Same Bed, Different Dreams
By the time I realized my slip of the tongue, Marie's cheeks had already gone crimson.
I scrambled to take the words back, but she beat me to it, raising her voice first.
"Wh-what are you saying! A c-commoner like you, knowing your place…!"
Marie hastily averted her eyes, gulping down water in great swallows and fanning herself with her hand for good measure.
One look at her and I could read exactly what was going through her mind.
Damn it. This is why a person is supposed to review a sentence two or three times before letting it leave their mouth.
Well, either way, it was true that this time I'd been the one to blunder first, so I decided I owed her an explanation.
"No, that was a slip. That's not what I meant…."
"What do you mean it wasn't! I-I mean, I'm grateful you forgave me, and I understand the misunderstanding's been cleared up, but… s-still, that's not happening!"
Would it kill her to stop with that pathetic arm-shield-across-the-chest routine?
Honestly, there was nothing to see in the first place—I half wanted to tell her she could quit hiding it.
"So, no. I was going to ask for a different favor, and the words just came out wrong."
I added the explanation while forcing down the heat rising in my chest.
Marie still hadn't entirely wiped the suspicion from her gaze, but she responded with something a little closer to composure than before.
"Came out wrong…. What kind of favor could you possibly have been planning to ask for, that words like those would slip out?"
What kind of favor?
Well….
"I was going to ask you to become my slave."
"…Elisha, I'm fairly certain this man is a degenerate after all."
"L-let's at least hear him out to the end."
Degenerate, how rude.
It was just that no other word fit the bill, that's all—I certainly hadn't meant anything lewd by it.
Before long, Marie drained the cup of water in front of her and gave a nod.
"Haa. Fine, I get the gist of what you mean. You want me to play the role of your errand-girl, is that it?"
"See? We're communicating perfectly."
I'd half worried her incurable delusions might flare up again and set her off on another tirade, but it seemed the daughter of a well-bred house had a decent head on her shoulders after all.
"No one short of a lunatic would say something like that in front of a third party, after all."
"…I suppose that's true."
Fair enough—if I'd genuinely meant for her to become a slave, Elisha wouldn't have let it slide.
Friend or not, however badly she'd messed up, however much she'd lost the bet—no one would sit quietly by and watch someone sink into actual servitude.
"Fine then."
Marie, who had been resting her chin on her hands and shooting me a sullen glare, finally opened her mouth.
"I'm grateful that you forgave me so easily, and I did cause you trouble besides…. I suppose I can accept that much."
Just as predicted.
Forgiving her a touch too readily a moment ago hadn't been entirely without purpose, either.
Errand-girl—the kind of role that would wound a noble's pride sufficiently.
I'd guessed that the outcome of the bet alone wouldn't be enough to land it on her, so I had deliberately layered a debt of the heart on top.
The self-deprecating sting of having been spared by a commoner's mercy, and the lingering unease of a sin not fully washed away.
Those two things, combined with the authority granted by the bet, were what made it so easy to turn Marie into my subordinate.
"On one condition—nothing that violates ethics."
"What exactly do you take me for?"
The way she said it, you'd think she was certain I'd order her to do something unethical the first chance I got.
I tossed the retort out in sheer disbelief, and Marie whipped her head away, lips pursed in a pout.
Somehow it felt like I'd acquired a rather difficult subordinate to handle.
Still, it wouldn't be a bad choice in the long run, so I decided to look on the bright side.
"By the way, Elisha said she'd help you with your studying after class today."
"Yep."
I was still chewing on the food I'd neglected during our conversation, so the words came out mumbled.
"Since it came up—I'll handle that lesson instead."
"Why would you help me study?"
I already had Elisha, perfectly good personnel. Why bother?
Well, I suppose if she actually were better at academics than Elisha, that would be one thing, but….
"Y-you're the one who told me to be your errand-girl!"
"That's true, but…."
She could just do the tasks I assigned and leave it at that. Why she felt the need to volunteer for more work, I couldn't fathom.
Or—could it be that this girl still suspected I was planning some scheme against Elisha?
"What, is it that you don't trust me because I'm not in Class A?"
"Obviously."
I answered Marie's narrowed-eyed glare without a single second of deliberation.
There was simply no comparison to begin with.
Elisha, counted among the top students even within Class A, versus Marie, somewhat above average even within Class B.
If you asked which of the two would you rather learn from?, what fool would pick the latter?
"Hmph! You'll regret it if you let me slip through your fingers, you know? I may fall a little short in practical magic, but I take pride in the fact that my theory holds up against most Class A cadets."
"That much, huh?"
At Marie's bold self-promotion, I raised my eyebrows halfway between belief and doubt.
Strange. I didn't recall the original story ever establishing that Marie excelled at theory.
Above all, I had this lingering equation in my head—pink hair = bad at studying—so trust didn't come easily.
Just as I was deep in that deliberation, Elisha, seated across from us, rose to Marie's defense.
"Marie is right. And unlike me, she's in the Department of Magic, so she's far more versed in that field than I am."
"Is that so?"
Now that she mentioned it, Elisha was in the Department of Combat, same as me.
Which meant Marie really might have the edge when it came to magic theory.
That gave me pause, especially since the very area I'd been struggling with was magic theory.
Nothing to lose by trying, though. Maybe I'd take lessons from this girl.
I can't keep leaning on Elisha forever, after all.
Yes. Rather than piling up more debts of gratitude to Elisha, who helped me without gaining a thing, it might sit easier on my conscience to think of it as putting an insolent brat to work for my own convenience.
Having settled it in my mind, I shifted my gaze to Marie.
"Then come to the library after class today. I'll judge your teaching skills for myself."
