Preparing for the Live Broadcast
Ding-dong!
A bell chimed from the speaker mounted in the classroom.
The signal that class had ended. The Academy students had been waiting for the instructor to finish her lecture. They were grown adults, not elementary schoolers, so no one bolted for the door the moment the bell rang — but still.
"..."
Instructor Yupi, who taught them, stared blankly at the blackboard. She stood motionless, like a person who had died on their feet.
Unable to watch any longer, one of the students called out to her.
"Instructor!"
"Ah, what is it? If something's confusing you during class, feel free to ask me anything."
"That's not it — I was just going to let you know the bell rang. You didn't seem to notice at all."
"Oh. Oh, I see. Everyone, you're dismissed!"
Only at Yupi's words did the students begin packing up and filing out of the classroom. A few of them climbed up to the podium where she stood and asked,
"Instructor, are you okay? You're not feeling sick, are you?"
"Even during class you just kept pushing through the material, and you stared at the blackboard the whole time."
"I-I'm fine! It's nothing. Thank you all for worrying about me."
"Okay, then. As long as it's nothing serious."
Yupi flashed them an awkward smile. This, from the woman who always answered with brimming confidence, no matter the question — now she was stammering her words. The students sensed something suspicious, but they didn't press her and left the classroom.
"Guys, what are you doing! Let's hurry!"
They were enjoying their Academy life. There was still so much left to enjoy on this island — far too much to waste their attention on someone's private life. Answering their friends' call, they hurried out of the room.
Once the students were gone, Yupi scrambled to tidy up the classroom. She wiped the blackboard, switched off the lights, and locked the door behind her — and only when the day's duties were finally done did reality sink in.
"I had no idea I was that out of it."
A sigh slipped from her lips. An instructor's duty was to teach her students. And in the very moments that demanded the most focus, she had been daydreaming, wasting the hours away.
There was only one reason.
Tomorrow was her date.
Goodness me. What am I supposed to do with myself?
Without thinking, Yupi drove her fist hard into the classroom wall out of sheer embarrassment.
THUD!
A loud boom rang out and a gaping hole punched through the wall, but she paid it no mind. Her eyes were already lost in imagining the happy future awaiting her tomorrow — there was no way something so trivial would register.
To think a springtime of youth like this would ever find its way to me.
She had completed her education at Purity Academy, become a Guardian, and roamed the battlefields slaying otherworldly monsters. She had saved countless lives, conquered even dungeons certified as impossible to clear, and risen ever higher in renown. She would carve the name of House Citrine — its glory — into the hearts of the people.
In accordance with the will of the father she had once revered, she had devoted her life to it. A life lived for the family and dying for the family. A puppet dancing to the tastes of her elders.
Yupi had despised them, yet she did not regret what she had done. People who might have lost their homes, their very lives, to the monsters had come to her with words of gratitude. It had been work she was ordered to do, but she had found real fulfillment in it — and that was the very thread that led her to her current post as an Academy instructor.
Still, if she had to name one thing she genuinely regretted, it would be romance.
She had been twenty-five — freshly graduated from Purity Academy, newly minted as a Guardian.
"Not interested in dating? I know a great guy, I could set you up," a friend had offered, and Yupi had turned her down. There would be no shortage of time to see a man later, after all.
She was the direct heir of House Citrine — a woman who, given the chance, could sleep with a man tucked under each arm. Saving people came first; marriage could wait.
And just like that, in the blink of an eye, she was forty. Sliding into middle age.
She hadn't shown it on the outside, but reaching this point, an anxiety had begun smoldering deep in her chest. Too late, she begged that same friend to set her up with someone — and got flatly rejected. Everyone she knew had married ages ago and long since had children of their own. When her friend's grown son came by to visit and called her "auntie," the shock left her bedridden for a while.
With my looks and my status, I'll be married within three years at the latest. Guaranteed. She'd clung to that thought like a life raft, fleeing from reality. Only after she passed fifty did she realize just how arrogant that notion had been.
Holding out always wins in the end!
And now, at last, she was escaping single life. Holding hands with someone whose heart matched hers, watching a movie together, and then, at the very end—
We'll have sex too, won't we?
