The Rooftop Lunch
Before he knew it, it was lunchtime.
The professor wrapped up the lesson and stepped out, and the girls who had been drifting around the edges of the room closed in all at once.
"You're Leon, right?"
"If you're free, want to grab lunch with us?"
"Hey, he might not want to. Don't push him."
He'd been popular enough in the first loop, so girls sticking to him wasn't much of a burden. Attention had its uses, and he didn't mind it, but not one of them caught his eye just now.
"Not today. I've got something important."
He turned them down and left the classroom, and Kyle came scurrying after him from behind.
"They asked you to eat with them. Why'd you say no? I wanted to eat together."
He latched on so naturally that Leon almost nodded and went along with it before he caught himself.
"And why are you following me?"
"Huh? We weren't eating together?"
Kyle looked genuinely stunned, his eyes stuck on Leon as if he couldn't pull them away. I'd sooner share a table with a goblin than eat with you. He didn't need to learn anything more about Kyle anyway. A passable friendship was all he meant to keep.
Arian... she's not heading for the cafeteria?
She was walking in the exact opposite direction. He shook Kyle off without much effort and followed her.
Where's she going?
At that same moment, Arian turned her steps toward the roof, as any proper delinquent would. In the comics, delinquents always killed time up there, so now that she had become one, the roof was the only destination that made sense. Today's lunch was bread from the school store—the same thing she used to eat before coming to the academy, back when she was saving her lunch break.
"...Good. Nobody's here."
She poked her head out, confirmed the roof was empty, and settled into a decent spot.
Nom.
It was edible, more or less, but she never wanted to taste it again. She'd eaten so much of the stuff that the flavor was familiar by now, yet there still wasn't enough of it. She hadn't accounted for coming of age and Awakening.
"Haa... maybe I should've just eaten in the cafeteria."
Until she became an adult, Arian had been forced to live as a model student. Once she crossed into the academy she had sworn she would enjoy breaking the rules, but playing delinquent seemed to demand its own talent and aptitude, and it wasn't much fun.
No. Even so, this was the first thing she had ever chosen for herself. She didn't want to give it up, not even if nobody cared. If just one person recognized her—
Arian nodded, the vow hard in her chest.
It hasn't even been a day. I'll get a boyfriend, and I'll enjoy this rebellion properly!
If she kept straying like this, that person would have no choice but to look at her. Arian believed it without a shred of doubt.
"Why do you look so down?"
She lifted her head at the voice, and a familiar face was there. A smile brighter than anyone's, bronzed skin, deep brown eyes, blond hair. The prince who had stopped her when she tried to act out, and then saved her when she fell into danger...
No. That had been a coincidence.
"What are you doing here...!"
"I packed a lunch to eat with a friend, but nobody would eat with me."
The truth was that Kyle, and plenty of girls besides, had wanted to share lunch with him. Arian, paying no attention to anyone else, hadn't seen any of it.
"Will you eat with me?"
Leon held the lunchbox out to her as he asked.
"W-well... if you're going to beg like that."
Taking help from a man embarrassed her, so she accepted the box along with a plausible excuse.
"Thanks. I don't have any friends, so I was worried how I'd deal with this by myself."
"D-don't get the wrong idea. I'm only eating it so it doesn't go to waste."
"Yeah. Really, thank you."
She was hungry anyway. Arian popped the lid at once.
"Ah!"
Side dishes trimmed with care, plating that actually had sense to it. This didn't look like an ordinary boxed lunch.
"Y-you really made this?"
"Not sure it turned out right."
He'd prepared it because the cafeteria food was garbage, and he hadn't expected to use it like this. Still, he had been the Hero Party's cook for three years, so his skill was decent enough.
Arian ate with a stunned face, chewing and chewing, and then she suddenly burst into tears.
"H-hey, wh-what's wrong?"
Leon had meant to use Arian as a tool to drown Kyle in betrayal and despair, but when she started crying out of nowhere he was genuinely thrown. Who expects someone to burst into tears in the middle of a meal?
"This is the most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my life."
"..."
Arian wasn't a heroine with much weight in the original, so he knew little about her. From what he had confirmed, she missed someone terribly, hated them, and—contradictorily—loved them. That was about the extent of it. Watching her cry, Leon felt something strange. An emotion he had never felt before.
"Don't cry over something like this. You'll ruin that pretty face."
He wiped her tears with the handkerchief he always kept on him. No matter how tough a woman pretended to be, she was weak to an event like this.
"Do I... look ugly when I cry?"
"No. It makes me want to protect you. Cuter, if anything."
The moment he tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket, she dropped the lunchbox, pulled her face close to mine, and pressed her lips to mine. A surprise kiss. It lasted about three seconds. By the clock it was a worthless instant, and yet it felt impossibly long.
