< next=""> “Ughh…”
Because I felt like vomiting, I let out a weird voice.
“Hey, don"t let out such a gross-sounding voice.”
“I hope you go bald.”
He ignored me.
If it was as usual, he would have hit my head for that, but he didn"t. He may have been worried about me being sick, in his own way.
The work for preparing the Art Appreciation Club"s exhibit list for Thanksgiving hasn"t been progressing that much. If there really were no problems, then Darius wouldn"t have made fun of our chuunibyou-like exhibit t.i.tle and said it looked stupid.
What the h.e.l.l is fantasy karma? What was the picture? I"m curious, but I probably won"t be able to see it on the day of.
Today as well, in the Hidden Student Council room, because there were members playing chess, doing work entrusted by Bern, or confirming the authenticity of rumors as well as creating charts of the power distribution among the students, the room was lively and wrapped with a moderate excitement in the air.
Darius has already gotten used to the Hidden Student Council, and he"d sometimes defeat an uppercla.s.sman in chess. But he has yet to win against Helena, and because of her, he"s being still called a boy. Serves him right.
As usual, while Ionius is carrying out important jobs from Bern, he"s also helping out with Katerina"s play.
Some of the girls have told me that they feel sorry for him for going along with Katerina"s whims. Because Ionius has so-so features, his body build is good as well, and most of all, he"s good at taking care of others — he"s fairly popular.
Although he likes being swung about by Katerina, he"s the type of guy that"s too helpful.
What was the play again…? Something about a night queen, and a day queen.
I was given a rough explanation — it was something like a foreign prince going back and forth between the night queen and the day queen, and in the end, he wasn"t able to choose between the two. Although, I did mention he wasn"t able to choose between the two, the prince left behind a lover in his country, and he was able to resist the temptation and loved her regardless of the obstacles.
Instead of a play, the story sounds closer to an opera. Although operas have a lot of singing that involves various facial expressions, it"s not as central to the story as a musical or a dance.
Katerina plays as the night queen that hides her feelings, and Ionius is her lion attendant.
I remember laughing at how their roles were just too well-suited for them.
Resting my cheek on the palm of my hand on the desk, I absentmindedly looked outside the window.
From the window of this corner second floor cla.s.sroom, there was a tree growing in front of the building, with the top slightly peeking out, as it swayed and rustled with the bright blue sky as its backdrop.
I thought, ‘It looks like an afro," but became sad when I realized that I didn"t have a friend with me that I could laugh with about the afro.
I wonder. After my argument with Lila, I"ve been thinking about my previous life more often.
Well, even if I say that, it"s all in the past.
I might be homesick.
Because there was already a time where I was self-aware about my rebirth into this world, I wonder if the second time, it"s considered homesickness.
It"s not like I want to go back.
Personal relationships over there and here are both complicated and fun. Though studying is a little annoying, as always.
Even though I don"t think that n.o.ble customs are suffocating, although it"s not properly taught in the other world, not knowing it is still embarra.s.sing since it"s common sense. It"s stated explicitly in schools, and now that I thought about it, we"re properly taught about it from a young age, so it"s not so bad.
Ah~ But there is something I"ve wondered about marriage and the political system.
In this country, the feeling of male chauvinism isn"t as strong, because women are recognized when they inherit their ranks, and the amount who work as bureaucrats isn"t that small either, but even so, women aren"t allowed to marry as they please and are treated as their family"s property.
Because I had never fallen in love even in my previous life, I was mostly fine with marrying an awful partner, but I think it"s more of a painful thing rather than saying it"s awful not being able to marry someone you like. Cause if I was told to marry someone aside from Bern at this point, I"d be troubled.
Although the current monarchy is peaceful because the King is an honest person, as I look at His Highness Edwin, the next in line for the throne, there"s a part of me that"s worried… Since he"s not a bad person, but…
Even though I"m talking about serious things, to be honest, what I really want is being able to say, “I want to eat some ice cream,” and someone going, “I totally get you.”
An uneventful conversation would be great. “I want an AC,” “I feel you,” “Pink eyes are really mysterious,” “That"s true.” That kind of conversation.
First world problems.
But every time I remember my argument with Lila yesterday, I can"t help but think, ‘There must have been a better way of saying things."
I got too emotional yesterday, and although I wasn"t trying to act like the victim when I cried, I"ve come to hate myself a little bit.
Or rather, I"m certain that something happened to Lila.
Although most of what she said was crazy talk, as I tried to carefully remember all of it, there were a few worrisome things that popped up. Yeah, well, about 90% of it was crazy talk though.
I"m pretty sure she"s flirting with three guys — Alois, Johann, and His Highness– but I can pretty much narrow down the likely winner as His Highness. With the exception of the one hour that she gets with Bern during lunch, it"s not as if she"s obsessed with him.
