The Ballpoint Pen and the Poor Blonde Girl (3)
"Most academy students eat at the student cafeteria or the restaurants on the grounds."
Truly worthy of its reputation as the empire's finest — Trinity Academy. The grounds were vast, of course, and the buildings themselves exuded an air of luxury. Even the students wandering the streets carried an unmistakable whiff of pedigree in their faces and their manner of carrying themselves; this was, without question, an academy built for the upper class.
And befitting that status, the restaurant prices were steep as well. I couldn't help feeling that the food was needlessly expensive — the way the people here ate gratuitously salty and sugary dishes just to flaunt their wealth.
"As you can see, it's pricey. So students without money often get their meals from that bakery over there."
At the spot Lily pointed to stood a rather conspicuous bakery. An old wooden building that looked, at a glance, ready to collapse at any moment. Behind the display counter sat nothing but rock-hard baguettes — hard as though chewing on a stone would give you a similar texture.
Trying to eat that stuff would probably split the corners of your mouth and leave your jaw aching.
I glanced down at Lily, walking beside me. Seen up close, the pale skin I'd noticed before, combined with her small stature and limbs that were nothing but skin and bone, made her look like she might starve to death at any moment.
Of course she couldn't put on any weight, subsisting on bread like that every single day.
While I was thinking this, a smell drifted over from somewhere and tickled my nose — the rich, savory scent of grilling meat.
"Want to get meat for lunch?"
"You said you'd buy me a meal, but I don't want to freeload off you just for showing you around. Let's eat separately and meet back up."
I shot Lily a long, pointed look. Feeling my gaze, she flustered under it, eyes darting this way and that as she mentally retraced her steps, wondering if she'd made some kind of mistake.
"Eating alone is lonely. Let's eat together."
I steered Lily toward the bakery — no, the restaurant. Bulldozed by my pushiness, Lily wandered into the steakhouse hugging a baguette from the bakery bag, and sat down without managing a single word of protest.
"Excuse me."
"Yes, are you ready to order?"
"A steak, a shrimp dish, and a salad with cheese, please."
"Of course. One moment, please."
I finished the order in a flash and set the menu down with a clack — and there was Lily, no longer hidden behind it. She was holding the tip of her long baguette in her mouth, motionless.
Was she planning to soften it with saliva before biting in, since it was too hard to just tear off and eat?
It was a little cute, honestly, but watching her made my heart ache. No — could you even call this a meal? This was barely a step above licking bread crusts.
Lily, who had been sullenly holding the baguette between her lips, finally pulled it away.
"Why are you staring at me like that...?"
Apparently being observed while eating embarrassed her. I answered playfully — but this time with some sincerity mixed in.
"People love it when I stare at them."
"?"
"Look at me. I'm handsome. When we make eye contact, they just smile and everything."
"..."
Lily looked positively revolted. She seemed to be making an effort to hide it, but unless you were a machine, you could never fully bury an emotion once it surfaced.
"It's... technically true, but shouldn't that be the kind of thing you *don't* say about yourself?"
"I'm not your average guy, though."
"Uh... yeah, I guess not..."
While we were chatting, the food arrived and filled the table. A thick steak still sizzling in melted fat, grilled shrimp, and a salad dotted with rounds of cheese. At the delicious smell wafting over the table, I saw Lily's throat bob as she swallowed hard.
The faint but appetizing aroma of the dishes made her stomach growl audibly, too. Judging by her state, she could play the pauper all she liked — alternating between eyeing the steak and gnawing on her spit-dampened bread.
I picked up my knife and beckoned to Lily, who was sneaking glances at the food with the baguette still clamped in her mouth.
"Should we split it fifty-fifty?"
"I told you, I'm not freeloading."
"I want to make a sandwich, that's all. They don't sell baguettes here."
My goodwill was stated in the most naked terms possible. Lily fidgeted, feigning reluctance, but eventually capitulated to my continued coaxing and handed over the bread she'd been gnawing on.
Slice, slice. I cut the bread in half, layered in the meat, shrimp, and vegetables, closed it up, and split it into two portions. The melted fat from the steak soaked into the bread, bringing everything to precisely the perfect stage of edible.
"This one! I'll take this side."
With a faint blush on her cheeks, Lily snatched the bread still damp with her own saliva over to her side of the table. She wrapped her hands around the sandwich and said,
"I'll eat well. Thank you."
Then she took a huge bite.
"Mmph...!"
Her cheeks puffed out like a hamster's, and her eyes went wide with astonishment.
"It's delicious!"
Watching her eat with such gusto made the meal feel worth every coin. That look of hers reminded me of the little sister I'd parted with long ago, and a smile crept onto my own face.
I'd have to keep buying her meals from now on.
The next day.
Having avoided the blunder of oversleeping and arriving late like I had yesterday, I reached the lecture hall with time to spare. In fact, I'd arrived so early that there was still a while before class began.
"Where should I sit?"
