Is This a Dream? (2)
Leaving Karl's contemptuous stare behind me, the day began.
And once again, I could not keep my wits about me.
"Um, Airen?"
"What?"
"This makes it hard to move."
"I'm fine with it, so it's fine."
"What kind of logic is that?"
Because every break period, Airen would wrap her arms around me from behind.
The soft press of her chest aside, it was simply inconvenient to move. So inconvenient, in fact, that even my heart was screaming about how cramped it felt.
I spent the day thumping my fist against the region of my heart that kept acting up.
And when I returned to the manor—
"Frey! I found a fascinating game in a book!"
The Young Lady's eyes sparkled as she held out a volume. The title was Fun Games for Friendship.
"Want to try one of the games in here together?"
"Haha, Young Lady. If that is what you wish, I will do anything with you."
"Then this one!"
She produced a long stick. No—looking closer, it was a stick-shaped cookie.
The Young Lady placed one end of the cookie stick in my mouth, then took the other end between her own lips.
"?!"
"All right. Whoever pulls their mouth away first loses."
Nibble by nibble she ate the cookie, drawing her face ever closer! Her crimson eyes were dazzling, yet I did not dare close mine!
Crunch!
"Ah…"
"I lose!"
My heart felt ready to burst, so I chomped the cookie clean through!
"Congratulations, Young Lady! I have an assignment tonight, so I must be going!"
And then—whoosh! I fled from her presence. That night my chest pounded so hard I could not sleep.
The next day Airen sat on my lap, and the Young Lady nearly detonated my heart with a cute little game called finger wrestling.
The day after that, Airen dragged me somewhere deserted. Then, out of nowhere, she went meow! and lifted her hands in the most adorable pose.
"How is it, meow?"
"It would have been better if you were an actual cat."
"Strange. I was sure it would work."
"Who told you that?"
"A trustworthy book."
Back at the manor, the Young Lady claimed her stomach hurt and asked me to rub it.
"Apparently in a country to the east, there's a custom that rubbing the stomach makes it better."
"Rather than that, medicine would—"
"Hurry!"
Muttering that Frey's hands were healing hands, I stroked the Young Lady's stomach—and the soft texture of her skin seemed to awaken every sensory cell that had been dormant in my palm.
"A-are you feeling better now?"
"I think I'll know if you rub a little more."
"F-Frey's hands are healing hands."
For some reason, the more I stroked, the more her clothes seemed to come undone, so I administered medicine and made a swift escape.
When days of this kept repeating, I finally had to devise a real countermeasure. I still had no idea why the two of them were acting this way, but at this rate my sanity would not hold.
"So I'm asking again. What if I get so happy that all my energy drains away?"
"Then drain away and die."
Karl Laupen cut me off without mercy. Cold-blooded bastard.
"Come on, don't be like that. Karl, don't you know anything about how to deal with the opposite sex?"
"If I did, would I be alone? Look at the Academy these days."
"What's wrong with the Academy these days?"
"Because of you lot—no, because of Young Master Katram and Her Highness the Princess, the number of couples has skyrocketed!"
"What?"
I had no idea. Had all my attention been so monopolized by Airen lately?
"First of all, Aaron and Young Lady Rotnil's relationship is already public knowledge."
"Wait, those two are actually dating?"
After the insane question he'd shouted while chasing me last time, I'd wondered—but it was real.
"You didn't know? The son of a Viscount and the daughter of a Margrave—it caused quite a stir. Rumor has it Margrave Rotnil even sent an assassin after Aaron… but seeing as he's still alive, it must have worked out."
I'd always known the Margrave as a cold-blooded man who only used his children. Was he actually a doting father? Or had he simply sent an assassin because he'd lost a useful tool?
"They're the ones who started the romance boom in the Academy's magic division, but after that, the lovey-dovey displays between Young Master Katram and Her Highness—"
"Hold on. Airen just clings to me. How is that lovey-dovey?"
"Listen. From the outside, it looks like nothing but lovey-dovey cooing. Anyway, other students who saw it had pink cherry blossoms blooming in their hearts. One by one they started pairing off, Young Master Katram."
Karl's expression as he recounted the students' romantic affairs looked somehow hollow.
"More than half have paired up. The ones left are bookworms like me who only study, and—"
"I absolutely cannot agree that you're a bookworm."
Let me tally Karl's track record so far.
Stole a Potion of Truth from somewhere and handed it to me.
Malfunctioned hundreds of golems in the name of a quasi-personality experiment and turned the Academy into a disaster zone.
While I was fleeing from Airen, ran after me screaming about whether I'd chosen the Duke's daughter or the Princess.
