Tired of constantly being her fiancé’s second choice, Nicole decides to put herself first. And wouldn’t you know, doing things by yourself can actually be rather liberating! She can linger at her favourite boutiques, try out new cafes, and make new friends at the book store—all without worrying about whether her fiancé is having a good time or not.
The situation has finally become favourable for her, so why does her fiance only now start to pay attention to her!?
Author
This series is written by Yahiro Arase (X) and Jun Hareta (X).
Genre & Tropes
Romance, aristocracy, high school, comedy, many misunderstandings.
Info about this series (ongoing)
There is currently one volume published in English, and three in Japanese.
TL;DR rating
I was blown away by just how funny this volume was! The comedy comes from all of the misunderstandings, and really ramps up the more you read.
What’s this series about?
In this world, just about all of aristocratic society becomes engaged at a very young age. They meet and become engaged as children, spend their high school years getting to know each other better, and then marry not long after graduating. As they marry so quickly after graduating, it’s rather important for them to get familiar with each other while at high school.
Our protagonist Nicole has been rather unlucky in the fiancé department, as her betrothed Keios is clearly head over heels for his childhood friend, princess Caroline. He’s so in love with her, that when he does find a second to spare for Nicole, he’s only with her physically—Caroline is still at the forefront of his mind.
One faithful day, Nicole decides that she has had enough, and decides to let go of whatever remaining feelings she had for Keios. While she was a little sad at first, she quickly finds her newfound solitude to be rather freeing. She can go wherever she wants, whenever she wants. When news of her hitting the town by herself gets to Keios, he’s shocked! Now that Nicole has finally let him go, it seems like he’s started noticing her…?
My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)
I was blown away by just how funny this volume was. All of the comedy slowly builds up chapter by chapter as the miscommunications grow, and by the end of the volume there’s quite a bit of payoff. While I typically am not a big fan of comedy in my manga, this is right up my alley—I love it when poorly behaving characters get what they deserve!
I love how quickly Nicole was able to completely let go of her feelings for Keios. Watching her calmly try to give him more time with Caroline while he was trying to fix the miscommunication was hilarious for quite a few reasons. It’s Keios and Caroline’s fault that Nicole has these misunderstandings about their relationship, so it’s only right that they should suffer for it!
Watching Keios’s aides slowly come to realize just how poorly he has treated Nicole, and then also seeing that Nicole has lost all interest in him was also incredibly funny. He really deserved all of the slack that they gave him! Watching him wonder what he could do to win her back while all of them were point-blank calling him stupid was just so, so funny. At this point, does he really deserve her back? While I appreciate his aides wanting to help him, it’s clear they all agree that he has treated her terribly.
Once Keios finally realizes that completely neglecting Nicole for over a year has caused the mess that he’s currently in, he tries to regain some of her affections. I was slightly worried that the story would take a turn similar to I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons here, but I’m very glad to say it didn’t! Keios clearly wants to win Nicole’s affection back, and will surely have to suffer in order to do so.
I also want to talk about the side characters for a second—they were also hilarious! In similar stories about noblewomen being neglected by their fiancés, we often see the woman have to put up with some form of bullying. I was worried that would be the case in this story too, however when Nicole starts casually mentioning just how much Keios has neglected her, everyone can’t help but want to protect her. This then causes a lot of her classmates to start to secretly hate Keios—as they should, IMO—leading to an incredibly out of pocket, unbelievably funny scene that ends the volume.
Things I particularly enjoyed (spoilers)
❤️ Nicole deciding to go out into town on her own and buy just one half of the matching couple bracelets she had her eye on the previous year—I loved watching her not allow Keios to stop her from doing what she wants!
🧡 Keios waiting at home all day expecting Nicole to invite him out…only for her to never come. If he wanted to go out with her, he should have invited her! Why would he expect her to invite him out after ignoring all of her letters!?
💛 Keios’s aide explaining to him that even if Nicole told him she didn’t want flowers on the day of the flower festival, he would be seen as pure scum if he actually didn’t give her anything. How was this boy raised!?
💚 The huge misunderstanding that stemmed from Nicole crying over a foreign fairy tale she was reading—how does crying in the library lead to everyone thinking Keios throws rocks at her so that she stays away from the princess!?
💛 Nicole’s classmates promising to help keep her safe from Keios—again misguided, but it was very nice to see her have a support circle!
Check out a free sample below!
You can check out volume one of this series for yourself below!
Maddies Manga 
Leave a comment