324 - Side Story: Dietfried's Perspective Cat-Headed Trajectory 1
"Because you were so cool, I ended up staring at you."
To me, raised being called "cute" "cute" by everyone around me, the word "cool" was strange. It wasn't that I was unhappy being called cute. But I was a boy after all, so "cool" made me happier than "cute." So I wanted to hear the word "cool" again, and I decided to stay close to the girl who first said it to me.
That girl named Tina was, to put it simply, a cheeky girl. Her face was cute, but everything she said was harsh. Even when I went out of my way to invite her to play, she would make a bothered face and hide behind the maid, showing no charm at all. The only time she smiled at me with that lovely face was when we first met. Even so, wanting to draw out the word "cool" one more time, I kept pestering her, and Tina blinked her big blue eyes and said this.
"I dislike you, you know, Diet?"
Tina was the first to say "cool" to me, but she was also the first to say "I dislike you."
Besides the word "dislike," Tina kept telling me things one after another that I had never even thought of. Each of those words stabbed into my heart, but strangely, I could not come to dislike Tina. Her words hurt my ears, but I think I was happy that she actually looked me in the eyes when she spoke. My nurse and maids only ever looked at me and said "cute," but Tina gave me all sorts of words - "cool," "I dislike you," "Do you want to be made to cry?" "Leave me alone." And even while saying she did not want to, she faithfully kept her promise and played board games with me up to three times a day. There had been no one like that around me before.
The day she said she disliked me, I was so pathetic I fell into a depression. I remember I moped around so much that Kyuubee went around all of Lagarette buying up sweets, and I lay in bed sulking. Even my great-grandfather, who usually said nothing to me, sat on the edge of my bed, patted my head, and said.
"If you pester a girl too much, you will be disliked."
I wish he had told me that before I was disliked.
After that, various things happened, and after parting with Tina in the city of Lagarette, I ended up staying in the city of Mandez for some reason. It seems it was at the instigation of Tina's older brother - he suggested placing me in an environment completely different from what I had been used to, and introduced the residence attached to the lord of Mandez Fortress.
The people of this residence were certainly different from those around me until now. My nurse Nadine did not get angry even if I slept until noon, and the nursery maid praised me just for sitting properly and eating a meal. But the servants of this residence were completely different.
They would wake me up in the morning, scold me for bad posture during meals, and if I did not respond, they would repeat the same thing over and over. They drilled into me greetings to those above me, greetings to my peers and brothers, greetings to servants, greetings to merchants and commoners - all kinds of greetings - and tried to tie me to a chair to make me study. They said to treat them "with the attitude one should have toward servants," so they must have understood that I was of higher status, but in any case, they showed no mercy.
The steward here, named Iridal, despite being a servant (Brownie), looked down on me as if I were some kind of insect. He was a truly unpleasant man who every day pointed out all sorts of trivial things, as if to say "born into royalty, yet at ten years old you cannot even do this?" When I resisted, saying I would not take orders from a servant, he would take away my meals, and when I complained to my great-grandfather about this servant's outrage, he brushed it off and even praised this steward as a capable servant who provided good discipline. What was most painful was that in the Mandez residence, there were two maids with the same faces as Tina's nursery maid. Just seeing their faces reminded me of my blunders in front of Tina, and it hurt.
It was a truly painful life - having my speech and posture corrected, being forced to face studies that until now I could have avoided by saying I did not want to, and being surrounded by faces that reminded me of traumatic memories of my mistakes.
Even if I could not read letters, I could just have the nursery maid read picture books to me. That is what I thought, but -
"This is Tina-sama's handwriting, is it not."
"Oh my, it really is. It seems the young lady is doing well..."
"It seems Kalisa is managing well in an unfamiliar land too."
I thought it was fine even if I could not read. But one day, the servants of the Mandez residence gathered and were reading a letter. It was a letter that had come from Tina in the city of Grenore, tucked among the work instruction sheets, being passed around and read by the servants.
"That is not fair! Let me see it too!"
"Please, go ahead."
I thought the mean steward would not show me, but the mean steward (Iridal) held out the letter from Tina to me. Afraid that Iridal might change his mind, I snatched the letter and ran my eyes over it, but I could not read the beautiful handwriting that covered it.
"...I cannot read it. Iridal, you read it."
"I have reports to organize now."
"Then Alisa."
"I have cleaning to do now."
"Salisa."
"I am about to start preparing dinner."
