Chapter 20

Nicholas asked a question without realizing.

“Ninaina? Or is this a magic doll that looks like Ninaina?”

“No it’s not, Nicholas?”

When Ninaina frowned as if she were asking what he was talking about, Nicholas sighed and looked down to continue reading the book again while thinking ‘I guess that’s not it’.

“Why are you here, Ninaina?”

Despite the obvious pressure in his voice to leave, Ninaina didn’t give in and stood still.

Ninaina had no other reason to come here. It was because of that young lady, wait no. She wore this dress for the first time as she felt like putting on a bright red dress today, and she could think of no other person besides Nicholas who would evaluate her appearance objectively.

‘All these maids and servants only compliment me by saying something like ‘Your highness is so elegant and classy that it looks very good on you.’. I can’t decide whether it matches well or not objectively from those pleasing words.’

They probably would have said a similar compliment even if Ninaina came out wearing a couple thousand diamonds that were just dangling. Of course Ninaina knew that that wasn’t the maids’ or the servants’ fault.

‘They are just afraid of me.’

That’s why Ninaina was going to visit father and mother but was told that they were both busy and had to change her path to arrive here instead.

“Nicholas, what do you think about the outfit that I’m wearing.”

“…how is it?”

To be honest he wanted to ask back if this trivial reason was why she interrupted his reading time, but because it was so rare to see Ninaina go around happily, Nicholas decided to help her out just this once.

Nicholas pulled out his fountain pen that he put on his ear before reading the book and fell deep into thought while spinning it. It was his habit when he had to make an important decision.

‘If I had to be honest, she doesn’t look like usual.’

Though Nicholas was never interested in how other people look, he at least knew what his younger sister usually liked to wear. He also knew that Ninaina used to hate those bright and fluttery clothes and ordered to clean them out.

‘So why does she look so happy wearing that.’

Nicholas could not understand the correlation between the cause (new dress) and the result (feel happy) with his thoughts. As a result, he just decided to say whatever.

“It’s not your usual taste. But it’s not like it doesn’t look good on you. It looks rather good with the ring that you have on right now.”

“Ah, you think so too, Nicholas?”

Ninaina’s voice became slightly louder. It was obvious that she was happy.

Nicholas was surprised at the unexpected reaction. He thought she would say what’s with such an insincere answer and get angry.

“About that young lady.”

And at the next moment when Ninaina mentioned a personal pronoun out of nowhere, he answered right away.

“If you say that young lady, I have no idea who you are referring to. Which young lady are you talking about?”

“The young lady we met in the kindergarten today…That Emir Saeron?”

“Ah.”

Nicholas was able to immediately recall her face as soon as he heard Emir’s name. Young lady Saeron, yes. He also remembered the caramel that she gave. But why was her name being mentioned all of sudden?

“You remember her too, right? That Young Lady Saeron said that my eyes looked like rubies to me.”

“…she did.”

To be honest, Nicholas did not remember well.

Nicholas’s memory usually revolved around books and useful information, so he wasn’t really able to remember stuff like trivial conversation. Regardless, Ninaina was ecstatic that Nicholas nodded and continued.

“But I kept thinking about her words. So I decided to wear this dress today. I used to hate wearing it, but I wanted to wear it and look pretty today.”

“Aha.”

In short, she was so into that young lady’s compliment that even her taste changed.

Nicholas understood Ninaina’s state right away.

“Look, the color is similar to this ribbon.”

“…isn’t that the ribbon that wrapped the caramel bag? Why aren’t you throwing it away?”

The ribbon in Ninaina’s hand looked like it was more than five years old due to how preciously she was treating it. When Nicholas looked puzzled, Ninaina’s expression became stiff.