Short Story: Some Prefer Nettles

“Let me introduce you to Ceres, my dear fiancee!”

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Grand Duke. I’m Cerestia Twente Hernandez.”

“Ah… Likewise…”

I could only offer a lukewarm reply to the smiling girl. I’d stopped by Strain to meet Prince Robert’s fiancee, but I hadn’t expected to meet someone like the studious and flax-haired girl standing before me. It may have been presumptuous of me, but I had kind of assumed the prince’s fiancee to be a bit more strange or eccentric. She stood by the pumpkin pants prince, smiling broadly and holding his hand. I wondered if she actually liked the way he dressed…

I’d come over to offer her a mass-produced smartphone, so I handed it over. She took to it surprisingly quickly, learning most of its functions on the spot.

“Oh, this is wonderful! Now I can talk to Robert whenever I want!”

“Indeed! It’s wonderful! Now you can call me and I can warp to you whenever you need me!”

I stared blankly. I thought the whole point of giving her a phone was so he wouldn’t have to use his ability and spend all his time with her unconscious as a result. I couldn’t really understand the point if he was just going to warp over anyway, but that wasn’t really my business.

“I’m just glad I get to talk to you more, Ceres. We’ll be able to message each other with this phone. Usually, I just warp here, fall unconscious, then speak to you a little bit before heading right home.”

“Hehe, you’re right. You fell asleep so quickly last time that you forgot to deliver the letter.”

I asked them what they meant, and apparently, he was supposed to deliver a letter to Strain, but ended up sleeping and missing his chance. I guess it made sense that he’d warp to deliver stuff like letters, since it was a much faster way of relaying information from Panaches than using a courier or something.

“I’ll bring you a letter next time I warp, Ceres! You can read it while I sleep!”

“…I’d prefer it if you just texted me instead.”

Frankly, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if Ceres used her phone to take a bunch of pictures of the pumpkin pants prince’s sleeping face. And so, I showed her the camera app.

“Oh, that’s right! I can take a photo of Ceres now! I must do it! Let’s do it! Oh!

Could I set it as my background image?”

…He was getting used to phones pretty quickly, apparently. Already wanting to make a photo of his fiancee as his lock screen was impressive. I hadn’t even managed to muster up the courage to put my fiancees on mine yet. I just had a picture of Kohaku.

“I would like a photograph of Robert as my background image as well.”

“How about I take a photo of you both together, then you can both use that image for your phones?”

“Oh, that’s a lovely idea!”

Robert and Ceres nodded quickly, and I took on the role of their cameraman. It took quite a few shots, but eventually, I managed to capture an image that looked decent enough.

Ceres was an interesting girl, and her tastes were certainly unique… I was happy to see that they both loved each other, at least. After all, in a world filled with all sorts of people, there were bound to be some who preferred the taste of nettles.