Chapter 17
I’m the Culprit for Making My Absolute Fave Look So Gloomy

Translated by: chocolalaEdited by: kemostt

Mother got pregnant.

She finally conceived a child with Father—five years after her remarriage. At long last, I would have a little brother or sister. What a happy event!

In the game, I was pretty sure that Orsis had no other siblings apart from me, so it was safe to say my death flag had been averted at this point! Right?!

By the time I had heard from my mother that I was going to have a little sister or brother, the whole house was in a celebratory mood, especially Father—his face was particularly jubilant. He spent the whole morning caring for her, and she kept telling him that he was exaggerating.

Father, we can see how much you love Mother, so please tone it down a bit.

Brother and I could only dryly laugh when seeing how Father acted around Mother. Afterwards, I said to Brother, “Brother, I’m going to be a big brother now too. I want to be a great big brother like you.”

“Alba. Don’t worry, you’ll be even better than me.”

“Brother,” I was overwhelmed by emotions seeing him smiling at me, so I couldn’t resist sticking to him. When I lovingly beamed at him, Brother let out a chuckle.

“Alba and Father have become so similar nowadays.”

“No way, how can I be similar to Father? He looks so cool!”

I was stunned by Brother’s statement, but Mother only chuckled as she mercilessly commented, “The face you’re making is exactly the same!”

Huh? Is my face so joyful as well? Th-that’s just too embarrassing… 

I thoughtlessly used both hands to knead my cheeks back to normal, when Brother‘s hands started to overlap mine and further squish my cheeks.

“They’re so soft, very comfortable to touch.”

“Bro-ther, my f-ace will g-et shquish’d!”

“That’s true. But your squished face is cute too.”

Even Brother’s face had become like Father’s. Upon seeing that face, I felt like my heart had been grabbed. My heart skipped a beat and I hurriedly searched my pockets. Brother is so damn enchanting; I might get a seizure every time– I complained in my heart. 

When I tossed the medicine that had been made into an easy-to-eat candy into my mouth, my brother’s face clouded over a little. He easily carried me in his arms with a swoop and started to rub my back.

“I wish that we can make a medicine that can fully cure Alba’s sickness.”

“Brother?”

“I’m glad Alba adores me, but you taking that pill means you’re about to have a seizure, right? …I mean, what if I’m making Alba’s condition worse?”

I glimpsed at his face and saw him biting his lips with a downcast expression. Oh? Could it be that I hadn’t managed to fully get rid of the flag to ‘Brother’s past’ as in the game?1 And it was majorly my fault.

“Alba, do you like my face? If my face wasn’t like this, I wonder if Alba would need the medicine less often.”

Ahhhhh, Brother’s face is dark! Seeing him about to fall to the dark like this made me anxious.

“No, it’s not like that, Brother! You are not at fault! It’s my fault for liking you way too much. So, please don’t make that kind of face. Moreover, no matter how your face looks, I would undoubtedly still love you, so it has nothing to do with your face!”

“…”

Looking at his expression, it seemed like whatever I said hadn’t gotten through to his heart. 

But I couldn’t bear it if, because of this stupid me, there would be scars on his face—although he might look wild and hot with a scar… or he would intentionally change his personality to become bad in order to make me no longer love him—even though Brother with a black personality might be damn cool in a way too… 

But, ahhhhh, NO!

“No matter what Brother does, he’s just way too cool!!” I had let my mind wander, getting heated up by myself, and without realising it, I had actually yelled the last part of what I had been raving about in my heart out loud.

This was the biggest damage I had received today—how embarrassing! Moreover, it was in front of Father and Mother too.

Mother, your shoulders are shaking, you are failing to hide your laughter, you know. 

While Father was looking my way as if he was seeing a pitiful or a hopeless being. 

I know that I’m hopeless, I’m totally aware! So don’t look at me like that!

I buried my face in Brother’s shoulder due to sheer embarrassment; his arm that was enclosing my back tightened its hold.

“I also love Alba, no matter what kind of Alba you may be.”

Needless to say, Brother’s confession almost made my heart stop beating.

Brother brought me along to the greenhouse where we had promised to meet Bruno. After the earlier event, Brother muttered something like ‘Will he get used to it over time?’ and he constantly kept hold of my hand, except when going to the loo. I only noticed that he had subtly been channeling his mana to me from his hand after finding it strange that I hadn’t gotten that sick even after feeling tight in my chest.

