The Heroines Are After My Fortune

22 – The Bird Breaks From the Egg – 2

“…Are you really crazy!?”

Rene hisses, lowering her voice when I return to my seat.

Of course, she’s flustered. I only asked the owner of this tavern for permission. It was something that wasn’t agreed upon with her at all. Even so, I went out there with all the bravado.

“What’s the problem?”

“Everything! How could you just do something like this without any discussion?”

“You would’ve said no even if we had discussed it, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know, that’s a separate issue.”

“You know that, yes? That sometimes, a single short performance on a real stage gets you more than hundreds of hours practicing in a locked room. I mean, has madam ever even acted in front of anyone but me?”

The crushing disadvantage of not being able to get on stage in real life. Using that as my reasoning seemed to shake her a little, but it wasn’t quite enough to fully convince her.

“I agree with part of your plan, but it’s impossible! You’re asking me to do a play in ten minutes… “

“This is what they call an impromptu play. We just come up with a basic setup and then improvise the lines to fit the situation. Be free with it.”

I added that it was a common practice method for actors and that while some taverns put on scripted shows, they often did impromptu ones as well.

“I’m still not good enough. Not enough to meet the expectations of so many people…”

It seemed she was still burdened with the compulsion to satisfy others’ expectations.

I chuckled softly and replied to her question.

“Did those people pay an entrance fee? To their eyes, we are just third-rate actors putting on a free show at a tavern. The most they’ll expect is just that much. And like I said again and again, it’s okay to fail, so try to perform with all you got. I’ll gladly accept any punishment afterwards for my rudeness, even if it’s getting the crap beat out of me.”

“……………….”

She frowned, then sighed.

“Fine, okay. Let’s do it.”

“Oh, madam. Have you decided to go for it?”

She smiled thinly at my words and spoke a truly chilling sentence before rising to her feet.

“You’d better mean that about taking a beating.”

Hmm, that is honestly a little scary.

######

Clap clap clap—!!

With the sound of the audience’s applause, the two of them stepped onto the stage.

Prior to the impromptu performance, Aiden had taken a few elements from the characters in Shakespeare’s play, *The Taming of the Shrew*.

Renee, a spinster with a fiery spirit, unable to marry,

and Aiden, a character who’d approached her for her wealth, only to fall in love.

“Miss Renee.”

“Yes?”

“When things don’t go smoothly, remember. I’m here, by your side.”

“…I understand.”

She didn’t know why he was saying such things, but nodded nonetheless. The audience’s eyes fixed on the stage, and with Aiden’s line, the play began.

“Oh, this must be her manor…!”

With his first line, Aiden looked around before abruptly bolting off the stage.

And he did it with all sorts of unidentifiable props.

Tap-tap-tap—!

He arrived at a table of young women, clutching a female spectator’s hands tightly.

“Beautiful young lady, what is your name?”

“…Ah, it’s Bianca.”

“Oh! Beautiful Bianca. It’s true, the rumors of the Empire’s fairest face were not unfounded! I beseech you, won’t you accept my proposal?”

“Wha…?”

The female spectator, dragged into the play so suddenly, half joy, half shock, couldn’t manage a proper reply—

“Hmph, doesn’t Miss Bianca despise the likes of you! Here’s a 5-carat diamond ring. Please, accept it…!”

He stuck a fake mustache on his face from the desk, changed roles, and smoothly continued his lines.

“I have brought rubies!”

““What of the land deed, Miss Bianca!”

Aidan, starting with his mustache, then donning glasses, then a hat, circled the female audience member, left and right, delivering his lines.

His use of props, management of his movements, and shifts in voice, were without fault.

A truly fluid, natural portrayal of three roles by one man.

Rene, watching silently, was truly impressed.

‘……Impressive.’

Aidan then put his hand to the female audience member’s lips, as if listening, before leaping back with an expression of genuine shock.

“What……!? Miss Bianca. Is it truly so? If your sister, Miss Lulu, does not marry first, then you also cannot marry anyone——!?”

So saying, he quickly ran back to the stage.

Returning, he resumed his one-man, three-role performance using his props.

“Look here, I must marry Miss Bianca, so you take Lulu!”

“Take that old spinster yourself!”

“What? How can you speak such harsh words…!”

The laughter of the audience filled the tavern. And now, finally, Rene enters the play.

“You all, have you said everything you need to say…!?”

Interjecting at the perfect moment, she made a decent start.

“Hah! Miss, if you don’t fix that foul temper, you will live a spinster all your life and die an old maid——!!”

“Hmph, nonsense! Who asked for your worries….”

But she, for a moment, was pushed back by Aidan’s momentum and made a mistake.

