2. The Downtown
The tea party was over, so I escaped the castle as stealthily as I could. It was the so-called way of the shinobi.
I preferred downtown more than the suffocating noble society. They treated each other like equals, were humble, and full of humanity. That was because in noble society everyone wore a façade, it was hard to gain any insight to anyone’s true nature.
When I went to the downtown, I would dye my hair red and used a fake name, Artie—something somewhat derived from my actual name by reading the characters backward.
Although it may have sounded simple, I was confident it wouldn’t be deciphered easily.
The reason was because it was unusual for a Duchess to sneak to the downtown in the first place.
“Huh, Artie?”
“Rat!”
I turned towards the source of the voice. Rat was a black-haired, black-eyed young man whom I happened to meet and befriended in the downtown.
Rat approached, his cheeks puffy because he had stuffed them with skewered mochi.
“Uwa, it sure has been a long time! Doing well?”
“Of course! How about you, Rat?”
“Mm…a bit busy, I am.”
“Why are you walking around the city, then?”
“Relax, I’m taking a break.”
Rat seemed to be the son of a merchant. Recently, he was learning a lot in order to take over the business—as such, I barely encountered him anymore. Seeing Rat after a long time, my heart fluttered.
“More importantly, Rat, would you spare me some of your time?”
“It comes out, your aristocratic tongue.”
“There’s something more pressing I want you to hear.”
I had a lot of accumulated stress—be it from my fiancé, or that Baroness, I could barely hold it in anymore. Now seemed like my opportunity to explode.
Rat had already deduced my noble origin… albeit he didn’t know I was the fiancée of the Prince and also the Duchess.
As long as I spoke vaguely of the details, I should pass as an ordinary noble lady.
Instantly, I grabbed Rat’s wrist. To me, he was a friend who would willingly listen to any of my complaints—whom I could talk with about anything.
As a noble lady, this was an unseem act—but as of that moment, I was but a town girl.
I wasn’t ashamed of doing anything.
“What is it? You look ticked.”
“Rat, you can tell?”
“Our relationship could be seen as new, but Artie is easy to read. So? What happened?”
No way. I didn’t expect that a Duchess such as me would be deemed, ‘easy to read’. While feeling uneasy, I pulled Rat to a coffee shop. Rat threw away the skewer he had finished eating into a nearby trash can. After that, we entered the coffee shop together.
“Do you think a man can do as he pleases just because he’s good-looking?”
“Wait, wait, wait, what is this all of a sudden? Did something happen between you and the fiancé you mentioned before?”
Rat held his forehead with his hand—Rat was as sharp as usual.
“Indeed… well, Rat, to be honest with you, there’s this girl… and I don’t know how to act when I’m around her…”
“Hee…”
“Other than that, this girl… how do I say this… I don’t know how to put it…”
One of the reasons why I didn’t like her was because of the fact that I couldn’t stand up to her and denounce her actions… because from the general public’s perspective, what she did wasn’t wrong…
“…She lacks common sense.”
Yes. Those were the words I was looking for. She shouldn’t be acting so familiar with a noble lady she had never met before and of higher status than her, much else getting familiar with said noble lady’s fiancé…
“It seems that my fiancé is also infatuated by her… just like all those other men who are on her side…”
“He~”
Rat sounded intrigued.
It might be a fresh, new, perspective for a merchant like Rat.
***T/N: There you go! That Guy who Will Always end up Friendzoned appeared!
This guy is definitely the prince in disguise and he actually doesn’t care about the THOT. He’s just trying to get MC to admit her feelings for him and to be jealous
Why would
censoredbe replaced by thot… I meancensoredis so much more appealing to say, imagine your mouth forming the wordcensoredvs Thot, now add an angry expression whilst sayingcensoredvs Thot… I mean when your tongue is sliding against your upper front teeth it seems to take away the venom from the word “thot” itself, however, when you saycensored…your tongue glides across your upper palate and caresses the back of your upper front teeth that are clenched as the venom contained in that word is released!… seriously I have no idea what people are thinking these days…When someone say
censored, i imagine a girl that spread her legs for basically everybody. That isnt exactly what Schmia is doing.But it is… she is opening them to these guys otherwise they wouldn’t be sniffing around her coochie so hard in a Queue like they are.
Do you think their interest in her is pure? that they only want to hold her hand?
I do.
You are so pure
Because thot is actually T.H.O.T. That Ho Over There
How could you just dismiss him as the guy who will always be friendzoned??!!!! Who knows he may be the true male lead!!! We are just at the beginning we do not know what kind of
censoredwill go down here!!!!!!!!I hope he’s the true male lead. Seems better than the prince already
For some reason, reading this reminded me of I’m A Villainess So What? By GoddessofBlack89. I recommend it, reading that is so fun.
This is so interesting!Keep updating pls.
Oh that feels really short. Oh man can’t say I like this kind of character archetype. But I do really looked forward to see the potential jealousy from her fiancé. Especially since it feels like she lack self-awareness/dense as much as her fiance(?) or the hero.in-e lol.
No; rather than friendzone….isn’t Rat the Male Lead?? Or is this just my wishful thinking & I got stuck with second lead syndrome all over again…?
Thanks for the chapter (๑>◡<๑)
The more I read, the more I’m convinced that the MC is an unreliable narrator because her thoughts are always assuming the worst and are biased. She might be right about whatsherface, but I don’t know about the prince. If anything, in that last chapter I think the prince remembered correctly and she didn’t.
IDK the way the story is setup looks more like the kind where the twist is MC was dense and her fiance liked her the whole time, she just didn’t trust him and expected the cliche “stolen fiance.”
To be fair to her, the peoson she’s worried about has already smashed multiple engagements. It’s less her distrusting her fiancee and more fear of being in the path of destruction that bareness leaves.
Friendzone man. The necessary component to one of these stories
I felt very short waa T_T
Thank so much
Really? And here I thought that he’s going to be the ML :))
RIP rat. Man name is rat. Wth.
Thanks for the chapter! ^ ^
Poor friend zone guy…waiting for thr prince’s entrance!