A Dog and a Cat Can Never Get Along. (6)
To be perfectly honest, when an unexpected third person joined the professor and me, my feelings were a little... complicated.
How should I put it — like not knowing what to say about a stranger suddenly crashing an appointment that was supposed to be otherwise.
That said, it wasn't as though I'd been desperately hoping for a private meeting between the two of us, so I suppose I just let it slide with a shrug.
After all, I wasn't looking forward to meeting the professor in the first place.
...
Wait. No, actually. Was I looking forward to it?
Hmm.
Honestly, I can't tell.
Whenever I talked with the professor, I did find it pleasant.
And why wouldn't I? For one thing, she was a whole bundle of spice that made even a monotonous daily life fairly entertaining.
Which meant she was also absolutely brimming with suspicious corners, but hey, what of it?
The person was interesting.
Besides, watching her meant my eyes never got bored thanks to her pointlessly outstanding looks, so all in all, a win was a win.
So yes — my conclusion was that, minus her personality defects and her cult-like devotion, she was quite a decent man.
The problem was that those defects loomed so enormous that I couldn't manage to think of her as decent at all.
She was simply far too unhinged for me to be seduced by her face alone.
And following that train of thought, I arrived at a conclusion.
The conclusion being that an unhinged person seduced by looks was standing right there in front of me.
Elia Claudius.
The Academy's swordsmanship professor and the sole daughter of House Claudius.
From what I'd heard, she was the heir expected to carry on her family line — and yet she'd declared she would never marry an ugly man, and stormed straight into the Academy as a professor.
Just hearing that, I'd thought she was quite the lunatic.
Apparently the rumors weren't groundless.
Holding the position of professor while carrying on like that, at an age several years older than mine — well, there you have it.
I watched her growling at me openly and sank into thought.
Truthfully, I wasn't sure whether to interpret that as a threat.
If I had to force a comparison... she was scrabbling at her master's side and... ah, yes. Something like a beagle.
It was exactly like watching those tiny puppies I'd only ever seen trembling nervously around the periphery of the social gatherings I occasionally attended.
Baring its teeth at a stranger approaching its master, yet somehow not remotely frightening — the resemblance was uncanny.
That innocent, beaming face doing its desperate best to look scary. It fit perfectly.
And so, I decided to tease her.
Her wariness of me was honestly hilarious, and the way she chattered on and on while laboring under her delusion was amusing, and she was nothing like that refined image the Academy had painted of her.
Mostly, I was curious what lay at the end of the road for a woman so hopelessly swayed by appearances.
That was how I came to provoke her.
Responding with feigned indifference to her constant growling while casually spitting out remarks designed to make her yelp Hng! in irritation.
My plan, at the time, was simple: have a little fun, get the professor to explain the things I was curious about, and then part ways.
But.
My change of heart — well, that, I hadn't anticipated.
Watching her pivot in response to my attitude, clinging to the professor with shameless abandon, began to grate on me in the strangest way.
Professor Claudius latching onto Professor Caritas, her behavior, the look in her eyes directed at me, even that smug little tone of hers — bit by bit, all of it started to irritate me.
Like she was warning me: hands off what's mine.
That attitude alone shouldn't have mattered. And yet, for no good reason, my stubbornness flared.
Weren't misunderstandings supposed to come with a limit?
What exactly was lacking in me that she thought I'd covet a professor like that — and why, of all things, did those misunderstandings in particular rub me so wrong?
As time passed, I found my brow furrowing without my permission.
Those tangled thoughts, mixed with the urge to needle Claudius, spilled into action before I knew it.
Displeasure fed stubbornness, and stubbornness fed action.
My hand moved on its own.
I picked up a napkin and brought it to his face. It was the very gesture I remembered making her nearly froth at the mouth before.
"Professor, you seem a bit more scatterbrained than usual today. You've got sauce at the corner of your mouth."
"...?"
"No! Why would you be the one to do that...!"
The reactions were wonderfully definitive.
The professor's eyes, wavering like crazy at my gesture — and Claudius's fist clenched tight in frustration — both pleased me immensely.
So this is what it feels like.
Fun.
"Professor, you seem a bit more scatterbrained than usual today. You've got sauce at the corner of your mouth."
"...?"
With those words, Bellatrix wiped the corner of my mouth with her napkin.
And that beaming smile she wore as she did it made her intent abundantly clear: she meant to set Elia's mood alight by any means necessary.
"No! Why would you be the one to do that...!"
And how effortlessly everything unfolded exactly as she intended.
I sat there for a moment, blankly stunned by Bellatrix's unexpected maneuver.
Elia's voice rang out beside me; Bellatrix's voice chimed in from across the table.
Granted, there were no other customers around, but surely there was no need to tussle this vigorously in the middle of a restaurant.
Ah.
Never mind anything else — my sanity was about to leave my body.
On top of that, everything I'd eaten so far was sitting heavy, and I felt like I might be sick. I couldn't even tell where I was putting my food or how I was swallowing it anymore.
Was that a spoon in my hand right now, or a fork? Or — ah, perhaps I was empty-handed.
In that case, was I eating curry? I heard Indian curry was delicious. The Ganges must be nice and cool this time of year. Then again, didn't people say the river was practically sewage? What could be filthier than that.
