Karma
Of all the rumors swirling through the academy of late, the ones about Hoyeon still topped the list.
There was the war of nerves between the Imperial Crown Prince and the Southern Grand Duke’s son. The suspicious meeting between Stephania and some first-year. A baseless whisper that the midterms would include a practical exam for physical education.
Any of those might have held Camilla’s interest—if not for the rumors about Hoyeon. More than anything else, it was personal: the knights her own family’s retainers had sent had been taken prisoner by Hoyeon’s guards.
To make matters worse, the family head—her father—had been away on other business the day of the incident, leaving Camilla herself to sit at the negotiation table.
If she had to sum up her first impression of Hoyeon in a single word, it would have been predator. A beast that stood over others as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and never so much as glanced at whatever lay beneath her.
In the end, there had been no loss of life and no damage to property. Only a dent in the prestige of Camilla’s house.
Compared to the grisly stories drifting in from other territories—food stores plundered, gates smashed open—it had been a remarkably mild outcome.
But a wounded girl’s pride did not see it that way. Contempt she could have endured. What Hoyeon had shown her was perfect indifference.
She had never once in her life been treated as if she simply did not exist. The blow to her spirit had been all the harder for it.
And so she had to confirm it with her own eyes—whether the rumor was true.
The rumor that Hoyeon was going around with some man.
Just how extraordinary did someone have to be for a girl who had not spared Camilla a second look to show him interest? Camilla meant to find out.
A prince of some nation, or a grand duke’s heir at the very least—that was her private guess.
She was the one who had pointed Anastasiya toward Hoyeon’s room in the first place. Now she took up a post at the entrance to Dormitory Four and fixed a sharp, unblinking stare on every face that came out.
White hair streaked here and there with black, and a different race on top of that—there was no way she would miss her, Camilla thought.
A full hour of standing watch should have worn anyone down. She had come with a purpose, though, and she showed no sign of flagging.
Just as the extreme idea of barging inside if Hoyeon never appeared began to take shape, the girl finally stepped into view.
Exactly as the rumors said, a young man walked at her side. Anyone worthy of Hoyeon’s attention would surely be someone Camilla knew, so she looked at him first.
She did know him. She had even spoken with him herself. He was not, however, the person she had been hoping to see.
She did not know his name, but this half-baked boy who had once had the nerve to take the hand of everyone’s darling Exipri was standing right beside Hoyeon.
Out of sheer irritation she had even had him looked into. Aside from the fact that he was a commoner, there was nothing of note about him—the absolute pinnacle of dull.
Why is he next to her?
The question marks were about to flood her mind when Camilla saw the two of them turn to face each other and speak.
The moment she saw that, every other thought vanished.
I may never restore the dignity she wounded—but at the very least, I can give her a wound just like it.
That was the only thought left.
Camilla’s heart, already steeped in malice toward Hoyeon, was already spinning a story of its own.
The tale of a girl of imperial blood dreaming a forbidden love with a commoner. Truth or lie did not matter.
Either way, it would be more than enough to make her life difficult.
She felt not the slightest guilt. If anything, she was the victim here—and the commoner who would get swept up in it had dared to take Exipri’s hand, after all.
Imagining all the bothersome things Hoyeon would have to endure because of her, Camilla let a smile full of spite curve her lips, then left her post.
For some reason a girl I had never seen before was staring this way with terrifying intensity. Who is she? I cannot place her at all.
She flashed one of those bone-chilling smiles and vanished just as quickly, leaving me wondering what the hell her problem was. Dogeon, walking beside me, did not seem to have noticed a thing.
“Um… how long have you been able to hear…?”
The way he asked made it certain. And if he wanted to know how long I had been hearing things…
From the first day I arrived in that room, everything had come through crystal clear. The sound of him showering. The little tunes he hummed to himself. All of it.
I could not hear anything from the corridor, and almost nothing from the other rooms. But the noises from Dogeon’s room alone were strangely, unnaturally distinct.
“How long? From the very first day. Your snoring was quite the spectacle.”
“…I see. I’ll be more careful.”
Hearing him say that only made me more uncomfortable. It was the same as saying he would keep policing every sound he made even in his own private space, all because of me.
It was not as if the noise had been unbearable. I was starting to regret bringing it up at all.
