41 A wallflower does not need validation

In the end, we came back after having simple lunch in the park.

But I knew there was still a peak event tonight, the coronation of the carnival's king and queen, with a circus performance and a lot more entertaining shows. It should be the most important part of the festival, and Zia had been talking about it since we were still on the way to this city.

So I told her to just left me in the townhouse and go watch the show. Or rather, I ordered her to, exercising my right as the house's mistress or whatever.

"If you don't go and enjoy yourself as planned, I'm going to feel really really bad and become really really sad," I told her while sipping on my tea in the afternoon. "And I need someone to fetch me some of those animal-shaped balloons."

Zia pouted over her cookies, lips pursed in dilemma over pursuing her plan or watching over me. But in the end, with my...persuasion, she went ahead with Angwi, although both of them kept looking back repeatedly until I closed the front door.