Chapter 21

Chapter 21

For the most part, the academy doesn’t have any days off. We do have some long breaks, and we have national holidays such as National Foundation Day and the school’s Founding Anniversary off, but similar to Japan we still have classes on Saturdays and Sundays.1

But today just so happens to be one of those rare holidays: our school’s Founding Anniversary.

So today, to utilize one of our hard to come by days off, Ashley and I are out walking around town together. It feels great to not have to wear my uniform for once, and it’s nice to see Ashley wearing casual clothes as well. And just now, Ashley had stopped in front of an accessories shop.

“It’s next week isn’t it? The Rehearsal Ball,” he asks without looking at me, staring in the store window.

“Seems to be……”

I really wish it wasn’t though… Next week is way too soon! I haven’t done anything to prepare for it yet!

At this point, we’ve encountered all of the Capture Targets at least once, and the Rehearsal Ball, slated to be the first big event to occur that features every capturable character, is right around the corner.

Ashley also had his first encounter scene, but thankfully it seems to have passed by without much incident. Ashley, like in the game, had been gazing at the flowers in the garden when Leila happened upon him. According to Ashley, Leila had walked up to him while he was picking flowers to press, but Ashley didn’t even give ‘her’ a chance to bother him, he just promptly sent ‘her’ away.

When he had said that, I was thankful to hear that nothing big had happened, but I was also a bit surprised, thinking that pressing flowers was a bit girly for a hobby. However, a few days later Ashley had given the pressed flowers to me, saying simply that I had mentioned wanting a bookmark.

I felt kind of bad for having misunderstood him, so I bought him a new fountain pen using the allowance that I had been saving and gave it to him as a present. But then it was his turn to misunderstand. “What did you do now?” he had asked me, rudely insinuating that I had gotten into some sort of trouble again.

“Every student from every grade level will be expected to participate,” Ashley continues, breaking me out of my mental reverie.

“Yeah.”

“I heard that we’re supposed to attend with a partner of the opposite sex.”

“I did too.”

“And this time, unlike the magic skills test, partners will not be restricted by grade level.”

Saying that, Ashley walks into the accessories store, so I go in too, following behind him. The shop has a refreshing atmosphere and is brimming with sparkly gems and other pretty, girly accessories.

Ashley goes over to a display full of yellow glass hair ornaments. He picks one up, and stares intently at it.

“Have you found a partner yet?” He asks, not looking up.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

“Neither have I.”

Ashley calls out to a middle-aged woman, probably the shop owner, and gives her some money to purchase the hair accessory.

“May I have the honor of escorting you to the ball?”

“If you’re fine with me.”

Walking over to me, Ashley gently fastens the ornament into my hair. He steps back and examines how it looks, and then smiles, looking satisfied.

“But I can’t accept this.”

“Why?”

“It’s something you bought with your hard-earned wages… I couldn’t possibly accept it.”

“Even though I bought it especially for you? Isn’t that being being rather discourteous to me?”

“But…..”

“It’s to thank you for the pen.”

I’m about to remove the accessory, but Ashley grabs my hand to stop me. Well if you say it that way… then I’ll happily accept it.

“As expected. You know my tastes perfectly.”

I should make sure I wear this to the Rehearsal Ball.

I’m sure Ashley must have given it to me with that in mind as well.

“It’s because I’m only ever looking at you.”

“That’s quite the shocking line, Ashley… By the way, where did you want to go today?”

“Hm?”

“Huh?”

The whole reason we even came into town today is because Ashley invited me.

I had thought that he had somewhere he’d wanted me to go with him, but this whole time we’ve just been meandering through the market, window shopping and visiting random stores on a whim. We’ve looked at shoes, went in a book store, and now we’re here looking at accessories…

Plus, just when I was starting to think that Ashley had chosen these particular stores because he was looking for something, I realized that all of the shoes he was looking at were for women. And the same for the books as well. Ashley only ever reads super dry (Ojousama’s meager understanding only makes them seem that way) essays and poetry and whatnot, but he spent the whole time looking in the novel section of the shop, looking at books that I would have liked to read. The accessories store wasn’t any different either.

“I didn’t come out today with a particular destination in mind.”

“Really?”

“If I had to give a reason for this excursion….. it was so that we could go out somewhere and spend time together, just the two of us?”

Oh my…..

“So, did you have something that you wanted me to buy for you?”

“No. That’s not it. Please try a bit harder to understand what I might mean by that.”

We leave the accessories store together, but once we are outside again Ashley raises his head back, looking at the sky. Curious, I also follow suit and look up.

