Ice Princess's Colourful Feelings

Chapter 1: The Perplexed Prince

"Euegh ... Uwaaaa!"

In a beautiful school courtyard located in the middle of four building walkways, a young girl about the age of 16, with cotton candy hair, was bawling her eyes out. Despite her cute appearance, the white and gold uniform she was wearing was stained brown around the hem of coat creating a rather messy appearance. She was also tugging onto the uniform of a young man with emerald green eyes, who was standing in front of her and shielding her with his hand. Another girl of similar age to the crying girl, was staring down at the both of them blankly as she wondered how on earth she ended up in this position.

"Charlotte Bellarose! How could you have sunken so low that you would go out of your way to ruin this poor young lady's uniform?" the young man's golden hair shimmered as he reprimanded the girl in front of him. His handsome facial expression showed his anger and disappointment towards her.

"Eeugh ... Y- your majesty, it's alright! I- It was my fault. I must have offended Lady Charlotte. Please do not blame her!"

"It's alright. If Lady Charlotte frightens you, I will be sure to discipline any wrongdoings for you" The young man's green orbs turned back towards Charlotte who had remained silent the entire time.

"Well, Lady Charlotte? What do you have to say for yourself? To think you would have sneaked into this young lady's room last night to purposefully ruin her clothes!"

Now there were a few things wrong with this situation.

First, Charlotte was honestly minding her own business as she was studying for an upcoming exam in the next period so there's no way she had the time to bother herself with another person's business.

Second, the young man in front of her was the second prince of the kingdom, Ezekiel Oscar Leopold ... otherwise also known as her arranged fiancé. Wasn't he supposed to be defending her instead of accusing her of such nonsense? Where is the loyalty?

Third, who even is this young woman? Charlotte hardly socialised with anyone. She barely recognised the faces of her own manor servants, much less her schoolmates.

Of course, this situation wasn't anything new to Charlotte. A majority of the female student population in Saoirse Academy was jealous of Duke Bellarose's youngest daughter. Not only was she born with beauty, smarts and grace of a heavenly goddess, her family was also one of the most influential and wealthiest noble families in Amaryllis Kingdom. And to add fuel to the fire, her fiancé was none other than one of the most eligible and sought out bachelor of the kingdom. So why did she has to endure this daily suffering?

Hah...

It really is ridiculous for so many people to claim that she would bully anyone in this academy when she had no reason to bully in the first place. It wasn't as if she was jealous of others or anything. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Everyone was jealous of HER!

It's unfair! It's injustice!

"Excuse me. But, would you be referring to me?" Charlotte closed her math book with her pale, slender fingers. Golden sunlight reflected onto her cascading lilac- almost white -hair creating an ethereal image of an angel who had descended from heaven.

『 There's no use in defending myself no matter how hard I try. It's not like anyone will defend me 』

Ezekiel was about to answer back but, stopped in his tracks. His face was painted with a stunned expression as he stared at Charlotte.

'Huh?'

A glowing text bubble with words had appear below Charlotte's face. It looked similar to a dialogue text of an otome game but of course, no one in this world knows what an otome game even is ... leaving Ezekiel to stare at it with a perplexed face.

'W- wait... What on earth is this?' his mouth gaped. He rubbed his eyes twice to make sure he was not hallucinating and yet ... no matter how many times he blinked, it was still there, hovering in between him and Charlotte.

Could this be some sort of strange magic? What is its purpose for appearing? Why are there words in it and who was controlling the appearance of these words?

Ezekiel reached his right hand out to touch the text bubble but much to his shock, his hands went through it. It was similar to a hologram of some sort and surprisingly no one else aside him was commenting about it. Was he the only one who could see this? Perhaps he really was hallucinating? Or maybe he had finally gone insane?

On the other side, Charlotte thought he was about to do something to her so she moved her body out of the way with a startled face.

『  Uwawawawa. What the heck was that?  』

Charlotte blinked her eyes in surprise but quickly masked her emotions to an expressionless one.

『 Was he going to hurt me? I can't believe the prince would sink so low to hurt his fiancee in front of everyone 』

"I would never hurt you!"

Before realising it, he was already shouting a response to the text bubble. He still wasn't sure what the dialogue text was but it didn't take long for him to make a connection that it had something to do with Charlotte and the way she was thinking.

"I- I see" Charlotte looked at him warily, really not believing his words in the slightest. She was trying her best to hold back a sigh.

『 Ugh... I was studying all night and all day so I'm really exhausted right now. I don't have the luxury to deal with this, much less bully anyone last night ... Sigh... As if I could say that. No one would believe me anyways, not even my dumb fiancé 』

Ezekiel pursed his lips at seeing the words 'dumb fiancé'. Was that really how she thought of him?

Charlotte wanted to show a sulky expression however, she restrained herself. After all, she was taught to keep her emotions in check since she was young. As a child of the Bellarose family, she had her family's reputation to maintain. Being emotional in public would only bring harm to her family's name.

Unfortunately, this had led her to become deeply misunderstood by those around her. Thus, it wasn't long after she had enrolled in the academy that she was given the nickname "Ice Princess". But in truth, she was the same as everyone else who felt hurt, happiness, sadness and anger. She just kept it bottled inside better than others.

『 What do I do now? I just wanted to study in peace. Ahh... won't someone save me? 』

Charlotte was beginning to feel a little down when out of no where, a figure from the gathering spectators raised his hand.

"W- wait a second!" an unknown voice called out.