After witnessing the weird act between his little sister and the chef my Brother asked me to come with him. Having no time to think he grabbed my hand and led me towards one of the studies in the house. Remembering once again what Mom said to me, I hurriedly said my goodbye to the servants and followed my Brother. The walk toward the study was  filled with silence. Midway Brother let go of my hand, I thought that he didn’t need me anymore, but he didn’t even turn around and kept walking. After deliberating for a while I decided to keep following him.

 

We arrived inside the study room. Brother sat down on the sofa in the middle of the room and told me to sit opposite of him. He then ordered the maid that was there to serve us to brew some tea and prepare some snacks. After the maid did his order he told the maid to leave both of us alone. It seemed that this would be some sort of a secret talk between us the ducal siblings.    

 

“So, Charlotte, can you tell me about what happened?”

 

My Brother asked me with his usual gentle voice. Since I didn’t think that I did anything wrong I told him about the problem that I caused in the morning and about the apologies that I tried to do. At first Brother was listening to me calmly while occasionally sipping his tea, but as the story got further I saw his face twitching a few times until when I told him why me and Meahold were bowing to each other he finally couldn’t hold it anymore and…

 

“HAHAHAHAHAHA *snort* HAHAHAHA!!!”

 

He exploded with laughter and he even snorted in the middle. I didn’t understand why he did that, I didn’t find anything funny about what I did. Sure it was a little weird to do for a noble but I don’t think that it was laughter worthy. Maybe the nobles' reaction to hearing a surprising story is to laugh it off?

 

“HAHAHA… HAHaha… haha… I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

“It’s okay...”

“Right, I thought all this time you’re just a timid little flower that could only hide in her own room.”

 

In an instant my gentle Brother faded away, he was replaced with a youth with a poisonous tongue. This was the first time my Brother ever talked to me like that. Even though we rarely meet each other he was usually kind to me. He was my closest family member other than Mom.

 

“Ah, I forgot to control my speech. Oh well, it’s not like I need to hide this from you since you’re a family member.”

“...”

“Charlotte?”

“So is *sobs* So did you *sobs* Is all your kindness to me just an act? *sobs*”

“Oh boy.”

After seeing me crying Brother spent the next few minutes trying to calm me down. He first gave me the already lukewarm tea, and then he tried to give me some of the snacks that the maid prepared. With all else failed he stood up and walked to my side and gave me a hug. He also patted my head just like how Mom usually calmed me down when I was feeling agitated.

 

“Charlotte calm down and listen to me first, okay?”

“*sobs* okay *sobs*.”

“I never said that I was acting when I was being kind to you, right?”

“Yes *Sobs*”

 

Brother reached inside his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief. He then wiped my tears slowly.

 

“Right. Charlotte, this is just how I usually speak when I’m not inside the mansion, it also didn’t change anything else about me.”

“Call me Lotte.”

“Huh?”

“Call me Lotte.”

“*sigh* allright. So Lotte, when I was being kind to you that wasn’t an act or anything. I truly care about you.”

“Then why did you say that before?”

“Well, you know. I wanted to look the best in front of my parents maybe. It’s really funny really, I tried to act like that but nobody was even looking at me.I kinda realized this long ago but I can’t help but to keep holding on to a tiny hope that Mother and Father will praise me.”

 

That’s right… Brother was different from me. I was expected to be a typical young lady that was demure while he was trained from a young age to do his best and to prepare him to be the next Duke. For him to receive no acknowledgement from anybody must be really disappointing. He tried his best but then he realized that he was doing all that work for nobody.

 

“Say, Lotte, do you hate our parents?”

“Huh? Do I hate Mother and Father?”

“Yeah, do you hate them?”

“No. I know that they don’t care about me but I also can’t hate them.”

“Is that so? In my case I hate them.”

“”But Brother.”

“No Buts! Do you know how much I studied for that one test? I spent sleepless nights trying to get a perfect score but when I gave it to Father he didn’t even say anything he only looked at it for a split second and threw in a big pile of paper. And what about Mother, how can someone even stay inside a single room without even going out. How did she even poop and pee and what about... ”

 

I spent that entire afternoon listening to my Brother shouting and ranting about our parents.

“Whooo boy, that was satisfying! I didn’t think that I would just release all of that to the world until the day I die. Anyway, Lotte sorry if I broke your image of your gentle brother but this is how I usually am.”

 

After spending a long time and multiple cups of tea my Brother finally stopped. It was true that he destroyed my previous image of him yet I didn’t really feel sad. In a way I even preferred this kind of Brother than the usual gentle one. Previously while he was really kind to me he also felt a little distant, like he was always holding something back while he spoke. Now that I saw the real him I was relieved. Maybe all those hesitations that he had was because he wasn’t really accustomed to speaking in that kind of way. And while he didn’t speak as gentle and as before he was still really kind to me. He kindly waited for me to stop crying and didn’t scold me.

 

“It’s okay, Brother. From now on please speak to me just like this.”

“Can I? Well, that makes things much easier.”

“Also can you hear me for a minute? I think I need your help with something.”

 

Right! I decided that the reason that my plan to stop Father from overworking wasn’t perfect because I still don’t know about many things, not about Father himself or about the world. So if I get my Brother to help me then I’m sure that my plan could at least have more chance to succeed. Now all I need to do was to convince my Brother to help me.