“It’s fine. Nothing I can’t live with. But tell me—could you not hear anything from my room?”
If I could hear him showering, then the sounds from my side should have been just as audible. The thought hit me with a wave of guilt.
He had never said a word about any noise coming from my room, and now it felt as if I were the only one who had made a fuss.
“No. I couldn’t hear a thing.”
That face said he had heard every last bit of it and was only pretending otherwise for my sake. No matter how I looked at it, they had clearly taken one large room, stuck a thin wall down the middle, and called it two.
I had thought they had money to burn, yet here they were pulling a cheap trick like this. Figures an educational institution would have someone skimming funds somewhere.
There had always been one of those types in high school, and again in college. People really are the same everywhere.
Anyway. Now that I knew I had been the one being overly sensitive, I ought to make it up to him somehow.
I had a feeling this kind of thing would keep happening, so I even considered making up a wish coupon.
No—did friends even need wish coupons?
Dogeon might be busy, but I had nothing but free time. Going along with whatever he wanted to do did not sound half bad.
It even lined up with why I had come here in the first place. Originally I had only planned to watch what he did from a distance, but doing things together would be far more fun.
Soon enough he would be too busy meeting girls to spare me any time, so I wanted to see him as much as I could while I still could.
The problem was finding an excuse to say so.
I could not exactly apologize for being noisy when he had already declared he had not heard a thing. After he went so far as to insist he heard nothing just to be considerate, turning around and saying “sorry for the noise” would be like throwing that kindness back in his face.
Was there some good pretext…?
…
If I did not have one, I could just invent one, right?
I would deliberately bother him with my tail all through class, then apologize and say he could ask me for anything from now on. Perfect.
It felt a little forced, but I did not think he would refuse.
After all, he was not losing anything—and he was the type who got lonely easily. He was surely hoping someone would stay by his side.
Later on there would be far too many someones willing to stay by his side. But that was later.
“Is that so. Then all’s well. Let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
On the first day it had stung when people parted around me like the Red Sea. Now I found the space rather convenient.
It was still better than having someone shoulder-check me without realizing I was there and walk off without so much as a sorry.
Having even one friend seemed to be tilting my thoughts in a more positive direction.
So that was why people went on and on about friends. The realization that I had lived more than half my life at a loss drew a dry laugh out of me.
Morning assembly drifted by like a cloud with no notices worth paying attention to, so it was not until math class—right before lunch—that I was finally able to put my plan into motion.
Dogeon was focused on the lesson.
Judging by the way he was furiously scribbling something that looked like formulas all over his notebook, he almost certainly was. His handwriting was so bad I could not actually read any of it.
I, on the other hand, could not concentrate at all. The subject was math, and I had already learned all of it. I already knew it.
As for the liberal arts and history classes that had come before this one—they could go hang.
Subjects you could cram the week before the exam and still pass, yet people claimed they were more important than math. Laughable.
As if pure memorization had any right to try overtaking math.
Anyway. For a moment I hesitated over whether I should interrupt someone concentrating that hard.
But the very fact that he was concentrating that hard made him the perfect excuse. Just poking him a few times with my tail and then telling him he could ask me for anything felt a little light on the offense scale.
Ah, screw it.
I deliberately dragged the tip of my tail across the back of his knee. His reaction was stronger than I had expected, and for a second I wondered if I had gone too far—but in the end it was for his own good, so there was no need to hesitate.
Whatever he missed because of the harassment, I would just teach him later. I had done some tutoring in my time, after all.
Every student I had ever taught had been terminally unmotivated, so the results had never been impressive. Looking at Dogeon’s drive, though, he seemed like the type who would absorb everything I taught him.
Come to think of it, this guy really was a walking fraud. Popular, overflowing with academic zeal, good with girls, and narrative convenience practically radiating off him.
…The world is not fair.
I poured a little of that resentment into my tail and jabbed him over and over. After a few dozen pokes he urgently whispered my name and begged me to stop, but I had no intention of stopping.
Only when the class finally ended was he freed from my tail’s tyranny.
I worried for a moment that I had gone a little overboard because of the emotion I had put into it, but it looked just right.
He was staring at me as if to ask what possible grudge could have driven me to do something like that.