CH 22

Next semester, everyone will be given the option to choose another club if they wished. Then, the club application that Cory submitted would lose its power. That meant that I would be unable to tie Cory down to our club. Cory had said that he liked it here, but he could have just said it to make me feel good.

If our ranking rose, we would have new members and our club would stay alive, but thinking about Cory moving to another club made me sad.

Cory had first said that he liked large clubs with lots of people where he wouldn’t have to work. But Cory had joined our club and had done all kinds of labor.

‘Thinking about it, Cory had looked really annoyed by all the work I had him do for the club.’

And to add on top of everything, the higher we rose in rank, the more work we had to do from now on. We would become a lot busier next semester. It was obvious that if he was given the option to choose clubs again, he would move to another one.

Cory had a strange expression on his face at my question. I scrunched my face, disliking the thought of him leaving.

“…..you’re not leaving, right?”

I stared at the floor as I asked. In my line of sight I could see mine and Cory’s feet.

Cory’s foot moved a step closer to where I was. I didn’t have to see to know that Cory was right in front of me.

I kept staring at the floor for a while until I saw two hands enter my vision. Those hands slowly came closer to my face, then grabbed at my cheeks. The two hands made me look straight. Cory’s hands were cold, but as soon as his hands touched my face, I could feel a sort of relief.

When I looked up, I could see Cory’s face.

I saw his pretty green eyes, which I always thought could only look mean. His eyes were smiling and formed little half-moons. His eyes, looking my way, were kind.

“I’m never leaving.”

Intermission 2. The Marquis Child’s Club Time

“Cory, wake up. Class is over.”

Hylli shook my shoulder and woke me up.

I had, at some point, fallen asleep with my head on my desk. I last remembered being in first period, but when I woke up it was already lunch. Thankfully, we didn’t have any classes outside of our classroom so I didn’t skip any classes. I stared at Hylli, who was staring right back at me, then put my head back down on the desk. I was so cold, probably because I had just woken up. I didn’t want to get up.

“Are you sleeping again?”

“I’m not sleeping. It’s too cold.”

I responded with my eyes cold. I turned my head away from Hylli as I clutched my classroom-use grape blanket around me. Hylli clicked his tongue at me pitifully.

“You never eat, and you never sleep at night. Looking at how soft you are, it looks like Shuraina’s gotten a lot lazier because of you.”

Hylli snatched away my grape blanket and dragged me by my shirt collar. In my half-asleep state, I let myself be dragged by Hylli until I remembered that he had said ‘Shuraina’.

“Hylli, is today a club day?”

“Today is the 14th, an even day, so isn’t it a club activity day?”

I slapped Hylli’s hand away from my shirt collar. If I let myself be dragged like this, I would be forced to eat food. I had a mountain of snacks that I was waiting to eat: I couldn’t let myself be filled by food. And today was even a club day.

“Sorry, Hylli. I want to prepare for club time with reverence.”

“……what even are you saying?”

“I’m telling you to eat alone.”

I unwrapped my grape blanket from myself and stashed it in a drawer, yawning. Then, I grabbed a handful of snacks from the drawer filled with snacks and headed out. I was always low on sugar by lunchtime.

“Candy again?”

I threw Hylli a grape-flavored candy.

“Here, you can have one. Eat it as an appetizer or something.”

Hylli frowned at the candy he had caught, then grumbled as he headed alone to the cafeteria. I stared at Hylli’s retreating back.

I didn’t think I was that close to Hylli before, but from some unknown moment we had grown close. The reason was probably Shuraina.

After I had found out that Shushu was Shunivalen, I had a mini-tantrum in my dorm every day. Hylli always stopped me, then we naturally began to talk about Shushu in our dorm.

Hylli occasionally talked about swordsmanship time with Shushu and told stories about how brutish, scary, and pessimistic of a person she was. Personally, I thought that Shushu’s ‘Beat Hylli Up Project’ was incredible.

I walked down the hall and bumped into Hestia. When Hestia slightly nodded at me in greeting, I did the same. I thought that she would be together with Shushu, so I was a bit surprised to see her alone. When I asked Hestia where Shushu was, she seemed to think before telling me that she went to the club room.

Oh, did she already finish eating then? I haphazardly thanked Hestia and headed over to the club room. While I was walking, the sunlight was so warm that my eyes kept closing. With half-closed eyes, I barely arrived at the club building.

As soon as I headed into the room, I could see an orange-haired girl covered by a strawberry blanket.

