Chapter 174

“…?”

Yelena raised her head. She was greeted by warm, sunset orange eyes and green hair the color of fresh leaves. Her eyes that were staring blankly at the man in front of her gradually widened.

“…Oh my gosh, Aendy?”

“Long time no see, Yelena.”

Yelena’s childhood friend, whom she hadn’t seen in five years, locked eyes with her and smiled softly.

***

“Say hello.”

“Whoo dat?” asked a small girl. In front of her was a boy who looked to be her age.

“This is Aendydn. He’s the same age as you, Yelena, so get along well,” a young man introduced the boy who was with him with a powerful voice.

“Aenda?”

“Aendydn.”

“Aenda.”

The girl put her toy down and jumped up. She skipped on small feet towards the boy and held out her hand.

“Hi, Aenda.”

She had learned from adults that you were supposed to shake hands with people you were meeting for the first time. The boy had been hiding behind the man. He hesitated before gingerly stepping forward and taking the girl’s hand.

“…Hi.”

“Aenda, yow name ish too wong. Ish hod to shay.”

“Huh?”

“I wan call you Aendy. Aendy good, wight?”

“But I’m not Aendy,” the boy meant to refute, but then the girl smiled. Her wide, pink eyes turned into crescent moons and shallow dimples formed on her chubby cheeks.

The boy briefly stared at the girl’s smiling face and then nodded.

“…Yesh, good.”

***

“Gosh, whenever I think back to that day…”

Aendydn laughed jovially at the dining table.

“You met someone for the first time and shortened their name to two syllables. Boy were you stubborn. Don’t you think?” He asked Kaywhin, as if seeking the latter’s agreement.

Kaywhin stopped cutting his food and answered, “That sounds just like her.”

Yelena, who was listening quietly to their conversation, kicked Aendydn’s shin under the table. The kick meant “stop saying useless things and shut up,” but it had no effect.

“Ah!” Aendydn yelled the moment he was kicked. Then, he announced what Yelena had done. “Yelena, why did you kick me out of nowhere?”

“…!”

“Are you aware of this, Duke? She’s so violent. She’s been deceiving you this whole time if you didn’t know of her violent nature.”

“Oh my. Aendy, you’re crazy—I mean, enthusiastic about carrots, aren’t you?” Yelena forked the biggest piece of carrot she could find and shoved it in Aendydn’s mouth. Then, she gauged Kaywhin’s reaction discreetly.

Kaywhin was just smiling as usual. He didn’t seem to taking Aendydn’s comments about how violent she was seriously.

Yelena swallowed a sigh of relief and turned to glare at Aendydn. She couldn’t believe him.

‘This punk, why has he changed so much?’

Aendydn Kayle, the youngest son of Marquess Kayle. He was Yelena’s childhood friend who had left five years ago. He was back now. She had been happy to be reunited with him when she first saw him, but a problem arose at the dinner table.

Aendydn kept telling stories from Yelena’s childhood. They weren’t stories to boast about, so Yelena seriously wanted to sew his mouth shut.

‘He definitely wasn’t like this before.’

He had been shy and timid. Where did her childhood friend who could hardly speak to other people go?

While Yelena was flustered at her old friend’s transformation, Aendydn opened his mouth after chewing and swallowing the carrot.

“Oh, and did you know Yelena is terrible at embroidery?”

“Embroidery?”

“Haha, Aendy. What are you talking about…?”

“She spent a day embroidering an animal onto a handkerchief as a gift for the count. He couldn’t figure out what she had embroidered, so he offered to reward whoever could identify what it was…”

“…!”

“He thought he’d hurt his daughter’s feelings if he asked her himself, so he made this offer discreetly, unbeknownst to Yelena. But he asked a maid with a big mouth, of all people…”

“Aendy, here’s that broccoli that you like!”

“So what animal was it?”

“Kaywhin!” Yelena turned to Kaywhin with wide eyes.

Aendydn spat out the broccoli and answered, “A raccoon dog.”

“…!”

“She chose a difficult one.”

“Right? I thought so too, but she thought raccoon dogs looked the easiest to embroider. She thought that all she had to do was depict a large tail.”

“Aha.”

“In the end, there was a whole debate about whether that tail was a head or a pair of wings…”

Aendydn’s exposés continued on for the rest of dinner. Yelena was mentally and emotionally drained by the end of it.

***