Date #2
In the end, I caved to Rie's relentless pestering. We agreed that I would meet Marquis Haniel during the academic festival.
Honestly, he was someone I would have to pay my respects to eventually, so I had no real reason to refuse. It was just so sudden — and it had been so long since I'd last seen him — that I couldn't stop fretting over what I was supposed to say.
With the matter of meeting Marquis Haniel settled, the dishes we'd ordered began arriving one after another, and our meal got underway.
"...The food here is incredible. I can see why Teaching Assistant Fleta recommended this place."
"Right? What's even stranger is that so many students don't even know it exists."
Apparently they served nothing but a single set course. I supposed that was a matter of choosing one thing and doing it perfectly. Both Rie and I had grown up as children of noble houses, never wanting for anything when it came to food, clothing, or shelter. And yet even we found ourselves giving this place a thumbs-up. Every dish was steeped in the kind of craftsmanship you could taste. The main course in particular — a veal tenderloin steak — left us with nothing to offer but awe.
"How's the thesis coming along?"
"Well enough. Senior Charlotte is more helpful than I expected sometimes. Other times, not so much."
"What do you mean, not so much?"
"She's an elf, but there's a surprising amount she doesn't know about her own people. I guess being a princess means the royal court only taught her what they needed her to know and left out everything else."
"...So she's like a flower grown in a greenhouse, then."
"Exactly. A very beautiful, very expensive flower. The kind that's never once faced a harsh wind or the full heat of the sun."
If there was one thing I'd come to understand from talking with Senior Charlotte and gathering information here and there, it was why Professor Milaze found her own people so infuriatingly frustrating.
The times were changing at a breakneck pace. Magic might still give the elves a slight edge for now, but in every other respect, humanity had long since left those pointed ears in the dust. And yet the elves remained utterly self-absorbed, still ranking the entire world beneath themselves. Frogs sitting in a well — that was the problem with those pointed-eared fools.
"Is it really that bad? I thought that was why they sent her to the Academy in the first place — to learn those things."
"They don't stop the other elves, apparently. But Senior Charlotte specifically has restrictions. The Minas royal family sent people they call nannies, but from where I'm sitting, they're just dead weight."
"I feel exactly the same way. If you're going to tell someone who came here to learn that she shouldn't follow that path, then what on earth did they even chase her all the way here for? I can't understand it."
I couldn't help but wonder — if humanity ever caught up to and surpassed the elves in every last talent they possessed, what excuses would they start making while they sat around congratulating themselves? Would they claim that those lowly humans could thrash and claw all they wanted in their desperate bid to grow stronger, while we noble elves simply maintained our elegant bearing and advanced at a leisurely, ever so leisurely pace?
What a load of pretentious bullshit. They weren't some kind of old-fashioned scholars. Was walking supposed to be a point of pride? They needed to start thinking about running. Come in last in a footrace and you get laughed at. Come in last in the real world and you'll suffer every kind of humiliation imaginable — none of it comparable to a little teasing. Humanity had been through that more times than they could count, which was why they kept striving and striving. The elves simply hadn't developed that kind of social climate yet, so they hadn't adapted.
"Let's drop it. Just thinking about it is making me frustrated all over again. Those insufferable pointed-ears, living off how wonderful they think they are."
"Be careful. What if you say that in front of Senior Charlotte or Professor Milaze?"
"Professor Milaze used the word 'pointed-ears' first, you know."
"Ah."
We finished a thoroughly satisfying lunch, enjoyed dessert, and rounded things off with a cup of tea. Well — I'd wanted hot chocolate, but unfortunately it had a noticeably more bitter edge than what I usually drank at the Academy. The dessert itself had been flawless. Then they had to go and dock points at the very last moment.
"I can tell just by looking at your face."
"Hm?"
"You don't quite like that, do you? Your expression got a little pinched."
"...It showed?"
"It did to me. How should I put it? Not so bad you couldn't drink it, but not quite at the this is delicious, I'm enjoying every sip level either?"
She was so accurate it actually gave me chills. I found myself wondering where she even picked up on things like that — and how she knew.
"At the Academy café, you're always beaming."
"The hot chocolate there is incredibly sweet. This one has a bit of a bitter note."
Rie murmured, "Is that so?" and snatched the cup right out of my hand. She gave it a sniff, glanced at me sideways, then took a sip.
"...It's plenty sweet, though?"
"By your standards, maybe. Not by mine. You know perfectly well I go crazy for anything sweet."
"I hear too many sweets are bad for your health. Have you thought about cutting back?"
"If I cut back, I think that would be even worse for my health, Rie."
"...You're right. I'm sorry, Lucian. I understand."
Rie had already seen it for herself — what happened to my body when I couldn't have chocolate. I'd slump like a corpse, my eyes would sink into hollow sockets, and I'd drift halfway into another world with no sign of coming back. It was on the same level as taking three meals a day away from a healthy person and then forbidding them water on top of it. For me, chocolate was both a penalty and something close to a curse.
After the meal, we stepped outside and kept walking as we talked. The weather was neither too hot nor overly overcast — just enough cloud cover to take the edge off. It was a perfect day for a leisurely stroll.