The failure to modulate her voice, the words not coming out right. A few in the audience tilted their heads, unable to properly hear, and these reactions landed unfiltered into her gaze.

‘This isn’t good.’

She needed to continue with the next line, but her mouth wouldn’t open.

In a panic, just as she was about to drop her head,

“Aish, frustrating——!!”

“…………!?”

“What’s the ghost doing! Why isn’t it snatching this old maid already!”

Beside her was Aiden. The tavern erupted into laughter.

He glanced at Rene after delivering the line, and then winked with one eye.

Unlike movies, plays don’t have cuts.

Even if you make a fatal mistake, the show must go on.

‘…This is what a play is.’

In a way, that continuity resembled life.

You might make a big mistake. But you don’t have to bear it all alone.

Rene regained strength from that.

“You lot…! Get out of our mansion right now——!!”

*Thump!*

As she loudly shoved Aiden, he fell to the floor without any resistance.

“Ugh, what did you expect from an old maid, her strength is ridiculously strong!”

“She managed to floor the three of us at once…!”

“He’d win an arm wrestle against an ogre for sure—!”

Sprawled on the floor, Aiden kept up his multiple roles, switching props and never breaking character, making the audience burst into laughter again. Clutching his back, he stood up, snapping his fingers as if struck by an idea.

“Wait a minute, isn’t the problem solved if we just get that old maid a groom…!?”

With that, Aiden stormed off stage, tossing aside all the props of his three characters before returning, donning a suit blazer he’d left on the table.

And so, the arrival of the bachelor for the old maid Lulu, the womanizer Eden.

“Oh-ho, my good friends sent letters! Let’s see…”

Grabbing a tavern menu as a prop, Aiden began pacing the stage.

“Eden, would you be inclined to take a hellion for a wife? You like money, don’t you? I vouch that she’s rich, but there’s just one fatal flaw… She’s a downright hellion! Spiteful, wicked…! It’s hopeless to even try—!”

He delivers lines like it’s a feast— that’s what this must be.

His timely gestures and shifts in intonation sucked in everyone’s attention.

He slapped the letter with a *thwack!* and put a hand to his head.

“Ha, these fellas. They take me for a fool! I don’t care if a woman is ugly as sin, a nagging shrew, or has the strength of an ogre, so long as she’s loaded—! Ha ha ha——!!”

His body facing away from the stage, Aiden did a sharp 180, heading towards Rene.

“Greetings! Beautiful Ms. Lortel, I am Eden!”

“Wh-what did you say? Apologize this instant! How dare you call me with such a hick name…!”

“Haha, just a joke! A joke!”

The two, these two characters, at each other’s throats, their first impressions the absolute worst. The audience, men and women, started taking sides based on their exchange.

“Wow, that rude guy is just the worst…!”

“Now I know why she’s not married yet! Gosh, if a woman is that prickly!”

The women in the audience found his disrespect of messing up her name intolerable while the men pointed out that her reaction to a simple joke was why she was an old maid. The audience had differing opinions but a shared curiosity, both groups wanting to see how the relationship between these two, which started so explosively, would change.

“You are beautiful as ever today, Miss Lulu. Might I, perhaps, dare to stroke your hair?”

“Go right ahead. The moment a single finger touches me, I’ll snap your waist in two!”

Renée made a grand, exaggerated grab for Aiden’s waist, and he recoiled with a comical jump backward.

“Whoa—! Ahem, it was a joke, a joke!”

The ever-smirking Aiden, momentarily terrified by her ferocity, retreated.

The audience, remembering that Lulu was rumored to possess strength enough to fell three grown men, erupted in laughter.

Just now, she felt it.

That part with the large gestures, it didn’t feel awkward, not for the first time.

‘Movements bigger, more extended.’

Things Aiden had drummed into her ears until they were sore.

Now, within her, those pieces were starting to fall into place.

“Miss Lulu, would you do me the honor of going on a date with me?”

“Hmph, no way.”

“Are you refusing me now?”

“Hmm, no.”

“Then, that’s a yes. We’ll meet here at 6:30 tomorrow? I’ll be off then…!”

“Hold on, when did I…!”

With each passing moment, they were increasingly drawn to each other, unpredictable to the bone.

The audience watched their chemistry with satisfied grins, but then a major event suddenly exploded.

“Ah, what is this paper…?”

The moment she picked up the paper Aiden had dropped on the floor during their date.

Every spectator knew what that paper was.

“That paper, could it be *that* letter…!?”

“My god, this is a disaster…!!”

It was the letter from the trio urging him to seduce Lulu since she was rich.

Rene’s hand trembled as she read it, and soon, with rage-filled steps, she approached him and crumpled the letter, tossing it at him.

“You…!! You only came to me because of my money?”

