Spring Festival, Day Two
Spring Festival, Day Two.
Cecilia was racing toward Victor, who waited for her at the dormitory gates, a bright smile lighting her face. Watching that scene from behind, Chloe smirked.
"Must be nice."
"Lady Chloe."
"You scared me!!"
Chloe sighed at the male student who had appeared behind her.
"What, it's Orca."
"...Haa. Stalking your friend again today? Don't you ever get tired of it?"
"Not at all. It's always new. Always thrilling."
"..."
"And what about you?"
"Obviously I came to guard you, my lady."
"Guarding a fellow student—and a first-year underclassman at that."
"If it bothers you so much, go take it up with the Count."
"Ugh..."
"I heard Young Master Ryan came looking for you not long ago."
At Orca's words, Chloe shook her head with a bitter smile.
"Don't worry. It wasn't like that. He has zero interest in me."
"Tsk."
Seeing Orca frown in a way that was unlike him, Chloe lifted the corner of her mouth and jabbed him in the side.
"Hey, lighten up."
"This is just how I am."
"Pfft."
"What is it?"
"Nothing. Even if everyone else changes, you're still exactly the same. Really."
"..."
"You stay by my side, unchanged."
"I'm your guard knight."
"Oh? For someone who only became a guard knight this year."
"So, aren't we going?"
"Huh?"
"We've lost them."
"Aaaah!! Hurry, let's catch up!"
In front of the plaza, where the spring festival was in full swing, Chloe grinned as she watched Cecilia and Victor walking hand in hand. Orca kept pace beside her at a careful, unobtrusive distance.
"...Hey."
"Yes."
"Why are you keeping so much distance?"
Chloe puffed her cheeks a little, clearly unhappy with the space between them.
"I'm a guard knight."
"Hey. Before you're a guard knight, aren't we childhood friends?"
"Tsk."
"Again!! You clicked your tongue!"
"It's frustrating watching a tomboy who hasn't changed in years. You ought to focus on your own romance."
"To—tomboy!! And romance...! You re—mmph."
Chloe couldn't hide her surprise as the sauce of the skewer that had been shoved into her mouth hit her tongue.
"Wh...what is this? There wasn't anything like this last year."
"I heard a famous shop from the territory of a student who enrolled this year is running a stall."
Orca, who somehow already had a skewer in his own mouth, cleared up her confusion and smirked as he watched Chloe happily working her way through skewers in both hands.
"Smiling suits you. As expected."
"Huh? I smile every day."
"Just a figure of speech."
"What, speak freely to this noona. If there's something you want to ask for, just say it."
"Tsk."
"You clicked your tongue again!"
"...Wow."
"Hmm."
Cecilia and I had somehow ended up trailing after Lady Chloe and her guard knight Orca, who were walking along as if they occupied a world of their own.
"Cecilia."
"Yes."
"Lady Chloe and that guard knight Orca..."
"They're longtime childhood friends."
"Oh."
In the original story, Chloe and Ryan's engagement had been nothing more than a political marriage meant to bind two houses.
But for ten years she was unknowingly in unrequited love. Chloe had fallen for Ryan. Unlike Cecilia, when she lost the duel with Elysia fought for Ryan's true love, she entrusted him to Elysia and left, but...
At this point, where the novel's plot had completely gone off the rails, what would become of them?
"Cecilia."
"Yes."
"Regarding Young Master Ryan, Lady Chloe..."
"Hates him a lot."
"Ah."
"As much as I hate Crown Prince Baron."
"Oh."
That meant she hated him a tremendous amount.
"I see."
"Yes. If Victor-nim saw the things Young Master Ryan did last year..."
"If I saw?"
"...You'd tell them to bring a bow and arrows."
"That bad?"
"Yes. He's a complete illiterate who only ever swung a sword. Chloe was wasted on him."
To put it kindly, he had failed to refine his stubbornness at the academy and had been seduced by a bad woman.
"Makes sense he'd go to ruin."
"...Absolutely not."
"Yes?"
"Don't be alone with Elysia."
"If this is about the previous meeting, that was..."
"Not that—the one before the festival?"
"Ah."
"..."
"How...did you know that."
"You're dodging the answer?"
"That..."
"It's fine. I know Victor-nim handled it well. But."
Cecilia gripped my hand tightly and hung her head.
"...Don't make your fiancée anxious."
"Yes."
Cute. She was so cute I wanted to pull her into a hug, but there were far too many eyes around us.
Endure...endure...I have to endure...
"Kyaaak!"
At Chloe's scream from up ahead, Cecilia's gaze and mine snapped toward her at the same time.
"U...uuh?"
"...Wow."
What filled our vision was Chloe trembling in Orca's arms.
"Haa."
"Wh...what!"
"Same as always. You hate fish."
"..."
"It's good to see you trying to overcome it."
"I'm not trying to overcome it."
"Then what is it?"
"You."
"Yes."
"Smile a little."
"..."
Orca scratched his head and let out a long sigh.
"Hey! Why are you sighing?"
"You really haven't changed at all, Chloe."
"...Don't talk casually? Even if I look like this, I'm still your noona."
"You don't tell me to call you 'my lady'."
"Hmph."
Freed from Orca's arms, the tips of Chloe's ears were dyed bright red.
"Wow..."
Cecilia tugged on my sleeve with one hand and covered her mouth with the other, murmuring.
"Vi...Victor-nim, th...this is the first time I've ever seen Chloe so flustered."
"Is that so?"
This was clearly no ordinary childhood-friend relationship. And more than that—
"The little brother she never saw as a man after the engagement fell apart is starting to look like one."
