In the Student Council room within Durova's only Academy, the student body president let the stack of papers in his hands fall on his desk with a soft thud. His head was tilted to one side, listening intently to the whispers of another student-- coincidentally the treasurer of the Student Council-- bent down to deliver news directly to his ears.

Crown Prince Alexander frowned. "What? Leonard's been-- Winston, are you absolutely sure of your information?"

The treasurer Winston nodded. "Of course, Your Highness."

He waved away the title as he sighed, his head dropping into one hand. "What is he doing all the way in Minstia?"

Rosa's ears perked up from where she was three desks away from the Prince. Minstia? Leonard Avelaide was in Minstia? She coughed into one hand, trying to act disinterested.

The Student Council member next to her leaned forward. "What?" she asked Rosa.

Rosa jumped so high that she banged her knee on the bottom of her desk. "Ow!" she hissed, but pretended it didn't hurt as she grimaced in pain. She gave the girl a twisted grin. "W-whatever are you asking about, I wonder?"

The girl leaned even more towards her, curiosity shining in her eyes. "What's got you so interested?"

Tsk, plan failure! Time to play it off nonchalantly. Rosa readied herself, then let out an explosive fake-laugh. "Ohohong!" she yelled out, and the Crown Prince got the chills. "I'm not interested. No! Not at all! Not interested! In! Anything!"

All students in the room turned to look at her. 

"Umm, is everything alright?" asked the Student Council Vice President, who is such an extra character that will not get a name because the author will surely forget it by next chapter. He swept his bangs from his eyes. "Miss Chesterfield?"

"Yes, absolutely!" Rosa yelped.

Prince Alexander hid a shudder and turned away, where he happened to meet eyes with his fiance. Both of the teenagers tried not to look too surprised and immediately averted their eyes. He sighed-- he couldn't stand the awkwardness that came with being engaged to a girl who didn't really speak except to say things like "cream soup." What was he supposed to do, make soup for her?

"Anyways, Your Highness," Winston said, adjusting his round glasses. "We have further received news from Leonard that he has... misplaced... a few documents."

Thoughts of cream soup immediately flew out of his mind. He looked at the bespectacled first-year sharply. "What?" he said, tone hushed and urgent. "How important were they?"

Winston pursed his lips, lowering his voice even further. "Of level three importance."

Alexander groaned, threading his hands together on top of the desk. He wracked his brain for what level three papers Leonard had been carrying around. "Don't tell me-- the contracts?"

The treasurer only nodded.

Prince Alexander closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before speaking again. "We'll wait a bit more," he finally said. "Give him a few more days. It's quite unlike Leonard to make such amateur mistakes."

"But Your Highness, we don't have the time--"

"I know. If he does not get the documents by tomorrow, we will make a move then."

Winston bowed. "Yes, Your Highness."

Once the treasurer had adjusted his glasses once more and stepped out of the room, Prince Alexander rubbed his neck and raised his eyes up to the rest of the room, deep in thought. It was purely an accident, therefore, that his eyes just had to meet the other pair of eyes he dearly wished to avoid in the room-- the golden eyes of Rosa Chesterfield.

He flinched, then turned away in a haste. It was then that he decided that awkward fiance was so much better than a monstrous girl.

---

"Wait wait wait, what did you say happened in the Student Council room?" I asked as I munched on a lettuce leaf in Rosa's house. I made a face. Blegh. I really didn't like the white parts of the lettuce. 

Rosa swallowed her bite of lettuce. "So basically, Leonard Avelaide is probably in town and the Crown Prince totally made eyes at me." She nodded, looking very sure of herself. "I think I'm succeeding quite well in pursing his route!"

With those words, she beamed, and of course, Rosa being Rosa, she didn't have any speck of lettuce on her teeth.

If I smiled right now, I'd probably look like a swamp monster.

"Oh, and apparently Leonard Avelaide made a mistake? I think he lost something important."