“Miss Lulu, this is a misunderstanding! Money means nothing to me anymore! What I truly desire is you—”

“Shut your mouth, you liar—————!!”

*Smack*——!!

A sound so loud it made the audience’s jaws drop reverberated through the tavern, and Aiden’s head snapped to the side. It was almost impossible to tell if it was acting or real.

But she had faith in him. She knew he’d just take it, as if it was nothing.

“Ugh, Miss Lulu….”

Aiden, trembling, barely grasped Rene’s hand that had just slapped his cheek, then *thudded* onto his knees on the floor.

“Yes, you’re right! I am a liar!”

“Finally admitting it. Get out of my sight…!”

She screamed in a fit of rage, but Aiden shook his head, holding tightly to Rene’s hand.

“Even if everything else is a lie, the fact I love you, that is no lie…! Please believe me——!!”

“…A man like you, I hated you from the start! Your disrespect in calling me by a different name, your bottomless unfounded confidence, that cocky demeanor, I hated it all…!”

But as Rene coldly slapped away his hand and rained curses upon him, gasps erupted from the audience.

“Well, seems her betrayal cuts deeper than I reckoned…”

“Is this… is this really the end for them?”

Rene, still with her back to the kneeling Aiden, walked to the front of the stage.

She began to speak, her voice thick with tears.

“But do you know? The thing I hate most is myself.”

“………Lulu.”

“Hngh, if you’re not here…! I can’t stand myself, the me that can’t even make it through a single day. What should I do…?”

And then, her tears fell.

The final blow that dominated the space, the audience was all in a daze, their eyes fixed on her.

‘That’s it…!!’

Aiden was filled with elation.

With that single tear, all of Rene’s scattered puzzle pieces fell into place. He had gotten everything he wanted; it was time to end the play.

“Lulu, I will not leave your side for even a single moment. I promise.”

“……Sniff, I’ll be watching you, always.”

Aiden came forward and abruptly embraced her from behind.

Rene returned the embrace, and the play ended, erupting into thunderous applause.

“Kyaa, that was the best——!”

“The best play I’ve seen in recent times…!”

“We enjoyed it so much!”

The most bewildered by the cheers was, of course, Rene.

Strangers, names unknown, clapping with pure, raw feeling. A first in her life, this was.

“……………….”

“Young Lady, you should bow.”

“Ah, yes.”

Hands clasped, they bowed deeply to the audience, and so, their first play ended.

####

They somehow stumbled back to the meeting room within the time limit.

Aiden, first, bowed to her, offering an apology.

“I’m sorry. Dragging you into this with my stubbornness.”

“………………….”

It was so ironic.

When she’d been pulled onto the stage out of nowhere, she’d truly resented him, but not anymore.

Watching Aiden act, and then acting with him before so many people, she’d realized so, so much. This was the first time in her life that she’d been this immersed, felt this raw “joy.”

“Are you still angry? If so, you can hit me until you feel better.”

“Hmph, never mind. I already hit you during the play.”

“Ah, you mean that. It was quite stinging, I must say, probably from the emotion you put into it.”

“…I’m sorry for hitting you so hard. Come here, I’ll put some ointment on it.”

Her hand, truth be told, had been quite harsh, a faint red mark still lingering. Taking a wound treatment from the supply kit in the meeting room, she gently applied it to Aiden’s cheek.

“To be treated like this by a high-born Marquis’s daughter. It’s an honor to my family.”

“You keep making strange noises, I’ll really hit you, you know?”

*Did you hit me not-really back there then?* Aiden wanted to say, but another cheek unification scared him so he desperately bit back the words. After their contact ended, the guard’s call came from outside. Rene packed her things and got up from her spot.

“I’ll be going in now. You worked hard.”

“Yes, you too, Young Lady, you worked very hard.”

She turned to leave, but stopped, hand on the door handle.

“Ah, and…”

“…?”

“Today, really…”

“Really?”

Rene seemed to have something to say.

But she just shook her head.

“It’s nothing.”

“…?”

A moment ago, a strange feeling had almost popped out.

She thought she knew what it was.

*Get a grip, Rene Este.*

She’d wanted to express gratitude, and had so many questions for him, but she had to hold back. Like ‘Eden and Lulu’ from the play just now, relationships that started with money turning into something real? That was the one thing she desperately needed to avoid. Wasn’t the reason for starting this whole mess to *avoid* marrying each other in the first place?

*This is just a temporary feeling, for sure…*

Rene steeled her resolve with all her might.

After that day, she held no private meetings with Aiden.

Just dedicated herself to practice, each day that came.

Time, it passed like a shot.

And time, it flowed and flowed—

“Young Lady, are you ready?”

“…Yes, I am confident now.”

The play to decide their fate,

The premiere of 「Salome」 was upon them.