Don’t Concern Yourself With That Book

T/N: I think from now on I’ll just romanise ‘Oppa’, ‘Hyung’ and their likes instead of translating them directly because they say it too often. For those of you that don’t know, ‘Oppa’ is a term females use to call older males and ‘Hyung’ is a term males use to call older males.

I never intended to jump into conclusions and stereotype a particular group of people by combining the characteristics of its individuals. But I think if I were to describe Fleon’s personality, it would be exactly that of a typical spoilt second-generation chaebol*.

*T/N: A rich family-led conglomerate in South Korea.

“I already told you that I don’t like touching such vulgar things.”

“I already told you beforehand that I was going to be late because I had to pick a dress. I heard that you still searched through the garden? You worry too much.”

I gave a sigh. Obviously, he believed that whatever he did was right. I pushed my teacup to the side and smiled gently at him.

“Why did you do that? Were you worried that I might have disappeared?”

“Who said I was worried?”

“Oppa.”

I smiled at him like a child.

“Y-you’re glaring again. That’s why I can’t say anything. Oppa. To be frank, you always make a mess out of everything.”

“Me?”

“You do. Every single time you open your mouth. You’re just a brat. I have no words for a bully who picks on my palace maids.”

“Haha. What are these words coming out of those lovely lips?”

His eyes turned fierce as his lips drew a thin line prettily.

“You don’t want to say what’s on your mind. You don’t want me to punish your maids. Then, can I punish you instead of your maids?”

I instinctively leaned away from him but he pulled my cheeks. As if this was all a funny joke to him.

“This mouth of yours. Why don’t these lips only say pretty things? Hm?”

“ Ack! Abubu.”

My cheeks were being stretched out painfully by his hands. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Stop it!”

Dane looked away from his book before dropping it on Fleon.

‘How could a person who calls himself my Oppa not even control the strength he used against me?’

I will never consider boys who act like this to be handsome. Who knew that the extras in this novel would be this fucking mad?

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Oh my, your cheek has gone red.”

“… Hng. Orabeoni*.”

*T/N: A more formal way of saying ‘Oppa’.

Fleon raised his eyebrows.

“You. Why do you call that person Orabeoni?”

“Hyung.”

How hilarious. This kid wants to be treated nicely after acting up like that. If only he could just keep his mouth shut.

“Hyung. How many times must I tell you? Ashley’s much younger than us.”

Dane reproached his brother calmly and turned his head.

“Ray, when something like this happens again, tell me.”

He chided the knight for just standing idly by and watching.

“Ah. My apologies.”

Then, Sir Ray who had been standing still this entire time smiled suspiciously.

“But in my opinion, I feel that this is something between the two of them and not something my Prince needs to meddle in.”

The opaque indigo eyes fluttered open.

“Lies. You just thought it was bothersome to intervene.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t have said it like that.”

Sir Ray was impudent in his criticisms. Used to his knight’s attitude, Dane just clicked his tongue a few times.

“What impudence. What right do you have to be so arrogant?”

Dumbfounded, Fleon cried. Sir Ray is a knight who oversaw the protection of the two princes as well as myself. Though he may look sincere and hardworking, sincerity was something that had been absent in his body since the moment he was born.

His gaze shifted and his indigo eyes landed on me. His eyes squinted subtly.

“Gosh, Your Highness. You must have been very hurt.”

“You. If you’re going to say something, put some soul into it.”

Hello? I’m the one you’re supposed to be protecting?

“Salary slave.”

Then, the knight, who is not even 20 years old yet, laughed heartily.

“I’m just doing my duty.”

“This guy, shall I make you wait for your next order at home?”

I knew he was laughing at me in the inside. He was the perfect example of a knight with a bad attitude.

“Oh, dear me, Your Highness. Are you alright? What do we do? If anything had gone wrong, you could have gotten bruised!”

Hannah, who had been walking back and forth for a while now, whispered into my ear after hearing his words.

“Why didn’t His Highness control his strength…?”