The servants I thought I could just "have someone read it to me if needed" slipped away, and with no choice, I looked for my great-grandfather's attendants. Maru and Sukebei, who seemed to be under contract for the duration of their stay at the Mandez residence, were made to work like the residence's servants. I finally found Kyuubee and tried to have him read the letter, but Great-grandfather came right away and took Kyuubee away. When I asked if Great-grandfather could read it instead, he was exasperated, saying "a ten-year-old boy who cannot read a letter written by a nine-year-old Tina, what shall we do with him?" So I had no choice but to wait until someone was free, and I spent time gazing at the letter from Tina that I could not read. The time I spent imagining what might be written was enjoyable, but Iridal dismissed it as a waste of time. He said if I had acquired the learning befitting a ten-year-old royal male, I could have read the letter without waiting for the servants to finish their work.
Having been told that much, I had no choice, so I caught Alisa and learned to read and write from her. I thought she would refuse, saying she had work, but Alisa readily taught me.
Once I could read and write a little, Salisa recommended I keep a diary. It was quite fun writing down all the ways Iridal had been mean to me, so I would not forget and could get back at him someday. Until that diary was sent to Grenore as a letter to Tina.
...I wanted to send it after my handwriting got a little better!
But in the end, I think Salisa and the others' arbitrary actions greatly contributed to protecting my pride. Tina's reply was a single line using simple words, and the rest was my diary, densely corrected with colored ink. Having this done to a heartfelt letter - it was not just that my spirit was broken.
Keeping up the pretense that my diary had been sent without permission, I diligently wrote letters to Tina. The more I wrote, the more characters I learned, and my handwriting improved. The corrections, written in an adult hand, gradually decreased, and in their place, the number of lines in Tina's letters increased.
I thought Tina's handwriting was beautiful, but at some point, the letters became a little rounder, and the number of lines in her replies also increased. Until then, it had really been just a line like "do your best with your studies," but it changed to phrasing that reached out to me, like "how are you," and content that gently checked on me, like "please take care not to catch a cold."
I rejoiced, thinking she had finally come to like me, but the increase in text was not because Tina liked me - the letters were forgeries made by Kyuubee. It was not that Tina's beautiful handwriting had become rounder - the person who wrote them was someone else entirely. What made me realize this was Kalisa, who had returned to Mandez from the city of Grenore. Pathetically, even though I had been entranced by how beautiful Tina's handwriting was, I never doubted that letters written by someone else were from Tina.
"The letters were just too short, and I felt sorry for young master Diet..."
Kyuubee's motive (excuse) was these words. It seems he felt sorry for me, so he forged Tina's replies.
"Is it not pitiable to be made to believe letters that are not from the young lady are from her, and to rejoice?"
"Well, you see. They are just children who will never meet again anyway, so I thought it would be nice for young master Diet to have good memories too..."
Kyuubee's words were shocking in two ways. It seemed I would never see Tina again. And I had been pitied by Kyuubee.
We were apart in age, but I thought Kyuubee was my friend. I also thought he was a perceptive attendant and a reliable person to confide in.
But it seems that was not the case for Kyuubee.
Not a master, not a friend - just a pitiful child.
— Nurses and maids are hired, you know. No matter how much you are a brat and how much they dislike you, they will say they like you.
Tina's words to me came back. Tina's way of speaking was harsh, but she certainly told me the truth.
As punishment for what he had done, Kyuubee was removed from Great-grandfather's retinue, the explanation given being "for forging letters." There seemed to be another reason that made Great-grandfather furious, but I probably did not need to know that. Kyuubee was neither my friend nor my attendant - he was Great-grandfather's retainer.
I had fully learned to read and write, and could do calculations without stumbling. While practicing next for history lessons and to write a bit more beautifully, the situation changed. A letter arrived in Kalisa's hands from the city of Grenore. Tina, who Kyuubee had said I would "never see again," was apparently heading to the capital. It was a request for Kalisa to serve as Tina's maid as she went to the capital.
"I am going back to the capital too!"
"...If you can return on your own, by all means."
Saying she was busy, Kalisa rejected my claim. Even though I was twelve, I had never gone to the capital alone. I had traveled quite a bit, but it was all arranged by Great-grandfather - I had just followed along. Even I could now judge that returning to the capital on my own was impossible.
