“Because I’m your fiancé.”
“…….”
“Isn’t that reason enough to point it out?”
“Hey, that’s…… ah.”
Ruite hadn’t even thought of a proper comeback, but he blurted out a start anyway.
However, even that was cut short when Chester suddenly gave him a light flick on the forehead.
“Professor Harold is looking for you, latecomer.”
Chester turned around first.
Ruite idly rubbed his forehead—which didn’t even really hurt—and stared blankly at Chester’s broad back.
It wasn’t as if any family members were inside the academy anyway; he wondered why Chester was making such a fuss over a simple confession.
And ‘fiancé’?
He never expected that word to come out of Chester’s mouth.
Yet, funnily enough, that excessive interference continued to linger in his mind.
“Ruite, are you listening to me?”
“Yes? Ah…… sorry. I wasn’t listening.”
“Right, you certainly are honest. Late on the first day of the semester, and not even listening to your professor.”
At some point, Ruite had started letting Harold’s words go in one ear and out the other.
“I’m sorry.”
But since it was literally the first day, Harold seemed inclined to let it slide and didn’t scold him too harshly.
As Ruite slowly stood up to leave for class, he suddenly spotted a familiar object on Harold’s desk.
“Professor, are we changing mates again?”
It was the wooden box and sticks used for switching mates.
“I’m planning to change them soon. Since the semester has started.”
As he said this, Harold gave a playful warning not to go around telling the other kids.
Ruite started to say that everyone was so used to the constant mate-swapping that telling them early wouldn’t even cause a stir, but he held his tongue.
“Then, I’ll head out.”
“Right. Make sure to pay attention in lecture.”
Ruite let out a long sigh as he left the professor’s office.
To think he’d experience this much since morning—it felt like his luck was just rotten today.
Lively voices echoed through the hallway.
Everyone was busy sharing every little detail of what they did over the break with their friends.
Ruite exhaled a weary sigh and headed toward his classroom.
The atmosphere in Class 3 was no different.
Students were laughing and chatting excitedly.
Ruite sat down after exchanging warm greetings with Colin and Lona.
Chester was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m telling you, it was seriously delicious!”
“So, what was the name of this ‘delicious’ food?”
“Ah, seriously! Why can’t I remember the name?”
Magnus, standing by a desk, was engaged in a heated debate with another friend.
“Ah! I’ll draw a picture of what it looked like! A pen……”
Magnus seemed so desperate to describe the food he’d eaten over the break that he brought over a sheet of paper.
Searching for something to draw with, he grabbed a pen lying on Chester’s desk.
“Look. It’s shaped like this…… oh.”
Just as Magnus drew a plate shape on the paper, a dark shadow approached from behind and snatched the pen right out of his hand.
“Don’t use other people’s pens without permission.”
“Ah, sorry.”
Chester rebuked Magnus with a stern face.
Magnus wasn’t the only one startled by the intensity; Ruite, watching from the side, felt the same way.
No matter how Chester’s personality was, to get that serious over a classmate using a pen for a second seemed excessive.
“Hmm, but Chester. I’m sorry for using it without asking, but you didn’t have to get that intense……”
Magnus muttered his complaint timidly.
“You can use anything else you want. Just not this.”
“Ah! Is it something you really treasure?”
“Yes.”
Magnus seemed to accept that and apologized again.
Ruite’s gaze naturally drifted to the pen Chester had snatched back.
“…….”
The “something he really treasured” was a familiar sight to Ruite’s eyes as well.
It was the very pen Ruite had given him as a birthday present.
As Ruite almost made eye contact with Chester, he reflexively whipped his head away.
“What’s with you? Did the professor scold you a lot?”
“No, it wasn’t that……”
Ruite trailed off. Chester was still gripping that pen in his hand.
“I just feel like this isn’t right.”
“What does that mean?”
Chester asked immediately, but Ruite gave no answer.
Yes, this really wasn’t right.
He realized this fully when he had the same dream for three consecutive days—the scene where Chester told him, “I’m your fiancé.”
In truth, he had been feeling strange for a while.
To be precise, it had started in the carriage on the way back to the academy.
To Ruite, Chester was the protagonist who would eventually kill him, the villain; he was the man who held Ruite’s life in his hands.
If he stripped away those original story settings and thought purely, Chester was just a somewhat rude and prickly classmate.
