The Villainous Daughter's Butler ~I Raised Her to be Very Cute~

v2c14 - The Play, Espressivo of Light and Darkness Act II Part 3

There were two weeks left before the school festival.

Fol still wasn't attending school, but we heard that sometime soon, she would be able to show up for the rehearsals. And so we kept up our hard work, so that she would have a big smile once she returned.

We had borrowed a practice room and threw ourselves single-mindedly into the play rehearsal.

The added payoff of this was that Prince Alforth's acting became considerably better. When comparing him with his Espressivo of Light and Darkness' counterpart, he was a little immature, however... his steadfastness, that seemed to be popular with shotacons, had strengthened.

He would probably capture the attention of the young highschool age ladies once he stood on the school festival's stage. Lady Sophia's advice for him regarding playing the prince in his own way seemed to have had an impact on him.

However, the way things were going at that moment, I suspected that, while he had become well suited to playing a prince's role, he was quickly becoming less and less similar to Lady Sophia's type.

I felt that I should mention that to him, but I felt conflicted, since it would be a mess if his acting were to revert back to how it had been in the beginning.

For the time being, since Lady Sophia continued to instruct Prince Alforth on his performance, I didn't think that there would be any problems with continuing to rehearse like this. 

What was a problem was- I turned my gaze towards Alicia, who was playing the role of the maid. Compared to the way she was before, she had improved considerably. However she was falling behind the others. Although she didn't have a lot of lines, she had the important role of supporting the conflicted heroine.

"...You cannot empathize with your role after all?"   

"I'm sorry. I understand that, for Fol's sake, I have to perform well but... I'm simply unable to feel empathy for the heroine, no matter what I do."

Hearing that she was unable to feel empathy for her, my feelings fell into disarray. I believed that if she was able to relate to the heroine, she could perform her role smoothly. However, on the other hand, it was possible that it would put pressure on Lady Sophia and become the main push for her fall into darkness. It would have been ideal, if she could stay unassuming in real life while simultaneously improving her performance in the play. However, I should have guessed that it wouldn't be so easy.

"Ah, but, I can empathize with the part where she doesn't want to give up when she likes someone. While I believe the way she is going about it is wrong, I was able to empathize with Aurelia's feelings of love towards the prince."

"That is..."

Unconsciously, I swallowed my saliva with a gulp.

In other words, didn't that mean that, even though it had no effects regarding improving her performance, in reality, her feelings were reinforced and she became more aggressive about them?

...It might be necessary for me to be vigilant about any future drama. 

"Also, partly for that reason, I feel like I would be able to play the role of the villainous daughter well."

"...Is that so?"

Alicia nodded in response to my question and stood up straight, her black hair tinged with blue fluttering around. An expression that was a mix of sadness and hatred showed on her face.