T/N: Sorry for the wait, I had a kind of crisis over narrative POV. More in notes.
In the unusually hot summer weather, a cool breeze blew for the first time in a long time.
Lavi was looking out the window with a pleasant smile on her face. The hair that had once brushed her chest had grown long enough to reach her hips. Now, she was often referred to as ‘lady’ instead of as a little child. Of course, the family doctor or her brother Werner usually said it jokingly.
“I must go out today.”
It had been ten days since she last spent time outside of the mansion.
The sky was cloudy, seeming as if it was about to rain.
As usual, summer in the capital this year was so intense that she couldn’t even dare to go outside. Stubbornly, she went for a walk for about 30 minutes, but after fainting, the desire to go outside completely disappeared. Instead, she eagerly waited for rainy weather, which hadn’t happened in awhile, since she was able to go for walks on rainy days.
“Huh? What’s that?”
Lavi tilted her head as she watched an unfamiliar carriage approach the mansion. The carriage was engraved with a family crest depicting the face of a black leopard with fierce, menacing eyes.
“Allen.”
Even though her voice wasn’t that loud, Allen, who was outside the bedroom, came into the room straight away. Seeing Lavi leaning out of the window and dangling precariously, he strode over and picked her up in his arms.
“Miss, it’s not safe for you to do this..”
“Allen! That carriage! Sa…Salome family!”
“Ah, that’s right, I guess that was today.” Allen glanced out the window and nodded.
“Well, I guess I was the only one who didn’t know about this.”
Lavi clenched her fist with a dissatisfied expression and thumped Allen on the shoulder.
Allen looked down at Lavi, saying, “Won’t you hurt yourself if you hit me like that?”
“I mean, even with moderate exercise, I get bruises all the time.”
Lavi grumbled, looking at her reddened fist.
More importantly, wasn’t Lady Salome the arranged marriage partner of her brother Werner and a villainess in the original work?
Of course, her memory wasn’t perfect, so she couldn’t be sure. However, there was something strange about what she felt from the family crest.1
Lavi looked out the window again and tugged Allen’s collar.
“Let’s go downstairs, Allen. I need to see for myself.”
“Miss. Even if you’re curious, wouldn’t it be better to meet later? I’m sure there will be an opportunity for a formal introduction later.”
“I can just have a look secretly.”
Lavi urged Allen, slipping back into his arms, and they headed to the foyer on the first floor.
At the corner of the hallway leading to the dining room, she poked her head out from Allen’s embrace and waited for Lady Salome’s entrance. Her gleaming blonde hair was tumbling down, giving away her presence, despite her belief that she was completely hidden.
‘So, talk of this whole arranged marriage thing is in full swing….’
It meant Akkad’s uncle would be beginning to move.Or maybe not yet, she wondered, given what she heard from her brother the other day. It was frustrating that she couldn’t estimate the exact time.
“Miss.”
“Shh.”
At Allen’s call, Lavi remembered why she was here like this, and pushed away his whispering face with her hand, eyes fixed on the doorway.The large door slide open smoothly, first revealing her brother Werner.
Lavi’s eyes rounded, opening wide at the sight of Werner neatly dressed in a suit. At this level, wasn’t it like ‘I’m the male protagonist’ was practically written on his forehead?
At twenty-five years old, Werner was overflowing with a certain masculine beauty. Of course, when he opened his mouth in front of Lavi, he was still silly.
Lavi’s face, who was watching Werner with interest, abruptly flushed bright red. It was the fault of the person who entered the mansion, escorted by Werner.
“Cr…crazy ….”
Her beauty was out of this world.
Her splendid features and slightly raised eyes gave off a haughty impression. At the sight of amber-colored eyes seen under the long eyelashes, Lavi’s mouth fell open. There was a single dot below the beautifully raised corner of her mouth, and her vibrant red hair cascaded down her back and around her waist. Even though she wore no jewelry, and her dress was unadorned, she radiated an air of glamor.
Just as Lavi was thinking that the name ‘Rose’ really suited her, amber eyes turned to meet hers.
