Breaking Off the Engagement… Just as Intended

In the end Brother received the fist in the name of education fives times from mother.

“Big Brother .. are you alive?”

“Uh~~, Mother shows no leniency as usual.”

“I do not think you Big Brother would have had to sustain damage to this extend if you had just properly greeted her.”

Why is it that Brother keeps repeating the same things despite getting educated every single time by Mother.
It keeps me wondering every time.
Is this what they call expressions of love between parent and child?

The ones a.s.sembled in the room right now were me, Brother who was painfully rubbing his head and Chris-sama who looked like he was enjoying himself. In addition to that there was Sana who was preparing tea for us.
Mother had gone and left some time earlier because she had something to talk about with Father who had just returned.

We, on the other hand, decided to hear out Brother while drinking the tea that Sana had prepared.

“Ririina, with that idiot .. no, scratch that, won’t you meet with Prince Leon one more time please?”

Brother mine, you just said idiot quite naturally, didn’t you.
As expected, that can’t be good, can it.
More importantly, how come Brother is recommending I meet with Leon-sama?
Is it, after all, so that I can clearly get his declaration of breaking off the engagement once more?

“Big Brother, I do not mind meeting with him, but in that case wouldn’t it be better not for me alone, but also to have the King, the Queen, and also Father and Mother be present when bringing up the topic of the cancellation of the engagement. For whatever reason it appears that Leon-sama hasn’t brought up the matter with anyone except me so far. Or did he per chance do so in the few days that I was away in the territory?”

For some reason Brother looked like he was greatly perplexed.
Are? Was it possible that the spot Mother hat met with her fist earlier had gotten worse? [1]
And I could hear some kind of laughing voice.

“Ku, haha. Ah, sorry. b.u.t.ting into the conversation and all. But this is just too funny. Actually, truth be told, what do you think of Prince Leon, Ririina? It seems like you accepted the breaking off the engagement quite easily, but is that really alright with you?”

Chris-sama threw such a question at me.
Even if I’m told ‘what do you think of him’ that’s a bit difficult, isn’t it. Of course it was just an engagement that our parents had decided for us, but I did think that if we’re going to be married anyway I would like to get along with him, but that’s what I couldn’t do.
It seemed like Leon-sama disliked me so I think that must surely have been part of the reason why I accepted the breaking off so readily. It would have been very tough to forever stay with a person that I could feel didn’t like me, after all.

“I do not particularily like nor dislike Leon-sama. That I simply accepted his breaking off the engagement is because I knew that he didn’t like me. And beyond that, dealing with such a declaration by my own discretion is not something I could do anyway.” [2]

Listening to my words Chris-sama nodded as if thinking while Brother was groaning.
For some reason Brother was grumbling.
‘Disliking you, you say .. but well with that att.i.tude .. just why couldn’t he have told her honestly at least once .. idiot.’
No mistake this time, I really could hear him saying idiot.
He better not be saying t
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hat in front of the person in question.
At that time we heard a knock on the door.
Sana went to deal with that.
The one who entered the room was Sebastian.

“I apologize for the interruption. Ririina-sama, the Master’s are calling for you.”

“I understand. I’ll be coming now. Chris-sama, Brother, I’m sorry about leaving in the middle of our conversation but excuse me.”

I exited the room behind Sebastion and headed for father’s room.
In front of the room Sebastion knocked on the door with a ‘Pardon the interruption, I have brought Ririina-sama’ and opened it.

“Aah, Ririina. Saa, come and sit here.”

Prompted by Father I sat down on a chair.
Before me were Mother and Father.
It’s been a while since I last saw the figure of them together.

“Ririina .. you must be exhausting with all the traveling in such a short period of time. I’ve been troubling you, sorry.”

We haven’t seen each other for but a few days so why, Father, is the sense of exhaustion from you so extreme?
It’s true that over the duration of the past few days I’ve been travelling back and forth between the territory and capital, have been hunting those masked men and monsters, but even with all of that crammed together I don’t feel that exhausted. On the contrary, by having been able to excersise that way I’m in great shape.
Compared to that my Father .. did he thin?

“Father .. haven’t you gotten a bit thinner? We haven’t met for only a few days but it feels like you are extremely exhausted.”

“Does it look that way? Certainly, I’ve been going to meet the King and Queen just about every day but the essential Prince Leon hasn’t talked about anything at all. Which is why the conversations never lead anywhere to the extend that it makes you say ‘good grief’. Honestly, I’m just about ready to do anything at this point, even to break it off from our side ..”

Father has been driven in a corner ..
As expected calling off the engagement from our side would be difficult.
And the ‘to do anything’ part of it scares me so cut it out please.
Mother reacted a bit to that part, violence is bad I tell you.

“Ririina, let’s go to the castle together tomorrow. And let us end this story once and for all.”

Is what Mother said while smiling.
Yes, I’ll go.
And I will the one stopping her from going wild somehow.
Let us somehow finish this peacefully.
What I can do is to talk things out, or make it so that things can be settled by talking it out. [3]
Violence is absolutely forbidden!

We had 3333 visitors yesterday on the 14th. And 3 chapter published. But the average view count per visitor was ~4 so we didn’t get a page count containing many 3s. Also, for some reason I called this and the last chapter ⑳ and ⑲ instead of 20 and 19.

[1] The previous sentence uses the expression : 頭を抱えた which, as a phrase means ‘to be greatly perplexed, be at wits’ end’ but literally is composed ‘to carry/hold one’s head in one’s arms’ So her Brother might quite literally be holding his head in a perplexed manner right now, making her wonder whether his head might have started hurting (worse than before, anyhow).
[2] As in, even if she had wanted to change/prevent anything about it that would have been beyond her social/political power anyway.
[3] Not too sure about this one : 私に出来ることは話し合いが、話し合いで済むようにすることだ。