And this guy called himself a bookworm?
"Dwelling on trivial details like that is how you lose."
"You need to realize you're a total disaster."
"Anyway, the point is that people who aren't couples in the magic division are now a minority. All because of Young Master Katram, who switched so fast."
"Wait—switched? Who? Me?"
"Didn't you choose Her Highness over Lady Katram? That's why you're so lovey-dovey. As expected, chasing power is human nature…"
I punched Karl in the mouth first and shut him up.
"Don't talk crazy!"
"Guh!"
Karl coughed up blood, then looked up at me with dazed eyes.
"So it's not true?"
"Doesn't that even hurt?"
"My heart belongs solely to Lady Katram! You think I'd get flustered just because Airen gloms onto me?"
I was happy because the Young Lady was doing those things for me. Of course it could never go further—but how magnificent was a Young Lady who cared enough about a mere attendant to do so?
But Karl had a talent for pouring cold water with his mouth.
"Your face looked like it had sworn brotherhood with an apple."
"You're imagining things."
"Even a pomegranate wouldn't have been that red."
"Your eyes are broken."
"This is the survey result from thirty-five out of fifty magic-division classmates I polled…"
I finally cracked Karl over the head and knocked him out cold.
"Hah… hah. You lunatic."
I couldn't tell whether this guy was a noble or a parasite who scattered tabloids on the roadside. Why the hell would he go around conducting a survey like that?
"Haaaah. Damn it."
I shredded the survey sheets without even looking at them. Meanwhile my thoughts grew more tangled.
The Young Lady's constant strange games were headache enough, but Airen's skinship was becoming far too excessive.
Because my damned heart was reacting far too sensitively to Airen for some reason.
It was too strange. In seventeen years of life, I had never so much as glanced at any woman other than the Young Lady. So why did my heart race like this for Airen?
Because she had given me too much? That didn't hold—there had been times my heart raced before I'd received anything from her.
Because she was too beautiful? Yes. Not as much as the Young Lady, but… even thinking that stabbed my conscience.
Her beauty, equal to the Young Lady's, was enough to leave any man smitten and reeling. But was I really reacting to Airen purely because of her looks?
My aesthetic sense is objective. As steward of the Katram Ducal House, I had to properly judge the beauty of every item decorating the manor.
Seen through those eyes, the world held many beautiful women. After my heart started racing for Airen, I had even spent every day following with my eyes the exceptionally beautiful students who passed through the Academy.
But none of them moved my heart. Students whose looks could bewitch the kings of most nations failed to raise so much as a tiny ripple in me.
The reason I alone reacted so specially to Airen.
To resolve the current crisis, finding that fundamental reason was the answer, wasn't it?
"Looks like I need to find a couple expert."
"That would be me, Karl Laupen—!"
I knocked out the Karl who had risen like a ghoul once more, and left the empty classroom.
It was lunchtime. Students were freely roaming about. Might as well use the one solid piece of information Karl had given me.
The first couple I sought out was Aaron and Elena. I wanted to consult them about my problem from a couple's perspective.
From my conversation with Irina last time, I had learned that everyone except me leaked mana constantly. So even in a vast Academy, finding people was easy.
I found Aaron and Elena without any trouble. And then I hesitated—was asking them for advice really the right thing to do?
Because I had just watched the two of them try to enter the library together and bounce right back out. Apparently they hadn't known simultaneous entry for men and women was forbidden.
"Aaagh. Ellie, are you okay?"
"Y-yeah. You, Ron?"
Ellie? Ron? Pet names already? It hadn't even been a month since Academy enrollment, and the two of them had been dating for less than two weeks at most—and they were already putting on a display this eye-searing? How had I failed to notice these two until now?
"I wanted to have a library date…"
"Ellie. How about a café date instead?"
"If Ron likes it, I like it too!"
"Ahem."
When I cleared my throat quietly, both of them whipped their heads around. Spotting me, they hastily released the hands they had been holding tightly and scrambled about in a panic.
"Y-Young Master Katram? What brings you here?"
"W-what a coincidence! We just happened to run into each other here too!"
Situation assessed in an instant. The hands they'd dropped the moment they saw me, and the utterly nonsensical lie that they'd met by chance.
These two. They were trying to keep their relationship secret. Though for a secret, the rumors already seemed to have spread far and wide.
I had come seeking advice from the couple, not from each of them individually, so I stated it plainly.
"Everyone in the magic division knows you two are dating."
"What?"
"Whaaat?!"
The two of them froze solid under the shock and did not move for some time.
Maybe I should just drop the counseling idea with this couple…