The Club of Reversed Insight - 3
Lately, my satisfaction with the work environment has been climbing at a ridiculous rate.
Once the romance competition ended, I no longer had to watch those five idiots make my blood pressure spike. Mental fatigue plummeted as a result. It felt exactly like that trashy soap opera I used to curse my way through had finally wrapped up for good.
With the five of them no longer circling one another in mutual suspicion—or thrashing desperately to claw ahead—the club had grown almost serenely peaceful. When the big shots settle down, the lowly peons finally get to be happy.
"These taste great today."
"That's our ten-time president for you. When she actually shows what she can do, it's incredible."
"Thanks for acknowledging it…"
The peaceful chatter warmed my heart. Yes—this was what an academy was supposed to be. This was what a club was supposed to be. What kind of academy life was it when you spent every second bracing for a time bomb to go off? This tranquility was the real academy experience.
Of course I hadn't come to the Academy just to play around, but when I thought about the school days I'd never gotten to enjoy, I figured I had every right to savor this peace, even if it came late. That was what I chose to believe.
A happy ending for everyone.
A satisfied smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. Good for me, good for Villar, good for Luise, and good for those five as well. If they had been nursing broken hearts, maybe I would have felt differently—but looking at how cheerfully they were getting along, getting rejected seemed to have been the correct route all along.
"You could have done this from the start."
"Right? It's a little annoying, honestly."
"Does that mean the eleventh president is about to be born?"
"I already admitted I was wrong, so please stop."
Listening to the members gathered around the cookies, I couldn't help laughing under my breath.
The effect is solid.
Nine consecutive impeachments was a record humiliating enough to make Luise tremble with shame. She must have poured her entire soul into these cookies, because the members had finally given her a passing grade.
Getting impeached every other day really had been excessive. No wonder the club had invented a unit of time called "1 Luise."
"When's the inter-class tournament again?"
"Seven Luises from now."
Roughly fourteen days. Luise, who had been kneading dough, started shaking so hard it was almost painful to watch. The ones who said it, of course, just stood there looking perfectly justified.
It was only a joke meant to get a laugh, so it never turned into a real fight. Outside the club they seemed to talk normally enough.
If the royals started using "1 Luise" as a unit even outside the club, other students would probably pick it up too. Just imagining it made my chest swell with secondhand grandeur. Luise would probably cry and drop out.
Not that anything like that will happen.
We were getting along like friends who had transcended gender; there was no need to corner her. The fact that we seemed closer now than before definitely wasn't my imagination. That line about wanting to remain good friends had turned out to be genuine, which still surprised me.
"Here you go, Oppa."
While I was idly wondering whether the original story had actually been a friends fantasy rather than a romance fantasy—given how quickly everyone got along after the rejections—a cookie suddenly appeared right in front of my face.
She even made a personal delivery for her regular customer. I was genuinely moved.
"Thanks."
I accepted the cookie Luise held out, a small smile on my face.
These days the others' tastes had been taken into account as well, so the amount left for me had shrunk a little. That made every single cookie feel more precious. It was a bit of a shame—my private little dessert spot had turned into a famous restaurant.
"You made these well."
I chewed a few times, swallowed, and gave Luise a light pat on the shoulder. Something about the cookies felt different from before, but that was probably just the result of adjusting to the members' preferences.
I looked at my older brother's face. Same exhausted, work-worn expression as always. Sometimes it seemed like he was smiling, but honestly you couldn't tell unless you stared really hard.
I looked at Luise's face. Anyone could see affection dripping from her eyes; her cheeks were even faintly flushed. Compared to the way she used to bristle like a cat with its tail up whenever we teased her, she was almost unrecognizable.
Hmm.
Is it winter?
Why did my side suddenly feel so cold?
I absently rubbed my ribs, but nothing had changed. Winter was a fickle fairy that visited only my heart, not this world.
Has my brain frozen over too?
Coming up with weird metaphors like that probably meant my head was already half-melted. But it wasn't my fault. Blaming me for this situation would be far too harsh.
Given the precedent with Lady Margeta, I had expected my brother to miss Luise's feelings. I had even steeled myself for the sight of Luise fretting and fidgeting in front of him.
It was bitter, but what could I do? As the rejected party, I couldn't exactly tell Luise to restrain herself in front of me.
But this was too much. No matter how you looked at it, this went too far.
He doesn't notice that?
If you grabbed a random dog off the street and asked, even the dog would know. Ask it what those two looked like and it would wag its tail in support of a pretty romance. That was how blatant Luise's gaze was.
And my brother was receiving a look even a dog could read and showing zero reaction. If he knew and still acted like this, he had a personality so disgusting I'd have to beat him up even if he was my brother. If he genuinely didn't know, his denseness was bad enough to make me worry for both Lady Margeta and Luise.
Poor Luise.
