A Villainess's Struggles

"Welcome," a maid greeted me.

I smiled and followed her to the living room.

The interiors of May's house was quite simple. There were none of those medieval designs or any gold decorations.

"You're late... Rather, why are you always late?" The boy with the black hair said while sitting on the couch.

"My apologies. I believe I came 10 minutes earlier than the arrival date, Mr. Henry" I replied.

Every time I have some sort of appointment with him, he always calls me out for being late when I'm not!

"Were you the first to arrive?" I asked.

"Nope. Kyle and Blake arrived before me" Henry answered.

"So Allen's not here yet... Where's May?" I said.

"You sure do ask a lot of questions" He responded with an annoyed face.

"And I think it'd be nice if you could answer them for me" I smiled.

"She's in the kitchen..." Henry said.

"And where's Kyle and Bl-"

"...With Kyle and Blake" He interrupted.

Talking with this brat makes me lose years of my lifespan. I can't even call him a brat anymore! Henry's already so much taller than me.

I decided to leave the living room because I couldn't stand being in the same place as Henry alone. I headed to the kitchen and peeked in on what they were doing.

"PFFT" I laughed and covered my mouth before sound escaped.

Kyle and May were standing together working with each other to cut the cakes while Blake was boiling water and preparing tea and coffee alone on the opposite side.

Blake you third-wheeler! Eternal third-wheeler! You're in an even worse situation than Miss villainess over here! You're a third-wheeler when you're with the male lead and female lead, and you even third-wheel when you're with other characters!!

"Natalie, what are you doing?"

Out of reflex, I turned around and almost slipped until the boy in front of me grabbed my wrist and prevented me from falling.

"A-Allen?" I stuttered.

"Be careful... Back to my previous question, what were you doing?" Allen asked.

"Ah... I was-"

"Natalie and Allen? Welcome. We're almost done preparing the food, go ahead and sit down in the living room" May said as she walked to the two of us.

"T-Thank you... Also, how come you're preparing it yourself instead of having the maids... Hmm, I see, nevermind" I smiled.

"Allen, I'll tell you what I was doing earlier in the living room. And, can you call Blake over here too?" I asked.

He nodded and waved Blake over. Blake, with his usual poker face, walked over. He must be confused about why Allen called him here.

"You're done with your job right?" I asked.

"Hm? Yes, but why?" Blake answered.

"Well then. To the living room, we go!" I said, ignoring his question.

The three of us left the kitchen area and went to where Henry was sitting. He was currently on his phone sitting cross-legged like some CEO of a company...

"Why'd you two go to the kitchen and then come back with Blake?" Henry asked.

"Hoho... Storytime! But first, I need some background information. How did Kyle, May, and you end up in the kitchen together?" I asked Blake.

"Hm... I believe it was Kyle who suggested that they prepare something to eat. Kyle and I came earlier than the planned time. May said that the maids could prepare it but Kyle said that he wanted to do something while we wait for the others to arrive. So I was forced into helping out with Kyle and May." He explained.

"One more thing... There seems to be a one-sided love" Blake said.

"So I was right! The reason why I was peeking on them is that I wanted to see what May was doing in the kitchen," I said.

"So that's why you got scared when I called you out" Allen replied.

"And I was thinking that as the former student council of WoodLily, we should do some matchmaking" I suggested.

"You're so childish, who in the world would do that?" Henry said.

I don't want to hear that from you!

"Why not? It sounds fun" Blake smiled.

"Seriously?! What about you Allen?" Henry asked.

"I don't mind either way" Allen answered.

Hahaha! I win!

"Thanks for waiting, everyone!" May said with a smile as she walked over with plates of delicious-looking desserts. Kyle was also next to her holding a teapot set.

Before Kyle could choose where to sit, I sat down on the spot that he'd most likely sit, next to Henry. Bad life decisions but for the sake of this innocent (she's not) girl in love...

Of course, Allen and Blake sat next to each other. It looked kind of suspicious but~

May seemed to have caught on with what I was doing. She looked a bit fl.u.s.tered but she couldn't hide her happiness.

First, we tried practicing the play.

"You must hand over your unborn child," I said with confidence.

"That was horrible, I can't watch this any longer" Henry interrupted.

What was bad about that? I thought I did much better than last time during lunch!

"There was no emotion when you said that line," Blake said.

"You're very stiff too" Allen added.

"I think you can do better than that" Kyle said.

"To sum it up, you're bad at this" May said with a smile.

Ughhh!!

"T-Then, what advice can you give me?" I asked.

"Hm..." May paused.

"Just pretend you're Gabrielle right now!" May suggested.

"Pretend I'm Gabrielle...?" I asked.

"That's right. What personality traits does she have?" May said.

"She's rude, uncooperative, selfish. Um... She also pisses me off?" I replied.

"Now keep that in mind and try saying that line again" May smiled.

"You must hand over your unborn child," I said, with much more emotions this time.

"What the heck? That was actually a lot better than before... How did that suggestion even work?!" Henry said with a shocked face.

W-Well, I am shocked too, to think that Gabrielle's character traits fit the witch's traits perfectly...

For some reason, everyone decided to just help me out with my role. We never ended up watching movies like May said we would nor did I ever do my matchmaking.

When I went to bed, I could hear the voices of the five people telling me,

"No, that's wrong!"

"Repeat after me"

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"

"Make sure you project your voice properly"

"Don't speed up"

and so much more. I wasn't able to get much sleep but thankfully it was Sunday the day after so it wasn't a huge problem.

I hope that I'll be able to act well on the performance day...