Chapter 20

Everyone, including Annie and Van, looked stunned at my words.

And Adel’s reaction wasn’t much different.

He paused for a moment, taken aback by my different-than-usual reaction, and then with a face full of curiosity and mischief, he scampered to my desk.

“Nuh-uh! You’re ugly!”

On the surface, it sounded insolent, but it wasn’t. There was a sense of expectation on Adel’s face.

Are you going to play with me more?

With a face that seemed to say that, Adel met my eyes.

There are many reasons why people play pranks, but I think most pranks are for the purpose of enjoying the other person’s reaction.

Usually, they lose interest and stop when the reaction is boring, but Adel would only escalate, not stop.

So what if I reacted in the opposite way?

“Look closely. I have fair skin, like people in the North, and a rare light pink hair color in the Empire, and my facial features are all pretty and well-defined, aren’t they?”

As I leaned my face close to Adel and meticulously pointed out each feature, he seemed surprised by my boldness and nodded.

In reality, I wasn’t a beauty that made people go ‘Wow!’ like Nine or Helena, but I was pretty enough for people to turn their heads and look at me twice.

As proof, Adel’s face flushed slightly.

‘Cute.’

My hand went out without me even realizing it.

As I gently ran my hand through his soft hair and stroked his head, Adel flinched.

“W-what! Why are you touching me without permission!”

He jumped up like a cat, but he didn’t move away or avoid my touch.

He didn’t seem to be upset. I stroked the boy’s head a little more gently.

“And Adel, do you know Dragonia Academy?”

“How can I not know that?”

“Then do you know what kind of people go there?”

“Who do you think I am! It’s a place for geniuses!”

“That’s right. I’m a graduate of that place. So I can’t be a dummy, can I?”

I took advantage of the boy’s unguarded moment to present another piece of objective evidence.

Only then did Adel seem to realize that he was being teased in return, and he frowned.

“Nuh-uh! You’re super ugly and a super dummy!”

“Oh, really? Then Adel must have evidence to support my ugliness and foolishness, just like I proved my prettiness and intelligence.”

“H-hic!”

‘This is fun.’

It was a verbal sparring match that I started to solve the problem of Adel, but before I knew it, I had become the one doing the teasing.

But his reaction was too entertaining.

“Adel, do you know something?”

“…What now?”

“Boys your age usually say the opposite to pretty girls or girls they like.”

“?”

“Thank you for liking me so, so much!”

“??”

As I said this with a bright smile, Adel, who had been blank for a moment, instantly turned bright red.

“N-no, I don’t!”

Unable to contain his frustration, Adel finally let out a shriek and quickly ran out of the office.

“Ah, ahahaha.”

I burst into laughter at his adorable and entertaining reaction, and the expressions of the servants who were on standby were quite a sight.

“Lady Chacha.”

“It’s alright, it’s alright.”

Van called me with a voice filled with concern. But I waved my hand and said, “I know what you’re worried about, but it will be truly fine.”

He seemed to expect that the annoyed Adel, who was teased by me, would pull even worse pranks in the future.

But I saw it.

‘Adel was smiling as he left.’

It was just the first step, but I felt like it was going to be more enjoyable than I thought.

I smiled as I looked at the door Adel had left through, and then I savored my chamomile tea again.

***

After I started to fight back with his pranks, Adel consistently increased the frequency and severity of his mischief.

The one saving grace was that all his pranks were now aimed at me.

‘It seems like he likes that I’m fighting back.’

He was still mischievous, but it was just a child’s prank from the Middle Ages.

‘Compared to the spoiled brats of Korea, he’s an angel, a true angel.’

In my previous life, I had endured countless jobs from hell and encountered a lot of awful people. Thinking about that, Adel’s pranks were cute.

And since I didn’t have to just sit there and take it like the servants, there was less risk of getting hurt.

Most of all, fighting back against Adel’s pranks was fun for me too.

Since he was still a child, his pranks were easy to see coming, so it wasn’t hard to play along.

I stealthily approached and poked Adel, who was hiding behind a statue.

“Gah!”

“Aaaaah!”

Adel, who didn’t expect me to appear from behind, was startled and scrambled away from me.

He was so surprised that his mouth was agape and he just gaped for a moment before letting out a shriek.

“Why did you come out from there?!”

