I Won't Clear Up the Misunderstanding. I Don't Mind Being the Villainess. - Chapter 34

“Have you ever heard of Alva Abenius?”
Kevin’s younger brother’s name just popped up out of nowhere.
I nodded in response to Laine’s sudden question.
“He’s Lord Kevin’s brother, right? I thought he’d… passed away already.”
When I shared the little I knew, Laine complimented me on being well-informed.
“Actually, the thing is, we don’t really know if he’s dead.”
“Wait, what?”
“Alva just vanished. We have no clue if he ran away or if it was an accident.”
“So, he’s been declared dead because he hasn’t been seen for years?”
“That’s exactly it. It’s been over ten years. The only thing they ever found was one shoe.”
“…A shoe?”
I instantly pictured Alva neatly setting his shoes down before throwing himself in. But people wear their shoes indoors in this world. Would he really take the time to slip them off before committing suicide?
(Well, the author is Japanese, so I guess it’s not impossible for that detail to sneak in…)
It suddenly hit me again how weird the world I was living in was. Maybe I was just in a dream I was having right after I died. If so, why did I still get hungry, and why did it hurt so badly when I bumped my back, leaving bruises?
“Why was that one shoe the only thing that turned up?”
“It was floating in the lake. The one at the Abenius Duke’s summer house.”
“The lake… at the summer house?!”
That was the exact place where Carvel was supposed to die. I’d never heard that there was a previous victim there. Honestly, if it’s that dangerous, why hasn’t it been fenced off?
(Erica, you actually thought that water was clean enough to drink, didn’t you?)
Carvel had managed to stop me because he was worried about safety. But that’s where I ended up dropping the hair ornament Kevin gave me and slipping while trying to retrieve it.
“So, maybe his shoe came off when he was about to fall in?”
“Or, the other theory is that it came off while he was struggling to stay afloat and drowning.”
It was a grim thought that made my skin crawl. This meant that in the original story, the lake had claimed the lives of both Carvel and Alva.
“Since drowning was the most likely cause, his death certificate was issued pretty fast. The adults kept saying it was ‘for my sake’…”
“For yours, Miss Laine?”
Why did Laine come into the conversation here? I guess she was a relative of Alva’s, after all.
“Alva and I were engaged. Apparently, they decided to confirm his death quickly so I wouldn’t lose my chance to marry. I’m still single, though.”
Laine gave me a sarcastic, wry smile, and I was completely confused. Kevin liked Lily, and Laine liked Kevin. And yet, Alva, Kevin’s brother, was Laine’s fiancé. Plus, Laine looked like Kevin, and from what I saw in the manga, Alva looked like Kevin too.
(I swear, everyone except Lily looks like a guy. What is up with the author’s taste?!)
Laine must have sensed my confusion because she laughed, saying, “It does look like a messy situation, doesn’t it?”
“Alva was planning to become a doctor. So, the thinking was it would be best for him to marry into my family, a medical lineage, and become an adopted son.”
“Ah, I see. In that context…”
“Though, the real reason he wanted to be a doctor was apparently to cure Lily’s poor health.”
More complicated information was piled onto an already tiresome relationship. To be honest, I’d already half-suspected it: that Alva had a thing for Lily, too. That would explain why the relationship between the Abenius brothers turned sour.
Noticing my silence, Laine smiled and told me, “Don’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t in love with Alva, and I wouldn’t have minded him putting Lily first.”
I bit my tongue, almost blurting out, Yeah, because you’re busy loving Kevin.
“But whenever the four of us went out or played together, I felt incredibly isolated. It was like one princess with two princes. I was just a fixture.”
“That’s awful…”
“The other young ladies laughed, the maids felt pity, and my mother was furious.”
The young ladies sounded so mean I wanted to scold them right there. At the same time, I had the dark thought that it must have been prime entertainment for bored people. The drama of two handsome brothers falling out over their love for one girl would have been perfect gossip bait. Poor Laine was just collateral damage.
“I started cross-dressing because I felt so miserable being seen as a ‘woman,’ and suddenly the young ladies were all fawning over me.”
“I actually laughed.”
“Laine’s entire life was completely derailed as a result of being involved.” It wasn’t like she didn’t look beautiful in a dress—in the final chapter, she looked like a stunning, different person all dressed up. If she could have just stayed far away from the Abenius brothers and Lily, her life would have been vastly different.
“Even Lily praised my cross-dressing, saying I looked great, and after that, she’d innocently link arms with me and hug me… I thought she finally considered me a friend.”
“That’s… more than a friend, surely…”
“Both Kevin and Alva glared at us, though. Apparently, even that wasn’t permitted by them at the time.”
She was truly unlucky to be caught up in the drama of the complex, Lily-obsessed brothers.
As I sympathized with her internally, Laine’s next whisper reached my ears.
“But having Kevin… pay that much attention to me, even if it was anger, made me happy.”
I decided to ignore her comment; she was clearly very deep in her own tangled emotional mess.