“Wow….”
“Oh my.”
Lavi’s face turned bright red as if she might burst, watching Lady Salome approach with a captivating smile.
Following Rose’s gaze, Werner spotted Lavi hiding behind a corner and called out to his sister in surprise.
“Lavi?”
Lavi pulled on Allen’s collar.
“Allen, put me down.”
Quickly.
At the urgency in her voice, Allen came out from around the corner and set the squirming Lavi down. She was impatient because she didn’t want to give her greetings while Allen was holding her.
Lavi smoothed out her clothes and looked up at Rose. Rose smiled slightly as she looked at Lavi, her eyes shining.
“My name is Rose Salome. It’s nice to meet you. What a lovely lady you are.”
“My name is Laviette Diaz.”
Lavi inclined her head slightly and introduced herself. Since Rose’s greeting wasn’t entirely formal, she simply said her name.
Rose seen up close was even more beautiful. Even though Akkad was the prettiest, he couldn’t compare to a mature woman.
Rose leaned down until she was eye level with Lavi. Werner raised an eyebrow in disapproval, but Rose easily ignored him and addressed Lavi.
“I’m sure we’ll see each other often in the future. Will you call me Rose?”
“Um, please call me Lavi, too.”
Rose smiled slightly at the tone that seemed as if asking a favor.
“We were just about to have tea, would you like to join us, Lavi?”
“Lady Salome. That’s enough.”
Werner spoke in a low, subdued tone of voice, gently pulling Lavi towards himself.
Lavi raised her eyebrows as she looked at Werner, who was eyeing Rose warily. She smiled brightly at Rose and gently removed Werner’s hand from her shoulder.
“If I won’t be disturbing the two of you.”
“Of course.”
Lavi kept her eyes locked with Rose’s, paying no attention whatsoever to her brother, who was looking at her with an expression that said ‘absolutely not’.
As they walked towards where tea would be served, she saw that outside of the window, it had begun to drizzle. Werner motioned for Lavi to look out the window.
“Wow – it’s really raining.”
“Shall we go to the back garden?”
“Yes!”
Lavi nodded quickly and then looked anxiously at Rose.
“Anywhere is fine with me.”
To Rose’s agreement, Werner added a brief thank you.
Lavi clicked her tongue as she saw the man and woman not exchanging a word the entire way to the back of the manor. Would this awkward silence be resolved once tea time begins? Lavi just glanced at Rose, who smiled and continued walking.
A thin canopy was set up to keep out the rain, then tea cups and desserts were prepared on the table. As the maids poured tea and brought out cakes, Lavi leaned her arms across the table and formed a flower cup with her hands, looking enthusiastically at Rose.2 When their eyes met, Rose smiled as if she found Lavi adorable.
Lavi’s face started to turn red. Feeling the heat rising to her face, she quickly realized, straightened her posture and fanned her hands.
The Marquis Salome was a military family with a long and venerable history, rivaling that of Duke Enoch. 3Rose, now 25 years old, was so talented that she had risen successively through the ranks and now served as a leader of one of the eight imperial knight orders.
‘So cool, right?’
Lavi shook her head, remembering the pain in her wrist from holding a wooden sword one time.
Werner, who had been quietly sipping his tea, looked at Lavi and opened his mouth with an expression on his face that said he simply couldn’t help it.
“I’d like to keep the engagement simple, maybe even skip it.”
Werner’s voice was so firm that anyone would think they were on bad terms. Did her brother know something about Rose that led him to treat her so coldly? Lavi wondered about it. She put down her fork as she watched the conversation between Rose and Werner, who were already well past marriageable age.
What was that brother of hers talking about now?
No matter how much she might be a villain, nothing has been revealed yet, and he takes such a wonderful big sister type and skips the engagement ceremony? Lavi glowered ferociously at Werner with a menacing look, but when she felt a gaze on her, her expression instantly brightened and she looked at Rose.
“Rose, do you really have to get engaged to my brother?”
Without realizing it, her true feelings came out.