The sky is overcast, and the clouds seem to be darkening by the minute.

“It looks like it’s going to rain.”

“It does.”

“I was just about to look for excuses…. but forgetting to bring an umbrella works.”

“Look for excuses?”

Your master is having some trouble understanding what you mean today.

“Even if we stay out longer than we have permission for while sheltering from the rain, the school won’t be able to blame us for it. There’s nothing we can do about a sudden onslaught of bad weather.”

On national holidays, if you want to leave the dorm, you need to receive permission from the dorm mother in the form of a written permission slip. Because only the precious sons and daughters of good families are typically allowed to attend our academy, the school must do their up most in guaranteeing the safety of each student.

That’s why they require that you specify the time that you will return to school and strictly enforce that time as your curfew. Failure to abide will result in various punishments such as being forced to clean or perform other forms of menial tasks for a week. That might not seem like much, but such chores seem to be considered a disgrace in the minds of nobles and so the punishment serves as a good deterrent for would be rule breakers. That’s not the case for me, of course, but I’d rather not clean or run errands if I don’t have to. I think Ashley probably feels the same way.

“True. And if we went back now but got soaked through during the downpour, they’d still end up getting angry and lecturing us anyway I’m sure.”

Making sure that we upper class kids don’t get sick is also something our school must take responsibility for.

“Exactly.”

Wait…. Looking for excuses…. Forgetting… Did he mean that he was looking for reasons to push back the time when we would be returning to the dorms?

I mean, it was rather uncharacteristic of Ashley to have forgotten an umbrella… He’s usually so attentive to the weather and is always perfectly prepared for anything. But if he was trying to delay our return…. then I guess I can understand what happened.

“You don’t want to go back to the dorms?”

“I don’t.”

An immediate response.

“Did something happen? Is there something that you don’t like about them? Did somebody do something to you?”

“It’s not that I dislike the dorms… Even if it’s just for a little while longer, is it wrong for me to just want to spend more time with you, Ojousama?”

Suddenly, Ashley’s face is right in front of mine. He’s so close that if either one of us were to move, our lips might end up brushing against each other’s. Agh, I’m overreacting because of all that ridiculous stuff Leila was saying the other day… And now Ashley is staring down at me, scanning my face intently.

My face feels so hot… I’m sure it must be going red.

“Ojousama? Is something wrong?”

“What makes you think that something’s wrong?”

I don’t believe that Ashley is interested in me. It’s not that there isn’t any foundation for it, but I truly cannot imagine it.

Maybe it’s because I’ve played the game… I already saw that the spot next to Ashley belongs to the ethereally lovely heroine. I saw him whispering words of love to her… And I saw him rejoicing at Cecile’s death.

I already understand that there is no chance for him and Leila to be together in our current world, but I still believe that he’s meant to be with a pretty and charming girl like the Leila from the game.

Honestly, Leila might not have been wrong when he was saying that I am denying any possibility that Ashley might have feelings for me.

And it’s partly because I don’t want to think about what I might do… about the possibility that I might accept his feelings.

“You’re face has gone red all the way to your ears, you know?”

Looking surprised, but somehow kind of happy, Ashley brings his hand up to the side of my face, his fingers lightly brushing over my ear. His fingertips feel pleasantly cool to the touch on my burning skin. My eyes flutter closed at how good it feels and I start to calm down.

–But not all the way.

What Leila was saying might actually have some truth to it.

It’s not like I hate Ashley or anything, and I don’t think there are many men out there who are as ideal as he is…. But… Ashley is almost too ideal. He’s too perfect. That’s why I always find myself clinging onto him I think. It’s not necessarily because I like him, but more like “idolize” him.

And it’s because he’s my amazing servant who is always completely devoted to me… My servant with whom I can’t cross the line with… Who can’t be anything more than my servant… And whom I admire and idolize so much…. that I have this tiny bit of hope. A tiny glimmer of expectation…

I just can’t help it! Not when Ashley says such impossibly sweet words to me, just to make me happy. And that’s just it. He’s always thinking of my happiness. Always doing whatever he can to bring me joy.

Have I been purposely pretending not to notice that this entire time?　Maybe. And sometimes, there would be a moment when I could feel a crack forming in my feigned ignorance. Ashley’s words and behavior have been hinting at it so much these days that there were times when I couldn’t stop myself from expecting something, hoping for something more… But in the next moment, the part of me that had remained collected even through my excitement realized that I was not the best fit for Ashley, so I pretended that I didn’t know anything. I convinced myself of it.