"Wow..."
"It's a 'Noona is my woman' situation."
"..."
"Cecilia?"
Cecilia, who had been staring straight at me, thrust her index finger toward my face.
"One more time."
"Yes?"
"Do it one more time. That line just now."
"...Uh."
"Hurry."
"..."
"It's urgent."
"Noona is my woman?"
"...I like that. That one."
"Haha..."
"By the way, Chloe kept complaining she had no men, and yet someone like that..."
"She probably never realized it and is only now waking up to it, swept up in the festival's magic."
Cecilia looked up at me with sparkling eyes.
"Victor-nim!"
"Yes."
"I'd like to change today's schedule a little..."
"Sounds fun."
"Huh?"
"There's nothing more entertaining than watching and meddling in other people's romance."
Cecilia nodded hard and began pulling me along by the hand after Chloe.
...Somehow it feels like the people we originally planned to watch had their roles reversed, but.
As long as Cecilia was happy, there was no problem.
Chloe began stealing glances at the side of Orca's face as he walked beside her.
...What? Why did he change this much in a single year?
His height, once shorter than hers in childhood, had grown until she now had to look up at him. The sharply cut line of his jaw was proof he had become a man rather than a boy. Even his eyes had grown a little sharper.
Annoying. Of all people, Orca. And he's younger than me, too.
They had never walked around alone at the academy. Chloe rarely attended official events, so there had never been a reason to bring Orca along.
But now.
"Ugh."
"What is it."
"I'm just annoyed."
Chloe jabbed Orca's side with her elbow as if airing a grievance. Orca sighed and shook his head.
"You really haven't changed."
"Hey! I've changed a lot too, you know?"
"Is that so?"
"Yeah!"
"Then that's fortunate."
"Really...not a single bit of cuteness in you."
"Whose fault is that."
"Huh?"
"I had finally given up on my feelings, and then you."
"..."
"Tsk."
"Hey. What were you trying to sa—"
"Hmm? Lady Chloe?"
"..."
The moment Chloe and Orca saw Elysia and Ryan blocking their path, both of them frowned at the same time, as if on cue.
"Oh my? Are you on a date?"
"Ha."
Ryan narrowed his eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing and looked Chloe and Orca up and down. Unsettled by that gaze, Orca stepped in front of him.
"Orca?"
"What."
"Please don't look at my lady with those eyes."
"...Ahh. So it was you. The southern noble brat who used to trail after Chloe."
Ryan snorted and shook his head.
"Your ass is really light, Chloe."
"What did you say?"
"Elysia told me the way you look at male students is lewd and unpleasant to watch."
"Ry...Ryan, you don't have to go that far..."
In a split second, Chloe saw Elysia snickering and mocking her from an angle Ryan couldn't see.
"...This damn woman, seriously."
"I told you not to approach Elysia."
"You—just now, the face that woman made—"
"Elysia, are you all right? You weren't startled?"
"Sob sob...Ryan, Lady Chloe is so scary..."
"...Huu. Not only ignoring my warning, but threatening Elysia right in front of me."
Clack.
Ryan set his hand on the sword at his waist.
"You deserve to die a hundred times over."
"Young Master Ryan. I will regard your current actions as a threat against my master."
"A mere guard knight thinks he can stop me?"
"I...will only protect my lady."
"Fine. Go ahead and protect her well. With that weak—"
Thwack!
"..."
"Eh?"
"Ah, sorry about that."
Victor pushed through the crowd into the heart of the chaos and faced Ryan with an easygoing smile.
"The arrow's trajectory bent, you see."
"...Grand Duke Walterheim."
Ryan pulled the toy arrow from where it was stuck in his head.
"Causing a disturbance at the spring festival is a nuisance to everyone else, Young Master Ryan."
"This is none of your business."
"I doubt that."
Victor glanced back at Cecilia, who was standing protectively at Chloe's side.
"Did you not insult my fiancée Cecilia's friend?"
"Insult?"
"Do you think that kind of talk is appropriate between a man and a woman who have no relationship?"
"What do you know to be spouting off like that! Chloe insulted and threatened Elysia!"
Looking at Elysia trembling theatrically behind Ryan, Victor clicked his tongue.
"To call yourself a knight when you don't even have eyes to see the truth—what a pathetic fate."
"What—"
"Anyone who lays a hand on my fiancée's friend will be regarded as an enemy of House Walterheim."
"..."
"What will you do, Young Master Ryan von Meyer?"
At Victor's declaration, the air in the plaza froze solid. Under the overwhelming presence—the killing intent of the Northern Grand Duke who had fought on the boundary between life and death—Ryan unconsciously swallowed and tightened his grip on his sword.
"Ease up."
"..."
"You'll die for real."
What he held was a toy bow and arrow. So why was he trembling with this much fear?
This distance is my range...so why.
Was the only image that rose in his mind that he would die if he stepped in? Ryan ground his teeth.
"Ryan..."
Ryan turned his head toward Elysia, who was gazing at him with worried eyes.
"I...if I...if I apologize, it'll be over, so..."
At Elysia's pitiful face, tears welling, Ryan's reason short-circuited. The pride and fury that had been crushed under Victor's killing intent exploded all at once and roared into flame.
"It's not Elysia's fault!!!"
Whoosh.
Thud!
Ryan stripped off his glove and flung it straight at Victor. The people in the plaza stared in shock.
"Th...that is?"
"No way?"
"Grand Duke Walterheim! I cannot forgive you for making Elysia cry! I challenge you to a duel in the name of my house!!"
"Wow...crazy bastard. He actually threw it?"