The maids standing behind gave Lavi fearsome looks. Wasn’t it bad enough to come between the relationship of a man and a woman who are about to get engaged, now she questioned the engagement?
Lavi waited for Rose’s answer without feeling their stares at all.
She didn’t know Rose very well yet, but she thought that if Rose didn’t marry Werner, she might not be able to become a villain, right? Surely that would be so.
Rose, with an expression on her face that said she had never thought about it, cautiously opened her mouth to speak.
“Oh my, you don’t like me?”
“No, I like you.”
At the answer that came out without the slightest hesitation, Werner coughed while drinking tea.
Lavi, who had been looking at Rose with a shy expression and twinkling eyes, held out her handkerchief to Werner with an expression of disdain. She was dying of frustration, unable to ask her brother to reconsider this marriage because he was going to fall in love with the prince one day.
“I like you too, Lavi.”
“Oh… yes.”
Lavi nodded, mesmerized by the words that came out of her smiling mouth. How long had it been since they met? Yet they spoke as if making a confession. She wasn’t saying she thought they’d be good together, or that she wanted to be close, she was saying she liked her too.
‘For sure, I’m so excited, big sister!’ 4
Rose seemed to think for a moment, then spoke carefully to Lavi.
“I must have put too much pressure on you for our first meeting. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a younger sister, and I suppose I just wanted to be close without realizing it.”
“Oh, I didn’t feel pressured.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. Would you call me sister?”
“Please give me some time.”
“Of course.”
Lavi suppressed the urge to immediately nod her head at the request, reminding herself that Rose might be a villain.
Rose served tea snacks to Lavi, before looking at Werner and saying, “We can skip the engagement ceremony. I’m so busy that I don’t have time for it, anyway.”
“… I see.”
Lavi looked at Rose, taken aback to see her speaking in such a firm tone of voice. 5 The difference in temperature between her voice when speaking to Lavi and when speaking to her brother was too severe. Moreover, Rose was looking at her brother as if she were looking at someone born yesterday. 6
“Instead, we can prepare for the wedding right away. It’s just a formality.”
Lavi’s hips wiggled up and down as if she was going to get up and scream at any moment.
‘What do you mean “just a formality” How ridiculous!’
Shouldn’t it be the best, most perfect wedding ever?
Lavi barely managed to hold back on the urge to slap her brother on the shoulder and shout at him to not talk nonsense.
Rose set down her teacup, her lips moving slightly before she spoke.
“You know, Olivia, you have a very kind older brother.”
“What?”
“The terms of the arranged marriage included that ‘Lavi and I would continue to live in the same house’.”
Rose added that she’d been told Lavi’s body was weak, and added that there was no need to worry, as it was a condition that she’d gladly accepted.
“You’re saying useless things, Lady Salome.”
“Was it a secret?”
“… It’s not like that.”
Lavi clicked her tongue as she looked at Werner, who was watching her restlessly. Since she was weak, she guessed he was trying to live with her instead of marrying her off. She was grateful, but it wasn’t what she wanted.
‘Anyway, maybe I should leave now.’
She could no longer ignore the stinging looks that the maids, and even Allen as well, were giving her.
‘What if the young lady interrupts the relationship between the two of them?’ It was a gaze with blatant meaning.
Whether or not she intended to interfere, Lavi didn’t think the two of them would get closer, but she got up thinking that there was nothing she could do.
Rather, she tried to stand up, but the dense lace tablecloth got caught in her dress sleeve buttons.
Lavi bit her lower lip as she watched the tea pour down towards her legs. It was hot tea that had just been freshly brewed, and she could hear the maids shouting around her, sure that she would get hurt.
“Lavi!!”
“Miss…!”
The first cry was Werner’s cry, and the next was Allen’s.
And….
“Lavi.”
From somewhere, Lavi thought she heard a voice similar to Akkad’s – but before she could even think about it, she felt her body being lifted, floating into someone’s hands.
And then she saw Rose’s slender hand holding a fork in front of her.
There were only two sounds of the glass and fork clinking, and then the teacup flew backwards away from Lavi. A small amount of the teacup’s contents spilled out and soaked Rose’s hair.
