“Uh? Yeah?”
Eris, flustered, tried to pull away, but since my hand was holding hers, she couldn’t move as she wished.
“Wait a second! I, um, this is a bit… no, me too…”
When I suddenly released her hand, she quickly turned around, showing her back to me. She fanned her red face with her hand fan.
Did I get too close?
Thinking about it, Eris was a bit older than me. Even if we added up the ages of the students in Class E, we would probably still lose.
Besides, since I had never been in a relationship until now, she probably wasn’t used to this kind of stimulation.
Glancing at me, Eris puffed her cheeks slightly. It seemed like my gentle smile bothering her.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Huh? Well, here and there?”
“Don’t tease me.”
It felt like I was leading the conversation with a woman for the first time. After all, it was true. I couldn’t casually interact with someone like Rin or Elise, who had such an intimidating atmosphere.
May and Eve have recently been wagging their tails secretly, and it feels like I’m being dragged around.
This innocent and fresh vibe coming from the oldest elf!
“I heard that being proactive like this works nowadays. It’s different from the past.”
I said it with the air of a教授 (Professor), but Eris pinched my side suddenly.
“Ow!”
“Are you saying I’m getting old?”
“…No, I’m not saying that.”
“You reacted a bit slow just now!”
Eris, huffing, leaned in closer but realized her body was leaning forward and cleared her throat, pulling back again.
“Let’s get back to what I was saying. Don’t misunderstand. I want to see the real you, not the fake kind-heartedness you’ve been showing to me.”
After saying that, Eris abruptly turned and walked out of the classroom. I knew she was just embarrassed, but knowing there was nowhere for her to go, I chased after her.
“Let’s go together!”
“… Hurry up.”
*
While Eris and Daniel were talking inside the classroom, there were female students hiding outside, watching them.
Eve, Sen, and Rin.
“Doesn’t it seem like they’re having an important conversation?”
Rin’s question was met with nods from Eve and Sen.
“But it doesn’t seem like a good atmosphere.”
“Yeah, Daniel looks upset instead.”
Rin agreed with the two and stared at Eris intently. When she glanced at Daniel, he looked like he was in shock.
“…….”
It hurt.
It felt like a hole was being punched in my chest, marked with a design. Why does Daniel like that elf?
In the past, I tried to respect Daniel’s feelings, thinking I should support him, but seeing him make that face made me want to rush in right away.
“Hey, what are you guys doing?”
Before she could take a step forward, a somewhat light female voice came from behind.
May, with a piece of candy in her mouth and her hands tucked into her hoodie, approached the three. It seemed she had also wandered around looking for someone.
They were all quick on the uptake.
The perceptive May immediately realized Daniel was in the classroom and lowered her body, coming next to Rin.
“What’s going on? Is he with that elf?”
As soon as she saw them, she frowned. Rin instantly thought that was a good point.
“If May jumps in, I can slide in naturally too!”
Thinking that, Rin hoped May would open the classroom door quickly, but May’s expression grew serious, and she slowly stood up.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to intrude right now.”
“Huh?”
It was an unexpected statement, but May sighed, rolling the candy in her mouth.
“If I intervene now, I’ll definitely be hated by Daniel. It’s better to retreat for now. Unfortunately, today I have to give the turn to that elf.”
Then Eve, sitting next to her, dusted herself off and stood up.
“That makes sense. Judging by Daniel and the elf’s expressions, it doesn’t seem like a usual situation. Let’s just go for now.”
Eve generally has a habit of considering others. She had lost much of this since she started liking Daniel and declared her feelings, but…
If Daniel were to choose someone in the end, the first one to let him go and wish for his happiness would be Eve.
In the end, her happiness took a backseat to Daniel’s happiness.
“I told Hayun not to interfere.”
Sen, who had advised Eris and Daniel, followed behind Eve with a slightly regretful expression.
Rin, her fists clenched, stood up slowly.
She wanted to go and tear them apart right away.
She didn’t want to see them together.
But…
‘Ah…’
Just a moment ago, it looked serious, but now Daniel was smiling. He was smiling brightly, but inside he was in so much pain.
‘Don’t you know? Daniel is hurting like this…?’
He was forcing a smile.
He was trying hard to consider you.
‘What the hell is going on? What’s making you so sad?’
I already knew that Daniel liked Eris. As I said earlier, at first, Rin thought it was Daniel’s choice and tried to respect it, but something felt off.
He had told me he already had someone he liked back on the rooftop, even before meeting Eris.
‘Is it because he saw the future?’
Knowing he would become a bad person in the future, Daniel might be trying to keep himself at a distance from me.
