There was, of course, a reason why Crystal had ended up making such an 'observation'. And the 'cause' stemmed from the effects of Emilia's plan.
If she had simply allowed Randy to continue thinking of her as his 'future wife' while they kept interacting with each other more and more each day, it would have been inevitable for the boy to develop certain 'feelings' for her. More importantly, he would surely start 'expressing' those feelings to her in some ways that she would find most unwelcome.
That was why, just as the seeds of love had begun sprouting from Randy's youthful heart, Emilia confessed her 'darkest secret' to the boy.
Randy pointed at the beautiful girl in front of him in disbelief, his eyes bulging in shock. "You like girls?!"
Emilia bit her lip in 'shame' as she turned her gaze away, ignoring the roaring laughter from Cynthia in her mind. "T-That's right, I know daddy wants me to marry you, so I thought you at least had the right to know…"
The boy's gaze couldn't help but turn complicated. He'll admit that he had been dreaming about marrying this beautiful girl in the future, but the thought of forcing her do so when it was clearly against her true nature didn't sit well with him at all.
Of course, Emilia was well aware of his hero complex by now, which was why she dared to make such a confession.
And as expected, not only did Randy confess all of her father's plan to her, he also promised to help her in any way he could to make the man 'accept' his daughter's true sexuality.
"Thank you, brother Randy!"
Randy patted his chest with pride. "Don't mention it. What's such a minor thing between us?"
Within moments, not only did he swear to 'protect her' in the future, but he also agreed to do everything he could to ensure her 'independence' from her father's arrangements!
After all, according to Emilia, even if Randy himself backed down from Mr. White's 'arrangements', the man would just arrange someone else for her. And who could tell what the next boy will be like? Randy certainly didn't believe anyone else had a heart as staunch as himself.
Therefore, in order to prevent such a 'future', he of course 'helped' Emilia come up with a plan. Or so he thought.
"Are you sure about this, Randy?"
The boy patted his chest with pride. "Call me big bro! And like I said, with how handsome and charming your big bro is, would he have any trouble finding a wife?"
Emilia couldn't help but chuckle. At the very least, the boy didn't lack confidence. "I don't mean that, uh… big bro, I mean… this will make you seem like a pervert in daddy's eyes, wouldn't it? He'll definitely hate you."
Randy rolled his eyes. "Who cares about that? As long as he doesn't do anything against my parents or myself, I don't care how he feels for me."
Anyway, Mr. White only wanted her to be happy in the end, right? He wasn't being ungrateful at all. He was doing him a favor by carrying out his true intentions despite the risk of looking ungrateful and losing everything. If the man misunderstood his good intentions, the fault lay with him.
With his cooperation, it become many times easier for Emilia to carry out her plan to shock Danielle's father to the point where he would never dare interfere with her again. Of course, she didn't tell the boy everything, and only let him know what he needed to do, which was to simply continue hinting to her father that they were getting 'closer and closer'.
Since he had already been converted to her side, however, Emilia would also have to ensure that he didn't meet misfortune at the hands of her father due to her plan's effects, so some minor details had to be modified, but that wasn't too difficult.
With him tutoring her almost every evening, it was almost impossible for Danielle's father to not make certain 'conclusions'.
==========
Meanwhile, the heroine found herself suffering from insomnia as she struggled with all kinds of thoughts.
Her ability to 'judge' certain things had always been reliant on a kind of instinct, and Crystal knew that there was no way such a thing could be considered 'reliable'. However, against her generally 'logical' thinking, she often chose to just 'trust' in this feeling, because in the end, it almost always turned out to be true.
But in this case, if her feeling was really 'true'…
On one hand, she was ecstatic that Randy was 'unfaithful' to Emilia and wouldn't do anything 'like that' to her. But on the other hand, if such a boy really ended up becoming Emilia's boyfriend, Crystal couldn't accept it at all.
Even if the exams were approaching, to say that it was impossible for her to let Emilia know of these things was just wrong. After all, the girl had provided her with more than enough means to get in touch. Even if she found it difficult to confess the matter face to face during their lessons, wasn't it easy enough to just send her a message?
Crystal knew that she could even do it anonymously, if she wished. But she didn't, because the greatest barrier that prevented her from doing so… was herself.
The heroine chuckled as she stared at the dark circles around her eyes in the mirror. "The real reason I have a problem with that bastard isn't because of him, but myself, isn't it?"
After all, Crystal understood herself best, and she knew that what she was jealous of was not that Randy was getting closer to Emilia, but that she herself wasn't 'close enough' to the girl.
And the awareness of her 'selfish' thoughts also made her realize that her goal in 'revealing the truth' to Emilia was not to ensure her well-being at all.
After all, so what if Randy didn't lust after Emilia so much, yet? Couldn't that change in the future? They were still 'developing' their feelings for each other. And with her attitude, she was destined to always remain just a 'friend' to Emilia.
As such thoughts crossed her mind, the self-hatred and pain in her eyes were all too clear in her mirror image, and Crystal couldn't help but flinch back in surprise.
After a while, the heroine couldn't help but sigh. 'I can't go on like this… I… have to change…'