In the first place, there"s no reverse harem ending in this game.
If she were to consider diverging considerably from the story, and aims for that, then it"ll be a complete failure, no matter what.
I don"t think Lila"s stupid.
Although if I was told that"s just what I wish for, I can"t deny it either.
I have to find out more about her.
Wait, but I have other things I have to find out more about aside from that.
But I don"t think I want to know.
I don"t want to hate anyone nor do I want to come to hate someone. I don"t want to hurt others by finding out too much, and having hateful thoughts about them. About Lila, and even Alois as well.
“Darius.”
“Ya?”
“I"m indecisive, huh?”
“Why are you realizing this now?”
I knew it. Although I"ve asked myself that, but it"s still a little depressing to hear it.
What the~ Weren"t you being nice to me today~?
Nah, it"s just that Darius isn"t as lively today, though it"s not like I told him to be nice to me.
“Lizia, it"s not that you can"t decide, but you won"t. Didn"t I tell you? You"re too nice and impartial to people. It looks more like cowardice to me.”
It"s not that I can"t decide, it"s that I won"t.
By the time that Darius pressed Bern to join the Second Prince Faction, I knew that Bern already decided to join. That"s why I told him there"s no need for him to talk and do that kind of thing at a place like that.
I didn"t decide because I may have wanted to be on equal grounds with Darius. Anyways, he may have been right about how I couldn"t decide between saying yes or no at that time.
That"s why I introduced him to Bern as my friend and left him by himself. And told him to win him over by himself to the bitter end.
Yeah. He"s right. I am a coward.
What Darius said somehow fits me to a T.
As I stayed silent, Darius roughly scratched his head while murmuring weird things I didn"t understand like, “Ah– but, uhh– right?”
Because of his slight habit of scratching his head when he"s confused, his bluish-silver hair looked fluffy as it swayed.
“Stop asking and getting depressed by yourself.”
Somehow, it seems he thought that I was quiet because I was depressed. Although he"s not wrong.
“Oh, no, it"s actually a weight off my shoulders. Thanks.”
Although I honestly gave him my thanks, Darius made a face as if he ate something terribly unappetizing. What the h.e.l.l"s with that face?
“…Well, as always, you"re the kind of person that wishes for things to never change. Don"t worry too much about it. Since I"ve done some cowardly things as well.”
He said something embarra.s.sing and then continued to work on the list.
I"m worried that he"s still trying to get along with me even now so he could invite Bern. I thought, “An idiot"s an idiot.”
But somehow, it still made me a little happy.
“Ah, I wanna eat ice cream!”
“That again? First off, what"s that anyways?”
“…Cold, sweet, smooth shaved ice? No, that"s not it… I can"t really explain it well, but it"s really good.”
“Hmm. Then, if you find it, let me try it as well.”
Darius"s a nice guy.
If I had never met Bern, surprisingly, I might have fallen in love with him instead.
Ah, but because the reason I became friends with Darius is Bern, it looks like my world revolves around Bern.
Thanks to him, my world is so much fun, annoying, and far from peaceful.
“It seems like your roommate, Ohm-san, caught a cold, and so you don"t catch it, she will be staying at the infirmary for two to three days.
“Is that so?”
As soon as I came back to the dorms, the dorm granny called out to me.
I see, Clarissa caught a cold? Now that she mentioned it, her face looked extremely pale, and she wasn"t as lively this morning. Although I"m not as lively today either, I should have worried more about her.
“I would like to visit her, but…”
“Since it"s already late today, you can visit her tomorrow instead.”
“I see. Thank you very much.”
She manages the women"s dorm full of ladies, and it seems like she used to be the chief lady-in-waiting at the Royal Palace as the Empress Dowager"s cousin. If she didn"t have that position and merit, students who never heard of her would think that the women"s dormitory was lawless.
But, oh yeah, Clarissa won"t be here today.
After taking a bath, I slipped into my bed. I hatefully felt that the room was too big.
The happy feeling I got from talking with Darius completely faded away, and I covered myself in my blanket, squirming.
Though Clarissa isn"t the talkative type, but because we would talk about each other"s day, tomorrow"s dinner, or things like that before sleeping, I felt a little lonely.
I wonder if her cold"s okay. When I was in school, the children who sat near me would come down with influenza, but as I was the only lively one, I didn"t particularly care much about catching it. Well, it"s not like that was actually the case.
Hmm. For some reason, I"m having problems falling asleep.
Even though I was sleepy when I came out of the bath, I was now wide awake for some reason, as if I was never sleepy at all.
As I squirmed about, a cold breeze stroked my cheek.
Wait, is the window open? No, I"m pretty sure I closed it properly.
Don"t tell me, it"s a spiritual phenomenon…? …Hahaha! No way!
