“It seems that it was our misunderstanding huh.”
Kelvin sighed and fixed his posture. Klaus still had a difficult expression on his face as he glared at the documents.
“What, is there something else?”
To Kelvin’s question, Klaus present the papers to him.
“Father. Are you able to calculate these on the spot?”
Giving just one look at the documents he received, Kelvin shook his head.
“Impossible. It’ll probably take some time, and doing it in your head would be difficult as well.”
“Then regarding Lilia?”
“……”
Kelvin again lowered his sight to the documents. He tried to roughly do some calculations, but using only mental arithmetic turned out to be quite undoable in the end.
“I heard from the report of that Alisa girl that Lilia has been secluding herself in her room to study but… Is this result even possible to achieve?”
What’s more it was self-study. According to Alisa, it seemed that she was using a huge quantity of paper to write on, but other than the maid no one else appeared to have ever entered Lilia’s room.
“As one would expect from our daughter. Is this not a wonderful thing?”
Ascha laughed happily. Certainly if their daughter was heading in a bad direction they must do their best to set her straight, but change for the better should be welcomed.
“Though it seems that she might be trying too hard here.”
Kelvin also shared Ascha’s worry. However you put it, she had secluded herself in her room for two whole weeks after all. She might have shown improvement during the second week through doing things like raising flowers and coming out for meals, but even so some worry remained.
“Klaus. Is there someone available right now?”
“Yes, of course. It has already been arranged for.”
To Kelvin’s question, Klaus boasted with an unsettling smile. Confirming, a smile also floated onto Kelvin’s face. The secretive smiles plastered on their faces were indeed somewhat creepy. One wouldn’t be able to imagine that they were fighting just earlier.
“She’s my dear beloved daughter after all. I leave it to you, Klaus.”
“She’s my lovely little sister after all. Please leave everything to me, Father.”
Despite saying this or that, these two really care about Lilia.
Ascha, regarding their awkwardness, simply quietly asked to the side for a maid to bring more red tea.
Lilia requested for Alisa to have the luggage in her room loaded onto the coach, while she herself went for a walk in the garden with Theo. She didn’t remember ever having much proper conversations with this little brother of hers before. This was because, Lilia herself had always kept a distance from him.
Today as well, Theo was walking along beside Lilia with a delighted smile.
“Elder Sister. Which one is your flowerbed? I really wish to see it.”
“Why are you wanting to see such a thing? Though, I don’t really mind.”
While thinking it odd, Lilia showed Theo to the back of the estate.
Among the many flowerbeds, was one with plants just starting to sprout. This was Lilia and Alisa’s flowerbed. Though she had just a tiny suspicion that he may have come to mock it, the words Theo breathed out next were completely outside of her expectations.
“What will become of this while Elder Sister is staying at school?”
“No idea… I haven’t thought about that yet. Alisa will be coming along with me after all.”
“Then, please let me help with this!”
Lilia’s eyes went round at Theo’s request. “Why” was the first question to pop into her mind. Certainly if it’s Theo, he would be able to quickly learn all he needed to know about gardening, so it should be fine to leave it to him. However, Lilia couldn’t fathom if his intentions were all pure.
“Even if it’s not mine, you can probably have your own flowerbed prepared just by speaking to Father though.”
“I wish to take care of Elder Sister’s flowerbed!”
It was too much for her to comprehend. So much so, her eyes ended up changing to stare at Theo as if he was a strange animal. Receiving such a look from Lilia, Theo lowered his gaze. And then came back with upturned eyes as he pleaded.
“Is it…no good?”
While thinking it completely unfair to wield such a tear filled expression, Lilia kept this thought from her mouth.
—You might as well just leave it to him.
—Well I suppose that’s fine but… Do you know what Theo’s trying to accomplish here?
—Rather than a goal I do know his reason. You don’t get it, Lilia?
Why was it, that even though Sakura’s figure couldn’t be seen, a young girl’s mocking expression floated into her head. While holding onto some irritation, Lilia felt that continuing to respond to this will just end up in her defeat, so she discontinued the conversation there.
“Alright, I understand. I’ll leave it to you, Theo.”
“…!! Yes! Thank you very much!”
Theo said so with a smile radiant like flowers in full bloom. Even relatives would see it as exceedingly charming. Just how many women would be taken captive by this smile.
—Lilia. You should go teach Theo on how to do gardening.
—Even without my help, wouldn’t he just learn from one of the maids.
—Just do it okay.
With how Sakura was insisting, perhaps this was also a step in getting people to like her.
“Theo. Well then I’ll be teaching you how to do it, so you’d better listen up.”
“Yes! Please by all means!”
Theo stood straight up. Lilia gave a nod of satisfaction, and continued.
“First for planting the seeds, you dig up the dirt put the seed in and then cover it up again. That’s it.”
—I think you’re being a little too careless about this!
Sakura shouted as if sighing, and,
“Mistress Lilia…”
Not realising when she appeared, a little bit away stood Alisa who spoke out at the same time with her eyebrows hanging in sadness.
“…… I was joking.”
With Theo’s bewildered eyes and Alisa’s pitying gaze, Lilia looked away as if escaping from their sights.
After that, together with Alisa, Lilia taught Theo in the ways of gardening. That said, Lilia’s knowledge was somewhat limited, so the teaching was mostly through Alisa’s assistance here. Even so Theo was for some reason very fixated on the teachings he received from Lilia, while giving little heed to the things Alisa said to supplement Lilia’s explanations.
Jostled around on the coach headed for the academy, Lilia thought back to what happened that time. Having given up on thinking about it she tried to get an answer from Sakura, but was only met with a cold refusal.
—You should really try to better understand other people’s feelings, Lilia. How about you give it a good thinkin’ until we reach the academy?