Taming The Villainesses

(EP-333.1) Of Hearts #2

333 – Queen of Hearts #2

Actually.

I’ve thought this before.

Maybe Aira likes me.

Not simply as a cherished subordinate or servant, but as a man.

Otherwise, why would she have me lick soap off her or kiss her feet? But I’ve never asked her directly.

There hadn’t been an appropriate moment.

More importantly, I didn’t want to deal with the aftermath if the answer was “no”. So I kept it that way.

If I’m being honest, I might have been enjoying that strange tension—something that’s almost there, but couldn’t be touched.

And so, this question could change many things about my relationship with Aira.

But no answer came from her.

“……”

Those half-lidded eyes looked at me. I couldn’t tell if she hadn’t heard me or if she was lost in thought.

Should I ask again?

This time, more directly.

“Aira-nim, do you like Theo Gospel? Romantically.”

“That’s strange.”

Strange?

It was an unexpected answer.

“Theo wouldn’t ask me something like that.”

Ah, that’s true.

I decided to brush it off.

“Because it’s a dream.”

“Is that so? If it’s a dream, I suppose it makes sense. But I don’t quite understand the point. Liking or not liking… Such things aren’t important between me and Theo.”

Was Aira also trying to dodge the question by answering vaguely?

No, it doesn’t seem so. In Aira’s eyes, which were narrowed again, there seemed to be genuine sincerity.

Aira truly seemed to believe that whether or not she liked me didn’t matter in our relationship. But what did that mean?

Was there so much trust between us that it transcends that?

Or was it because there was a wall between the queen and her servant that even affection couldn’t overcome? I asked for an answer, but I only got more questions.

Then she said.

“Then let me ask you. What does it mean to like someone romantically?”

Aira posed the question to me, and I couldn’t quite grasp what she intended by it. Was she genuinely asking?

“To like someone in that sense… It’s as the words imply. Aira-nim must have had one or two men you’ve liked in your life, right?”

“Hmm…”

Aira hummed softly, seemingly in deep thought.

After a brief pause, her lips finally parted.

“Reuben was a kind person. He always complimented me and patted my head. He’s much older than me, so I always had to look up to him. Reuben was tall.”

Reuben.

“Judah and Dan were lively. Both are mischievous, but they were always kind to me. They’d pick flowers for me or bring me birds.”

Judah and Dan.

Those were familiar names.

After that, Aira mentioned several other names and talked about what she liked about them. A total of 12.

Aira liked 12 men. It might sound like she was a heartbreaker, but those men were her brothers.

It’s a bit different from the answer I expected.

Still, I continued to ask.

“Besides family. Aren’t there any men you wanted to marry?”

Even as I asked, I felt a slight tremor of nervousness.

It felt like asking about your girlfriend’s past. Honestly, there was a part of me that didn’t really want to know the answer. But Aira, being human, must have experienced liking someone at some point.

After all, she was a princess beloved by everyone.

The man she would have liked must have been a tall prince clad in a uniform and adorned with shiny medals.

The kind who holds a ball to choose a princess and chases after Cinderella at 12 o’clock.

This anxiety came hand-in-hand with a faint expectation—what if, just maybe, my name would come up?

Anxiety and anticipation.

This strange Pandora’s box of emotions finally opened.

“There wasn’t anyone.”

“Not even one?”

“None.”

Relief and disappointment bloomed simultaneously.

She said there wasn’t.

It meant that no one could enter Aira’s heart, and at the same time, it meant that I couldn’t enter it either.

Was that even possible?

“What is love?”

Suk.

Her delicate fingers touched the left side of my chest, which got me nervous.

Since she thought of all this as a dream, it felt as though she might just rip my heart out. With Aira, it was very possible.

“What is marriage? I’ve never really given it much thought. Nor do I really want to.”

“But didn’t you announce a martial festival to search for a gukseo? Whoever wins will marry you. Isn’t it reckless to approach something so significant with indifference?”

My question could have been considered rude, yet Aira simply laughed. It was small and faint, like tender blades of grass swaying in the wind.

“It’s just entertainment. Everything is, in the end, just drifting in a dream….. ”

* * *

This won’t be as easy as I thought.

That was my conclusion after the recent conversation with Aira. How should I put it? Aira felt like a robot with some missing components.

Was it that she lacked the emotions of love and affection?

To capture Aira’s heart, I need to teach her that ‘love’.

But doing so for Aira, who seemed to lack that function altogether, was a mountain of a task.

I’d always known that her emotional responses were somewhat different from those of ordinary people.

She was similar to a psychopath or sociopath, someone with a notable deficiency in empathy and emotions. I had vaguely suspected as much.

If it’s something related to the mind, the Draco twins might know something. Could I explain the situation to them and ask for their help?