The mana—which I could feel each time I had a seizure—circulated through my body. I would feel better as long as our hands were joined, so I decided to take this chance to dawdle with Brother. I just couldn’t bring myself to part with him.

As expected, Bruno-kun looked bemusedly at us when we appeared at the greenhouse hand in hand.

“Alright, alright, I know you two are close, but please do it in moderation. Today, the Duke graciously expanded the greenhouse, so I would like to try a new magic skill I just became proficient with, and using it, also increase the number of Legare fruits.”

“A new magic skill?” I tilted my head in wonder.

Bruno-kun plucked a Legare fruit from a tree and guided us to the newly-built second greenhouse. 

“It’s a type of earth magic that can be used to breed new varieties of plants. It’s difficult to cast and consumes a lot of mana; I struggled a lot to master it. Now, watch this,” said Bruno as he walked to the middle of the large, empty greenhouse and cast the spell.

Then, the Legare fruit that was in Bruno’s hand flickered for an instant and the fruit, which was originally light green, turned pinkish. He then buried it under the soil before drinking a bottle of potion to replenish his used mana before casting another spell on it.

Immediately, the ground began to move, and trees began to grow from everywhere.

As I held my brother’s hand, I watched with wide eyes as the situation became a fairy tale of the most impossible kind. 

“Am-amazing!”

I had never seen trees growing this fast or even so dynamic like this before. To describe it as fantastical might sound nice, but in short, this was an utterly impossible sight—it was outright scary. 

The trees grew evenly in every corner, and as soon as they stopped growing, Bruno-kun  fell to the ground on his knees. His shoulders were shaking as he panted. 

When Brother and I rushed towards Bruno’s side in a hurry, he turned his pale face to us and said, “Sorry, but don’t worry. I’m only depleted of mana.”

I panicked upon hearing that, so I quickly took out candies specially made by Bruno from my pocket. 

Mana depletion would drain the energy from the body, causing headaches and dizziness—a real suffering. I offered the candy with knitted eyebrows, yet Bruno didn’t accept it.

“I’ll recover through resting. Those candies serve another purpose, so, Alba, keep them properly. I’ll make sure to make a medicine that can totally cure your illness with this new type of Legare. I don’t know how many years it’ll take, but this is my way of congratulating you. Now that you’re nine years old, I wish you a brighter future.” Bruno-kun, who was on his knees, reached out and gently stroked my head as he looked into my eyes.

Then my brother lifted Bruno-kun’s body and started to carry him like a sack.

“Brother, you should treat him with more care,” I advised, flustered as I saw him roughly carrying the other. Brother made a troubled face, and so did Bruno on his shoulder.

“That’s what he said. It’s a request from Alba, so I’ll carry you horizontally.”

“NO! This is better. That kind of carry is Alba’s special privilege. Sorry to ask this, but can you please bring me to my room?”

“I’d do it even without you asking.”

Brother called me to come along and started walking with unfaltered steps, even while carrying Bruno-kun. I could hear them exchanging quips like ‘You should help too,’ and ‘What are you saying? That’s a given,’ et cetera, but Bruno-kun’s face remained pale white, and I couldn’t help but feel uneasy because of this unusualness.

“Brother, how about you share some mana with Bruno like you always do with me?”

“That’s also Alba’s special privilege!” My idea was instantly refused by both of them.

“How could I bear having something as embarrassing as that being done to me,” Bruno faintly muttered, but I could still hear it; it came to me as a shock.

Huh? Is it embarrassing to receive mana from others? I probably should learn more knowledge and common sense concerning magic.  

It was too much of a shock to me that I didn’t even realise that I had missed seeing a rare, wild side of Brother, who scolded Bruno for saying unnecessary things and dropped the latter on the floor.

I was too overwhelmed with disbelief that I had been forcing my absolute fave to do such an embarrassing thing all along.

Footnotes

If you read a lot about novels with otome games, you might understand this ‘flag’ term. It’s like events that lead to something significant in the future. Let me copypaste this: In these games, when you are presented with choices which affect how the other characters view you and potentially change which route you go on, it’s called a flag.