Two girls who came to the Mandez residence two weeks later kept Kalisa fully occupied. Saying she had to teach them manners good enough to work in the royal castle, Kalisa trained the girls, and the girls learned eagerly. Seeing that attitude, I received fewer scoldings, but it made me keenly aware that I still had a long way to go. The girls were receiving training just to enter the castle as ordinary maids. In contrast, I lacked everything needed to behave as royalty in the royal castle. Watching those two, I realized that.
I heard their training took longer than planned, but I felt a petty jealousy toward the girls who would surely head to Tina. Occasionally I practiced conversing with them as a training partner for dealing with nobles and royals, and I heard they were originally Tina's friends, heading there to support Tina who was likely struggling in the capital. Unlike me, who treasured the memories of just a few days spent two years ago, I could not help but envy the girls who had many memories with Tina - studying together at the Menhishumi Church, and even going to festivals together. When I asked if the girls had also been talked down to by the cheeky, sharp-tongued Tina, it seems Tina was always kind to girls. It was not that she was especially cold only to me - it seems she was also cold to a boy named Teo. I felt relieved that there was someone else she treated coldly besides me, but I was also jealous. If she was cold only to me, that would have made me feel special to Tina in a way, but it was also disappointing.
I saw Kalisa and the two girls off as they departed for the capital, and unable to bear it anymore, I decided to appeal directly to the tyrant steward (Iridal).
"I am going back to the capital too!"
"Is that so. Then please go through this, and this, and this... and at the very least, read through these materials as well. Once that is done, I will contact Ethelbert-sama."
If Great-grandfather said it was all right, he would arrange a carriage to the capital, he said, and I faced the mountain of assignments piled up before me. Since Iridal had uncharacteristically conceded, I had to properly complete the tasks given.
I think Iridal was won over by my silently completing the assignments. With a grin that said "it would serve you right to get thoroughly rejected once," Iridal got permission from Great-grandfather.
When I returned to the capital by carriage, my father, whom I had not seen in years, welcomed me joyfully. To my father who embraced me saying "you are back," I handed over a letter from Iridal that was essentially a report. After reading the letter, my father looked at me with a complicated expression.
"The steward of the Mandez residence says he has drilled you in the basics of Royal Peerage education, but..."
I blinked at the words "Royal Peerage education." Iridal had always called me incompetent, told me I could not do things befitting my age, and cursed me out plenty. It had never occurred to me that he was giving me not just general education but even a part of Royal Peerage education. I was aware that when I came to the Mandez residence at age ten, they were shocked at my lack of even basic discipline, which was behind for my age, and that I received strict education that made me want to say "is this how you treat a servant?" but I never thought they were actually catching me up on that far-behind education.
However, it seems Iridal and the others' efforts were a miscalculation for my father.
Putting Iridal's letter in his pocket, my father, as if resolved, told me why he had not even given me discipline.
"Dietfried, even if you can obtain a Royal Peerage, you cannot become the next king."
He seemed reluctant to say it, explaining he had made that agreement with the current king (grandfather), but I felt bad for him - I had no desire to become king. When I told him that directly, he made a troubled face.
"Then why did you reach for Royal Peerage education?"
"Is that what it is called... I just completed the assignments that vicious steward (Iridal) piled on me."
"And why was that?"
"Why, you ask..."
Tina was in the capital. That was the only reason. I just completed the assignments that were given as conditions when I wanted to return to the capital to see Tina again.
"Christina, huh. That girl is a difficult case."
He did not tell me what methods were used, but it seems Tina had already become someone whose every whim was indulged. You could not obtain her unless she herself came to like you, he said.
"She is not a girl you can have just because you are a prince and wish for it."
"...Have?"
I felt like I had heard something strange and cut off my father's words. I wanted to see Tina again, but "have" or "not have" did not make sense to me.
"Father, friends are 'made,' not 'given' by one's parents."
I looked up at my father, wondering why he did not understand something so obvious. My height, as I was about to turn thirteen, had started growing as I entered my growth spurt. Standing, I still could not reach my father, but sitting, our eye levels were getting closer.
"...So you feel friendship, not love? You do not want her as a bride?"
"Love? I do not want a bride who is so cheeky and not cute except for her face."
What are you saying, Father? I tilted my head, and a lady-in-waiting brought me a letter.
This is the trajectory of Dietfried as he became a cat-headed boy. I was originally thinking of explaining why he was wandering around, but I feel like I chose the wrong place to start writing... but since I wrote it, there is no helping it. This is this.
I will fix typos and errors another day.