“Because I saw you waiting for me.”

The place where Adel was hiding was a hallway that I had to pass to get to my office.

However, I knew Adel was hiding there, so I took a detour around the mansion.

Hearing my words, Adel looked dumbfounded and just blinked, as if he hadn’t thought of that, before he quickly regained his composure.

“J-just you wait!”

‘Sounds like an old-time villain’s line~.’

Adel was true to his word.

The very next day after he said that, Adel came running to me.

His form was quite familiar.

‘You think I’ll fall for it a second time?’

Having had my dress skirt lifted by the boy who came running at me on our first meeting, I started running towards Adel as if I were a person filled with emotion.

Poof!

And I hugged the boy who was nestled in my arms and spun him around.

“You jumped into my arms. You must really like me, don’t you?”

“Icck! Put me down!!”

Adel, with a face that quickly turned red, struggled in my arms. I gently put him down, and he ran away again as if to escape, but for a moment, Adel looked back.

The part of his ear not covered by hair was red.

The next prank Adel pulled was scribbling on my documents.

The situation was the same as before—the documents were scribbled on to make them unreadable—but now I was an adult who was perfectly prepared for Adel’s pranks.

‘This is a copy.’

I smiled brightly and carefully examined Adel’s scribble. Next to a pink jellyfish drawing, the words ‘Dummy Ugly’ were written crookedly.

‘He drew me, didn’t he?’

Even though he drew it to tease me, the thought that he drew me with his own hands made me giggle.

Below it, I drew a chubby, cartoon-like Adel and wrote neatly next to it.

‘Very good job!’

And a smiley face in a circle. Since there was no such stamp here, I just drew it myself.

I folded it into a pretty note and gave it to Adel, who had come to prank me, and his eyes widened.

“…Did you draw this?”

“Of course. Adel drew this for me while thinking of me, so I have to return the favor.”

“I-I didn’t draw it while thinking of you!”

“But I’m the only one with pink hair here?”

“Nuh-uh!”

Adel huffed for a long time before he went back to his room. He was still clutching the note I gave him.

I wondered if he would tear it up when he got back.

‘He’s so cute, so cute.’

Since his reactions were so entertaining, and I could handle them like this, I found Adel’s pranks adorable.

But that also meant that I was probably the only one who felt this way.

Even if Adel didn’t intend to, there was a maid who fell, broke a vase, and burst into tears. And there must be more people who suffered psychological and physical harm like that.

A prank is only a prank if the other person laughs too.

Therefore, to make sure he understood that, I kept playing along and fighting back against Adel’s pranks. But…

“Hmm.”

After observing Adel for a while, I started to notice a few things that didn’t sit right with me.

In the original novel, he was just introduced as ‘the male protagonist’s mischievous little brother’ in one line, so I thought he just had a mischievous personality.

‘That doesn’t seem to be the whole story.’

There was something questionable about just saying it was due to his personality. I couldn’t just trust the original novel, since Adel’s part was so small.

That’s why, even though I had decided to correct his bad manners, I couldn’t easily decide on a parenting method—how to treat Adel, and how to teach him effectively.

‘First, I lack information.’

The Adel I knew was only based on what I had inferred from my direct observations of his actions.

I knew nothing about his childhood or his family relationships. And it wasn’t something I could easily get access to.

But for a child, those things had a huge impact on their growth. Therefore, a little more investigation was needed.

Of course, I couldn’t help but guess, since I hadn’t seen the family gather…

Click.

I put down the teacup I was drinking after dinner and sent Laura away, telling her to get some rest early.

“And Annie.”

When I made a small request to her in a voice only she could hear, she left the room with a confident stride.

It was another change that came after the bullying stopped. I smiled at Annie’s dignified back.

And so, I was left alone in my room, staring at the steaming teacup, waiting for the person who would give me the answer to my questions.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“Lady Chacha, did you call for me?”

As I was savoring the aroma and taking a sip, he came.

A person who was friendly to me, who had served the ducal family for a long time, and who, therefore, knew a lot.

A person who would willingly share that information if I gave him a good enough reason.

And a person who was worried about Adel.

There was only one such person.

“Van.”

“Yes, Lady Chacha.”

I decided to ask for his help. Of course, I would first have to make him understand why this process was necessary.

“Do you know what ‘affection deficit’ is?”