“Shush. It’s fine. Hannah, keep your voice down. I’m alright now so go back.”

No matter how worried she was, speaking like that in such a situation was not ideal. Especially when the person in question was of a higher status than yourself. But Fleon was the one who pointed that out first.

“Ashley!”

Fleon glared at Hannah. Hannah winced before glancing at me from where she was standing. I quickly pushed Hannah’s body behind me.

“Hurry and leave.”

She bowed in a hurry before turning on her heels.

“You’re being too easy on those lesser beings again.”

“What did you say about me?”

I glared at the boy as I held a cold handkerchief against my cheeks.

“How many times do I have to tell you before it gets into that thick skull of yours? Because you treat them like this, they’re treating you like a child.”

“Your words sound strange, Oppa. Why do you hate my palace maids so much?”

His eyes that were staring at me fiercely shimmered like a jewel as it shifted from a blue akin to the clear sky to navy blue according to the angle. Even though the boy has yet to be an adult, his beauty was already complete.

“It’s obvious why. Do you feed apples to dogs and pigs? Do you talk to an apple tree? They’re completely different.”

“They’re still people.”

“Did I say they weren’t people? I just said that you didn’t have to be nice to those that are lesser than us.”

“… When are you going to fix that crude mouth of yours?”

“Huh?”

“I said my cheeks hurt so much because you pinched it.”

The eyes were the reflection of the mind. His eyes were the perfect embodiment of his nasty temper. When he kept his mouth shut, Fleon is an elegant man who looked headstrong. He had fierce eyes as though they had been purposefully aligned diagonally on his face.

“Tsk tsk. Don’t you know that commoners are only useful when they crawl beneath us and just blindly follow their faith in us? Rather than protect their dignity, they should be able to step back… It’s because you mingle with those lesser beings, all I can hear is laughter in your palace.”

“Isn’t hearing laughter in the place you live natural?”

“What?”

Whoops. I lowered my volume. The 6^th

Prince’s character was quite well-known.

“You’re my younger sister?”

When we were both younger than we were now, my brother was even more blunt and straightforward than he was now. That was why on the first day we met, he expressed his honest feelings about me candidly in front of his own mother.

“Disgusting. Isn’t she a monster? There’s an ugly scar on half of her face.”

At that time, my scar looked even more distorted on my cheek than it did now. It looked disgusting enough for a prince who was used to seeing only pretty things. I had judged that I wouldn’t retort anything in retaliation considering the fact that the 6^th Prince was still my brother and only 3 years older than me. But that was a fatal mistake.

“Oh, I know.”

He was crueler since he hadn’t learned how to hide it yet. But to me, he just looked naïve.

“Were you the pitiful commoner that got sent away because of the plague?”

All the adults present, except for me of course, turned frozen at that remark.

“What? The Princess? Oh my, were you trying to make this ugly little thing my sibling? I don’t want it.”

The boy was then escorted away by his mother. He left an extraordinary yet difficult first impression of himself.

As a former adult, I was able to endure it and let him say whatever he wanted. But if I were the real Ashley Rosé?

I would have gotten hurt.

The 6^th Empress made Fleon pay for it harshly.

“Hey, ugly. Take this.”

From the next day onwards, Fleon kept coming over. Anyone could tell that he was forced to come.

“My mother told me to give this to you.”

“My mother told me she doesn’t use this anymore.”

“My mother made you a torch.”

What his mother must have told him wasn’t that difficult to guess judging by his attitude and his actions.

“I hate doing this but I had no choice.”

He came over to see me every day as if he had been reprimanded severely. He would use his mother as an excuse to come over and hand me expensive items nonchalantly.

“… What are you doing? Even if you throw this away, no one will scold you.”

The whole thing was ridiculous but I didn’t hate it.

I was too old to stay angry at a 10-year-old child. I wasn’t so weak to be shaken by just a few words said by a little boy to my face.

It was even more so when I found out that this world was of a novel’s.