As I was thinking, ‘No way, no way," I slightly opened my eyes to look at the direction of the window, and saw it was open. The curtains fluttered in the evening breeze.
And then at the corner of my eye, I saw a black shadow.
The shadow seems to be looking at Clarissa"s bed.
Y-You"re kidding me… Is it really a ghost?
Wh-Wh-What should I do!? Salt!? Ah!! Kuji-kiri*!? I"ll finally be able to use the kuji-kiri that I fervently learned in elementary since I was too scared of ghosts…!
As I was unable to move due to fear, I wavered in my decision, and the shadow turned and came closer to me.
But for a ghost, their breathing somehow seems too heavy…
A small amount of moonlight shined on the shadow"s face. It was a guy. Plus he looks young. Probably around the same age as me.
As I was staring, his eyes looked around,
And met mine.
My throat reflexively closed up, and the scream that went through me wouldn"t come out of my mouth.
With agile movements, the guy covered my mouth with his hand.
The guy"s hand trembled, and whether it"s because he couldn"t control his strength that much, he painfully pushes down on my teeth.
Feeling his warm breath, I got gooseb.u.mps.
“It"s your fault.”
My body stiffened, and I couldn"t move at all.
I have to resist. At the very least, I have to kick away this guy or do something and escape.
Even as I thought that, why can"t I move?!
With just his beady eyes moving around, as if having agreed with himself, the scrawny guy rattled on.
“Since you were in her way, you made her sad, and that"s no good. He, hehe… I"m her knight. It"s your fault, yours, yours.”
Wait, who"s the girl you"re talking about?! Wait a minute, first off, who the h.e.l.l are you?!
My question only came out as something unintelligible, like a mumble.
He took out something that rustled, and when I noticed that it was a gag, my body, that seemed to have been frozen until now, finally resisted on instinct.
“Stop struggling!”
The guy sat on top of me and tried to hold me down.
This–!
At that moment, my strength came back to my sluggish body, and I expressed my sympathies as I hit his crotch with my knee with as much strength as I could.
“Let her go! You low-life!!”
Before I knew it, a girl who shouldn"t be here stood behind the guy"s back, raising a huge, square thing overhead.
Not once have I ever seen her raise her voice since she was always calm.
Surprised at the sudden voice, the guy was unprepared, and I called out.
“Clarissa!”
The thing that Clarissa was holding overhead was a chair that came furnished with our room.
With no hesitation, she knocked the guy"s back.
Along with the blunt sound of the chair breaking, the guy let out a painful voice, and when he lost his strength, I got ready and hit him in one go with as much might as I could.
“Guaaaaa…!”
I wonder if it was as painful as mine was. Fainting, the guy"s body fell over mine, and I kicked him off. My delayed reaction came to me as she gripped my hand and ran.
“Clarissa…!”
Without looking back as I called to her, Clarissa ran and lead the way. I ran after her.
Clarissa, who should be at the infirmary, appeared at a good time, just when I was getting attacked. Although I have so many questions I wanted to ask her, the situation isn"t leisurely enough for her to tell me as we"re running.
Without knowing where we"re headed, the dark, silent corridors of the dorm felt eerie.
But I trust her, who saved me, and chose to follow her with my frantically trembling gait.
*Kuji-kiri – It"s like the hand signs that they do in Naruto, but the signs themselves are used by onmyoujis. It"s used for a lot, but it can also be used to banish demons/ghosts.
This was a really long chapter. Save me. Also, Lizzy always gets into these kinds of troublesome situations, what the h.e.l.l. Maybe she should catch up on some fighting skills or something so she could fight back, cause this ain"t the first time this has happened. ALSO SHE SAID IT. She would have probably fallen in love with Darius if she had never met Bern. I ship it, but I ship her with Bern more lol. And Lizia"s too nice to Alois. I really want that dude gone tbh, I don"t care.
E/N: Lizia does get into situations like this too often for a n.o.ble of low status. Also, although I know she was panicking, shouldn"t she have checked who the guy attacking her was since he was knocked out? Personally, I think the guy might be Johann even though we haven"t really seen him all too much in the story, because the dude called himself “her knight”, and “her” probably refers to Lila. I"m hoping that I"m wrong though since he seemed okay, and Alois is already annoying as a love interest as it is.
On another note, way to go Clarissa!
Author: adorkablerika Name"s Erika. For some dumb reason, I decided to major in Physics. I"m stuck in this major now. I used to translate manga and light novels a few years back, left, then came back cause I found some good novels to read. I"m the only TLer on my site, so rip. I"m apparently also good at drawing, and I also like kpop (BTS, I mean, I have Hobi as my pic). I don"t bite, so feel free to chat me up on here or on NU @adorkablehiko.