The First Date and the Uninvited Guest
Yes, we were a couple. I held Eline’s hand as we headed to the cafeteria. Given her tendency to be annoyed by people’s gazes, I hadn’t expected her to like a place like this, so I was a bit surprised when she led me there so confidently from the start.
Even though it was just a cafeteria, the academy was so vast that there were many of them, and the one she took me to was a quiet spot located in the north.
“Go on in first.”
“Oh… okay.”
I stumbled over my words again. When I entered the cafeteria, a few students were already gathered, chatting away. I’d rarely visited the northern cafeteria during the semester, so I didn’t know the menu at all. I decided to go with the beef steak, which I remembered being decent.
What about Eline…?
Wouldn’t she just pick for herself? I decided to buy only for myself rather than risk picking something weird and getting scolded. Or wait, should I buy for Eline, too?
Hmm… I should have paid attention when Ross was reading that book on dating in the library instead of teasing him. I was starting to regret it.
It didn’t feel real yet, but perhaps because we were a couple, I began to overthink every single choice. “Yeah.”
In the end, I ordered two. If she said she didn’t want it, I could just eat it myself. I scanned the cafeteria to find a seat. Eline always preferred places without many people, and a perfect spot by the window caught my eye.
Let’s go there.
No sooner had I decided on a seat than I heard the booming voice of the cafeteria lady, and as I turned my head, two appetizing beef steaks were set before me.
The harmony of the juices dripping from the well-seared meat and the savory sauce looked delicious even just to look at. The academy’s food always looked good, no matter how many times I saw it. I picked them up and went to the spot I’d scouted earlier.
I didn’t start eating right away. Eating together was the most basic of basic courtesies.
“…”
No, now that I thought about it, maybe ordering both was a mistake? Right, I should have just sat down and waited.
You idiot.
I didn’t usually make mistakes like this, but I kept messing up. Please, just think normally, Lutes.
While I was lightly pulling at my hair, the chair in front of me was pulled out with a screech. Was it Eline?
“Ah, sorry. I ordered first…”
It wasn’t silver hair.
“Hello, Lutes?”
A male student with blonde hair. His hair was a bit shinier than Ross’s, making it rather burdensome to look at.
“Ugh…”
Beron. Beron Lucian.
Seeing his face as he leisurely pushed the chair and sat across from me made my appetite vanish as if by magic. He was the kind of guy whose every gesture felt unpleasant, if you could even call that a talent.
“What brings you here?” Beron asked with a greasy smirk.
“I came to eat. Is there any other reason?”
He was the second son of the Lucian family and a third-year student at the same academy, but we weren’t exactly on good terms. I always felt nauseous whenever I saw that signature greasy expression of his.
“Is that so? You ordered two steaks—you must have a big appetite.”
“We aren’t on close enough terms to worry about each other’s business, are we?”
He chuckled.
“Ah, my apologies. I’m just a bit nosy.”
Nosy. Yeah, he was definitely that. Excessively so. To be precise, he was probably just dying to show off. The insignia hanging on his shoulder was so gaudy it was an eyesore.
“Oh? Ah, you saw it too, didn’t you?”
Who wouldn’t see it when he was wearing an insignia that practically screamed, ‘Look at me, I’m showing off’?
“Well, as you can see, I’ve moved up to the Alpha Class.”
I know.
“Yeah, that’s impressive.”
When I said it calmly, his eyebrows twitched minutely.
“It’s so obvious you’re jealous.”
“Yeah, I’m jealous. Very.”
When I shot back, he swept his hair back. Just last year, we were both in the Beta Class, but he had always bragged that he was talent destined for the Alpha Class. For two whole years. Even though we were in the same Beta Class, he always looked down on others, so now that he’d finally made it, he couldn’t help but brag.
“I told you, didn’t I? You and I are of different stock.”
Are we plants?
“Right, congratulations.”
I’d congratulated him and admitted I was jealous, so could he please leave now?
“Lutes.”
“What.”
“Don’t you have any intention of apologizing?”
His voice was no longer relaxed; it was tinged with a hint of contempt.
“…?”
“You were always like that. You’d pick at every word I said and always argue back.”
…Was that true? Now that I thought about it, maybe it was. We were both in the Support Magic department. To be exact, I’d transferred in my second year… but anyway, the thing I felt while taking the same theory classes was that his standards were unnecessarily high.
