"It wasn't that easy. But luckily, I had a shield—the son of our Weaving Guild's president, Sato Ijin. He wasn't married yet.
"So I lied to my family and told them he was the one I liked. Gradually, they believed me and gave me the chance to get close to him so I could pursue him."
Hearing her words, Uchiha Hiko had assumed Miss Kobayashi's family was fairly understanding. They had not made things difficult for her and had even given her a chance to pursue the one she loved. He smiled and said to her,
"Since your family agreed to let you pursue Sato Ijin from the Weaving Guild, why didn't you just tell them that the one you liked was me?
"After all, my status is far higher than that Weaving Guild president's son, isn't it? I imagine your family wouldn't have anything to say against it."
Hearing Uchiha Hiko say that so casually, Miss Kobayashi knew that he still had not seen the true gap between them.
There was nothing she could do about it. She had always been an ugly duckling, while Uchiha Hiko had always stood high above everyone else. He surely could not understand a girl like her, one who had lived in the mud since childhood.
So she smiled, then raised her head and said to Uchiha Hiko with a smile,
"Hiko, sometimes you really don't know just how charming you are. Although my looks aren't bad in this village either.
"But what truly stands between us isn't appearance—it's status. I'm only an ordinary textile worker, while you are the dream of every girl in the village."
"The day after you saved me, I told a friend who also worked at the Weaving Guild about it and admitted that I liked you."
"She