CH 70

Because of my punishment, I had to be in my dorms as soon as school ended for the day.

Today, I wasn’t even allowed to eat at the cafeteria. The teacher managing the dorm told me that they’d bring it to me themselves and told me to stay put. Honestly, there were enough things to play with in the dorms so it didn’t even feel like a punishment. I was enjoying my non-punishment that I got thanks to my small hair loss.

If I thought about it, it was basically room service. I was getting food brought to me.

After I finished eating, I took a walk inside of the dorms. All of the students were eating in the cafeteria, so the dorms were completely quiet. The only sounds in the area were my footsteps echoing in the corridor.

When I began to walk across the hallway looking at the drawings and photographs on the walls, I couldn’t help but focus on a yellow door at the end of the hallway. It was Hestia’s room, so I walked towards it and stood in front of the door.

Of course, Hes was eating right now, so she probably wasn’t in the dorms. I opened the door just to peek if she was in there, just in case.

“Hestiaaaaaa.”

The large, clean dorm room was empty to the point of it feeling cold. I was about to leave after seeing that Hestia wasn’t in the room, but I discovered Hestia’s notebook open on her desk before I left. On top of the notebook was a familiar looking pen.

I knew that it was impolite to enter a room without the owner inside, but I couldn’t stop myself from walking towards Hestia’s desk.

After briefly skimming through the notebook on the desk, I leaned closer onto the chair in front of the desk and looked closer at the notebook. My eyes moved from the upper left corner of the page and slowly worked its way down to the bottom right. Small black letters filled my sight.

“What, you…..”

I felt a lump in my throat form as my eyes began to water.

Like how your sight eventually adjusts to see in the dark, a part of my memories began to become clear as day. I knew this pen. I knew this notebook.

I didn’t know why I forgot it. Until now, I had felt bad about how Hestia had always been dragged around by her family’s choices without her own opinions and choices. But it seemed that I had been misconstruing the situation because of my forgotten memories.

What I had forgotten was how Hestia, who had lived life passively and always tried to match what her family wanted, had secretly begun working towards a passion, a fire of her own.

I kind of remembered when I bought the fountain pen that was laid on the notebook. I had gone to a store on my own and asked them to carve Hestia’s name on the pen. I had saved up money to buy her a fountain pen that was great for writing.

I fiddled with Hestia’s worn-out, scratched pen and stared at the notebook.

The reason why Hestia couldn’t hide her boredom was because she was being forced to act in a way that didn’t fit with her personality. Until now, everything that she had shown to the world was a way of protecting herself from the world and from being thrown away by her family. That was why she had seemed so stifled.

Thinking back, from some point in time, the middle finger on Hestia’s right hand had a rough, calloused patch on the middle. She had bore down and continued to write, even when her surroundings didn’t allow her to.

[There have been too many lives lost and trampled upon as the Orde Empire expanded its power as a proper empire. Our empire was founded upon the rage of one who demanded proper respect, and it has been foretold that the families who helped found our empire will eventually end in disaster. Using that sense of unease, our empire has…….]

The notebook had the history of our empire and the writer’s opinion written in neat handwriting. I flipped to another page.

It felt like I would be going too far if I read everything too closely, so I decided to skim through the writing. It seemed that the general summary of that writing was how women needed to be placed more on an equal platform and intellectuals within women must be given a bigger platform to speak and share their opinions. Not only that, but there was also an organized summary of the current political trends and how things must be fixed in order for her to properly get those plans to work.

I wanted to read just a bit, but Hestia’s writing skills were too entrancing so I kept reading. It was an extremely familiar handwriting.

Most of her work was focused on her opinions, but the text was absolutely engrossing. The explanations were detailed, and she also mentioned other texts to strengthen her statement. She also provided counterarguments for those who would inevitably disagree with her, and provided reasons against them. Because of all of that, her opinions seemed well thought out and more persuasive.

When I read through a similar notebook when we were younger, it was so different……. Hestia had written her thoughts by herself alone to get by. She seemed to have an immense talent in writing out her opinions in a logical and amusing manner, and was great at persuading others.

I felt like tearing up as I imagined Hestia writing by herself and slowly walking towards her dreams. It was definitely difficult for someone to constantly strive for a goal all alone.

The saddest part of it all, though, was that all of Hestia’s talents and efforts were only within the confines of that single notebook.

If these writings were read by the public, I was sure that many people would agree. It would have been great to have Hestia’s writings published in even a small corner of the newspaper.

Why was Hestia, somebody with such a bright, shining talent, supposed to be dumb?

Hestia wasn’t a talent that was going to be played by someone else. Actually, it was the opposite. Of course Hestia was having a hard time. She was hiding such a brilliant, genius mind behind it all. I continued reading through Hestia’s works, completely awed. Then, I stopped at a single page.

[I feel so stifled…..]

