Contract Dating (2)

"What?"

Whatever gears had still been turning in my head ground to a dead stop. So this was what they called a brain crash. I couldn't tell if I'd actually heard what I thought I'd heard, or if the shock of getting dumped had conjured auditory hallucinations so vivid I needed to slap myself across both ears.

Go out with me?

The young lady who'd just said those words was watching me without the slightest change in expression. A face that calm could only mean I'd misheard her. That much was obvious.

"Did I mishear you?"

Pardon, in English. Sumimasen, in Japanese. Ah. Looks like my skull had split clean open. Whether it was the "go out with me" or the nonsense spilling from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my own mouth — if I was hearing things, I was probably halfway to losing my mind.

"I said we should date. Me, and you, Park Yeonho."

Amelia repeated herself, enunciating every syllable. Date her... what on earth was going on? Question marks packed themselves into every corner of my skull. Had I misheard her? Date her?

For one thing, I was still supposed to be dating Kang Areum. The way she'd just singled out my name, she probably already knew that. And besides — Amelia, of all people. What possible reason could she have to want anything to do with me?

But I'd already asked her to repeat it, and the fact that this was not a hallucination...

"Why are you hitting yourself...?"

...had just been thoroughly verified. Slapping my own cheek in front of the person standing there felt more than a little inappropriate, but still.

"I'm not of sound mind."

That wasn't even close to the answer I'd meant to give, and yet there it went, tumbling out of my mouth. I'd been aiming for something like just checking whether I heard you right, and instead —

Is this even weirder?

It was. A diminished-capacity bit was somehow worse.

"Not of sound mind..."

Amelia murmured it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back, nodding as though that explained everything. Why was she nodding? Why did that make sense to her?

"Then I'd like to hear your answer."

She pressed me for a reply. From the moment she'd told me to call her by name, this young lady had been steamrolling straight ahead. She'd shaken my mind to pieces and had no intention of giving me time to gather them back up.

"I'm sorry, but I already have someone I'm seeing..."

We'd broken up, technically, but it felt like the only way out of this. Taking a confession this un-confession-like seriously felt ridiculous in its own right.

Maybe she lost a game and had to confess as a penalty.

If I actually answered with something earnest like "I'd love to!" or "Yes!", I'd probably get roasted alive in front of the entire Academy. Bottom of the class, dumped that very day — I wasn't sure I could get any more pathetic, but she and I lived in different worlds. Getting publicly roasted would be the best-case scenario. Worst case, I'd end up in a can.

Why was I even imagining this. I should have just downed sodas with Seongchan and passed out in the dorm. The regret arrived fashionably late.

"I heard you and Miss Kang Areum broke up today. Do I have that wrong?"

Reality, as always, was a gutter. The news had already made the rounds at the Academy. Someone had probably posted it on the community boards. I'd gotten dumped in a café, after all. I'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠figured it would spread. I'd braced myself for it, even.

"It's already... gotten out."

Hearing it from someone else's mouth still pulled a bitter smile out of me. It hadn't even been seven hours. Word of the breakup was tearing through the Academy at impressive speed.

Which meant the armor called "girlfriend" was gone. A shield called "heartbreak" wasn't going to mean a thing to someone from her social stratum. Time for a practical reason, then.

"I only just met you."

That was the honest truth. She really was beautiful. Even if I added up every person I'd ever passed on the street, there was almost no one who compared. She was that kind of beautiful. But finding someone beautiful and actually catching feelings were two different things, and I was not the type to fall at first sight.

I had seen her from a distance. Amelia was the valedictorian, after all. Even so, it had only been the entrance ceremony, the midterms, the finals — I could count the times on one hand. I'd seen her, sure. I had never been anywhere near her. The gap in our rankings wasn't heaven and earth. It was heaven and the ocean floor.

I was dressing it up with all sorts of reasons, but the conclusion was a rejection.

"The first time... you say. There's no law that says you can't feel something for someone you've just met."

Amelia asked it back with a sad face that looked like it had a hundred things left to say. The look made me wonder, briefly, whether I'd forgotten some memory of her — but I didn't think so. That expression just made it hard to be sure.

"I'm sorry."

In the end, it was a no.

"......"

I'd said it so firmly that I glanced at her face, worried I might have offended her — and the moment I did, a chill ran down my spine and cold sweat started to bead. She was still looking at me without a word, and the sadness was still there. But something in the air had shifted, unmistakably. She seemed angry. No — she was definitely angry.

