Cinderella raised an elegant brow and clapped her hands together.
"Viviana keeps saying I'm the one who hurt you — that you're a little afraid of me. But that's simply not true! What would that wishy-washy creature know?!"
Afraid? Faust would never admit to something like that. Not in a thousand years.
So he nodded without missing a beat. "You're right. I'm not afraid."
"See?!"
Cinderella's face broke into a radiant smile. She seized one of the Aurum Prince's hands in both of hers, pressed it to her chest, and tilted up her breathtaking face.
"So when I heard you call me adorable — you have no idea how happy that made me, Faust. My light of life, my fire of desire... What do you think? Isn't she being completely unreasonable?"
The golden-haired girl laughed with open disdain. "She's going mad with desire inside, spinning God knows how many fantasies about you — yet she puts on this prim, untouchable act like she's made of pure snow and jade. What a hypocrite."
She's saying that about herself?
Faust stood frozen. The girl before him was Viviana, and yet not Viviana — everything Cinderella was saying were the words buried deepest in Viviana's heart.
Cinderella leaned in close. "Don't you agree, Your Highness?"
Oh, so that's how it is. A loaded question, point-blank, no warning at all. Well played, Viviana. Very well played.
But Faust was not the sort of man to crack under pressure. Faced with a question like this, he kept his composure entirely.
He furrowed his brow in a show of careful contemplation, then spoke.
"I don't think it's quite fair to put it that way. Viviana and you have entirely different styles — each remarkable in your own right."
"From a distance, Viviana is sharp and frigid, like a gust of winter air. Up close, she is noble and breathtaking. She possesses beauty and depth beyond question, yet she never wields her finest qualities as tools for show."
"She keeps a measured distance, sketching the shape of a relationship with effortless, understated words — drawing you in through that very ambiguity, until you're too far gone to pull yourself free. And yet 'cold' is the last word you could use for her. She simply doesn't know how to express what she feels."
"Distant, composed, quietly melancholic — never a performance she doesn't mean. Strip away the ornament, and what remains is something pure."
"The longer you know her, the more you discover the shy and quietly moving parts of her. That's when it finally dawns on you: this was never an emotionless sculpture of ice. This was always a living, alluring mountain — full of hidden grace."
"In short — unapproachable, uncompromising, utterly her own. A work of art meant to be admired, never possessed."
---
With each perfectly measured word of praise, Cinderella's smile grew richer and warmer, like sunlight spreading across still water. She raised her hand like an eager student in class.
"What about me? What about me?!"
Faust paused. "That... I've spent too little time with you to offer a description that does you justice. So — would you allow me to fall for you first?"
"Is that so... I suppose that can't be helped."
The golden-haired girl's smile drifted across her face like a spring breeze over a lake — an expression that had always seemed entirely foreign to Viviana, yet here it appeared completely natural, completely at ease.
She threw her arms around Faust and pressed herself against his chest, drawing in the warm, intoxicating scent of him with quiet contentment.
Well. There it is.
Faust exhaled inwardly.
He'd already braced himself the moment he called Cinderella forward — worst case, another round of battle. If that was what it took to satisfy Cinderella's longing, then so be it. He would see it through.
Besides, the Prince of Aurum was not who he used to be. He might not even lose this time.
The humiliation of the past — he would wash it away today.
---
The Prince's gaze sharpened with quiet resolve as he reached out with practiced ease.
Cinderella noticed the movement and looked up, puzzled.
"Your Highness — are you trying to get intimate? Isn't this a little fast?"
Faust blinked. "You don't want that?"
Cinderella puffed out one cheek with deliberate indignation, folding her arms.
"Of course not. I have absolutely no intention of being seen as some shameless, lustful woman."
"....."
*No intention of being seen as lustful, is it...*
Faust let his memory drift back over those three months.
On the sofa. In the bedroom. In the dining room. In the bathroom.
*Don't make me laugh.*
"Pfft——"
He slapped a hand over his mouth and threw every ounce of willpower into holding it together, shoulders shaking violently.
*Don't laugh. For the love of — do NOT laugh.*
*If I laugh right now, my life is over.*
Fortunately, Cinderella paid him no mind. She was already lost in her own imagination, fingers laced together, pacing dreamily across the room.
"Let's go on a date! Those months we spent together — all of it underground. We learned every inch of each other, yet we've never once been on a proper date."
"That's not a bad idea at all."
Faust agreed readily. Whatever this was, it was far less dangerous than an all-out clash. He had no idea whether Cinderella might lose control again — agreeing to this was already him taking a calculated risk.
And so Cinderella hooked her arm through his with barely contained excitement, and the two of them headed out of the bedchamber.
Cinderella wanted to wander through the streets of the royal capital — an ordinary date, she said, the kind ordinary people have. Browse the shops, watch a film, get coffee, share a proper dinner, and finish the night watching a romantic fireworks show.
Faust suspected every item on that list had come straight out of a romance novel. Viviana had a habit — not even a hidden one, really — of tucking love stories inside the covers of respectable-looking books. He'd noticed long ago and never said a word.
---
As the two of them passed through the central courtyard, their steps slowed without thinking.
It was hard not to stop.
In the garden, the elderly King sat in his wheelchair in quiet conversation — and the man pushing it was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with golden hair and a golden beard, carrying about him the bearing of a great lion in his prime.
Earl Roselin. Viviana's father. And one of the old King's closest, oldest friends.
"Father."
"Father."
Faust and Cinderella stepped forward to greet them.
The old King glanced between the two of them, then hesitated.
"You two are... heading out?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
Earl Roselin let out a booming laugh and turned to the King.
"Your Majesty, I told you — young people have their quarrels, but in the end they always find their way back to each other. Love needs that friction to take shape. Our children turned out just like us when we were young."
The lion of a man turned his gaze to the Aurum Prince.
"And Faust — you've made something of yourself. I hear you've taken that Elven Martial Saint on as a guest retainer, and even learned a move or two from her? Good lad. Spar with me sometime — let me see what's so special about Elven martial arts."
Faust wasn't quite sure what to do with his impossibly easygoing uncle-in-law, but before he could respond, Cinderella spoke first.
"Father, Mistoria is here in the palace. If you want to spar with her, you're welcome to go find her yourself. A Martial Saint of her renown is hardly going to refuse a challenge from a fellow warrior."
"I... think I'll pass."
Earl Roselin dabbed at the sweat on his brow.
"That Elf — one look at her and you know she's terrifyingly strong. She wouldn't hold back against me the way she does with her students. She'd come at me to kill."
"Look at you!"
The old King slapped the arm of his wheelchair, mustache bristling with indignation. "All you know how to do is bully those weaker than you. If I were in my prime, I'd have challenged that Elf myself — and lasted at least a hundred rounds!"
Earl Roselin fired back immediately. "A hundred rounds? Even among Heroes there are tiers. Fifty rounds would be respectable."
"Seventy, then——"
"At your absolute peak? Sixty, and that's generous."
"....."
Cinderella: "The real answer is zero. She'd end it in one move."
Watching the two old men bicker like children — even if they were her elders — the girl ran out of patience. She lifted the hem of her skirt lightly and said:
"I've given the correct answer. Now — would you kindly get out of the way?"