I nodded for her, but honestly I really didn't care much about this Leonard Avelaide. I mean, I had never seen him, and all I knew was that he had green eyes and was the Prime Minister's son. But since it was apparently an important topic for Rosa, I tried to relate. "That reminds me. I picked up a lost item at the restaurant a few days ago. I think it belongs to Lindent." I ripped off another leaf from the head of the lettuce as I looked at Rosa, gauging her reaction to the name. She appeared lost, so I added, "Remember him? The one you mistook for your death guy."

"Ohhh, hiiiim. The one with the hat!"

At that exact moment, Ryan came in and saw us. He immediately stumbled. "R-R-R-R-Rosa?!"

Rosa turned around. "Hey Ryan, what's got you so excited?"

"I'm not excited!" he said, his left hand twitching.

She narrowed her eyes. "Liar. You're completely lying. What, have something you can't tell me?"

"N-n-n-n-no! I have nothing!" he yelled, then bounded up the stairs in a hurry.

Rosa watched him go, chewing on her leaf. When she swallowed, she told me, "He definitely has something he's hiding."

"Yeah, lying abilities seem to run in the family."

She kicked me. "Anyway! Continuing! I can't get over the fact that Leonard Avelaide, of all people came to Minstia! And made a mistake! This is nothing like the original story!"

"The original story," I repeated. "Sure."

"If anything, this is kinda sorta similar to this one event in the story when Glitcherman loses his sword and he begins to really trust the heroine, but this is Leonard Avelaide we're talking about. And I've never met him." She gasped, looking alarmed. "Unless...!"

My eyes widened too. "Unless...?"

"Unless I hadn't been mistaken and your Lindent was actually my Leonard Avelaide...?"

We stared at each other for a moment, static silence ringing between us, then burst into cackles together.

"Aaah, good one, Ro," I moaned, wiping away a few tears. I burst out laughing again. "Ha! Lindent the Prime Minister's son? What is he, a master of disguise?"

"Hey, you never know!" Rosa joked. "He could be secretly using magic! It could be a thing!"

"Yeah, he could be changing his hair color and eye color, right!"

"And he could be wearing the newsboy cap thing to look different!"

"Totally! And what if he was spying on me this entire time?"

"He could be spying on me too! Through you!!"

"Hahahaha sure, why not!"

We laughed so hard at that that Roly and Poly came in from the backyard to see what was so funny. They got bored quickly and left before we were okay enough to talk.

"Oh, by the way," Rosa said as we were wiping off our faces and massaging our cheeks. "Want to come see a castle?"

"Ooh, a cashle," I replied. My pronunciation was a bit off with my fingers squishing up my aching cheeks.

"Actually, it's called the Winter Palace, so maybe it isn't a castle? I honestly don't know the real difference between castles and palaces, except that one feels more medieval than the other. But hey, same difference. Big and majestic and all that jazz."

I paused. Hmm, what was jazz? Ah well, it probably didn't even matter anyways. I restarted the finger massage on my cheeks. "I don't know if I'll have time."

"We can just go for a morning when you have an evening shift."

I considered it. "True, that could work. But what's the occasion?"

"Oh, Lady Mildred invited me. I think she's supposed to have a soiree with the Crown Prince as one of the official duties of the Crown Prince's fiance, and she wanted to look over the place they're going to be holding it."

That sounded good and all, but I seriously wondered if Lady Mildred had truly invited her or if Rosa had invited herself. "Will she be okay with me coming along?"

She flapped a hand towards me. "No worries about that. I've already told her all about you, so you guys are practically friends now."

I paused again. Um, uh, friendship didn't really work like that, did it? Now I seriously doubted Rosa's declaration of her friendship with Lady Mildred. Were, were they really friends? Really?

Unaware of my conflicted, swirling thoughts, Rosa happily munched on yet another leaf of lettuce. "So let's plan a day and have a get-together! It'll be so much fun! I'll even prepare an hour-long lecture on deductive logic for the trip to the Palace!"

"OH PLEASE NO."

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A/N: Let's pretend this was uploaded last Thursday, shall we not? :'D