Women's Restroom
Anyway, between classes and the training I took from my master and Leonhardt, plus all the research in the library, I barely had time to sleep these days.
The students harassing Felice in one corner of the classroom kept grating on my nerves as well.
And there was one thing that got under my skin even worse than that.
Ever since the end of first year—more precisely, ever since I'd been thrown out of my party—a white-haired girl had been circling me without end.
Yeah. Aine.
One day I got so sick of it that when she kept stealing glances, I stared straight back at her.
Aine flinched, then bolted without managing a single word.
I'd also noticed something else recently.
Her face looked far more haggard than before—like she was carrying some heavy worry. Enough that she could give Felice a serious run for her money in the dead-eyes department.
Truth be told, once the break ended, every last one of my former party members looked roughly the same.
First there was Leo Epsilt, stomping around with a face full of pure irritation. He'd always been a little high-strung, but after losing to me it had gotten a whole lot worse.
Felice, constantly bullied by the other students, just sat there in silence with those lifeless eyes.
And as I said, Aine walked around looking like something was eating her alive.
Veronica was in a similar boat—ever since that apology, she still seemed like she wanted to say something more to me. Of course I never went near her.
Finally, Ellin and Esther.
Ellin's expression had been dark lately too. Probably because the mission she'd been given wasn't going the way she wanted. And that was almost certainly thanks to the wedge I'd driven between her and Leo.
Their relationship hadn't completely shattered yet, but I hadn't been aiming that high. Nice if it happened, though.
Thanks to my knowledge of the original game, I understood perfectly well why Ellin would approach a disgusting bastard like Leo. That part I could accept.
What I couldn't understand was the way she treated me.
They had all been characters I liked, so once they became real I tried hard to get along with them. But looking at how Ellin acted toward me…
Well, even she hadn't been this bad at the start of first year. Ellin basically looked down on and ignored humans as a rule, so I tried to make sense of her attitude by watching how she treated the other students.
But the way she tried to force that potion down my throat during the last duel? That I could never forgive.
Meanwhile, Esther was the only one who still looked perfectly fine—smiling and clinging to Leo like always. Just watching her made my irritation spike.
So while most of my former party members were moping around, Veronica at least hadn't come near me again after that day, and Felice herself stayed quiet even if the students tormenting her were the real problem.
Aine, on the other hand, kept getting on my nerves without rest.
Once all the classes ended, or on weekends, she vanished—who knows what she was doing. Not only did she stop hovering around me, I never even saw her on academy grounds.
The problem was everything in between: from morning until evening classes finished, through every break and every meal, she was always nearby.
Of course she just seemed to want to talk to me about something. From the receiving end, though, it was pure psychological torture.
Even in the classroom her gaze pricked at me constantly. Everywhere in the academy—cafeteria, training grounds, corridors, gardens, windows, ceilings, bathrooms…
Wait.
Bathrooms?
"Oh, hell no!"
Bang!
I kicked the stall door open with everything I had.
I saw it. I definitely saw it—white hair through the crack of the half-open door!
Sure, it could've been some white-haired male student instead of Aine, but who cared? Continuous stalking had left me far past the point of sanity.
The door slammed inward. And inside, exactly as expected, was Aine.
"You crazy bitch! How far are you going to foll—…?"
…Huh?
Why the hell are your pants down?
Aine's face went scarlet as she shrieked.
"W-w-w-w-what are you doing?!"
"Ah—no, I, uh…"
"Get out! Right now!"
I creaked my head around to look behind me.
Huh.
Why are there no urinals?
"I'm so sorryyyyy!"
I yelled it and bolted straight out of the bathroom.
A short while later.
"Louis-nim… I never thought you were this kind of person…"
No, I was the wronged party here.
You were the reason I'd lost my mind lately—so distracted I walked into the women's restroom by accident. And right before I went in, things had gotten a little urgent. The presence of Aine, who never left my side for a second, had suddenly vanished, and I'd been frantically scanning the area trying to figure out where she went.
That was how I ended up barging in by mistake.
So I told her, completely serious:
"No. This is your fault."
"What is that supposed to mean?!"
She bristled at once.
"I was looking at Louis-nim through the gap in the door, but that wasn't the usual stalking—I was checking why you came into the women's bathroom!"
"You just admitted it, right? You admitted that normally it is stalking?"
"Ah!"
I pressed on while she floundered.
"Yeah, that stalking. Because you keep circling me, I've been so out of it that I walked into the women's restroom by accident."
"…Does it really work like that?"
"Yes!"
I declared it with complete shamelessness. Moments like this called for pure brazenness.
"So just now I thought you were stalking me from inside the stall and kicked the door open… and, well… I ended up seeing you by accident!"
"You saw?!"
"No—your top was covering everything so I didn't actually see anything!"
Shit. Sudden wave of self-loathing. What the hell kind of perverted conversation was this?
I never imagined the first real talk I'd have with Aine since the party expulsion would go like this.
Still red-faced with embarrassment, she watched as I bowed my head.
"That's how it happened, but… anyway, I'm sorry."
It was still something I needed to apologize for.
"I-it's fine…"
Of course, that wasn't the only reason I was apologizing.
"So. You talk too."
I didn't spell out what I meant. Aine would already know. The whole reason she'd been orbiting me this long was because she had something to say.
She flinched.
After the expulsion I'd decided I wouldn't care about any of them anymore, but with Aine that was honestly impossible—events were involved, and right up until the expulsion she'd been close with me. Still, she had voted to kick me out. So I never planned to speak first. Leaving her alone, though, was going to keep driving me insane… no, way past "annoying." It was eating my entire mind.
For the sake of my own peace, I told her to speak.
Aine kept opening and closing her mouth, hesitating over and over. Fair enough—she'd been hesitating since the day of the expulsion; suddenly ordering her to talk wouldn't make it easy.
I stared at her hard. She avoided my eyes, but I kept my gaze locked on hers alone.
Eventually the silent pressure cracked her. She opened her mouth—and what she did next made me freeze.
Dogeza…!
She dropped flat to the floor and cried out,
"I'm sorry! I sold Louis-nim out!"
Her posture was already shocking enough, but the words themselves left me baffled.
When I first heard she'd betrayed me, I'd briefly wondered whether Leo had threatened her behind my back. If that had been true, she would have told me. And more than anything, the way she couldn't meet my eyes while still hovering around me made it clear she felt guilty about something.
I'd already decided not to care about them. I didn't want to look pathetic asking a traitor why she'd done it, so I just left it alone. I'd roughly expected something like this—but "sold me out"? What did that even mean?
Honestly, it threw me.
So I asked for a clearer explanation.
"…I don't know what that's supposed to mean."
"Th-that is, um…"
"Stand up and talk. Stand up."
Still flat on the floor, she only lifted her head to peek at me. Slowly she rose and began.
"At first Leo came to me and told me to vote for Louis-nim's expulsion. I kept saying no, but…"
She continued. Leo had given her a choice: take the money, or get expelled.
"No matter how powerful the Epsilt family is, expelling you would be a stretch. And why didn't you come tell me first?"
I let a little of the hurt show in my voice.
"H-he said I had to decide right then… and even if it hadn't been expulsion, I still would have chosen the money…"
"What?"