He had no particular ill will, nor any special liking.
That was why it didn’t matter how prickly Chester acted.
He just had to endure until graduation without upsetting him.
But Chester had been acting strangely for a while.
Usually, Ruite could have brushed off such actions as if they were nothing, but he couldn’t this time.
Unlike before, Chester’s actions and words stayed in his heart for quite a long time.
It felt like in the past, he would walk his path without a glance at the stones on the street, but lately, he found himself turning back to look at a stone rolling on the ground.
It wasn’t a grand change, but if it was interfering with his daily life, he had to address it at least once.
“Rui, haven’t you been sleeping well lately?”
As Ruite let out what must have been his tenth yawn of the day, Colin asked in a worried tone.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a hard time sleeping lately.”
He had figured out why Chester had been acting weird.
All his questions were answered by Benger’s words on the night of the birthday banquet.
Because of the pressure from his father, the Duke, Chester had no choice but to act that way.
Of course, Ruite already knew the future.
Even if Chester followed his father’s words faithfully now, by the time graduation approached, he would come to his senses, realize this marriage was wrong, and demand a breakup.
But that was then, and now, Ruite just felt it was unfair that he was being influenced by Chester’s behavior.
Since the distance between him and Chester wasn’t what it used to be, he felt the need to return to square one.
Whatever happened due to his father’s coercion was Chester’s business; Ruite didn’t want to get deeply involved with someone he was destined to break up with later.
As he made his decision, it seemed even the heavens were helping him.
“Let’s come up one by one and draw to change mates.”
Harold suggested changing seats shortly after the new semester began.
Even if being paired twice in a row was possible, the probability of being paired three times was extremely low.
That prediction proved correct, and Ruite and Chester were separated.
And at opposite ends of the room, no less.
“Ruite, this is our first time being mates, isn’t it? Please take care of me.”
Ruite stared blankly at Lona, who was offering a fresh greeting.
“W-what? Why are you staring so intensely? It’s a bit much.”
“Huh? Just because. I feel like peace has finally found its way back to my heart?”
“You really say some weird things sometimes.”
Lona shook her head as Ruite beamed.
With their seats far apart, their points of contact vanished to a surprising degree.
At least inside the classroom, Chester wasn’t the type to wander around chatting with everyone, and the same went for Ruite.
However, that didn’t mean it applied to the practical training sessions.
“Alright, pick a partner you’re comfortable with and start with sparring drills. I’ll be walking around watching, so don’t even think about slacking off.”
As soon as Professor Ned finished speaking, the students began scurrying to find partners.
Ruite was looking for a suitable friend to pair with when he felt a presence approaching from the side.
“Ruite.”
“Oh…… it’s Chester.”
Even to his own ears, his voice sounded incredibly awkward.
“If you don’t have anyone, do it with me.”
“I do…… have someone!”
“…….”
“Oh, Magnus. What took you so long?”
Ruite grabbed Magnus, who happened to be trying to pass by.
“Huh? What’s with the sudden grab?”
“W-we promised to spar together. Let’s head over there quickly.”
“We made a promise like that? But I was going to with Blair……”
However, Magnus’s words were ignored entirely.
This was because Ruite dragged him toward an empty space with all his might.
Chester couldn’t take his eyes off Ruite’s retreating back.
Ultimately left standing alone, he had no choice but to spar with another classmate.
After the training ended, Chester tried to approach Ruite while everyone was cleaning up.
But Ruite had vanished again.
He had just been standing there a moment ago.
Chester spotted Ruite again as they were leaving the training hall to return to the classroom.
Ruite was walking ahead, joining in the chatter of the classmates beside him.
Occasionally, the sight of him laughing entered Chester’s field of vision.
The question of why he wasn’t the one standing there flickered in his mind.
“No, so earlier I……”
At that moment, a classmate walking behind didn’t see that Chester had stopped and accidentally bumped into his back.
“Ah, Chester. Sorry……”
The classmate tried to offer an apology with a smile, but as soon as he saw Chester’s face, his expression was instantly filled with distress.
“I-I’m really sorry! I didn’t know you were standing right there!”
As if terrified, the classmate shouted and quickly ran up the stairs with his friend.
“Did you see Chester’s face just now? It was terrifying,” he muttered.
