“Of course we should go!”

Alan shouted loudly.

His face was flushed red with excitement. The boy clenched his fists and stomped his feet.

“Anna, we need to write a reply saying we’ll go! Give me some stationery!”

“Do the other young masters agree?”

“Of course. Right, Cassis?”

Cassis, who was singled out, cleared his throat with a “Ahem.”

“It would be impolite not to go when we’ve been invited.”

His tone was deliberately proper.

However, judging by how he kept glancing at the letter, he seemed quite excited.

Alan chuckled.

“What’s with you! Acting like you don’t want to go when you do!”

“Young master!”

Anna called out in a stern voice.

“If you use such crude language, I’ll tell the Marchioness everything.”

“What?! No, it just slipped out!”

“Then you won’t do it again, will you?”

“Yeah! So you absolutely can’t tell Mother!”

“Alright, I’ll let it slide just this once.”

As Anna laughed, Alan exclaimed with a touched expression.

“There really is no one like Anna!”

“…He’s my brother, but he’s too simple-minded.”

Cassis muttered quietly enough that Alan couldn’t hear. Derek, who heard it, giggled.

“Alan is the biggest fool. Let’s just put up with him since we’re the smart ones.”

Hearing Derek’s whisper, Cassis nodded.

“But elder brother Derek.”

“Yes?”

“…I’ll write the reply.”

“What?”

Derek asked, a little surprised.

At first glance he seemed emotionless, but Cassis’s lips were pressed together somewhat stubbornly.

“Heeeeeh.”

Seeing his younger brother like that, Derek let out a strange exclamation. The boy’s brown eyes twinkled mischievously.

“Cassis.”

“What.”

Cassis, who had been answering curtly, suddenly froze. His blue eyes, resembling their father’s, wavered.

“N-No, I don’t.”

“You do! Anna, look at Cassis! Cassis is- oof!”

“I said I don’t! Be quiet!”

With his mouth covered by a tiny hand, Derek saw his brother fuming and burst out laughing, holding his stomach.

Seeing this, Alan looked back and forth between his brothers curiously.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Elder brother Alan, mind your own business.”

“Hey! How dare you be so rude to your elder brother!”

“Hmph.”

At Cassis’s haughty attitude, Alan flew into a rage and lunged at him. The playful Derek joined in, and soon the hallway became chaotic.

“What in the world is all this commotion?”

Hazel, who arrived late, was at a loss for words seeing the whole scene. Her three sons were completely disheveled, from their clothes to their hair.

She put her hand to her forehead and cried out.

“Go wash up and change your clothes right now! You can reply to the letter after that!”

Thanks to her three rambunctious sons, there was never a dull moment in the Marquis Hyacinth household.

Around the same time, a letter from Bonita arrived at the Rubiniere Count’s residence as well.

The servant who discovered the letter bearing the seal of the Duke Lisianthus looked like he might faint as he rushed to deliver it to the Count. This was because the person who handed over the letter hadn’t made any additional comments.

“Count!”

The servant burst into the Count’s study. The Count, who had been leisurely spending his morning selecting books, furrowed his brow.

“Hans, just how long are you going to keep barging in like that? I’m sure I’ve warned you before that I’d cut your wages if you don’t fix that habit.”

“But this time it’s really important, Count!”

As Hans whined in an aggrieved tone, Count Rubiniere inwardly clicked his tongue.

“What on earth is it?”

“A letter has arrived from the Duke Lisianthus’s household!”

“Wh-wh-what?!”

The Count, who had been elegantly pulling a book from the shelf, jumped in shock. Ignoring the books that fell with a clatter, he strode toward Hans, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and bellowed:

“Why on earth would His Grace the Duke send me a letter?!”

“H-How should I know?!”

“Damn it.”

Seeing Hans’s startled face up close, the Count soon released his grip on his collar.

The Count’s hand smoothed his hair, which was fixed with pomade. His hand became slick as a result, but such trivial matters were unimportant to the Count right now.

“What could it be? Has our family done something wrong? Could it be that he’s angry at me for strongly advocating the establishment of the southern factory last time…?”

He paced around the room like a puppy that needed to relieve itself. It seemed as if the Duke might burst in at any moment, brandishing a blue blade and declaring, “How dare you contradict me, die.”

…Though he had never actually said such things, the Count was nevertheless terrified of Duke Lisianthus.

His timid personality also played a part. He was originally a man who was infinitely weak towards those stronger than himself.

Hans, observing his employer’s anxious symptoms, spoke up in a timid tone.

“Um, wouldn’t it be better to just open the letter instead of worryin’ about it?”

“Quiet! Do you think I’m doing this because I don’t know that? …And I’ve told you to stop using such an impolite way of speaking.”

