”Hey, Shu-chan. ‘The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?’”
”Huh? You think so? I think it’s pretty cloudy out.”
”No, no! ‘The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?’ is supposedly a Japanese translation of ‘I love you’! The story goes that Natsume Soseki came up with it when translating English. The cool reply is ‘I could die happy.’ That one’s apparently from Futabatei Shimei when he was translating Russian literature. Though both stories are probably made up.”
”Isn’t ‘I could die happy’ kind of girly for a guy to say?”
”…Now that you mention it.”
”Saki.”
”What?”
”-The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?”
”-! I could die happy.”
When Their Majesties the King and Queen finished their dance, many couples stepped onto the dance floor, accompanied by young ladies with white flowers pinned in their hair. Before I knew it, Prince Ethan-san had captured my hand and was leading me out, giving me no chance to refuse.
I abandoned myself to the music, stepping lightly, and we turned and turned, pressed close like husband and wife. Prince Ethan-san’s lead was perfect – he felt like a dance partner of many years. I liked dancing, and though I say so myself, I thought I was a fairly passable dancer. Still, if my partner’s leading hadn’t been up to par, dancing at such close quarters would have been a difficult feat. I wondered who had trained him.
Throughout the dance, eyes followed us constantly. It was already common knowledge that I had broken off my engagement with Garrett-sama. And now the Crown Prince, who rarely attended balls and almost never danced, had appeared. Naturally, we became the center of attention.
Was it because the Crown Prince had shown up at the ball? Because he was dancing? Unfortunately, the gaze wasn’t that innocent. My mother’s stare was also sharp, though for a different reason – and that had its own story.
The two princes of our kingdom were both exceptionally handsome, but in completely contrasting ways. Prince Ethan-san had the King’s chiseled features and a sense of wild strength. Garrett-sama, on the other hand, had inherited the Queen’s gentle beauty.
Both were extremely popular among the unmarried noble ladies. But Prince Ethan-san – who was engaged to a princess from a neighboring kingdom – drew just as many heated gazes as Garrett-sama, whose engagement seat had just opened up.
This was a peculiar phenomenon of the Kingdom of Rendel, where love marriages were common. In the monogamous Kingdom of Rendel, even the King could only take one wife. Yet for royalty, marriage could never shed its political dimension. As a result, some found themselves taking lovers they truly connected with.
Of course, whether one approved of such arrangements was a matter of personal opinion. Still, there were always a certain number of young ladies who wished to be freed from the heavy responsibilities of being a queen or crown princess and simply be loved – even though that was completely incomprehensible to me.
The reason such young ladies and their parents thought this way, and the reason Prince Ethan-san drew such heated looks, lay in what happened to any children born of such unions.
Since Rendel was monogamous, children born to a lover would normally be bastards. However, there was a loophole. If a legal wife gave birth to a son, any children later born to a lover would be adopted into the queen’s or crown princess’s household and officially gain succession rights. Moreover, after three years of marriage, this system was applied regardless of the queen’s wishes. Worse still, at the time of marriage, the queen was apparently forced to sign a consent form for such adoptions. It made me think that the queens of this country must be either saints or women of immense compassion to endure it.
As someone with memories of my past life, I found this system absurd. But apparently, it was the kingdom’s way of offering at least a little comfort to kings and crown princes who couldn’t escape political marriages.
In fact, the previous King had a beloved lady besides his legal Queen. As a result, the current King was the Queen’s child, but the Prince and Princess of the realm had different mothers. The fact that they still got along so well was said to be entirely thanks to the late Queen’s outstanding character.
And so, even today, Prince Ethan-san was subjected to the hungry gazes of noble ladies hoping to become his lover. For the record, my mother’s stare was especially painful because I had apparently been chosen – provisionally – for that very lover position.
From an outsider’s perspective, it was a perfect dance. Meanwhile, as the one involved, I was fraying my nerves in more ways than one.
The music ended, leaving a faint lingering note. Couples around us began to switch partners. Prince Ethan-san still held my hand tightly, and he led me out of the dance circle. Dancing twice in a row was not allowed – I had no intention of repeating Charlotte’s mistake.
Prince Ethan-san approached my mother and asked to escort me to the terrace.
”Ten minutes, no more. In the meantime, I’ll go pay my respects to Her Majesty.”
My mother’s expression said she didn’t approve, but my pleading gaze finally made her relent.
