Please Die, Your Highness - Chapter 99

The dish Prince Declan presented was terrible. Honestly, even that was quite a compliment. Burnt potatoes were stuck to the bottom of the pot, and purple root crops, swollen and burst from adding water halfway through, were rolling around on top of them. Maeve seriously resolved that she must teach him how to cook soon.

It’s truly the worst. Even without the need to say such words, he already knew it best himself. Prince Declan could not even meet her eyes while dishing the food onto the wooden plates.

The potatoes had a strange taste. The outside was burnt black, but the inside was undercooked, tasting like chewing on raw potato. The purple vegetable side was slightly better. Maeve picked out and ate the chunks that seemed like they wouldn’t kill her if she ate them.

The meal proceeded awkwardly, and subsequently, while Prince Declan heated his bathwater, Maeve sat by the window and kept watch outside as if continuously monitoring.

It was the same when Prince Declan finished his bath and came out. Maeve was sitting in a motionless posture with her chin propped on her hand by the window, looking outside steadily.

“I’ll do it. You go inside and rest.”

“It’s fine. You should be the one to go inside and rest, Your Highness.”

He had wondered if she would say that, and as expected, since he heard the anticipated answer, Prince Declan had no choice but to enter the nearby room. He saw that Maeve had already finished organizing all of his luggage. A bed stuffed with straw greeted him from the corner. A bed—just how long had it been?

Following the bath, he quickly lay down to enjoy the luxury he was experiencing for the first time in a while. However, sleep would not come easily. It was because that woman’s face weighed on his mind the whole time.

Prince Declan truly could not sleep because Maeve was on his mind. He eventually sprang up from his seat.

It was already late at night, and Maeve, who had been in the middle of putting dry firewood into the fireplace, lifted her head and looked at him as he came out of the room.

“Are you cold? Would you like to sleep here?”

“No, I couldn’t sleep, so I just thought I’d stay with you.”

“…….”

“No, what I mean is. I meant I would take over the shift. I’ll take over from here, so you go inside and sleep.”

Maeve shook her head and said she wasn’t sleepy. And she stared at him piercingly, as if gauging whether Prince Declan might be lying.

Persistently following his stubbornness, Prince Declan brought a new chair and sat next to the chair where Maeve had been sitting. After a while, he felt her return to her seat after stoking the fire in the fireplace.

It was a distance where their shoulders almost touched. Prince Declan stole a glance at her.

He saw her profile as she stared only straight ahead. Her red curly hair, which had become frizzy as usual once it dried to some extent, and beneath it, her yellow eyes and the freckles embroidered like constellations under her eyes were visible.

Prince Declan watched her as if possessed, without realizing it. Then, when she suddenly turned her head and looked at him, he looked straight ahead with a flustered face, like a person caught stealing.

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

“About what?”

“That small argument we had between us earlier. I acted defensively from the start, even before you could bring the subject up.”

Maeve still made no response, looking only straight ahead.

“Actually, I’m not used to hearing unpleasant things from others. Of course, I’ve heard nagging for educational purposes, but I’ve almost never heard anyone say that my thoughts themselves were wrong, rather than just my actions, in that manner.”

“…….”

“……Ah. Fine. To be honest, maybe someone did try something like that before. But I probably didn’t listen carefully. But for now…… the situation has inevitably left me alone with just you.”

Prince Declan spoke with effort, massaging the back of his neck.

It was truly an ordeal.

If it were like before, he probably would have simply removed people who spoke like her from his sight. He was busy enough hearing only good things. And even without the need for him to move first, the people around him would have removed such individuals beforehand.

“To be honest, I’m still flabbergasted. I end up feeling intimidated for no reason, and that makes me act more defensively. Still, I’ll accept it slowly. I know your words are right to some extent. I know it in my head.”

“I wasn’t exactly trying to say you were ‘wrong,’ Your Highness.”

Maeve, who had been listening quietly, looked at him and spoke.

Her eyes, catching the yellow candlelight, looked yellower than usual. His stupid-looking face was reflected fully within them.

“I respect you, Your Highness. To be precise, I respect that you want to see the world in that way. Who on earth could say that is wrong?”