The Count, even in his anxiety, pointed out Hans’s manner of speech. Finally, after chewing his nails, he picked up a paper knife with a pained expression.

Tuk, ziiip.

As the wax seal was broken, a short letter popped out.

“…Huh?”

The Count, who had been trembling, squinted at the contents of the letter, then soon let out a puzzled sound.

He blinked.

“Count? What’s the matter?”

“No, this is….”

Though it was clearly the Duke’s handwriting, the addressee and sender written on the letter were not the Count and the Duke.

He read through the letter carefully.

To Maya

Hello, this is Bonita.

Do you remember playing together at the Marquis’s house last time?

Actually, the 8th of this month is my birthday, so I’d like to invite you to the party.

I’m not sure if you’ll like it, but I hope you can come if you have time.

I had a lot of fun talking with you then.

Father said he’ll prepare lots of delicious snacks, so I think you’ll have fun too. Well, maybe…

I’ll be waiting for your reply.

From Bonita

“A birthday party invitation…?”

The Count muttered, dumbfounded.

Maya was his eldest daughter, who had just turned seven this year.

As he read and reread the letter, the Count soon noticed a small drawing at the bottom.

It was a portrait of his daughter. It was more detailed than most professional portraits.

‘I heard she received a hand-drawn picture from the Duke’s daughter last time, was that really true?’

Honestly, that picture was too unbelievably good to have been drawn by a child, so he had laughed it off thinking, ‘Children certainly have vivid imaginations.’

But now that he was seeing it with his own eyes, he thought that perhaps those words might actually have been true.

If it were any other picture it might be different, but how could a ready-made product have the face of someone else’s daughter? This would have been impossible unless it was hand-drawn.

The Count rubbed the bridge of his nose to gather his thoughts.

Regardless of how it came about, it was welcome news that his daughter was on friendly terms with the young lady of Duke Lisianthus’s house.

Originally, noble society often revolved around childhood friendships. Whether for business, political marriages, or politics, there was nothing where connections weren’t important.

Of course, separate from that, he was also happy that his introverted daughter had made a friend close enough to invite her to a birthday party. Even if that friend was… the daughter of that terrifying Duke.

‘Didn’t they say the daughter takes after her mother?’

It wasn’t a particularly important fact.

The Count called his daughter, who was clumsily practicing knitting in her room, and showed her the letter.

As soon as Maya saw the party invitation, she jumped for joy and said she needed to write a reply accepting the invitation right away. The Count, as if he had been waiting for this, gave her the stationery he had prepared in advance and helped her send the reply.

The Lisianthus mansion was bustling with excitement.

How could they not be joyful when the day they used to spend in mourning every year had now become the birthday of their precious young lady?

Everyone in the mansion liked Bonita, who had newly entered their gloomy abode. There weren’t many adults who would dislike a cute little child who smiled brightly at them.

“Hey, hang it over there!”

“Here?”

“No, over there, I said!”

“Is this good now?”

“Yes, that’s it!”

They hung colorful balloons that children would like all over the walls.

Some of the servants had quite good handiwork, so they made animal or heart shapes by tying long balloons together. Bonita, who was passing through the corridor, saw this and came running over.

“What are you making?”

“It’s a puppy, young lady.”

“Wow!”

Bonita received the puppy balloon from the servant and touched the surface curiously. It felt smooth and strange.

“Is this a balloon?”

“Yes, it is.”

“What are balloons made of?”

“Hmm? Probably rubber, I think.”

“Rubber?”

“Yes, because it expands and gets big when you blow air into it.”

“It expands?”

“Yes, before it’s inflated, it’s much smaller and all wrinkled.”

Bonita, who had never seen the process of inflating a balloon, tilted her head.

Squish, squish.

Bonita kneaded the long balloon tied into a dog shape with her fingers. When she pressed it, she could definitely feel that it was full of air inside.

When she rubbed it hard with her hand, it made a squeaking sound.

“It sounds just like when you rub a glass window.”

“Ah, you’re right, it does.”

The servant nodded in agreement as he listened to the young lady’s words.

Bonita held the balloon to her ear and tapped it, then exclaimed:

“It’s amazing!”

The servant looked at the young lady fondly. Though he was still unmarried and had no children, the little lady was so cute that just looking at her made him smile.

‘To react like this over a puppy balloon, how adorable.’

He felt proud to have made the young lady happy with such a simple skill.

Just as he was about to bow farewell and return to the party venue:

“Bonita.”

“Father!”

The servant hurriedly bowed his head to Luke. Luke, who briefly acknowledged his greeting, looked at Bonita.

“What were you doing?”

But her reply was off-topic.

“Father, do you have a pen? One with a sharp tip.”