Chapter 19. Enjoy!
From the Library she headed straight back to the dorm. She sensed some inquisitive gazes from the students she pa.s.sed along the way, but she ignored them all. If they came to talk to her, she would give a reply, but she had no obligation to respond to simply being looked at. When she entered her room in the dorm, she was greeted by Alisa’s bow.
“Welcome back, Mistress Lilia.”
“I’m back. …Were you in this room the entire time?”
“Yes. That is so?”
“It would’ve been fine to go out somewhere too you know.”
“I had not received permission so…”
Quite the inflexible one, thought Lilia with a slight frown, when Sakura gave a wry laugh.
—It’s the first day back after all. She probably stayed in the room to be ready so that you could return at any time right. Well, it’s also true that she didn’t receive any permission, but even if she did, she probably would have stayed here the whole day anyways.
—Am I really that unreliable?
—Yup. After two weeks of being a shut-in, you can’t really refute that can you.
—Muu…
Since she thought that it was just as Sakura said, she couldn’t rebut. She already had a precedent for becoming a shut-in, so Alisa was bound to be worried.
—Besides, you actually did skip out on cla.s.s too huh!
—That was… No, you’re right.
—Yaaai, you delinquent~
—Oh shut up.
She returned her gaze to Alisa. Alisa was worriedly looking at Lilia.
“Alisa. I’ll be fine. You can feel free to go out from tomorrow on okay.”
“Is, that so?”
“Yes. Well then, I’ll be studying in the bedroom. Could you call me if there’s anything?”
“Certainly.”
Sent off with a bow by Alisa, Lilia entered the bedroom. Closing the door, she headed for the table at the corner of the room. The bookshelf beside the table was probably organised by Alisa, as the learning materials were neatly arranged by subject.
—Sakura. I’ll be counting on you today as well.
—Alri~ght. Get out the pap~er, get out the pe~n, let’s give it our a~ll!
Lilia did as instructed and placed paper and a pen on the table, and while hearing Sakura’s energetic voice, a slight smile leaked out on on her face.
She was putting down Sakura’s words on the paper. What she was being taught, currently, was arithmetic. Within arithmetic there was something called an abacus, and listening to random numbers from Sakura, Lilia was calculating the sums in her head. Since they couldn’t prepare the tool Sakura talked about, all of the calculation was done with a mental image instead.
—Lilia. Someone’s here.
Lilia lifted her head upon hearing Sakura’s words. Turning over the paper with various numbers written on it, she turned towards the door. A knock immediately followed.
“Mistress Lilia. There is a visitor.”
Lilia frowned in doubt. There shouldn’t have been anyone in the school who’d come to visit her. Previously she did have some ‘followers’ of sorts around, but since coming back, there hadn’t been any sign of them either.
“Who?”
“It’s Mistress Tina.”
Lilia eyes widened in surprise. They had just met in the morning after all, so she hadn’t expected her to come visit already. What purpose could she possibly have come for?
—No you see Lilia, you can’t be wondering about purpose and stuff. You’re friends right?
—What are you talking about, this is the upper cla.s.s n.o.bles’ floor after all, it’s not a place you can come to just for the reason of ‘vising a friend’ you know.
—No, but… Huh? Did Lilia just make more sense than me!? Oh the disgrace!
—Hey what are you trying to imply here.
While feeling somewhat dissatisfied from Sakura’s remark, Lilia stood from her seat. She went with Alisa to the door of the room. Opening the door, there stood a nervous looking Tina.
“Mistr… Lilia. Good evening.”
Still having trouble with the honorifics, thought Lilia, though she decided to not say anything since at least she caught herself midway this time.
“Good evening, Tina. Is there some matter?”
“It can’t really be called a matter but… If you’d like, want to have dinner, together?”
“That’s… I don’t mind, but is that okay for you?”
“Yup. Of course. I shouldn’t need anyone’s permission to have dinner with a friend right?”
One way or another, she was starting to see the reason why the Prince came to like this girl. Getting along with someone from the prideful n.o.ble bunch in the first place was impossible, but even if that wasn’t the case, this girl was probably very easy to get along with regardless.
“Alright. Shall we go? Ah but that was just secondary right? The real topic is?”
“Eh? Real topic? What?”
Seeing Tina adorably tilt her head slightly to the side in confusion, Lilia cheeks twitched. She was aware of Alisa smiling wryly behind her. For some reason she felt a little embarra.s.sed, and her cheeks became tinted slightly red.
—Fu. So what I said was correct after all. My win.
—Ha?
—Wai-that’s scary Lilia! I was just kidding!
Lilia clicked her tongue with a ‘tsk’ in her thoughts, and ‘hii-‘, Sakura let out a frightened voice. Leaving that Sakura alone, Lilia affixed a smile to her face.
“Sorry, please don’t worry about it. Shall we go?”
Tina let out a sigh of relief and nodded ‘yes’.
Sakura
Lilia