At first, I’d only wanted to confirm whether Prince Ethan-san was truly my husband. I’d thought it would be better not to meet him face-to-face – seeing him from a distance would be enough.
But if he really was my husband, I wanted to know: did he carry memories of his past life? And what had been his intention in putting us so publicly on display?
I still hadn’t confirmed whether Prince Ethan-san had his past-life memories. But it was undeniable that he held some affection for me.
That was likely why he’d had the fan inscribed with the ambiguous phrase “A man of the royal family who yearns for you.” If I’d known it was the Crown Prince, I would have run away, declaring that I wanted no part of being a lover candidate. And the relationship between the royal family and House Howard might have been damaged as well.
Prince Ethan-san, I believed, had taken a gamble. He’d bet that if we met again, I would fall for him. And that if I wished it, the relationship with House Howard wouldn’t be ruined. To that end, he’d deliberately chosen a ball he normally never attended – and not just any ball, but a grand one hosted by the Queen – to show us together in front of so many people. It was a warning: even without a fiancée, Rebecca Howard was off-limits.
Alternatively, it was possible that Prince Ethan-san himself had past-life memories and had realized – from my sudden announcement that I was retiring – that I too had regained my memories.
If that hypothesis was correct, he might have decided to close off all my escape routes before I could do something exactly like me – such as becoming a nun or moving abroad – something irreversible.
As I walked toward the terrace, I thought back to the first time I’d met Prince Ethan-san.
His engagement to Princess Aliya had already been arranged. We’d greeted each other as future brother and sister-in-law. And at that time, he had –
”What are you thinking about?”
His fingers tightened around mine, pulling me back to the present.
Prince Ethan-san had gambled to win me. If that was the game, I would play along and lay down my own card.
”I was thinking about the first time we met.”
Back then, he was seventeen; I was fourteen. We’d met only once. And more than three years had passed since.
At that time, I hadn’t had my past-life memories. But now, I did.
”I see. It’s rather late, but may I ask for your impression?”
You’re going to fall for me.
If my memory served me right… at our first meeting, Prince Ethan-san had said exactly that to me. The same as before.
”I thought, ‘What a strange person.’”
I answered the same as before.
At my reply, he flinched. His emerald eyes pierced through me. At that moment, we both knew. We were, without a doubt, sharing the same memories.
- That was why I’d thought I’d just confirm it from a distance. He was engaged to a princess from another country, after all.
- That was why I’d planned to retreat to my territory and enjoy a single life. I didn’t want to see the two of them together in the capital.
”The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?”
He said it, as if brushing away even the faintest shadow of doubt. This, too, was the same as before.
It was well known that I’d been called the Moon Princess at Royal Lemres Academy.
And tonight was a full moon.
But this moon wasn’t either of those.
”-I could die happy.”
When I regained my past-life memories, my beloved husband turned out to be engaged to a princess from another country – isn’t that a bit much?
Summary:
The chapter opens with playful banter about the Soseki moon anecdote before Saki is swept into a dance with Prince Ethan-san before a watching crowd. As they dance, she reflects on Rendel’s controversial succession laws and the political motivations behind Ethan-san’s gamble to win her publicly. On the terrace, she tests him with their first-meeting exchange, confirming they share past-life memories, and the chapter ends with him repeating the moon line and her bitter acceptance that her beloved husband is already engaged to another princess.
Trivia:
- Saki was called “Moon Princess” at Royal Lemres Academy, making Ethan-san’s moon line a triple-layered reference: the Soseki translation anecdote, their shared past-life memory, and her old nickname.
- Rendel’s succession system forces queens to sign adoption consent forms at marriage, which becomes legally enforceable after three years regardless of their wishes.
- The previous King had children by different mothers who still maintained good relations, credited entirely to the late Queen’s saint-like character.
- Prince Ethan-san normally never attends balls, but he deliberately chose the Queen’s grand ball to put Saki on public display and warn others away from her.
- Saki and Ethan-san first met when he was 17 and she was 14, three years before the current timeline.
- The “death can wait” tea – the author mentions being sick with a high fever during this update.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A famous anecdote (historically dubious) claims that Natsume Soseki translated “I love you” as “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” when teaching English. The “cool reply” “I could die happy” is attributed to Futabatei Shimei translating Russian literature. Both are romantic myths used in Japanese pop culture.