Along the way we ran into classmates and seniors who recognized us. Most simply exchanged a greeting and moved on. A few lingered to chat, but they had their own groups, so they all eventually drifted away. More importantly, whenever anyone appeared, Rie and I made sure to keep a comfortable distance between us — enough to snuff out any thought of are those two on a date? before it could take root.
"Rie. This is all well and good, but we can't keep this up forever."
"...No, we really can't. That's why I asked you to meet my father at the academic festival. And if possible, I was hoping our families might sit down and talk. If we can frame it as an engagement between houses, that should be more than enough cover — and the strange rumors should stop."
That really did seem like the best approach. I nodded my agreement.
We sat down on a bench by a small lake to enjoy the breeze for a while. Then Rie, sitting beside me, suddenly took my hand and whispered in a quiet voice.
"Sometimes... being the young lady of House Haniel makes me a little sad."
"What do you mean?"
"Because I'm the next head of the Haniel marquisate. It bothers me that you have to watch other people's reactions because of that. When I think about those idiots going around saying you're marrying me just to ride the Haniel family's coattails... it makes my stomach turn."
"That part makes me angry too, but don't let it weigh on you, and don't apologize for it. If anything, it's thanks to you that I've been able to stay a little higher up than I otherwise would have."
Rie looked at me as if to ask what that was supposed to mean.
I wasn't just saying it. I, too, had decided to completely overhaul the way I'd been carrying myself — the careful balance of hiding just enough and revealing just enough — so that I could become a man worthy of House Haniel's young lady, a man worthy of a future marchioness.
Being judged as someone who clung to others to get by was worse than death to me. After everything I'd accomplished, with the abilities I possessed — was I supposed to just sit there and take that kind of pathetic talk?
To live up to Rie's expectations, I'd swung my sword even harder. The result: I'd gone from a hopeless swordsman to, in the blink of an eye, the Literary Division's swordsmanship prodigy.
She still seemed worried that her sudden confession had put me in an awkward position. From my side, though, Rie had given me a reason to finally let loose everything I'd been holding back. If I rose a little higher from here, people wouldn't call it jealousy-worthy — they'd call it only natural. Because I was the fiancé of House Haniel. Because I was the rival of the Academy's genius. With that kind of justification in hand, I could climb as high as I wanted without a single worry.
"Don't worry about me. I'm not being polite — I genuinely don't need you to. You'll see soon enough. I was already something special, but the truth is, I'm even more special than that."
"To me, you're already a greater man than anyone else in the world."
She said things like that so casually it made my face burn. I hadn't expected I'd need to build up resistance to this kind of attack, too. But Rie always meant every word, so telling her to stop would have been even stranger.
"Shall we start heading back? It doesn't feel like it's been that long, but look at the time already."
A meal, wandering here and there, catching up on all the conversations we'd been putting off — and before I knew it, the late-afternoon sun was pouring down. Rie seemed to agree; she nodded and rose from the bench.
Bathed in that afternoon light, she looked especially beautiful. As we walked back toward the Academy with our hands joined, I felt an urge to pull her close — but I held it back, afraid it would be too much. Just a little farther and we'd reach the Academy. A little farther still and we'd hit the Martial Division dormitory. I considered stopping her right then and kissing her, but I never followed through. I'd hesitated too long, and besides, Rie's stride was even faster than usual.
When we finally reached the door to her room, I let the tension ease from the hand that had been holding hers.
"Well... I had a good time today, Rie. If you have time, maybe next time we could..."
"...It's still the weekend."
"Huh?"
One hand twisted the doorknob of her room. The other clamped around mine hard enough to crush bone as she dragged me inside. A fully grown man being hauled along by a woman might have looked pathetic — except this wasn't just any woman. This was a future Sword Master, a genius among geniuses who had taught me swordsmanship herself. I would bet anything that she outclassed me in raw strength, not just technique.
"Ugh—?!"
That was the Rie who had just yanked me roughly through the doorway. I stumbled, and in that brief window she shut the door behind us.
The lock slid home with a sharp click. Before I could even process what was happening, a dizzying feminine scent, a warm breath, and a soft, yielding sensation all hit me at once.
For a moment I couldn't understand what had just happened. No — my body knew perfectly well. My head just hadn't caught up yet. So I stood there blinking, staring blankly at Rie as she thoroughly plundered my lips.
Every time a heated breath from her slipped into my mouth, my body gave a little jolt. When her tongue moved with clumsy but earnest determination, I almost wanted to laugh. She'd dragged me into her room and forced a kiss on me, and yet she was the one trembling — and somehow that was both pitiable and adorable.
At last her body drew back from mine, and a thin silver thread stretched briefly between our lips. The instant it snapped, the woman standing before me carefully opened her mouth.
"...I told you, Lucian. I said it was the weekend."
"You did."
"We agreed to spend the weekend together, so... th-this is, um..."
She'd led us all the way here only to fumble at the finish line. I figured she could use a little help, so I pulled her into my arms. I held her tight — this Rie who didn't know what to do with her own embarrassment — and kissed her again.
She rose onto her toes and clung to me, and a sweet stretch of time slipped by. When I next came back to myself, I found us collapsed together on her bed.