Someone had picked Lavi up and Rose had knocked the teacup away.
“Lavi! Are you okay? Ah, and, are you alright, Lady Salome?”
When Werner belatedly got up and tried to approach Rose, Rose waved her hand to indicate that she was fine.
Lavi looked at Rose in astonishment, checking to make certain she hadn’t been burned by the tea.
Nonchalant despite the commotion, Rose pulled out a handkerchief, dried her hair, then looked at Lavi.
“Lavi, were you surprised?”
Lavi nodded somewhat excessively.
‘Big sister. You are the savior of my life.’
“Yes… sister.”
Just moments ago she’d vowed that she would take her time before calling Rose sister, but who cared?
Take me instead! I’ll give you everything! 7
Why was she marrying someone like that?
Before she knew it, in Lavi’s head, Werner had transformed into the ultimate scoundrel for cheating on such a goddess.
“Sister…?”
Lavi called out Rose with a questioning look, because the expression of Rose, who had been smiling at her, had suddenly turned wary, her gaze focused behind Lavi.
“Lavi, do you think you could introduce me to your friend back there?”
“What?”
Lavi turned her head as if she didn’t know what that meant.
‘Are you asking me to introduce you to Allen?’
However, at her glance, Allen was quite a distance away.
Only then did Lavi realize that the hand that pulled her away when the tea spilled did not belong to Allen.
When she tried to turn around to see who it was, her eyes instantly snapped upward.
“Akkad?”
T/N: A few things:
1) I was worrying about section lengths and how many parts I was chopping chapters into, but when I checked and the episodic version they run around ~1500-1600 English words- this is ~2600. So, there may be a lot of sections, but there’s still some bonus? Let me know if y’all have a preference on length, otherwise I’ll continue just being arbitrary lol.
2) I still don’t have a completely confident answer on the POV thing. This is something people who know what they’re doing struggle with as well to an extent (check out The Implicit I: Contesting Ambiguity in Korean Literature – Asian American Writers’ Workshop) but reminder to appreciate official translations and the legit challenges the pros face doing it.
3) Reminder – I am sadly monolingual, and this was more an effort of wanting to read this story myself and playing with training a LLM to make stories readable, not necessarily accurate, so if someone/ a group who actually knows what they’re doing wants to pick this up on, you have my 100% enthusiastic support).
- 하지만, 가문의 문양이 뿜어내는 기운부터가 심상치 않았다. Not sure on this ↩︎
- Wrists together, palms spread in a kind of V over or under cheeks (like leaves of a flower), chin resting in or hovering over hands (like your face = flower). If you search ‘flower cup + kpop’ or ‘flower cup pose’ you can find examples! ↩︎
- Specifically, 무가 ‘warrior family’ MTL likes to call it ‘samurai’ (……..) but being used here (if I’m interpreting correctly) as general term for families that hold government positions in charge of the military. ↩︎
- 언니 unnie – used when you’re a female and talking to other older females, can be used among friends, not used solely for literal blood sisters. Probably last time I’ll footnote this one, heads up! ↩︎
- 딱딱한, hard, stiff, firm, formal, stern, unfriendly – the same exact descriptor used for Werner’s tone of voice earlier, so they’re matching one another. ↩︎
- Rose looks at Werner like ‘애송이’ it can mean ‘baby’ or ‘A person or thing that one has an affection for’ but it can also mean ‘rookie/greenhorn/novice’ or ‘A person who lacks experience or skills.’ choose your fighter. ↩︎
- 절 가져요. 드릴게요. No indication of it being a thought (eg the ‘thought’) …y’all perils of relying on MTL (which I do, to be clear, which is why I’m 100% open to other folks doing a more legit translation). This is the bit that really threw me into confusion about POV (which I had already been questioning). I think these are basically things you might say to a favorite celebrity, so the POV may not be important. Literally it’s something like ‘take me. I’ll give (it) to you’ which seems to be colloquially accepted as like ‘I love you so much omg’ fan girl kind of style. ↩︎
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