The memories of that day were hazy, but the sensations from it remained vivid. That enormous, thick cock that had ravaged her throat without mercy and stuffed her cunt to the brim. Every time she recalled it, her lower belly trembled.
A feeling she had never once known in her life. The heat of her blood rushing through her body, setting her ablaze.
Because of that heat, she simply could not focus these past few days. Today's class was no different.
Years of teaching had made it habit, so she had managed to push the lecture along even with her mind a complete wreck — and that was pure luck, nothing more.
Honestly. I know better than to let this happen.
This was grounds for losing her instructor's post. Chiding herself, she resolved to stay focused so that it would never happen again.
Ring!
"Uheheh."
That resolution crumbled in under a minute. In any case, she wrapped up the rest of her day, counting down the hours until tomorrow arrived.
...
Tomorrow, at last.
I checked the message Yupi had sent and slipped my phone back into my pocket.
My first date in this world — I'm looking forward to it.
Dating a heroine of Academy Yuri Princess, of all people. A stroke of luck I had never even dreamed of, and it kept a smile plastered across my face.
"Ugh, look at your face. It's making me sick."
"You don't say that to a person's face."
Having finished our lectures, Chloe and I were once again walking home together. She spent every day insisting she hated being seen around with me, yet when it was time to head back she always, without fail, started up a conversation about going together. The girl clearly drew a hard line between public duty and private life.
"Could you back off a little more? I walk with you purely because we were teammates for three years. I have no intention of getting any closer than that, so keep your distance."
"Yes, yes, of course. Whatever our team leader says, right?"
She droned on and on right into my ears at every opportunity. It was enough to drive a man insane. Ugh, fine. I'll be the bigger person.
"And you're one to talk — you were glued to your phone all through class. Something good happen?"
"Heh heh. A secret. Far too wonderful a thing to share with the likes of you."
"Ah. Right."
I only asked out of politeness — I didn't actually care, the little brat.
One glance and it's obvious. She's been texting Eva.
Chloe was generally capable of keeping a decent poker face. For the girl who wanted to graduate at the top of the class and took everything seriously to slack off mid-lecture, there was no culprit other than Eva.
Chasing a dream that will never come true, I see.
Sorry, but you will never, ever date Eva. I'll stop you by any means necessary. The one who gets to share her love isn't Chloe — it's Eva, the girl I've already claimed for myself. I will never, ever hand her over to you. So know that.
"We're here. See you."
I waved goodbye, but Chloe walked off without so much as a glance back.
You got ignored, huh.
"Not like it's the first time. I'm used to it by now."
I unlocked the door and stepped inside. An empty house — a barren, furniture-less space greeted me.
Such a lonely place, every time I see it.
"Tomorrow I'm going shopping with Yupi, so I'll look for things to fill the place up with."
Scheduling the date with her, shopping had been the first thing we decided on. Both she and I had a mountain of things we needed to buy from the downtown department stores.
Excited, are we?
"Of course I am. A first date with your lover is always a joy."
The Writer sent me a chat message. Nothing out of the ordinary — the same sort of thing she always sent.
And yet this chat was unmistakably different from all the others. Her emotions always came through, but strangely, this time something far more tangled was woven into it.
This was... bitterness?
And I too will wish you both happiness.
"Uh. Ahh. Right."
Night and day compared to when I'd first told her about Yupi and me. She was offering me her sincerest congratulations.
Why on earth is she acting like this?
I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Was this what they called menopause?
I wanted to ask her why, but I never got her answer that day. With those words, the Writer never appeared in the chat again.
...
A room swallowed in darkness.
The glow of a monitor spilled faintly across the desk, and a dark silhouette seated before it tapped away at the keyboard. On the screen, Solis and Yupi were talking to each other.
The two of them had arranged to meet behind a building and exchanged phone numbers. He watched it all unfold.
"So the first date, at last."
He drummed his fingers against the desk as he stared at the screen.
"Slower than I expected."
He'd assumed things were moving ahead of schedule, and yet it was still painfully sluggish. He couldn't let time simply drift by like this.
"I suppose I'll have to help him along."
The moment of decision came short and resolute.
Who else was going to help him, if not me? All it would take was the gentlest little push at his back.
Just like the day he'd met Yupi at the pier.