I mulled it over, eyeing the empty seats. Ideally, I wanted to sit next to Lily. If that was the goal, maybe I should just wait until she arrived and then choose.
I was shuffling aimlessly around the lecture hall entertaining such thoughts when —
Clunk. The front door of the hall swung open.
The one who entered was the bespectacled professor whose name I still didn't know, the one who had carried the lecture so diligently yesterday. And he wasn't alone. Whether he'd bumped into them on the way or what, a dwarf whose head barely reached his waist was walking in alongside him.
"Good morning, Professor."
"Ah, Student Owen!"
He noticed me as I bowed in greeting. Perhaps the thought of finally delivering the lecture he'd been unable to finish yesterday put him in as good a mood as I was, because he returned the greeting brightly. Then he turned to the dwarf beside him.
"That's the one. The student who gave me this pen yesterday."
"That student?"
The dwarf looked me up and down with an odd gleam in his eyes. What was with that? His mustache was fluttering, he was panting for breath, his face flushed — something about his condition looked seriously off.
Thump! Thump!
The dwarf strode toward me, stomping the floor with his stubby feet. Standing within arm's reach, he looked up at me and let out an excited cry.
"You! Where on earth did you get this pen?!"
Clutched between his two fingers was the ballpoint pen — the one I'd given the professor as a gift yesterday.
The dwarf rubbed his cheek against the ballpoint pen lovingly, as though it were his sweetheart, letting out a strange groan. I nearly smacked him on reflex.
"This pen... it's magnificent! Magnificent, I tell you! Did you know just how great this pen is when you gifted it to Professor Allen? Look here. The nib of this fountain pen! Do you see it? There's a tiny ball housed inside. As the ball rolls, it spreads the ink inside onto the paper. And this little ball is by no means ordinary. If air were to flow backward into it, the ink would clog, so the fit can't be too loose — and it's sized so precisely that pressing harder won't force it in either! The craftsmanship is one thing, but the *idea* is what's brilliant! Why have I never thought of this before? With this mechanism, you could use oil-based ink!"
"..."
Was he cut from the same cloth as the professor? The way he poured out words without pause the moment his favorite subject came up was an exact replica.
Regardless, this dwarf was right. The humble ballpoint pen was, surprisingly, an object demanding ultra-precise engineering. Anyone who'd used both a cheap pen and an expensive one would know the difference in feel — and that difference mostly came down to the ball, the part that demanded true craftsmanship.
So he'd recognized the pen's true value at a glance. Not bad at all, dwarf.
"As for where I got this pen — I made it myself."
"What!!"
The dwarf shot straight up into the air, his bulging eyes nearly popping out of his skull.
"Incredible!! Absolutely incredible!! To think a person like you was here at this academy all along! Whew! Well, well! Might I ask you to visit our workshop sometime? I simply must have a talk with you!!"
My face was plastered with dwarf spittle, and my eardrums felt ready to burst. I wiped my face with my hand and nodded.
"Yes, I'll pay you a visit later. Just give me the location."
"Here you are. I'll treat you with the utmost hospitality, so be sure to come!"
The dwarf pressed a note into my hand and vanished along with the professor.
Left in the lecture hall, now gone quiet after his departure, I felt strangely off-balance — like the heaviness that settles over your body after bouncing on a trampoline and finally landing back on the ground. The silence of the hall felt somehow abnormal.
As I sat there reviewing yesterday's lecture in that newfound quiet, students began trickling in one by one.
"Hey, did you see yesterday? That girl was sitting next to the charity-case."
"The tall, good-looking guy?"
"What's good-looking about him? The guy's a limp noodle. A man ought to be solid like me, at the very least."
"What garbage are you spouting? Did you not see his shoulders? Completely different from your lard."
Was I tucked too far into the corner for them to notice I was here? A group of boys and girls swaggered in and took seats at the back of the hall, chattering away.
"Anyway, I saw the two of them eating together yesterday."
"What could that charity-case possibly have going for her?"
"Honestly, her face is pretty. If she hadn't been so full of herself at the start of the semester, plenty of guys would've been after her."
"Pretty, my ass. That's all makeup. Look at how pale her skin is. How many layers has she caked on?"
"I saw her get caught in the rain once. She wasn't wearing any makeup."
"Shut up. What would you know."
So this was what backbiting looked like.
I sat in a shadowy corner, quietly eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Apparently someone's been hanging around with her lately?"
"Ah, yeah. You wouldn't have seen it — you were hospitalized until yesterday."
The mood shifted abruptly. The one who'd just spoken must have held a higher rank in their little pecking order.
"What a joke. When I asked her to eat with me, she kept turning me down."
Curious who it was, I turned to look at his face — and froze.
That bastard.
The one who had put his hands on his own mother, the Countess. Brother *and* father to the Count's daughter by his own mother, and history's most depraved traitor, who'd driven a dagger into his father's back.
Seriously? Meeting him here of all places?
How could coincidence be this cruel?