My thoughts had gone stiff and sluggish, and turning them over only left me with more questions. Then, belatedly, the important one landed.

Why is this person confessing to me?

Why, exactly, was she confessing to me?! Getting scolded via confession was a lot more terrifying than I'd expected. Mostly psychologically.

"I— I think you've gotten the wrong idea. This isn't a, um, a confession, it's a... a contract. Yes. It's contract dating."

Contract dating...

She must have hated the idea of it being taken as a real confession, given how badly she was stumbling over her words.

"A contract...?"

Now the situation finally made sense. It wasn't a confession. It was a proposal.

"I imagine you know who I am."

There was no way I wouldn't. An Academy freshman. Quite possibly the most famous person in the entire student body. The Genius of the Century, the Flower of Rosemary, and the Academy valedictorian. The person currently proposing a fake relationship to me had so many titles attached to her name that "top of the Academy" almost looked dull by comparison.

"I am Amelia Rosemary. The sole daughter of House Rosemary. And its only child."

I'd known she was a daughter of the Rosemary family. I hadn't known she was the only one. That was new.

"Catch Amelia, and you catch House Rosemary. A lot of people think that way."

Put differently: men swarmed her like crazy. I'd known she had no shortage of admirers. I hadn't known there was a secret like this underneath it.

"Having so many people approach me with that kind of intent is... exhausting."

This was a realm I couldn't even begin to imagine. I shuddered so hard I had to wonder if my MBTI really was an F.

"So I thought — I'll make a fake. I was driven to that point, really."

That resolved most of my questions. I hadn't figured out a single one of them myself, but I felt like I'd been hit with a tranquilizer dart, collapsed, and just now woken up. One question, however, still refused to go away.

"Why me?"

How did "too many people clinging to me, it's annoying" lead to "let's make a fake boyfriend"? Was this what they meant by thinking on a completely different wavelength? And if that was the goal, why did it have to be me? She could have found someone from a good family who was strong and had a decent personality without even trying. Think about it simply. If people from other houses were the problem, couldn't House Rosemary just pick someone in-house?

"Why, exactly, is it me?"

"That... I can't tell you."

"If you put it that way, I can't agree to this contract either."

"This is really difficult..."

The way she hemmed and hawed, eyes sliding away from mine, looked suspicious. On top of that, she wanted a contract for shady reasons she couldn't even name — wasn't this a scam contract, plain and simple? With a face that pretty, tricking a man would be easy.

Don't fall for it...

From the outside, it might have looked like I was using the contract as leverage to throw my weight around. In reality, I was the one with no power here. If her side wanted to make me do it, they could. Which raised another question — why weren't they just forcing me?

"......"

Her mouth was pressed shut, she couldn't quite meet my eyes, and her skin had gone red.

Is she mad?

Fair enough, if she was. I'd gone and refused something that probably wasn't even a big deal to her. Then again — I'd gotten dumped today.

"...Do I really have to do this?"

"Will you?"

Her expression brightened in an instant, as if she'd started glowing from the inside, and I knew I'd been had. But there was no taking the words back now.

"I need time to think..."

In the end, all I managed was to ask for time. This contract dating arrangement was a request to become a meat shield. People would still come running at Amelia even with me in the picture — but at least there'd be a filter named Park Yeonho standing in the way. It would be more comfortable for her, at least. So what was I supposed to do?

"Ah..."

I was in the middle of what I was generously calling thinking — which is to say, I had my head planted in the floor of the Academy Training Grounds — when Amelia came over and held out a sheet of paper.

"It's a contract... after all."

She was looking at it with a faintly dissatisfied expression, but I took it anyway and checked the contents. The first thing that caught my eye was the salary.

"A salary...?"

"It's more like... compensation. For your trouble."

This girl is trying to buy me with money!

Except the amount was far too large for me to even finish that thought. For a brief moment, I actually wondered if she was serious. So this was the power of a noble house.

"Lady Amelia. I look forward to working with you."

Please just let me live...

Come to think of it, there was no duration. How long was I supposed to play fake boyfriend? The question had only just formed when Amelia said something completely outrageous.

"......"

"Try saying it. Amelia."

"Ame...lia..."

She nodded, smiling with such open satisfaction that I was physically experiencing what it meant to be enchanted — while my brain, for its part, arrived at a single conclusion.

Contract Dating, Step One: call her by name.

And that staircase was far too high for me.