Vain - Chapter 65 Cheesy Romance

Lucian looked at Aileene and saw her lively expression, he didn’t want her to be overworked. But it was something that Aileene seemed enthusiastic about, so he wasn’t going to stop her. It was good for her to be able to interact with others too, even if it was with his ex-fiancee. Kira was an honest person and from what he knew of her, he hadn’t known her very well as of present, but he didn’t dislike her. He would have married her if not for his meeting with Aileene. She was a low-key person in the first place, so he was actually surprised that she would approach them now. It seemed that it wasn’t only them that had changed, many weren’t too far behind.

“It’s not inconveniencing for us to help,” Lucian said at last, which was responded with a bright smile from Aileene and a brighter smile from Kira. He sighed seeing the two of them so hype for something so small, but a small smile couldn’t help but find its way onto his lips.

“It’s not going to happen now, but there’s a meeting scheduled Wednesday. Let’s meet up at the library and head to the student council room together.” Kira excitedly continued and wrote down a time for all of them to meet up, she was finally able to drag along someone that she wanted to befriend. So this was all good news to her, so good that all her actions were so quickly completed. It almost looked as if she was afraid that they would take back their agreement. “By the way, keep this new assembly a secret, only the student council knows of it thus far.”

Aileene nodded dutifully and Lucian watched on the side. For these two, he really began to feel as if he was the outsider. They continued to engage in simple small talk and he didn’t intervene. Their interactions were just too good to be true, it made him doubt his own recollections. Had they met before, were they close? And if they were how was he completely clueless? Maybe it was just his own limited experience and unfair expectations.

He wouldn’t ever admit it aloud, but he had undoubtedly read some female romance fiction in the past.  It wasn’t as if he had sought it out though, it was all from his mother’s library. And because of his momentary curiosity, he pushed himself down a rabbit hole with no end. He had only wanted to know what she would do during her free time, so he thought to pick up some books from her library to read. Who knew that all the books that he had chosen and that his mother would read were piles and piles of cheesy romances with no real plot. It was just a cycle of:

Flirting  -> Misunderstanding -> Fighting -> Villains -> Rekindling -> Flirting -> Misunderstanding

Lucian was completely surprised by how senseless every character would be, there were no exceptions and all of it was really a terrible sin. But he couldn’t stop himself from reading them, no matter how horrible the book was. And he knew, he realized that all these books nowhere near classics, there was no reason to it, he kept coming back. All the novels would be similar to a fault too, each plot was barely changed enough to not be called plagiarism. But he never got bored with them. It was a point of shame for him, there was no excuse for him, a bona fide prince to be reading such filler novels.

So eventually he stopped for his own sanity and whatever dignity he had left. Lucian had never touched that genre since. But faced with his own reality with Aileene, the first thought that he had was that it was quite similar to one of those cheesy romance novels that he had read. Even their titles were similar, they weren’t normal people. They were all nobles and royalty. Which was a dime a dozen in these novels. He was a prince, Aileene was the daughter of a duke house, and Kira was the daughter of a marquess house.

They were all people of prestige and they were all involved in a love triangle. A theoretical love triangle, since Kira had no feelings for him in real life. But if she did, then wouldn’t it all just be like a novel?

Aileene would be the kind and soft duke’s daughter, the main character who fell in love with the prince of an opposing country. That prince was engaged to be wed to another, Kira, the daughter of a marquess and the principal of the academy they went to. The prince finally met the duke’s daughter at the academy and he also fell in love with her. They get together at the opposition of their family. Kira is angered with jealousy and abuses Aileene with all her might, using her power at the academy.

She would be the evil villainess who constantly tried to destroy their relationship, in the end when they got their happy ending she wouldn’t have a good end. She would normally be banished and lose all her status or she could just be killed. Whatever the author felt would conclude the story quicker.

Lucian shook his head, but all that was clearly not happening in real life. Aileene and Kira were still talking amiably, they were neither enemies or a bit opposed to each other and they didn’t even seem to care about him, the romance target that they were after. They should be fighting for him if this was a cheesy romance novel of any kind, but it wasn’t. He was glad for that.

Though if he had to confess, he did have some unreasonable expectations for romance and how their affair would turn out. But everything was much smoother than he expected it to be. His warped perspective was incorrect and he was fine with that. He wouldn’t want things to change since a peaceful environment and a good relationship with Aileene was better than anything else. He didn’t need any more drama or excitement in his life.

Chapter end