Camellia marched over to me and thrust a finger in my face, small chest heaving. 

"Did you drag him here alone to seduce him?! Who do you think you are?"

I looked calmly down at her, and for some reason I felt the urge to laugh. Although the heroine, Lady Raine, is not the tallest of women, Camellia is still almost a head shorter.

The girl huffing and puffing in front of me was oddly charming, so I took my time to answer. "I have no idea what you are talking about,  Lady Camellia. Prince Velvetine merely had a question about our reading assignment before we head to the cafeteria. Would you like to join us?"

Her finger dropped and she stuttered, flustered, as if she was prepared for a more combative answer instead of an invitation.

Asa held up a hand casually. "Actually, I need to go to the library to look up something, but I can join you in a bit."

I waved her off, knowing she was just going to go peek at that librarian again. "See you later."

As Asa left the room, Camellia's eyes trailed after her. Her anger had dissipated, and she looked strangely gloomy. For some reason, my heart clenched.

"You can see him anytime, you know. You don't have to look so sad." 

She whirled on me, a little of that fighting spirit lighting up her eyes once more. "I'm not like you, you know! I don't just call people out when I'm bored! The prince is very busy."

She seemed to have ignored what I said earlier, but it didn't bother me. According to Asa, this girl is the heroine's rival and set against her from the start. Camellia is actually the game's main antagonist, as she is meant to be a "villainess" who bullies the heroine.

"You can."

I had started to guide her towards the cafeteria, but she paused to look at me. "What?" 

"You can call him out. If anyone can, you can. You're his fiancée, aren't you?"

She flushed a scarlet more vibrant even than her eyes, and I felt extraordinarily confused. Confusion is not a familiar emotion to me, but this girl was making me feel it often.

"I just said…look, Prince Velvetine is going to eventually rule this country. He has to work twice as hard as everyone else. I don't want to distract him from his training or his studies." Her hands twisted fistfuls of her dress. "I want to support him…and maybe the best way I can do that is by being invisible."

I stopped in my tracks. It's true that before I became the heroine, my fiancée was invisible to me. She sometimes confronted the women who approached me, but she barely ever spoke to me. Even in our initial marriage meetings when we were younger, she always hid behind her father and couldn't meet my eyes.

That must be why, every time she glares right at me with those same eyes, I feel a strange thrill.

I don't like being bullied, but…

Why does it feel like it would be fun to bully her instead?

"You're not exactly being invisible by interrupting the guy who was just trying to ask his classmate for help on an assignment." 

She flushed again. "Well…well, I don't see why you had to meet up so far away from everyone, behind closed doors. It's not proper for nobles, especially for a noble with a fiancée."

There it was again, that strange desire to tease. "Are you saying the prince was being improper?"

She pounded my arm with a tiny fist. "N-not!! I! You~~~ I'm sure you were the one who chose that location!"

I shrugged. "It wasn't me. Maybe the prince was the one who wanted a little alone time."

Her face paled at my blasé attitude. Maybe I went a little too far. She looked down, and mumbled something.

I leaned in a little, and caught a hint of perfume. She smelled like some kind of spring blossom, a very pleasing scent. "What's that?"

"It's not…Prince Velvetine just hasn't been himself lately." 

Shock coursed through my veins like scalding fire.

Out of everyone who knew me in this world, she is the only one who has noticed the change.

Asa has done a good job, but I didn't realize how much it bothered me that no one did.

We stopped walking towards the cafeteria after I had stopped steering her, but my legs were frozen in place by the synapses misfiring in my brain. "What do you mean?"

"I- I don't know! It's like a stranger is wearing his face, okay!" She swiped at her downcast eyes, and I saw a glimmer of tears on her pale cheeks. Looking at her this closely, I could make out a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

"You really care about him, don't you?"

She lifted her chin, and her wet eyes blazed with pride. "Of course I do." She started to march in the direction of the cafeteria, arms swinging widely. She looked back at me, and I could read the mix of emotions spelled out in her eyes. Hope, embarrassment. Scorn for a rival with inferior feelings. And pride, so much pride. "I love him."

A warmth settled deep in my chest, like I had just ingested tea with honey.

Some things have changed, with me being in this body. But there are other things that were there the whole time, I just couldn't see it.

Perhaps living this way is not such a bad thing after all.