Ah. My life, maybe. That's what's filthier.
Yes.
My life truly does seem wretched and filthy.
When I finally clawed my way out of that spiral of idle thoughts, the question churning through my skull was why on earth they were doing this right in front of me.
I may have been dazed, but one conclusion was rock solid.
This is not okay.
I need to escape this hell.
And so, desperate to redirect the flow of the conversation, I opened my mouth.
"Lady Bellatrix, setting that aside — shouldn't we get back to our original purpose? I still owe you an explanation."
"No, I'd say that hardly matters anymore. Stop wasting your breath, Professor, and just eat your meal."
Bellatrix, however, told me to quit yapping and eat, and shut the conversation down.
Turning to Elia fared no better.
"Professor Elia, perhaps we should leave it there and start eating—"
"Go ahead and start without me, Professor. I'm busy at the moment."
Elia, too, graciously saw fit to tell me to stuff my face.
Oh, for — fine. I'll beg the murderer, then. Professor, please, I'm begging you.
[That's your karma. Handle it yourself.]
No.
Professor, how can you answer before I've even asked?
And just like that, the meal drew to a close without me having the faintest idea how it had gone.
When it was over, I looked across the table and noticed that not a single plate had been properly emptied.
What lingered in my memory afterward was the bitter smile that crept onto the head chef's face as he gazed at those plates.
I have no idea what misunderstanding he's laboring under, but it's not as though the food was bad...
Hm. Honestly, I can't say.
Since I never actually got to taste it, I can hardly make that claim.
In any case — I'm sorry, Chef.
That was the apology I kept offering up inside, over and over.
Still, as we left the dining room, I remember feeling sorry for the chef while also thinking it could have been worse.
The hellish meal was over, and Bellatrix had said she was only staying for the meal itself — so surely, I would be released from this torment.
There was even a time when I indulged in such happy fantasies.
"I think this one really suits you, Professor!"
"Hm, perhaps. It seems the young lady's eye is no better than a knot in the wood. The very thought of dressing you in such a thing is antiquated. Wouldn't this one suit you better than that, Professor?"
"Hmph, what a charmingly ducal little outfit. It looks like exactly the sort of thing a prickly, mean-spirited person would wear."
"Hm, indeed. It does exude a rather abundant elegance."
The two of them took turns pressing the outfits they'd each brought against me, chattering away all the while.
But.
The shopkeeper is watching from the back, and I wish one of them would realize what they're saying right now.
Elia and Bellatrix glared at each other in open competition, heaping scathing critiques on the outfits each had so deliberately chosen.
Ma'am — the shopkeeper is wiping her tears with a sleeve right now.
I opened my mouth to stop the poor woman's tears.
"Both of you, please calm down and—"
"I'd suggest you keep quiet and pick a garment, Professor."
"Then you choose which one is prettier, Professor. Which is it — the one I picked, or the one the young lady picked?"
The problem, of course, was that today I held no say whatsoever.
Frankly, tears were starting to well in my own eyes too.
And so, time flowed on.
And in due course, the blood feud between the two was decided in Bellatrix's favor, by judgment.
I suspect the deciding blow was the parting remark Bellatrix let slip as we walked along together.
"Hm, Professor. That café over there — wasn't that where the two of us talked, just the two of us? Why, that was when I learned your secret, too. What a fond memory."
As we strolled down the street, Bellatrix pointed to the café visible in the distance, deliberately selecting the most suggestive words she could find, a sly smile playing at her lips.
"Ha! I've been to a café with Professor Niger too, you know? And it was just the two of us talking, same as you!"
"I confess, being asked to meet so late at night was quite the surprise. I never imagined you'd want to watch the moon with me, Professor."
That's not.
The late-night summons was because you stationed your watchers on me, and that night meeting was hardly some romantic moonlit tryst, was it?
"Wh-what?! Young lady, don't you dare lie!"
"I did usher you into a café that night — the proposal felt a touch too passionate, you see. But still... it would have been lovely even if we'd met at night."
Ah, please, stop phrasing it like that.
That was nothing but a grim little exchange where you told me to come find you in person if I wanted you to send more watchers.
Tears were already welling up in Elia's eyes, glassy and shimmering — and even seeing that, did she really have to keep spouting misunderstanding bait with such dedication?
"Th-that's a lie...!"
"Hm, whether it's a lie or not is for the young lady to decide. Today was pleasant. Let's do this again — all three of us."
And with those parting words, Bellatrix strode away with effortless poise. When she glanced back at us one last time, a deep smile was etched across her face.
The smile itself was a thing of beauty. Its meaning, however, could not have been more vicious.
I stood there dumbstruck at the sight of her retreating back, then scrambled to explain myself in a frantic effort to smooth out Elia's trembling expression.
A twenty-eight-year-old, teary-eyed from being verbally pummeled by a twenty-year-old.
It was a truly pitiful — and yet undeniably adorable — sight.
All the same, a vague thought had begun to nag at me: there was something far more important than this date. Something I seemed to have forgotten.
A feeling that I was leaving behind something crucially, desperately important.
A premonition whispered in my ear that if I didn't remember it soon, I would surely regret it —
but perhaps because today's spectacle had left my head spinning, it simply wouldn't surface.
Hm.
No idea.
It'll work itself out, somehow. Probably.