That bushy orange hair could only be Shushu. She seemed to have been working on the project, because I could see that the desk next to the sofa was cluttered with pieces for the model.

Shushu was breathing quietly as she slept. I had only seen her awake, so this was unfamiliar.

Shushu wasn’t laying down properly. She was lying down on her left, hunched in her sleep. She had wrapped herself with my blanket. Seeing her orange hair peeking out of the blanket was cute.

Faced with this rare sight, I dragged over a chair and started to observe Shushu’s sleeping form. I didn’t even notice that I did it. I was just planning on looking for just a bit, but Shushu’s sleeping face was strangely addicting.

I grabbed the model parts on the desk, preparing for when Shushu woke up. When she woke up, she would most likely pretend she was working on the project.

I made no sound. The club was filled with only Shushu’s breathing. I wanted to poke at Shushu’s cheek, which was smushed between her and the sofa, but I barely resisted.

I found it odd. Her eyes always seemed so tired as if she had already transcended this plane, but she looked like a little kid with her eyes closed. Moreover, with her body wrapped with the blanket, she looked even smaller.

I looked at her with my chin on my hands, and suddenly wanted to hug her.

“……..would her hair be okay?”

Even as I thought, ‘It’s not okay with just hear hair, it’s not,’ my two hands had unknowingly reached out to Shushu’s bushy orange hair. Just slightly touching her hair became braiding Shushu’s hair.

As I was touching her hair, Shushu started to mutter in her sleep. Her small mouth mumbled something out loud.

“…..eugh. That’s….too much……”

Shushu scrunched up her face, as if she was going through something bad. Then, she smiled bright as if something good had just happened. It sounded like she had muttered, “Awesome”. What kind of dream was it?

I resisted the urge to use memory magic to store the image of her bright smile, something that I would never see when she was completely awake. She wouldn’t like it at all if I took a picture of her asleep without permission. I took my hands back and stared down at Shushu.

Why was she so cute? I frowned as I unknowingly clenched my fist.

For a bit, I decided to walk around the club room and thought of the first time I had met Shushu. After just hearing her name, I had thought that she was a talented sword-wielding boy. So seeing a girl call me over telling me that she was Shushu was a very strange experience.

I got to know her because of Hestia, but Shushu was an interesting kid from the moment I first saw her. She always looked at people with blank hazy eyes, and she looked like she had no hopes and dreams unlike her peers. I first thought she was just a very pessimistic kid. But, I was able to find a different side of her as I stayed by her side.

She seemed to be cold and perfect, but Shushu was weaker than anybody when it came to others’ kindness and had a lot of emotional scars. But Shushu never brought down others, nor shared her worries with others. On the other hand, she just lent a shoulder to anybody who would need. Shushu also never seemed content with the present. As if she was being chased by something, she was always moving forward. She was definitely very different from me.

And that Shushu seemed hurt by my words last time. I didn’t know her exact situation, but Shushu’s despondent look kept lingering in my mind. Because of that, I wanted to care for her more.

Me staying by Shushu was generally because I wanted to care for her, but it was also because being by her side was always fun. She always exceeded my expectations.

She had created the amazing study of magic circle manipulation, and it was also amazing that she disguised herself and was working as Shunivalen. Shushu was a good motivator to my life, which had only focused on studying magic.

I was deep in thought while looking at Shushu. It looked like Shushu had woken up in the meanwhile: she was stretching with a bleary look on her face. Shushu touched the back of her hand, then looked at me with a deadpan expression.

“Why’s my hair like this?”

Shushu’s had approximately fifteen braids in her hair. While I was lost in thought, it looked like I had kept on braiding her hair.

Shushu’s puffy face and braided hair was both funny and really cute.

“I don’t know.”

I barely stopped myself from laughing and kept my deadpan expression. Shushu walked unsteadily with her trademark movements to the window. Her eyes widened as she saw her reflection.

Shushu glared down at her puffy face and hair, then opened her mouth as if she was accepting it all.

“Why do I look so unimportant?”

I wanted to say something to Shushu’s derogatory comment, but I felt like I had a hand in that unimportance so I stayed quiet. I thought that she was going to remove the braids right away, but she left it alone, as if it was too much work.

But anyway, seeing how deep asleep she was, it looked like she was in the club room for a while. When I stared at Shushu, her scarlet eyes stared right back at me. Her eyes were hazy, but whenever Shushu looked at someone, she looked directly at their eyes.

I began to speak, still looking at Shushu.

“You didn’t eat, right?”

Shushu seemed to think at my words and nodded. I tilted my head at Shushu’s reaction.