My Heart Is Mine
As soon as the word “Mar─” left Leif’s lips, Irina snapped at her brother before I could even process it. The alcohol that had been slowly pickling my brain suddenly kicked into overdrive. My head, which usually idled like a stalled engine, spun up to thirty million RPM. Normally I’d just sit there revving uselessly, but for better or worse, this time it actually caught.
Tsk. Fuck. Mar─? Marriage? As far as I knew, words starting with “mar” were marriage, marital, or… Demon King of the End Times. …No. “Marriage proposal…?”
I muttered it so quietly that no one could hear. In Korean, too—a language I thought I’d forgotten.
“Leif. What the hell did you just say?”
“I-Irochka! Just wait a moment!”
“─Wait?”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d reached that conclusion. Irina’s face flushed crimson as she shouted. And if it had just been blushing, that might’ve been cute. But the way veins bulged on her neck as she yelled made me lose all will to live. My hand went slack. The glass slipped from my fingers.
Thud─.
Yeah. Of course this is what happens when someone gets tangled up with me. To her, I’m just Professor. I can’t be anything more. I’d only be a burden. Goddamn it. This is embarrassing!
Aaah. God of Alcohol. The last time I actually enjoyed getting drunk was when I went to that tavern with Lord Laval. I thought I might finally feel happy again after so long, but why the hell did you have to drop this cruel twist on me right now?
I’d joked about the Demon King of the End Times earlier, but I didn’t have to look far. It was you, vodka, you bitch.
‘Ah, ah, ah─!’
The previous proposal. The marriage talk… had been sent to Lagrange. That was the end of the information Leif had given me. But as long as a person had eyes and a brain, connecting the dots wasn’t hard. I didn’t want to see it, but I saw it anyway.
Let’s lay this out step by step.
“……”
One. His Grace Vladimir III, the Grand Duke of the North, had proposed a marriage for Irina.
Two. And that proposal had, in fact, been sent to Lagrange. I don’t know who the intended party was, but it seems Lord Laval refused it.
Three. ─Motherfucker, I’m only hearing about this today.
Which means Lord Laval rejected it without my consent. And then didn’t even tell me afterward.
“Fuck… big brother…”
As expected from the Aslan Empire’s representative idiot and fool. I guess I shouldn’t have been so cautious last time when I acted on my own, huh? More surprising was how readily he’d let it slide. Maybe he’d been thinking about this the whole time? In the end it’s all the same anyway—six of one, half a dozen of the other!
Ah, no. There’s something even more important.
Four. The actual target of that marriage proposal was none other than Irina Vladimirovna Pernova.
Five. Miss Pernova is currently standing right here in my residence, witnessing this entire situation with her own two eyes.
Six. I can’t even count this shit on one hand anymore? It’d take six hands at this point. I’m left-handed, damn it.
‘Shut up. Focus, you moron!’
Anyway, the most critical sixth point was this: I’d really liked the flower crown she gave me, so I’d stuffed it cutely into a vase. And Irina had probably seen it.
‘This is the worst. I never imagined this. In the original story… in the original, they said the proposal was sent to someone else. So why me? Why did the story change to me?’
I cautiously lifted my head and looked at the class president. The moment our eyes met, she quickly looked down as if avoiding me, then immediately glared at Leif. The difference was clear. I couldn’t read the look in her eyes when she glanced at me, but the one she gave Leif was pure, unfiltered rage. She hadn’t taken a single sip of vodka, so her eyes were still clear—but that clear red gaze somehow looked like a sea of blood. I don’t think it was just my imagination.
“Ah, um. Er─.”
Because of that, our dear Leif had completely abandoned the cheerful attitude he’d shown earlier when we were clinking glasses. He’d turned into a statue. His face suggested he was ready to smash through the door and bolt outside. If he did, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell him apart from Malphite.
I. Don’t. Want. To know anything anymore. If I could, I’d slam my head on the table and shut my brain off. I want to go back to the innocent, carefree time from just a few minutes ago when I didn’t know any of this.
─Mom. I miss you.
But Irina’s emotions were far more complicated than that.
As Joseph had read, she was indeed extremely—extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely—angry. However, beneath that fury lay another emotion.
Leif had frozen completely still, but paradoxically, that very stillness proved her deduction was correct.
‘…So the person the marriage proposal was for… was the professor?’
The professor. The man who had planted the feeling of respect in her heart. The one she had unconsciously confessed to by making him a flower crown. The one who had kept that crown so preciously in a vase, as if cherishing the emotion itself. The one who had made her cheeks flush without meaning to.
Her connection with Joseph had only been a little over a month, but chemistry between people couldn’t be ignored.
‘I… I was sure someone had simply sent a proposal for me. But it was our family who sent it first. And no one told me? I can’t believe it!’