Arian drew her face back, carefully.
"Th-that was my first..."
He was genuinely flustered.
"Th-then I took your first."
Arian laughed, ha ha. She was just as inexperienced as he was, but she was playing the delinquent, so she puffed herself up as if she had plenty of experience. When his expression didn't ease, though, hers began to waver.
"Y-you're not crying, are you? I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to, it just..."
He had only put on the slightest pout, and Arian panicked, her face saying she had no idea what to do. Swaggering one moment and falling apart the next—she only looked cute.
"No. I just liked it too much."
Only after I lifted the corner of my mouth did Arian calm down.
"Can I... do it again?"
"Yeah."
Arian took my lips once more, a little deeper than the first time. I hadn't expected us to get this far in a single day.
Arian feels tremendous affection for you.
If you're already this far gone, there's no way I can leave you unused, Arian. Leon smiled, thoroughly pleased.
After they had shared a secret between them and returned to the classroom, Arian was thoroughly flustered. Just looking at Leon set the lower half of her body burning.
Ha. This has never happened before...
She had masturbated plenty, so she knew the feeling. Every time it was thrilling, warm, and laced with a guilty thrill—her only amusement from the past. After she turned twenty her stamina had risen, and she did it at least once a day without fail. But her lower body had never burned like this.
Why am I this aroused?
Because of it she couldn't lay a hand on anything else, and her eyes kept drifting only to Leon. Could this be love? She had sworn to live as a delinquent for at least this one day, but her heated body wouldn't let her slip out of the classroom.
Good. She's not leaving anymore.
My goal is to break Kyle. Not merely to kill him—to make him feel at least ten times the helplessness, the injustice, and the rage I felt. The first step is Arian, the girl he showed an interest in, but if I mean to keep attending the academy, grades matter too. Fortunately she seemed to pull herself together and focus on the lesson, and I listened hard as well. I barely take notes, but the higher the scores, the better. People say real combat matters most, and even so, grades alone bring scholarships, stipends, a larger dorm, and all kinds of perks.
Vivian's going to take first anyway, so I'll aim for second.
No matter how hard I try, I can't beat Vivian, a pureblood genius. Even second place comes with special events, the headmaster's trust, and other benefits, so I'm taking it no matter what.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I kept the pen moving, and before I knew it the remaining two classes were over and the day's schedule was done.
"Leon, want to head to the dorms together?"
In this world, break time usually meant snacks and idle chatter. I'd sooner hold a conversation with a parrot than with Kyle.
"I'd rather be alone."
Headmaster Avalon had laid a great many curious magics over Avalon Academy, and the dormitories were one of them. There were many doors you could enter, and whichever you used, it carried you precisely to the room where you stayed. Physical contact with another person, or the owner's permission, was enough to let someone into the same room, and at roughly seven hundred square feet the place was spacious for living alone.
"I'm only saying this in case, but do not come looking for me. Ever."
Even if you couldn't enter someone else's room unless they wanted you to, you could still press the doorbell. If Kyle showed up at mine, a few punches would not be the end of it. So for my own sake I warned him off and went into my room.
"I figured as much. Fallen viscount or not, it's nothing but a few changes of clothes."
For furniture there was a desk, a large bed, a sofa, a dining table, a wardrobe, and a magical device that used cooling magic to hold food at temperature... which, functionally, was just a refrigerator. All of it was standard issue from the academy. Nothing had come from Leon's house. Pathetic. With no decent way to make money for the moment, filling in what he needed looked like a fairly distant future.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell.
"Fuck. I told you not to come looking."
How easy did I look, that he'd still think of ringing the bell after a warning like that? A few words clearly weren't going to be enough. I clenched my fist tight.
Clack.
I opened the door and raised my fist at the same time—and only then did my eyes meet Arian's startled face.
"Arian?"
"Mind if I come in?"
She had shown up wearing a black mask, fidgeting, looking uncomfortable just standing there. Loitering outside a man's room wasn't a good look, so I let her in for now. I waited until she sat on the sofa, then asked why she had come.
"I-I just wanted to say thank you. Thinking about it, I don't think I ever actually said it..."
There had clearly been plenty of chances. I nodded anyway. When I looked into Arian's emotional state, it was a mess—dizzy, burning, and confused. She kept doubting whether what she was doing was right. So did I. I hadn't thought I'd get this far with Arian in a single day. Is it because she's a girl? She's forward. For the record, it has nothing to do with the delinquent act. She isn't a true purebred thug to begin with, and the world itself is an eroge, so it makes enough sense.
"I don't really have anything worth offering yet. Water all right?"
"Water's fine, but if you don't mind, want to drink this with me?"
Arian said it while showing the canned beer she had hidden behind her hips. Beer would definitely mess with tomorrow, but for now I told her yes.