‘If this were the Alpha Class, they wouldn’t have done it like that…’
‘That’s why you guys can never be in the Alpha Class…’
With him always adding such unnecessary remarks, how could we not have conflicts? It wasn’t just me; he’d clashed with many other students, too. He might have been theoretically correct, but how could ordinary birds fly like phoenixes? Because of that, he always complained even when there were good results, and he was the type to blame others for his own lack of ability.
“I was just making adjustments.”
Like telling him not to be so excessive and to lower his standards a little.
“Adjustments, you say. No.”
He tapped his insignia and glared at me.
“You were the one who was wrong, Lutes.”
As he began to wear a vile smile, the students behind him started to jeer.
“Your useless bravado and pride made you refuse to acknowledge me, so you had to pick a fight with my words, didn’t you?”
This guy was insane.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, I proved it. With my skill.”
Skill? Even a passing dog would laugh at that. It wasn’t my place to judge anyone, but the level of magic I’d seen from Beron wasn’t Alpha Class material. At best, he was in the upper-middle tier of the Beta Class. Of course, I couldn’t say he didn’t put in any effort, but most students probably knew. They knew how pathetically he’d managed to climb up during the final evaluation of his second year.
That was the reason he’d transferred to Support Magic in the first place. Unlike offensive or defensive magic, Support Magic had fewer people because it was a less popular field. Because of that, the grades required to reach the Alpha Class were relatively lower than the other two, and above all, due to the nature of support magic, the grades often depended on the skills of other team members rather than individual ability.
I didn’t know how much money he or his family had poured in, but his team at the time had three Alpha Class students. In that bizarre, strange formation, it was a structure where Beron couldn’t help but receive attention. Naturally, he received excellent marks on the exam, and he was able to enter the Alpha Class.
‘Proved it with skill, huh.’
I wanted to laugh at Beron’s words, but I just kept my face as expressionless as possible to avoid giving him any more reason to pick a fight. However, at my reaction, another student behind him giggled and mocked me.
“Wow, Lutes actually has some pride, huh?”
“Right? If it were me, I would’ve apologized right away.”
I thought I wouldn’t run into him for a while after he moved up to the Alpha Class, but Beron was looking at me with a greasy expression as if he’d been waiting to catch someone. It was the look of someone thinking, *‘I’ve got you now.’*
“Well, that can happen. It must be hard to admit it so easily.”
Beron, wearing a sneer, looked at my steak and stabbed it with his fork.
“I know well. Guys who have no skill but only have high pride.”
Was he introducing himself?
“Just like you.”
He let out a laugh and began to scrape the iron plate with the fork stuck in the steak. I didn’t know if I should call it annoying or just a hassle. It was incredibly bothersome. It felt like a fly that kept sticking to you no matter how much you swatted at it. Still, the silver lining was that it helped clear my complicated emotions. Yeah, they were complicated. My head had been spinning like crazy all morning. Because of Eline.
…Right, Eline. I wondered if she’d arrived by now?
I turned my head to look for her.
And my gaze met the opposite side.
Where my gaze landed, a girl was standing.
So naturally, I didn’t even know when she’d arrived.
Perhaps because I’d turned my head so suddenly, Beron and the other students naturally turned their gazes, too. As the students’ eyes gradually drifted toward her, they began to look surprised one by one.
“Isn’t that Eline…?”
“Really?”
The students began to whisper at the appearance of an unexpected presence, but Eline started walking past them as if she didn’t care at all.
One step,
Two steps,
And then,
She stood tall in front of Beron and me.
She was still expressionless, but that made it all the more terrifying. Her pupils were rolling as if she were minutely assessing the situation. At her actions, the atmosphere at the table where we’d been having a war of nerves began to cool down remarkably, and only silence remained.
And Beron, who was at the center of it, seemed the most surprised, his emotions beginning to churn. *‘What, why is Eline here…’*
Eline. The girl who had been recognized as a figure of fear ever since Beron had tasted a glimpse of her power during his first year when they took a class in the same offensive field. The reason he’d fled to the support field was partly due to the influence of Eline’s genius, and since this was his first time facing her this closely, his body began to tremble on its own. *‘No, it’s not.’* But the panic was brief; Beron fell into thought.
*‘Why am I scared? I’m an Alpha now, too.’*
He was no longer a student looking at her from behind; he was a student with the same ‘status’ as Eline. An equal partner in conversation. He was no longer the person who only looked at others’ eyes in the past. He straightened his insignia, stood up from his seat, and greeted her politely.
“Hello, Eline? I’m Beron Lucian, who recently promoted to Alpha. Nice to meet you.”