Along with my racing thoughts, I can feel a feverish flush spreading over me once again.

“I’m fine. Totally fine. All good,” I say, though I say it so quietly that I’m not entirely sure whether I was trying to convince Ashley or myself.

“Are you sure? Let’s head into that shop over there next then. I’ve heard there’s a place inside where they serve tea as well.”

The store that Ashley is pointing to is a flower shop. It’s pretty rare for such a place to have a rest area inside, but that does seem like a rather nice place to take a break.

As we walk inside, I take a peek up at Ashley’s face.

His features are androgynous but symmetrical and beautiful. His expression and demeanor is cold, yet dignified.

“But we live in…. different worlds….”

My kind, amazing, perfect servant.

And his incompetent master who’s struggling just with trying to protect her family’s good name. Someone who could be killed off at literally any moment.

“…….”

I thought I had said those words too quietly for Ashley to hear, but as I am looking up at his face, I almost get the feeling that his eyes tremble slightly.

This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org

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“Well well well. You’ve really done it now, haven’t you, Miss Morton?”

“There’s no point in using this d*mned rope on me anymore, right?” Leila cries from the ground where he’s been securely tied up once again.

“Let me go–!” He screams rolling around on the floor and throwing a tantrum like a little kid, but Senpai and I just stand there and coldly watch him struggle.

This idiotic she-man has squandered every single last one of our chances, so we’ve lost all sympathy for him.

First, there was a super easy opportunity to raise Alec’s and Gray-Senpai’s favorability. All he had to do was bring some documents over to the student council’s office. While there, if he had just apologized for the scene he had made in front of the class assignment board and left them with some handmade sweets, everything would have been back on track! But no. According to Gray-Senpai, Leila had failed to follow his lead completely and furthermore had a random fit of handsome-envy where he spewed such insults and foul language that would put R-rated movies to shame. Picture the Wolf of Wall Street,2 but more colorful. And Alec, at whom the words were primarily aimed, proclaimed at the end that, “I’ve lost all expectations for women. I just can’t have faith in them anymore.” Which made him only get that much more close and friendly with Gray-Senpai. Unnecessarily close.

And then there was magic class.

It was one of the days where Class A and Class B were having a combined lecture, so I was able to see the travesty with my own eyes this time. We were going back to the basics of the basics that we learned during our first year. Creating fire, water, and wind, making small objects float, etc. It was all as easy as that, except that as second years they expect us to learn to have a more precise control over our magic. So to practice our control, our task was to use magic to hold a pen and write an essay. The theme could have been about anything.

And that idiot just took that as a free pass to wreak havoc. This was his chance to raise Lufrey’s and Rudolph’s favorability levels. He only had to show them his serious and diligent side. That’s it!

But did he do that? No. He had to be stupid. He wrote “Supreme-Grade Male Virgin” of all things on two pieces of paper and then magically stuck his masterpieces onto the backs of the supervising teacher for this exercise, Rudolph McLachlan, and the son of a prominent Count, Lufrey Wood. The idea was so unbelievably childish that I was actually amazed.

The two of them didn’t realize until class had already ended, and that was only because another boy in our class had nervously gathered up the courage to go and tell them. They had both been completely humiliated and Leila was duly punished for it. When he had come back from staff room his head had quite the lump on it. A reasonable end to his antics if you ask me.

Finally, there was his chance to raise Ashley’s favorability, but that ended disgracefully fast. Ashley had been reading one of those dry philosophy books that he likes so much in the library again when Leila came upon him. “Look at you, pretending you’re so smart. So you like showing off how pigheaded you are with your books now, do ya?” he said, glaring daggers at Ashley. I had been peeking through a gap between the books on one of the shelves, observing their interaction, so I could clearly see the revulsion on Ashley’s face that he had given in reply instead of bothering to speak.

“Agh! What is wrong with you two!?”

“Wait, why am I being lumped into this!?” Gray-Senpai yells back in surprise.

“Senpai, I know you were secretly happy when Leila destroyed any chances of taking Alec’s route. There’s no use trying to hide it. Wan for allllu, allu for wan!3 Everyone needs to do their best for this group, and the group in turn will do their best to help each of us.”

“Your pronunciation sucks.”

“You can’t just think about saving yourself! Anyone who tries to save their own skin is going to be sacrificed as our scapegoat when the worst comes to pass!”

“But weren’t you happy when Ashley’s route was ruined as well!?”

