Chapter 3. Arrest Her (1)

Translator: River

You are accused of murder, and the evidence points so clearly and ridiculously towards you. Every time he denied it, a new piece of evidence appeared that made him wonder if he had really done it. It was a maddening experience.

The day before Elma Hobb died, as Shushu recalls it, he thought the day would end like any other, like a normal day.

It was an uneventful day, except for the fact that she had stayed up late to accept an invitation to the Academy meeting. After dressing for the meeting, she went to bed and stayed up until a little later due to her excitement.

She had overheard that a boy she had fallen in love with when she was a student would also be attending the meeting. Although it had been a long time since she had been in love with him, the thought of seeing her childhood sweetheart again would make anyone’s heart flutter.

‘Shushu, if I had lived with Edwin,’ he said, ‘I would never have laid eyes on any other man but him.’

No other man in my life.

At only twenty years old, the chief scientist who succeeded Kanella as head of House Isadok, one of the Twelve Houses of Parliament, was so popular that the newspapers treated him like a walking hit piece, and with only the occasional story about his exemplary behavior in place of the sordid celebrity scandals, it’s no wonder he almost perpetually topped the gossip lists as the most sought-after celebrity boyfriends and most desirable men to date.

With his trademark dark hair, green eyes and cool, aloof appearance, Edwin sometimes looked more like an officer than a scholar in his expressionless photographs, but that was only on occasion, and he always had a gentle smile on his face.

That smile, with his relaxed eyes and slightly upturned lips, works surprisingly well against his cold exterior, and makes him seem like a friendly scholar. In any case, he’s a great foundation, so it’s no wonder people get nervous every time they see him. Understandably so.

But to Shushu, who had lived under the same roof as him since he was eleven, Edwin was like a brother. Above all, Edwin, now a perfect gentleman, was a troubled young man straight out of a child psychology book when, at the age of eleven, he was taken in by Shushu after a terrible accident wiped out his entire family.

With his porcelain doll looks and venomous tongue, the difference between Edwin and Shushu was so stark that it sometimes made me laugh.

In fact, I still remember from time to time young Edwin’s scornful comment to Shushuu, who as a child tasted the jam with his fingers, as if he was watching someone eat on a toilet seat, “Are you a street rat?”

He was the old man who would click his tongue at you if you didn’t have a clean handkerchief. As an adult, he’s still a bit dyspraxic, but he’s gone from “Are you a street rat?” to “You’d better use silverware because you might get a stomachache,” so I’d say his upbringing was a success.

When Edwin hears the word “nurturing,” he’ll probably grumble that it’s not as good as it sounds, but for Shushu it is nurturing. When he first arrived at the house, the head of the household, Edwin’s official godmother and Shushu’s mother, Ganelli Mailley, had already given up housework and started living like a chipper, so it was Shushu who showed Edwin his new life.

A life with no one to answer the doorbell, a kitchen in which he had to cook his own food…. In retrospect, these were the days that infused life into the prince, but all of them he remembered with fondness and affection for his childhood companion.

But as much as they lived together, she knew that Edwin and she were not really blood relatives. Although her mother was a respected scientist and they were linked by an unspeakable tragedy, Edwin was a man of great distinction who would never have been allowed to dine with a commoner.

And as if to prove it, in the early spring of this year, Edwin came of age, officially ending his patronage and returning to his family home in Isadok. Without all of his belongings, Shushu felt a bit lonely, but he was not too discouraged, as that was to be expected.

The Isadok were such a family. One of the twelve families that laid the foundation of Rogwin, and one of the pillars that still held it together. Having lost his entire immediate family in an accident, Edwin must now decide the fate of his vast estate largely on his own. It’s a tough and demanding job. It will also be hectic. But another kind of worry added to Shushu woes in early spring, about a month after Edwin emancipation.

When the now-adult Edwin kept showing up at Shushu house instead of going to his own home, it was clear that he was not happy.

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