Please Let Me Live a Lazy Life!

Chapter 7: I Don't Want to Play Pretend (1)

Author's Note:

*laughs uneasily* I was gone for nearly a week (due to sickness. My cold ends up being an upper respiratory infection, including an ear infection) and this story already has over 1000 votes and 15K views? I'm a little shocked. I'll try my best to update as often as possible. It's just a little difficult right now since I'm still recovering from my infections. 

Well, in any other case, here's the fluff I had promised you guys earlier. I wanted to post it the day after I posted chapter 6 but... as I have stated in the previous paragraph, my sickness got worse. 

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Tanaka was visiting the Rosettas' library, curious about his grandfather's academic notes that Henry had always praised about when he saw his (Thomas') older brother enter through the double wooden doors with a couple of his friends that he didn't recognize following him blindly. Their loud voices broke through the tranquil silence of Tanaka's carefree afternoon and the transmigrator found himself mourning at the loss of his peaceful reading time.

Rarely did Tanaka find himself in the mood to do anything else other than sleeping and eating, and he was looking forward to going through his grandfather's journals, which held a lot more sophisticated research than anything he had read in Evadne Academy's own renowned library. But now, it seemed that he would either have to leave or wait until he could be left alone.

Tanaka was currently on the second floor laying down near one of the bookshelves in a little camp of cushions and comforters. He was able to convince one of the butlers (Javier, a brown-haired, bright-eyed middle age man who, other than Henry, often comes into the library to dust the shelves) to build him a tent out of one of the blankets and a fort out of pillows. (And if a pillow fight was then prompted by Fifi, who had happened to be passing by with snacks as they were making Tanaka's nest, that was another story to be told.)

He was quite comfortable hanging out in his makeshift nest and unless Edward and his companions had a reason to look up, the youngest Rosetta doubted they would notice him any time soon. Other than the garden shed, the family library was one of his most common napping spots. Most of the time, the servants participating in the casual manhunt for their young master would check the library first before looking into other places, but other than the butlers and the maids, the rest of the Rosetta's didn't normally visit his favorite place.

Both his (Thomas') father and Edward were more political-minded and had no interest in notes or books of discoveries and scientific (magical) experimentations. Both his mother and Katherine didn't like to be cooped up in one room being the social butterflies that they were. Also, they didn't like to host social events in the library because of the stuffy, old book smell, so this place was often ignored. Tanaka was very surprised to see Edward here since he would often spend his spare time either in their father's study or in the parlor. Actually, this was the first time that Tanaka ever saw his brother entertaining guests.

As one of the more prestigious noble families in Evadne, therefore in all of Astria, there were many people that were constantly trying to gain their favor. Sometimes, that meant inviting them to their estate to butter them up or hosting parties to show off their wealth and to impress other nobles. Apparently, since the Rosetta family were the ones that often needed to be impressed rather than do the impressing, they would only host a social party once a year (not including Katherine's and Edward's birthday extravaganza, which was still talked about in school), so it was rare for them to have visitors.

In fact, now that he looked closely at Edward's expression from afar, his brother looked a lot more... humbled. Pleasant-looking and honest, and his young face held something akin to softness.