The Opposite Of Indifference

The place where Frederick wanted to take Millicent was a dessert shop.

It was also a place that targeted young women for business. Everything from the wallpaper to the curtains, tables, and stools was pastel pink. Even the scent of rose wood was thick in the air.

Pies filled with spring strawberries, plump blancmange, fluffy chocolate tarts and custard puddings, bread baked white with milk, apple dumplings coated honey, sweet and sour lemon juice and mild milk wine…

Millicent’s mouth watered at the endless display of sweet treats. That was the only thing that made it tolerable for Millicent, who could only tolerate the pink heart of Cupid painted on a porcelain teacup filled with tea.

“I’ve always wanted to come here.”

Frederick brought the hideous teacup to his lips without hesitation. He was natural, even though he was the least appropriate presence in this soft space.

“Why?” Millicent asked in a roundabout way.

“I heard they sell a lot of things I wouldn’t normally eat.” Frederick said. “Perhaps Lady Charlotte told me about it.”

He poured milk into the tea.

“She really was a woman of many words. She would spill out all sorts of small talk every time I see her.”

“Why don’t you eat normally?” Millicent suddenly wondered. “If you only give orders to the royal kitchen, they’ll pile it up like a mountain.”

“It doesn’t suit me.” Frederick shrugged.

“Why?”

“Anyway, it’s better to keep the basic image that people think of me.”

He certainly seemed to have said something similar before.

“Everyone is afraid of me except you. You know that much, don’t you?”

“I am afraid of Your Majesty, too.”

She had no idea what was he thinking. His calmness was cracking her dark essence.

“I think you’ll have to relearn the language, Millicent.”

“Huh?”

“No politeness, no kindness, no fear, you don’t know anything properly.” Frederick laughed. “I was not originally heir to the kingdom. I had a brother. Christopher. He was a horrible, brutal, born brawler.”

He poked the whipped cream on his strawberry pie with a fork.

“Who would have thought that Christopher, such as he was, would go into a horseback fight to show off in front of the nobles and die instantly from a lance stuck in his eye socket because of a malfunctioning armor?” Frederick said casually. “Suddenly, the kingdom served a new successor. The very me, Frederick.”

“You speak as if it were wrong?”

“Yes, because it is wrong.”

What he said was never something to be taken lightly.

“I inherited my grandfather’s and father’s names. With that fragile temper. A prince who hated hunting and didn’t like to eat meat. Instead, he was a fool who listened to canary songs in his bedroom or stroked the cat that jumped on his window sill.”

Frederick said.

“The new king the kingdom needed was Christopher. The nobles must have known that fact. Maybe that’s why Christopher, who had never been defeated in a joust in his life, died on horseback.”

Millicent was not by nature a rich empathizer of human emotions, but now she was especially troubled.

When she couldn’t understand something, Uncle Mulally would rather have something else to say. So Millicent pretended to be in a hurry to get a cup of hot tea.

“The nobles believed I would be a king like my father. My father also lamented that the era of the meek king would continue. So I decided to be like Christopher.”

Frederick stared at the fork full of whipped cream.

“Fearful and brutal, a born fighter.”

“Did you get what you wanted?”

Millicent asked as moderately as possible.

“Yes, I did. It’s as if the soul of dead Christopher is staying with me.” Frederick smiled. “I always play the part of King Christopher, the one the kingdom needs. He executes nobles, wages wars, goes hunting, shoots deer, eats their flesh, blatantly uses a priest from a butcher’s shop as a gun barrel, stirring up conflict between the Duke of Hamston and Count of Arlan.”

He pointed to the mask he was wearing. “But the original Prince Frederick will always remain in me.”

“What is Prince Frederick like?”

“He’s a carefree man who every morning takes his horse for a walk in the court forest to watch the animals, and picks up any poorly injured or dead ones.”

“So that’s how it was when we first met.”

He had two dead deer next to his big black horse. He definitely looked like a hunter in Millicent’s eyes as she looked around for one, but in fact, he was not at all.

“Was that the first time we met…?” Frederick suddenly whispered. “…..When did we really first meet, Millicent?”

It was a strange question that made his gray eyes glow dangerously.

“Wasn’t it the day I mistook Your Majesty for a hunter?”

Millicent tilted her head, wondering if she had already developed forgetfulness at that age.

“Yes.”

Frederick smirked as if it were a joke.

 “Can I cut the pie?”

When the whipped cream was removed, the thick crust of the pie was revealed.

Millicent loved the moment she  first cut the pie.

She carefully held the knife. The feel of the cold metal against her skin was always exciting. She held the knife upright and inserted it into the center of the pie.

Bright red strawberry juice leaked out softly. It slowly spread over the pie crust, which was as golden brown as a healthy traveler’s skin tone, and the silver knife.

Like flesh and blood.

The finer she cut, the more the pie crust broke, and fresh strawberry juice flowed out.

Millicent felt rapture. Perhaps it was the only pleasure she could satisfy while meekly wearing her hat. She wanted to remember every moment of it.

“…what are you thinking?”

Frederick asked as he stared at Millicent with interest. “It’s pretty similar to that expression you had back then.”

He looked into her darkness again.

“I love pies.”

Millicent replied dryly. It was an important moment. She didn’t want to be interrupted by such a question.

Instead, she smiled for the first time and licked the red strawberry juice from the knife. Frederick stared at her little tongue slicing the sharp blade.

“…Oh, it’s delicious.”

Belatedly, she realized that she seemed like an abnormal person. How much she had been taught to behave normally that she had scabs in her ears?

But sometimes, like Frederick’s confession, she couldn’t hide her true self.