….Okay, maybe…. But I will not be handing my servant over to that shameful excuse for a heroine.

“Oh, whatever! But if we don’t raise at least somebody’s favorability before tomorrow, then the hidden character is going to end up appearing! 　Tomorrow evening is already the Rehearsal Ball!”

And school is already over for today…

“We’re done for…..”

“Yup. It’s all over.”

Looking like a hairless caterpillar squirming about on the ground, Leila interjects his stupid voice into our pity party.

“Then let’s just aim for the normal ending with the hidden character,” he suggests lazily.

“Ugh, this Otome Game noob doesn’t have a clue!”

Depending on how you look at it, the so-called normal ending could be considered another type of bad ending. And why is that? Because there is no demand for a regular conclusion. There’s a certain type of excitement that comes about from a bad ending. And the happy ending is meant to be satisfying for the players. But a truly normal ending? That’s just boring. There’s no charm. No sexiness. No agony or crushed feelings. You can’t even be happy with it.

“Even in the normal ending there will still be at least a few victims!!”

“I thought no one was supposed die in the normal endings?” Leila retorts, snorting out a laugh.

“And this is why I said you were a noob.”

“Quit it with the high and mighty act and just explain what you mean already–!”

“As a modern yandere Otome Game….. ‘Bloody Mind’ is nothing like a typical Otome Game. Just getting a normal ending means that the heroine might end up dying.”

Since in the bad ending, the heroine doesn’t usually die.

“Rudolph’s bad ending goes something like this:

‘Huh? I…. Did Sensei kill me……?’

It begins with the heroine having no idea what’s going on.

‘Where am I? Heaven?’

She’s not in her right mind so she can’t make sense of her situation, and then she sees Rudolph coming towards her from within the darkness.

‘Sensei? Is this place Heaven?’ she asks Rudolph’s shadowy figure.

He answers in the affirmative and then tells her that she’ll never be able to leave this place again.

But of course, they aren’t in Heaven. She’s actually trapped in Rudolph’s room where she’ll be confined forever.

It was quite the tantalizing ending, actually.”

“Quit dragging it out. What’s your point?”

“My point is that the heroine survives the bad ending. It’s in the normal ending where she ends up dying.”

Even though I said survives, in truth I think if this Leila, as his current, male self, had to go through this ending, it would be a fate worse than death. It would probably be a living hell for him every single day.

“And I have no clue what happens when the hidden character comes into the equation. You might end up being killed in the normal ending for him as well. Plus, depending on which Capture Target’s route you take, even if you get the normal ending, you could end up involving Gray-Senpai and I in your demise and so we’ll end up dying too.”

“What a sh*tty game!”

You can’t say that. There are tons of girls who absolutely love this stuff. And you especially shouldn’t say such things when one of those girls is standing right in front of you, Leila.

“So, what should we do? It’s tomorrow, you know? Is there anyone that we still have a chance to raise your favorability levels with?”

“Isn’t it too late for that now? More importantly, what sorta dress you gonna wear tomorrow? Is it revealing? My personal recommendation is that you wear one with a super low cut.”

Ugh, this bimbo….!!

“I think skin-tight is the way to go. Better to show off her curves.”

“Ugh, Senpai, even you….? Well, Senpai…. I suppose I wouldn’t mind wearing that sort of dress? But in return, would you listen to one request from me as well? Please attend the ball in just a loincloth.”

“Someone‘s touchy.”

Well, duh! Of course I am!

We are currently in the worst possible situation right now.

But Senpai thinks that now is a good time to humor Leila and spew out some more sexual harassment at me? I refuse to take pity on him when he’s being like this.

“It’s natural to be feeling impatient right now. I get it. But I’ll make sure to do the things that I’m capable of doing when the time comes. And I said it before, right? For as long as I’m still breathing, I’ll protect you. And you have your servant doing the same as well. I’m sure there will be a way for us to get through this somehow.”

“What’s with this surprise attack!? Suddenly acting so cool…..”

Saying such cool lines with that beautiful face… Anyone’s heart would flutter.

“Well, I suppose I’ll also make sure to protect you as well then…. But I’ll have to decline your request to wear that sort of dress. I’ll still wear it if you’ll wear a loincloth though.”

“I’ll end up losing a lot more than I’ll gain if I do that.”

Dignity, maybe. Popularity, probably.  And you most likely will lose any chance of finding a girlfriend while attending this school….

“Hey, wait! Not just ‘you’…. It should be ‘I’ll protect you guys!’ Protect me too, Senpai!”