If my brother was that hopeless, Luise needed to be more aggressive. With the courage it took to reject all five of us at once, what couldn't she do? A simple confession should be easy.
Yet Luise said nothing. For about ten Luises—no, for roughly twenty days—she never once confessed to him directly. More accurately, she couldn't.
Lady Margeta is still waiting too.
The person who would become my brother's first wife—or his only wife—was essentially locked in as the duke's daughter. The problem was that even she had yet to formalize her relationship with him. Under those circumstances, openly showing interest would bring the lady's wrath down on Luise's head.
That would send Luise's chances of becoming his wife into freefall. Taking a new wife was something a husband could theoretically do on his own, but when the first wife came from a ducal house, people tended to watch their step carefully.
…Though given my brother's catastrophic denseness, he would probably just push ahead without caring about any anger.
Anyway, I just wanted some progress already. Whether they got together or failed spectacularly, I needed a result so I could finally relax. Being forced to watch this complete lack of movement was pure torture. What had I even gotten rejected for?
"Looking at your sister-in-law?"
"Shut up."
I answered on pure reflex when Ryutis slung an arm around my shoulders and whispered. I was already irritated enough without him poking at me.
Ryutis gave a quiet laugh at my reply and followed my gaze to my brother and Luise.
"Frustrating."
"Yeah. Frustrating."
I nodded at Ryutis's words. That denseness—receiving the exact gaze we had all wanted and still not noticing. If he had been a younger brother instead of an older one, I would have hit him a few times by now.
"I don't know how he survived with awareness that bad."
I agreed completely. As a high-ranking official like a division chief, he must have navigated every kind of political arena. How had he lasted this long with that level of denseness?
"We probably looked just like that to our torturer of a teacher."
"Yeah… we probably did."
The sudden comment knocked the breath out of me for a second, but I managed a nod of agreement.
The exact feelings I was having while watching my brother right now must have been how he felt about us back then.
I was really like that?
Horrifying. I was ashamed of my past self.
And in my case it wasn't even failing to notice goodwill—it was just the frustration of a relationship that refused to move forward. I was no better than my brother.
Of course the other four were the same, which was a small comfort. At least I wasn't the only idiot; the shame could be shared and therefore reduced.
"Let's just watch for now."
The unexpected words made me glance sideways at Ryutis. I had expected this aggressive prince to suggest we help our friend's romance along.
As if reading my mind, Ryutis snorted and continued.
"Help from five romance failures doesn't seem like it would do much good."
It was too logically sound to argue with.
After nearly three weeks of unbroken peace, my guard must have completely dropped.
"Karl, is something the matter?"
Otherwise I never would have heard something like that out of nowhere.
Margeta, who had been carefully reading my expression, asked the question with caution, and I suddenly felt awkward. I must have been showing that something was going on without even realizing it. And since I had stayed silent, of course she was curious.
But I couldn't exactly tell Margeta, "Luise rejected all five of them so I'm ridiculously comfortable," could I? That kind of statement would make anyone question my character. Erich was one of those five, after all. Being seen by Margeta as the kind of personality wreck who celebrated his own younger brother's romantic tragedy would be sad.
"It's nothing."
"Is that so?"
And then I realized too late that watching Margeta look dejected was even sadder.
I had messed up. I had decided that from now on I would be honest and hide nothing. Even if it was something trivial, the act of hiding itself was the problem.
"It's an internal club matter. The members have grown much closer."
So I told her the truth.
"The members have?"
"Yes."
Margeta's eyes went round, as if she had never expected that answer.
Fair enough. She had grown close to me, occasionally gotten involved with the Baking Club, and during the break she had even lived with us. She already knew the Baking Club was basically a gathering of people blinded by love.
So if the object of their affections and all her rivals had suddenly become friends, of course she would wonder what on earth had happened. She was probably half-convinced Luise was about to take five husbands.
"…I see."
When I explained that it was actually the opposite, Margeta nodded blankly. The miraculous tale of a baron's daughter coolly dumping a prince and a couple of royal heirs—I wouldn't have believed it either if I weren't a transmigrator.
"I was worried the club might fall apart over it, but instead they've become closer. These days they look like friends of ten years."
"……"
"Mar?"
After a stretch of silence, Margeta stood up and quietly took the seat right beside me.
"Karl."
Then she took my hand and spoke with a serious expression.
"I'll always stay by your side."
"I'm grateful to hear that."
"Closer than anyone."
"Even more grateful."
The words themselves were adorable compared to how serious her face looked.
Karl was happy that the members had grown closer, but the reality was different. As people they might have become friends, yet as members of the opposite sex the situation could only be described as completely finished.
He suddenly cleaned up his surroundings?
There was no way he would do that for no reason. Something had to be behind it.
And then I remembered that, aside from me, the woman closest to Karl at the Academy was Lady Luise.
…Ah.
I think I understand.