Well, of course they hadn’t. After she’d flown into an absolute rage upon learning the truth, no one had dared open their mouths. In fact, Irina still hadn’t forgotten that anger. She had even resolved that if she ever met the man who had proposed the marriage blocking her path, she would slap him across the face.
And she was definitely the type of person who would actually do it. The competitive spirit she’d shown when demanding a rematch with Zieglinde hadn’t appeared overnight.
But strangely… after learning the truth, that fiery anger completely vanished.
Just thinking about it used to make her heart burn like wildfire, but now there wasn’t even a trace of ash left. Her heart had turned into something pure white, symbolizing nothingness. And for the first time, peace came to her.
Irina wasn’t very good at expressing her emotions out loud, but because of that, she was quite skilled at diagnosing them internally. So she instinctively realized:
‘…I guess I don’t hate this.’
She had no way of knowing what had happened between Leif and her father, or what messages had been exchanged with Lagrange, nor did she particularly want to. But after weaving the flower crown, she had been the one to slip it onto his sleeve. And in the end, she was the one whose cheeks had burned.
“U-um… Leif, Irina?”
And naturally, Joseph—who seemed just as clueless as she had been—looked incredibly cute as he floundered, trying to fulfill his duty as an adult. Given his personality, he was probably trying to sort out the situation in front of him first. He likely knew it wouldn’t work, yet he was still doing it.
So Irina, in a very uncharacteristic move, let out a deep sigh that seemed to empty her lungs, and exploded.
She had to give her older brother a proper scolding, didn’t she?
“─Leif. I won’t forget this.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly a complete verbal beatdown. That was only out of consideration for Joseph, who was watching everything. In her heart she wanted to punch him in the solar plexus, but that would have been a nuisance to the owner of this residence, so she settled for those words.
Her brother seemed to feel the weight of his sins crawling up his spine; he trembled in a very uncharacteristic way. But that one sentence was probably enough for him.
So Irina opened her mouth again. Not speaking to anyone in particular—just as if talking to herself.
“I’m not angry.”
“Phew…”
“It’s all in the past anyway. What does it matter now?”
The air in the residence suddenly felt clearer.
But Irina still had more to say.
“Whether there was a marriage proposal or not… I was the one who wove the flower crown. So…”
My heart is something I make with my own hands.
So even though she was furious that Leif had known everything and hidden it, the events of the past could all be brushed off as a funny anecdote.
─And so, she was about to say that she was doing exactly that right now.
…She was about to.
Pfft─.
“So, it’s fine. Thanks to you, it was fun, Professor.”
“Ugh…”
The moment she saw the professor’s handsome face, the lesson she’d received last time about Unconscious Confession came to mind, and she ended up censoring herself. She really was an idiot. She always ruined things at the most important moments.
But strangely, Irina felt a little happy. Maybe it was just her imagination, but the professor hadn’t really rejected her words!
The professor scratched his beard awkwardly and spoke in a very him-like way.
“Then I suppose we should wrap things up for today.”
“Yes.”
“Class president. Could you escort Leif back to the dormitory? I’d like to go with you, but if I’m seen walking around late at night, strange rumors might spread.”
At those words, Irina gave a modest smile and replied.
How funny. That things would turn out like this. The world really is… something you can never fully understand.
And so the next day, Kim Yo-sep—me—woke up feeling even less like going to work than usual. I rubbed my stomach, which still carried the warmth of last night’s vodka, and began the day in a hurry.
But a hangover was nothing today. Because the reaction our class president had shown yesterday wouldn’t leave my head.
‘…Irina didn’t seem to hate it as much as I thought.’
I couldn’t remember who the marriage proposal was for in the original story, but I was pretty sure she’d smashed the guy’s face the moment they met. But she hadn’t done that to me.
Why had Irina acted that way? And why had she stopped mid-sentence? Why had she smiled at me after hearing everything?
“……”
I wasn’t sure if my thoughts were correct, but if they were, it was extremely dangerous. For God’s sake. No matter how much the world has gone to shit, a professor and a student… Haah…
‘Still, if it’s Irina…’
Fuck! This is exactly when I needed to work. If I ran around busily and broke a sweat, I could forget everything.
Maybe the uncharacteristic behavior Leif and Irina had shown yesterday had rubbed off on me. I shook off my morning drowsiness, got up unusually early, finished preparing at record speed, and practically sprinted to the academy’s faculty office.
“Huu…”
So today must have been the first time I’d come to school this early. I wasn’t sure whether to take pride in that or feel self-loathing.
But when I opened the door to the office, a letter that had been slipped underneath caught my eye. It was a missive from the knight order addressed to the entire faculty.
“…?”
It was a bit strange, but the moment I saw it, I sensed something was off. I broke the wax seal, sat down at my desk, and quietly began to read.
…But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from one particular line.
Ainhart Margraviate Disturbance Suppression ─ Command Observation Team Formation Notice.
Grind─.
Ah… Goddamn it. It’s finally here.