once she’d gotten out? Absolutely not.
Katrina was very bad at dealing with people who were not favourable to her.
She would be busy smashing down the surroundings if anyone called her in a slightly irritated tone.

She plucked out manicured flowers in the garden, she devoted herself to grazing the horses in the stables, and in the halls she was eager to break decors such as vases and candlesticks.

The mentality of a girl who was only eight years old was now a grey area that Nezar had a hard time understanding.

“The maids had to suffer because of you.
If you want to get people’s attention, you have to make a positive impression first.
If you keep making a mess like that, who’s going to like you?”

At Nezar’s reprimand, Katrina pouted with a sulky face.

“If I keep quiet, I’ll just stay obedient that way.
They used to not let me go out of the castle at night.
Now that I’m out, I’m doing whatever I want.”

She’s also very reckless.

Nezar took a seat on Katrina’s bed and took the plate from her hand.
Only the colourful bell peppers were left on the white plate.

“You’re doing it again.
Don’t be picky and finish everything.”

Nezar, who scooped up the leftover vegetables with the fork, pressed it to Katrina’s lips.
What’s scary to her was not the gossip of the maids, but rather the bell peppers.
Her complexion quickly turned pale.

“I-, I don’t like it.”

“If you leave these, I won’t come anymore.
I don’t have enough time to deal with you in the first place.”

But in truth, he had so much time on his hands to the point of overflowing.
Seeing her biting her lip with a tearful face, Nezar forcefully looked at her sternly.
Her lips, which were swollen, slowly relaxed.
Both the upper lip and the lower one were covered with blood, probably because of her habit of biting her lips.

“I will only say it one more time.
Hurry up and eat it.”

“No!”

“Come on, hurry.”

“Why am I being forced to eat it when I don’t like it? It’s not like I’m going to die just because I don’t eat this.”

“I hate picky eaters.
If you want to be picky, find a friend who doesn’t care if you’re a picky eater and play with him.
Could this be a good-enough reason?”

“What kind of nonsense is that!”

Upon shouting, she barely opened her mouth and put the peppers in it.
Unwilling to chew, Katrina covered her nostrils with her hands and swallowed the peppers after taking a deep breath.
It’s not a small amount, but it went down regardless.

“Are all the people of the Imperial family this rude?”

“No.
I do see some rude people but you are the most reckless person I know, Katrina.”

“Really? That can’t be true.
I heard Eden say that selfish people like me are everywhere once entering the Imperial Palace or the social circle…”

“I’m sure that’s not the case though.
Also, your brother made some pretty brutal jokes there.”