There was a block of text on one side of the notebook. The writing looked wobbly, as if she had written it half-asleep.

[But I’m scared……]

Scared. I’m scared.

She wrote more about being scared than being stifled.

[But Shushu’s with me……. And she’ll continue to stay by me…….]

Suddenly, a loud sound rang through the air. Bang! It was a sound filled with rage. Soon after, an angry, sharp voice could also be heard. It was a loud, ringing sound, just like the bang of the door.

“Those crazy pieces of shit! It’s not enough for them to talk shit about Shushu, but they ripped out her hair?!”

A girl with soft-looking pink hair laughed as she walked into the door. It was Hestia, but her face and her body was a mess. In her hand was a fistful of hair, all different colors and length.

Her long, straight hair was a mess just like mine, and she had scratches everywhere. I had thought she was out eating, but it seemed that she was out fighting instead.

I stared at Hestia’s angry screaming and her state and wondered if she was actually Hestia. I had never seen her scream and curse and get angry like this before.

Thankfully, I was hidden in the corner behind Hestia’s bed. Hestia continued to angrily hit the wall without noticing me.

“I should’ve shaved all of their heads one by one and shoved them in a monastery!”

I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out Hestia’s mouth, so I just rubbed my eyes and looked again. I was reminded of Swanhaden as I looked at Hestia. Swanhaden was the more extreme version.

As I watched Hestia with her extremely destructive verbal talents, I began to understand why Hestia hated Swan so much. Of course, Hestia was much kinder than Swan, but……intraspecies hate? Kind of?

“Ugh, I’m getting pissed. What, Shushu feels inferior against me? They pity her? She had dead-looking eyes and has a bad attitude? Do I have call over Swanhaden again, that asshole? Should I tell Yvnes too? Should I pair up? Should I make an alliance? Aaaaaaaaa! It’s so annoying! What do they think Shushu is?!”

Hestia tried to kick a cushion on the floor but almost tripped when she missed. She began to punch the cushion instead and just threw a general tantrum. She threw the cushion here and there. It almost hit me a few times. I didn’t know who she was imagining to be the cushion, but she was cursing it out and throwing fists.

Hestia’s fists weren’t that powerful, but her glare probably was enough to murder someone.

“Hestia, what are you doing?”

I stretched from my crouched position and began to speak to Hestia. I couldn’t figure out a time to sneak out, so I decided to just speak up. It would’ve been more awkward for me to have gotten caught hiding.

Hestia was in the middle of her rapid punches as she met my gaze. Her green eyes shook wildly, as if there was an internal earthquake happening within her.

“Ah, uh? Uh. Um? Shushu……..? Since when……. No, well, this is.”

Hestia froze, fists still up. She turned to stare at her fists, then began to punch at the cushions again with her face down.

“Oh, uh, this, this cushion seemed to have a lot of dust so I was just trying to get the dust off!”

She said, nonchalantly. But her voice was shaking. She put her head down to hide her face from me. Her pink hair covered her face, but her very red ears peeked through.

“Well, why can’t you curse?”

Hestia heard my words and furrowed her brows. She didn’t seem to know where to look as she frowned, but soon shook her head.

Hestia threw the cushion onto her bed and slowly walked over to me. Her bitter gaze soon met my face, then looked to the bald patch on my scalp. Hestia’s eyes widened again as she hurriedly took out a first aid kit from her desk drawer.

“Shushu…….. It hurt a lot, right……… Are you okay? I heard you fought some girls and even grabbed at their hair…….”

I began to remember everything that had happened after I lost my senses. Embarrassment flowed through my veins. I was more embarrassed at how I had lost complete control over my emotions. Towards the end, it was basically an all-out brawl. We were scratching and kicking and making a total mess. Of course, we didn’t throw fists or use our swords. It was more of a petty, child-like fight more than an all-out violent fight.

“Shushuuuuu………. It makes me so angry that Shushu’s body has scars……… It makes me pissed.”

“It went both ways.”

“I don’t caaare. I don’t care about them.”

No matter what the situation was, Hestia was always on my side. Hestia believed everything that I said, no matter what, and always believed in whatever I did. She never thought that I did any wrong.

Hestia gently put ointment on my head and blushed a bright red. I heard a tiny, ant-like voice coming from behind me.

“Uh, Shushu. Can you forget what I did earlier…..”

“That was wild.”

“Ah, uh, noooooooooo…… I was just….because of how Shushu got cussed at and got hurt……… That wasn’t me right then………..”

Hestia seemed to be ashamed at having been caught cursing earlier. It was a new side of Hestia.

“Oh, so that wasn’t you back then?”

“Ye……yeah.”

“So who do you think is the real you?”

“……that.”

Who knows.

T/N: A gamecock is a rooster that is used for fighting. People used to put roosters in a small cage and had them fight. It’s used as a colloquial term for people who are needlessly aggressive and/or ready to fight at the drop of a pin.