Then what about Eris?
‘In that future, what was your relationship with Daniel?’
Why was she overshadowing my feelings because of a future that hadn’t even happened yet?
‘In the future, I probably loved you too, right?’
Why was Daniel rejecting his feelings for someone he hadn’t even met yet because of an elf?
“Rin, aren’t you going?”
At May’s gentle hint, Rin slowly turned to look at her. She had never felt so heavy about her steps before.
“…”
In the end, Rin followed behind her friends.
“But seriously, what a jerk. The bad guy, he charms me and then likes another girl.”
“Right! Right! He shows off just to make us like him, opening up to us, and then goes, ‘But I’m just a friend’? That’s really infuriating, isn’t it?”
May and Eve started chiming in.
Rin’s expression, which had just been switched off, suddenly began to light up.
“That’s Daniel’s charm! You two only know one thing, but not the other!”
By leveraging the charm of a childhood friend, Rin developed an intriguing advantage, making May and Eve glare at her with annoyance.
“Just because you lived in the same town, you think you can like him?”
“That’s right! What matters is not the past but the present and future!”
This provoked an immediate rebuttal from Rin.
“You don’t know Daniel’s secrets or memories, but I do! I’ve even bathed with him before!”
No way.
If it came to memories and experiences, Rin would have an overwhelming superiority. In the end, May and Eve teamed up.
“Hey, I’m his childhood friend, right? I wasn’t at the Academy with Daniel. We probably would have had two kids by now living happily! If we were on time, I’d be putting the kids down for a nap and planning for the third!”
With an incredibly crude imagination, May argued.
“Did you know? Childhood friends are destined to lose? It’s what I’ve read in countless books. In the end, the childhood friend is left behind by the newly introduced woman and ends up crying and cheering them on. Are you ready for that, Rin?”
Eve invoked the romantic fantasies she’d seen in books.
“……”
Having lived in the Chokugen Faction, Sen didn’t know any of this and merely shook her head, becoming a spectator to what seemed like a meaningless fight.
*
Late at night.
Seria Deloa, a female student cautiously opening her door, had cotton stuck to her hand from a torn pillow, indicating how roughly she had been beating it and the blankets the whole day.
‘Daniel McLean!’
This was the most humiliating experience of her life.
While she wasn’t a princess, her beautiful looks always made other women feel insecure and had the guys under her feet.
But today…
‘That elf’s name was Eris?’
The name of the character she played in the play was Eris. Back then, when she said Eris’s name, it was a complaint about wanting to see an elf, not calling for herself!
“Ugh!”
She couldn’t take it.
Seria absolutely could not tolerate such humiliation.
That’s why, for the whole day, she had been smashing her bed as if it were Daniel, using pillows as if they were his private parts, and even tore them apart.
But ultimately, unable to hold it in, she ventured outside.
‘That’s it, I’ll go to his room and pretend to be a victim!’
She remembered hearing a secret about Daniel McLean almost being falsely accused of sexual harassment a while ago.
There was no real plan behind it.
It was purely an emotional, impulsive act.
As she stepped into the darkness where students were not allowed to roam, an even deeper shadow writhed within that darkness.
Even though Seria’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, if she were to shape that writhing shadow, she would say…
“A butterfly?”
A butterfly fluttering around in the darkness.
Whether it was truly a butterfly or something similar was unclear, but it definitely had a destination.
At the end of the corridor.
It was holding an umbrella.
Color being relative, it seemed like it blocked the darkness of the hallway with its umbrella. Because even this darkness looked bright to it.
Black on black would look the same.
No other color could emerge.
But that was different.
It contained a different color.
Deeper, stickier, and darker.
Would the word ‘fear’ translate to that color?
“Uh, uh?”
Seria Deloa took a step back, but the woman holding the umbrella was suddenly in front of her.
Even though she hadn’t blinked once.
The woman in the dress and holding the umbrella slowly approached Seria.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
In the end, Seria could only scream and burst into tears.
Suddenly, the lights came on.
Of course, the supervising professor, along with the children sleeping in their rooms, peeked outside at the sudden scream, but what had been standing just now had vanished with the darkness.
“Seria? What’s wrong?”
“H-Huh! What was that just now?!”
As the professor approached and called out, Seria only shook her head, trembling.
“Uh? Everybody go back to your rooms! Seria, come with me. You’re…”
Confirming the floor, the professor noticed the wet ground and realized that what Seria was leaking wasn’t just tears.
The other students seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, taking in both the professor’s words and Seria’s distress.
But she cared little about that, as all she could shout was that there was a ghost.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a ghost.
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