Even if the sad difference was that his nature was light and hers was darkness. Millicent tried to find the familiar disgust in his expression. And she also struggled for an excuse to assuage it.

“I’m glad.”

But Frederick was only interested in Millicent’s tongue, which she had hidden in her mouth. It was more a feeling of fascination than disgust.

“Your expression was spectacle when I brought you here.”

He smiled again as if nothing had happened.

“I love to eat.” Good is good, Millicent replied.

“Still, it’s too much here. How to say….”

It was all natural color and pink, just like Charlotte Brennan’s room. It was a cute, bizarre space. Millicent faked it well and shrugged.

“It doesn’t.”

Frederick burst out laughing as if he knew what she was thinking.

It was a meal paid for by the wealthiest man in the kingdom. Millicent ate without reservation. She ate two strawberry pies, five custard puddings, and a chocolate-filled tart.

She preferred meat to sweets, thanks to her gluttony, which actually didn’t care about diet.

“Do you eat marzipan too?”

Frederic asked matter-of-factly, not surprised. The store employee who brought him his plate as ordered had the look of a circus spectator.

“No.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Yes. It’s probably the only food I don’t eat.” Millicent replied indifferently.

“Why?”

“You don’t have to have a reason to dislike something.”

She avoided his piercing gaze.

“Yes, I suppose so. Just like you don’t like someone without a reason.” Frederick whispered.

At that moment, Millicent felt a strange sense of déjà vu. She thought she heard something similar before, but she had no recollection of it.

“Do you have any questions for me?” Frederick asked out of the blue. “The more I know about you, the fairer it is that you know about me.”

Millicent gulped down her pudding.

“Why are you and the Queen on bad terms? She said she’s always disliked the King.” She said without thinking and realized a step late that it was a mistake. “Well, Your Majesty already knew that, didn’t you?”

He said it was a collection, and then he said more gibberish.

“Yes.” Again, Frederick was not offended. “Well, Jadalin didn’t like me first. And I tend to give as much as I get.”

“Why?”

“I guess she was angry because she couldn’t become the emperor, but I was so short and stupid and I became king in my father’s favor.” Frederick laughed scornfully.

“So you were on good terms before Your Majesty was chosen as the heir to the kingdom?”

“No.” He was pensive for a moment. “Jadalin is five years older than me. When we first met, she was much more mature than her distracted child husband. She looked down on me when I came to pick up the bride in the luxurious imperial carriage……”

He effortlessly drew the past. As if the Queen’s disdain for him had been vividly imprinted.

“I felt like an incorrigible younger brother dragged along to be scolded by my smarter sister.”

“Why?”

“She couldn’t accept her fate. She became the wife of an insignificant foreign prince instead of becoming an emperor. She has fallen from an angel in heaven to a human being on earth.”

Frederick said.

“If she couldn’t understand her  own circumstances, do you think she would like me, who was nothing more than a symbol of those circumstances?”

“Why was the queen ousted from her position as heir to the throne?”

Millicent asked, guessing in her mind how much she was allowed to ask.

“I don’t know either. No, precisely no one knows.” Frederick said. “It was really an internal affair of the empire. The external justification was Jadalin’s health problems, but……. you know it when you see it. The woman is so healthy that she would stab me to death if she had the chance.”

It seemed that Millicent was not the only one who witnessed Jadalin’s murderous intent toward her husband.

“It must have been purely Emperor Valentina’s personal decision.” Frederick murmured.

“What could have been the reason for the removal of the  eldest daughter to the detriment of the legitimacy of the imperial power?”

His gaze stared through the pink window for a momentt. “Whatever it is, I’m not very interested.”

“Why?”

Millicent asked, more curious than before as she listened.

“It’s just that I’m not interested.”

Moreover, he seemed calm, as if he didn’t even have a card to play politically. “But I’m a pretty generous husband. I’ve always serve the queen in a chivalrous manner.”

He said pleasantly. “What do you think would have happened if our positions were reversed? Instead of treating me as a spouse, Jadalin would have confined me to a secluded monastery until my death.”

The foolish men of the kingdom might have. Words were that if they got a bride they didn’t like, they would end the marriage right on the wedding night and send her to the monastery. Receiving only the dowry of the lawful wife, they would put her away and play with the mistress.

“They say that you choose the Royal Mistress, so how generous you are.” Millicent said as she ate the rest of the pie with a fork.

“Emperor Valentina has created a garden full of beautiful boys, but I, who claims to be a powerful king, should do something manly.” Frederick replied cheerfully. However, he felt that he was somewhat deceiving.

“By the way, my marriage to Jadalin was never consummated. If something gets twisted, I can have it annulled.”

 “How can you say it’s never been consummated?”

“We haven’t even touched each other from the wedding night until now.”

Millicent choked up as Frederick  suddenly confided in her the embarrassing bedroom situation.

“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with my body’s function.”

Frederick smiled as he handed her the cup.

”…function?”

”I’m a pure man, that’s all.” (*Frederick is a virgin! Haha)

It was the most dangerous kind of laughter she had ever seen from him.

“I just wanted to make sure you know that.”

Millicent was lost. “Why should I need to know that….?”

“Let’s just say I’m more of a knight whose loyal to only one lady.” Frederick wasn’t done.

“I mean another lady, not Jadalin. Perhaps a lady you know well.”

“Um, I’m a little confused…” Millicent blinked. “It’s not my fault that I can’t understand your words, is it? It’s because Your Majesty has been talking nonsense, right?”

Despite the fact that it was a reasonably serious question, Frederick just laughed it off. In the end, Millicent had no idea what his true intentions were.