I Decided to Kidnap the Male Lead

“I still don’t know.”

Catherine murmured as she touched the lace carefully woven by the best craftsman stitch by stitch.

Iris nodded in deep sympathy, and Ophelia laughed.

“Still?”

“Yes, I really don’t know. What the hell are the three of us doing now?”

Catherine, who spat with eyes wide open, indeed lived up to her reputation as a beehive of society, but the way she touched Ophelia and held the lace was gentle.

“That’s not it, try this.”

Beside her, Iris very naturally turned over a different style of lace and followed Catherine’s earlier unexpected remarks.

“Yes, how did this happen?”

“Are you both going to keep doing this? If you’re going to be like this, tell me properly that you’re my friend.”

As Ophelia lightly rubbed her cheek against the hand holding the lace, Catherine cried out as her cheeks turned red.

“Friend! Friend! Ah, really! How did we become friends, really!”

“Thanks to Ophelia?”

Iris responded as she placed a white rose and a yellow rose on Ophelia’s lap. Her eyes were completely softened, which didn’t match her nickname of ‘an aide who doesn’t bleed even when stabbed’.

“I know that! So why, Ophelia…”

As Catherine’s voice, which had risen to its fullest, died away before it finished the sentence, Iris closed her mouth and looked at Ophelia.

Receiving their questioning gazes, Ophelia smiled brighter than the sun.

“I like you two so much!”

It was sincerity, nothing more or less.

Catherine and Iris choked in front of such an Ophelia.

It was like that from the beginning.

“Catherine!”

“What, what is it? Even before, aren’t you too close? I want you to keep the line.’

“When it comes to keeping the line, the lady should uphold it first. You’ve been told several times not to go in and out of the aide’s office like it’s your own.”

Catherine went in and out of the aide’s office as she pleased, even after the day she and Ophelia first met.

But she wasn’t slamming open the door to the aide’s office with the pomp and combativeness she had then.

Very unlike the beehive of the society, she sneaked in and glanced at Ophelia for no reason, and when the latter greeted her very loudly, only then did she clear her throat and react in a cold-hearted way.

At first, bewilderment, astonishment, shock, and absurdity dominated. Then another day, and another day.

Before anyone knew it, ‘crown prince’ was erased from Catherine’s mind while she went to the aide’s office, and she was looking forward to meeting Ophelia.

Time passed like that, and the three of them became friends. Even Iris, who was at odds with Catherine…

There was no special event, and there was no great occasion.

It was just that the time they met, talked about small things, and drank a cup of tea after bickering… It all accumulated little by little.

“So you don’t like it?”

As Ophelia’s shoulders drooped and she exaggerated a sad expression, Catherine shook her hand in haste.

“No, it can’t be!”

“Calm down, Cathy. She’s making fun of you. She does it all the time, but you fall for it every time.”

As Iris said so while pulling the ribbon that swayed frantically from Catherine’s hand, Ophelia raised her head and laughed.

Ophelia looked at Catherine, who grumbled that she had been tricked again, and Iris, who tied the ribbon neatly around Catherine’s wrist.

In those many regressions, she became friends with them, despite knowing they would forget her.

A trivial daily life that would be forgotten when it was over, a trivial time that would disappear when it passed.

All that time remained only for her.

It was not that the memory of being alone was not sad.

It was not that new beginnings were not unnerving.

Nevertheless, Ophelia couldn’t bear it the moment she saw Catherine storming into the aide’s office and Iris standing in front of her to stop her.

“My friends.”

As Ophelia spread her arms wide, Catherine and Iris glanced at each other, then allowed the embrace.

Ophelia whispered, holding them both in her arms.

“Thank you.”

Since the two of them were by her side now, even if they could not get back the lost time, they would be able to gradually build up the present that would never come back.

So… Hopefully… the day would come when she could laugh and release all the past that she remembered alone, just as though it was a passing story.

She looked forward to that moment when they would quietly watch the fireplace one night, or gather in the shade of a tree to avoid the scorching sunlight during the day.

The two ladies who were hugged by Ophelia glanced at each other again.

Ophelia would sometimes, no— often, thank the two of them like this.

They didn’t do or say anything that they were particularly grateful for, so they were bound to ask ‘What?’, but the two always kept their mouths shut without asking anything.

The tears in her voice were so clear that they couldn’t ask anything.

So the two agreed with a glance. To wait for Ophelia to bring it up first.

And the moment the first agreement was reached, the two were pleasantly surprised that the other had common sense in this regard, and after that, they matched well in more unexpected parts, which never ceased to surprise them again.

One day, in the aide’s office, when they shared a snack that Catherine had picked up on the way…

“Iris likes that too.”

Of the various baked goods, Ophelia eyed the financiers filled with cashew nuts, laughed heartily and handed over her share.

“Really, Iris? Really?”

Cooper, who was eating whatever he could get his hands on, tilted his head, and Ophelia answered, turning her head towards Catherine.

“Catherine likes that the most. It seems you two fit really well.”

“No, do not!”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Sure, whatever you say. Cooper, if you’re not eating that, why don’t you concede to Catherine?”

Both of them sharply denied it, but Ophelia smiled brightly, and Cooper obediently yielded to Catherine.

Of course, Catherine’s share of financiers with cashew nuts had already disappeared.

With such trivial preferences in sweets and stationery overlapping one by one, denying it now had become ridiculous.

And these days, their daily life was one that they couldn’t imagine in the past, such as giving gifts or recommending items that they had used well.

Ophelia, who let them out of her embrace, began to softly hum, as if she was in a good mood, and Catherine and Iris burst into laughter at the strange tone.

“Even if I listen to it every time, I don’t know how it is so messed up every time.”

“Is it the same song?”

“It’s a different song!”

“Then it’s even weirder. It sounds like the same song. Right, Cathy?”

“Right, Riri. It’s the same song.”

“No! This part is different.”

Knowing that the two of them were making fun of her, Ophelia did her best to express that they were different, but in the end she joined in the laughter.

When the laughter subsided and a languid silence came.

Catherine suddenly uttered.

“I guess it’s really the person of destiny.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

These were words that came out of nowhere, but as always, Ophelia and Iris perked up their ears, and Catherine hesitated.

The truth that came out without realization was childish even when she thought about it.

‘I should just keep my mouth shut and claim it’s nothing, but…’

Catherine stared straight into the twinkling eyes of her friends for a moment. Then she parted her lips.

The story that started like that, ended soon because it wasn’t long, and Catherine, who was at a loss as to how to finish the story, managed to say one more thing.

“I think the two of you, my friends, are the people of my destiny.”

Catherine, whose face was so red that it could explode at any moment, sighed and tightly shut her eyes.

‘To say something like a child at this age, I should just keep it in my heart! But I got into the mood…’

Unable to bear the embarrassment and shame, Catherine tried to reverse her words, her eyes still closed.

“Ah, I told a strange story…”

Before she could finish her words, Ophelia raised her hand and shouted.

“Me too! I think so too! It’s destiny!”

Not only she, but Iris too. Although blushing to the tips of her ears like she was embarrassed, she quietly raised her hand to her chest and said,

“Well, I think so too. If not fate, how can I be friends with the beehive of society or a Bolsheik at the same time.”

“You mean, the aide who doesn’t bleed even when stabbed?”

Iris shrugged at Ophelia’s playful addition and nodded.

The moment Catherine put her hands together, about to say something with her eyes welling with tears…

—Tok tok.

“Ophelia.”

Along with a short knock, Richard’s somewhat cool voice rang.

Ame: I’m not used to this peace hahahaha but even in peace, I still need tissues…?

Dea: I love them, they deserve nothing but the best T^T