While Sien stared at him with a gaze like he wasn’t going to miss a single word, Ritt recounted the brief exchange that had happened while he’d been waiting. Partway through the meeting, a maid had come with a cart to deliver refreshments to the various participants. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Ritt was standing all alone outside since the nobles and aristocrats weren’t allowed to bring their knights with them into the pace, but the maid seemed to look at Ritt with pity on her face when she passed him, and after she’d done her job, she came by to quickly check up on him and see if he needed anything. This was the moment when Ritt realized that she was one of the maids that had been bringing food to Sien’s room each time. He certainly would have politely declined to speak to her otherwise, but knowing who she was, Ritt couldn’t help but let his curiosity get the better of him. In the end, he decided to strike up a brief conversation with her.

  As Ritt told his tale, Sien’s eyes on him seemed to grow stiffer and stiffer, as if he didn’t like what he was hearing. It was to be expected, really, from what Ritt knew of Sien and his distrust of servants, even in his own home. But he certainly didn’t expect the next words that Sien interrupted his story with.

  “...Wow, alright. And this maid, was she really pretty, Ritt?”

  “Hmm…? Um, I suppose… Perhaps she was rather standard looking for a maid?”

  Truth be told, Ritt wasn’t really quite sure how to categorize her. For all that he had been released from the tower for a few years before going back in time, he hadn’t really had very much time to socialize with the opposite sex. The maids in the manor that he’d been given had barely interacted with him, and when they did, they always lowered their heads and did their best to keep a distance. The nobles he met during the balls he was forced to attend were so overly dolled up that they didn’t seem like real people to him, and their ‘looks’ always seemed to constantly change each time they met him, so he wasn’t really able to remember any of them. And even now, in this timeline, after Sien beheaded the maid in Ritt’s room, not a single maid or servant had attempted to spend any more time around him.

  Yes, Ritt’s judgment pool for women was strikingly narrow.

  Besides, no matter who he met, they couldn’t possibly hold a candle to Sien’s Fae-born beauty.

  Sien’s eyes narrowed a bit, seemingly not pleased with Ritt’s answer.

  “‘Standard looking’, huh? What’s that even supposed to mean? Was she pretty or not?!”

  “Mmm, well… It’s a maid we’ve seen a number of times in the pace now, so I suppose you’d be able to judge her looks better than I can, Sien. She’s the one with the dark hair? It’s almost blue, I think.”

  Sien’s face wrinkled up, looking absolutely disgusted by something.

  “...You think I’d remember what any of the servants here look like?”

  With a tilt of his head, Ritt seriously considered the question. It was true, Sien did seem to have such a rge dislike of servants that he might just ignore them to the utmost degree. And yet, he was also so cautious around them at times that Ritt wouldn’t have found it strange if Sien had been keeping close tabs on each of them, preparing himself in case they ever suddenly acted strange in even a minor way. Either option was perfectly believable to Ritt.

  He also couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps, to the blindingly beautiful Sien, that everyone else’s appearance couldn’t mean a single thing to him, since they were nowhere near his own level.

  “Do you not…? But I’m sure you’ve at least seen her hair color pop into your view a few times, even if you can’t remember her face.”

  Even Ritt, poor at noticing details as he could be, was able to discern one person from another by their hair colors, so he was sure that Sien would be able to as well. But still, Sien just crossed his arms and made his expression even colder as he responded.

  “Just because I can see color doesn’t mean I’ll put in the extra effort to match it to a person, you know. Maybe a maid comes around with that kind of color, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna commit her to memory, right? That being the case-”

  Sien leaned in closer to Ritt, the anger almost bubbling from his eyes.

  “Why is it that you remember her, Ritt?”

  “...Huh?”

  “What was it about her that made you remember who she was? We’ve barely seen these silly maids for less than a few minutes in the past two days, so why is it that you can recognize her so easily?! Is it her hair? Do you prefer blue hair? Do you not like red hair like mine? Is that it?!”

  “Huh, what, o-of course that’s not-”

  “Tell me, Ritt! Which do you like more? Red hair or blue hair? Hers or mine?!”

  “U-um, but Sien, I never even said I liked-”

  “TELL ME! WHICH IS IT?!”

  “Obviously I like Sien more!”

  Ritt’s flustered, semi-yelled procmation seemed to freeze Sien in pce. And yet, even as the pressure on him immediately faded away, Ritt’s words still continued to flow out like a waterfall.

  “I like Sien way better! Sien will always be better when compared to anyone else! Your hair is beautiful, and the way it fades from one color into the next is almost like a painting come to life! And not just your hair, everything about you is beautiful! And you’re strong! Very very overwhelmingly strong! There’s no one in the world who could match how beautiful and strong Sien is!”

  “...Oh? O-oh…”

  Sien meekly pulled back, his hand coming up to fiddle with the curled ends of his locks.

  “Well… T-that’s good to hear.”

  Seeing Sien look so demure like this was a first for Ritt. He couldn’t help but close his mouth and stare as he watched the unfamiliar action. However, when Sien noticed this, he quickly flushed and turned his face away slightly, deciding to swiftly continue the conversation to distract Ritt’s attention away.

  “So, that maid, then… What was it the two of you talked about?”

  “Hmmm? Oh, yes, well-”

  Ritt abruptly stopped talking, looking slightly embarrassed, like he wasn’t sure what exactly to say. But when Sien shot him a look to keep going, Ritt soon gave up and shyly admitted what he needed to.

  “...Since she’s one of the maids that delivers the food, I thought she might know a bit more about them, so I decided to ask her about it. I… I asked about the uncooked meat dishes… Their names, and ingredients, and if they were safe for people to consume… How they were prepared… I still had some worries from yesterday, you know, so I…”

  As Ritt’s words trailed off, Sien’s eyes once more stuck themselves onto Ritt’s face. He’d been so unbelievably jealous that Ritt had recognized, chatted with, and even defended that maid. Ritt was his, and he wasn’t going to allow his monster’s affection that he’d been vishing in to be so easily taken away by some unknown passing woman!

  But now that he actually heard what they’d been talking about, it seemed that his jealousy was completely unfounded.

  No matter what, even when talking to others, it seemed Ritt’s mouth would only ever speak of him.

  A small chuckle escaped Sien’s mouth at the hirity of it all, and a chagrined smile covered his face. Before Ritt could even open his mouth to ask him the cause, Sien was already flinging himself towards him. Ritt quickly closed his eyes, both in preparation for the collision to come, and also in expectation; The two of them had been kissing with increasing frequency as of te, and the mood seemed oddly perfect for it at the moment.

  But when Ritt suddenly felt himself being lifted from the couch, he immediately opened his eyes.

  “W-what, Sien-”

  “You. You need to be more careful, Ritt.”

  Ritt lightly filed, confused why he was being carried, and before he knew it he was unceremoniously dumped onto the bed, looking up at Sien as he was pinned down. He’d seen the same predatory look in Sien’s eyes only moments ago, and yet somehow the smile Sien was giving him seemed to be much more sincere and loving than at that time, making Ritt unwilling to move away.

  “Really… You can’t keep making me feel like this, Ritt, or else I might end up doing something bad.”

  “Something… bad?”

  Ritt had witnessed Sien do ‘bad’ things a number of times, but never had he ever seen such a look on his face while doing them. He couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of ‘bad’ thing that Sien had wanted to do while sporting such a look.

  And so, he innocently asked.

  “What kind of bad things are you going to do?”