"Ugh, annoying. Acting like you're somebody special…."
"Was that a complaint?"
"No! I'll be right there after class, so you'd better be waiting!"
Marie let out a sharp bark, picked up her fork and knife with evident irritation, and set about her meal.
She was a fun one to tease, this girl.
Feeling considerably lighter at the thought that I'd scored one off her, I returned to my food.
That same day, after class.
The two of them met at the library as promised and settled into their studies—though "studying" was really just a one-sided arrangement in which Marie lent Bell her aid.
"You're a better teacher than I expected. Easy to follow."
Bell, working under Marie's instruction, offered his unvarnished verdict.
Certainly, unlike Elisha, she was prickly and her manner of speaking grated now and then—but her teaching ability was genuinely impressive.
It was as if she were proving that her earlier boast about her theory wasn't just for show.
"D-doesn't that go without saying? Save the flattery and focus. The sooner we finish, the sooner I can leave."
"Fair enough."
Bell was every bit as eager to wrap up and get back to his dorm bed.
So he picked up his pen again and bent his focus over the open book.
Watching his profile, Marie's expression betrayed a flicker of surprise.
She'd assumed that somewhere beneath all this talk of studying, he would inevitably try something—but not a trace of it appeared.
He really isn't going to do anything.
Marie found herself ashamed of all the wild fantasies she'd indulged in before coming here.
"Sorry, you wouldn't happen to have an eraser?"
She was in the middle of fanning her flushed face when Bell abruptly began rummaging across the desk in search of one.
Marie drew a white eraser from her pencil case and frowned in exasperation.
"You call yourself a student and you don't even carry an eraser?"
"Ran through the last one. Forgot to buy a new."
"Ugh, honestly."
With a sigh, Marie set the eraser on her open palm, holding it out for him to take.
Bell murmured a brief thanks and reached straight for it.
"Oh, thanks."
Swish.
"……!?"
In the same instant, Marie jolted backward all the way to the edge of her chair, eyes going wide as saucers.
Because she had felt it, unmistakably—their hands brushing just now.
Bell, meanwhile, either hadn't registered the contact at all or hadn't noticed it happen, and simply carried on studying with a perfectly placid face.
Infuriating.
At that sight, Marie felt her pride take a strange, stinging bruise.
It wasn't as though she wanted this man's attention in the first place.
The flush on her cheeks earlier, when he'd said something that sounded half like a confession—that had been pure flustered panic, nothing more. She certainly hadn't been swayed.
And yet being stared at like a lump of stone like this, she couldn't help feeling her worth as a woman take a dent.
"Marie."
His pen still moving, he spoke her name without so much as lifting his eyes to meet hers.
"What."
The sharp retort flew out of Marie's mouth on pure reflex.
Wasn't it basic courtesy, when you called on someone, to at least look at them while you spoke?
Typical of a commoner, she thought—who else would fail at even the most elementary etiquette?
Not that she had any desire to meet this man's gaze, of course. It was purely a matter of principle.
"There's something I want to ask of you."
"Huh? A f-favor…?"
As if he'd heard every word of her inner grumbling, Bell looked up, and his eyes found hers with an unexpectedly grave weight.
The dusk light filtering through the window caught his face, and his eyes burned a deep red in it.
His features leaned a touch wild, perhaps—but the clean lines of his profile and the sharp cut of his jaw registered in Marie's gaze, and without warning her heart gave a hard thud.
Seeing him again, she had to admit—she hated admitting it—that his face was exactly her type.
For all her pampered upbringing in a noble house, she had always preferred something with a rougher, more masculine edge to those delicate pretty boys of her own class.
No! What on earth are you thinking, Marie Resti?!
The instant the thought formed, she shook her head violently, shaking the notion loose.
Absurd. Utterly absurd.
Yes, his face happened to suit her taste. Yes, he'd shown the magnanimity to forgive her mistake so easily. Yes, the diligence of a boy who stayed after class to work until dusk earned him points.
But none of that—none of it—would ever mean falling for a commoner. Marie squared her pride like a wall.
"Wh-what is it…?"
She lifted her chin in a go ahead, surprise me sort of defiance.
And yet her cheeks—regardless of any sunset—had turned a conspicuous shade of red.
Bell, still holding her gaze, suddenly reached out his hand.
Marie watched that broad palm draw closer and closer, made no move to stop it, and shuffled her feet beneath the desk.
So that half-confession earlier hadn't been a slip of the tongue after all?
Leaping the moment the stage was set—if that wasn't a beast, what would you call it?
Still….
But then Marie remembered, belatedly, the position she was in—unable to refuse him.
They had agreed nothing unethical would be asked of her, true. But she did owe him a debt, and surely he could be forgiven one transgression on her part. So she squeezed her eyes shut.
And so Bell's outstretched hand drew nearer, and nearer still.
Clatter.
"…Huh?"
At a sound like paper being spread open, Marie cracked her eyes open.
Before her sat a handful of coins, resting on Bell's open palm.
Unable to parse the situation, Marie's eyes darted between the coins in his hand and his face.
Just what on earth was she supposed to do with these?
Her question was answered soon enough.
"Studying made me hungry. Take this and buy me some bread."
The blood drained from her entire body, and the heartbeat that had been pounding so violently moments ago seemed to die away into silence.
Refusing to accept reality, Marie trembled at the edges of her vision and forced her sealed lips apart.
"…That's the favor?"
"Yeah."
Bell nodded with the unbothered confidence of a man who saw no problem whatsoever.
Looking at that face of supreme, imperturbable calm, Marie came to a sincerely held conclusion.
That she didn't want to kill this man.
She wanted to beat him within an inch of his life.