Beron looked at Eline with a smile.
“…”
Slowly, her pupils turned to look at Beron, and Beron, who had been enjoying his leisure just a moment ago, began to break into a cold sweat.
“Ah, you might not know me… haha. I know you well, though. Since we’ll be taking classes together starting this semester…”
“…”
“Ah! During this exam, our group project…”
“Get lost.”
The cafeteria went quiet in an instant.
Beron’s lackeys, too.
The students around us, too.
I looked at Eline as well.
Hoping we hadn’t misheard.
The most shocked was Beron, who had heard those words to his face.
“What…?”
Eline, still expressionless, opened her mouth again.
“I said get lost.”
Her eyes were looking at him as if he were a bug.
The cafeteria fell silent, and everyone’s attention was focused on us. Eline’s voice was calm, but I could see something rising from within it, and at her incredibly firm words, the students began to step back.
Beron, the target of her words, just stood there with a flushed face.
“Ah… no.” *‘…This isn’t how it’s supposed to go?’*
He was flustered.
He had thought the reason he was always ignored by the Alpha Class was because he was in the Beta Class, and that if he just promoted, the way they looked at him would change.
But Eline’s eyes hadn’t changed at all.
No, they actually felt even colder than before. Even though the crowd was sparse, the surrounding students began to whisper as they watched. Beron, who was always conscious of others’ gazes, clenched his fists and trembled.
“…”
In the end, perhaps conscious of the eyes on him, Beron fled the cafeteria as if running away.
Glaring at me until the very end.
Why are you looking at me?
The commotion was over.
As he barely managed to retreat, the cafeteria seemed to return to its daily atmosphere, but as Eline sat in front of me, the students’ gazes began to focus on us once again.
It was the first time they’d seen Eline, who always ate alone, sitting and eating with someone else,
And because that person was a student they didn’t even know well.
“…What is that?”
“Eline is eating with someone else…”
“Who is that guy?”
I’d expected it, but actually feeling the gazes was a bit burdensome.
It was the first time I’d been stared at like this while eating, so I couldn’t even chew my food properly. Nevertheless, when I glanced up, Eline was eating well.
“Is that okay?”
“Yes. It’s delicious.”
As if she were used to such gazes.
“…”
Her appearance, chewing with her small mouth, didn’t look any different from other students.
Right, let’s not worry about it and just eat.
The meat had been thoroughly ruined by Beron’s meddling, but the juices hadn’t escaped, so it was fine. And unintentionally, the meat had been shredded into small pieces, making it easier to eat.
When I took a bite, the savory juices and the scent of butter spread in my mouth.
It really was delicious.
Thinking that, I finished the steak.
And when I looked up, Eline was staring straight at me.
She was wearing the same unpleasant expression as before, and the corners of her mouth were slightly turned down.
“…Why?”
“Don’t entertain people like that from now on.”
People like that…?
“…Beron?”
She stabbed the steak and nodded.
She was frowning quite a bit, as if she were genuinely displeased. Eline, of all people, was displeased.
“…”
It was a first.
A soft, fuzzy feeling began to bloom in my chest.
“I understand.”
A smile came out on its own.
I should have felt sorry that she felt annoyed, but the fact that she was worried about me while making that face seemed cute for some reason.
Cute.
It was a feeling I was experiencing for the first time with Eline.
I’d always thought of her as an ice-cold girl, but it was worth attending the academy for a long time to see this.
No sooner had we finished our meal and stood up than the gazes were already fixed on us. We naturally headed to the dish return to empty our trays, and Eline naturally took my hand again.
“…”
It was the second time, but I also naturally held her hand.
I could feel the gazes of the students behind us who were shocked to see us, but I decided not to worry about it for now.
I still didn’t know why she had accepted my confession.
But at least I could feel that she treated me with care.
So, I wanted to put aside my doubts about her.
Of course, aside from putting aside my doubts, it was still difficult…
…Well, I thought, maybe it would work out.
The first date had come to an end.
On the peaceful weekend evening after parting ways with her, I was solving chess puzzles without much else to do.
The quiet sounds and the low-hanging atmosphere of the dormitory at night made me feel at ease.
However.
BANG!
No sooner had I enjoyed such peace than someone kicked my door open as if to break it and barged into my room.
“…Yes?”
When I turned my head, standing in front of the door were Ross and the other three friends I’d made the bet with.
“Grab him.”
“Kill that bastard.”
…?
Before my thoughts could even finish, the four students were already rushing toward me with ferocity.