Chapter 24
‘So she really doesn’t believe me….’
I sighed as I walked through the garden in the early dawn.
Maybe it was because I was in such a gloomy mood, but even though it was my family’s garden, everything felt unfamiliar, as though I were seeing the path for the first time. Only the dew-covered grass and the chill of the dawn air felt familiar.
‘What on earth is my sister thinking?’
To be honest, I had naturally thought my sister would believe me. I had answered every question she threw at me without hesitation, and, above all, Ellie had taken my side.
But when Ellie came out into the corridor after speaking with my sister, she merely shook her head weakly in response. In other words, I had failed to persuade my sister.
Moreover, my sister no longer seemed willing to meet me, so I had no choice but to return to my room in a gloomy mood last night.
‘Yaaawn… I’m tired.’
There was no way I could have slept properly in such a troubled state of mind. I had practically stayed awake all night.
After yawning loudly, I looked up at the dawn sky and sat down on the bench. The eastern sky had just begun to turn orange.
‘Come to think of it, when we were children, my sister and I used to sit side by side on this bench and read books together….’
For some reason, a deep melancholy washed over me. I felt a vague unease that perhaps I might never be able to return to those days.
A life of living as a stranger, unrecognized by my own family. It was horrifying even to imagine. I hated it.
I felt as though tears might burst forth at any moment, so I buried my face in both hands with a deep sigh.
“Rene?”
“Eek!”
G-goodness, you scared me! My heart nearly leaped out of my chest. I was so startled that the tears welling up dried right back up.
I hurriedly lowered my hands and turned toward the voice. As expected, it was that bastard Kairos. I quickly composed my expression and snapped at him.
“What are you trying to steal, getting up this early?”
“Yes, I’m glad to see you too. You slept well, didn’t you, Rene?”
“I never said I was glad to see you!”
This guy, seriously… I clenched my teeth without realizing it. The emotional state I’d been in only moments ago vanished in an instant.
But Kairos paid no attention to my expression. He simply grinned and plopped down in the empty seat beside me.
He quietly gazed up at the orange sky for a moment, then turned toward me, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly as I continued glaring at him.
“The bed was too soft, so you couldn’t sleep, right?”
“……”
“I tossed and turned for ages, too. I guess expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better.”
“……Haaah, how provincial.”
I had a feeling he would keep rambling on by himself even if I kept my mouth shut.
“So you couldn’t sleep and came out for a walk, is that it?”
For now, the best thing to do was give him a suitable answer and leave as quickly as possible.
Kairos’s face brightened at my answer.
“Yeah. When I happened to look out the window, I saw a pretty impressive garden.”
“Oh my… Mrs. Friesna likes tending plants. It’s practically her only hobby.”
“Oh, really? I learned something new thanks to you, Rene.”
“Now that you know, send her a nice tree or something sometime.”
I sighed and gazed into the distance.
Then, struck by a sudden thought, I turned to that bastard Kairos.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“Do you like me?”
“……Huh?”
It was a thought that had suddenly occurred to me. No matter how I looked at it, the difference in how this guy treated Rene compared to everyone else was simply too extreme.
“Ah, no! Not like that.”
Kairos shook his head as hard as he could, denying it.
Was he telling the truth? I stared at his face for a moment.
“Ugh.” Kairos avoided my gaze and continued in a shrinking voice.
“Why did you suddenly think that?”
“Just because. You seem to be pretending to be excessively kind to me.”
“Pretending to be kind….”
With a small sigh, Kairos looked at me again.
I shrugged and continued.
“Anyway, if you have even the slightest feelings like that, give up. I hate you enough to put you among the top five people I hate most in the world.”
Dancing with him hadn’t changed anything.
To begin with, if you thought about it, that bastard was the reason I’d ended up like this in the first place.
Besides, my priority had merely been pushed back; I still intended to expose his ugly true nature. The moment I returned to my body, I would reveal to the whole world what that bastard had done to Rene and reclaim my rightful honor.
“Is the reason you hate me… because I erased your memories?”
Kairos asked cautiously. As expected, he had no idea that I was Evan. It was a completely off-base guess.
“That’s right.”
Still, it wasn’t a bad excuse to use as a convenient cover. If I had really been Rene, I would have lost all affection for him the moment I learned that he had erased my memories and used me as he pleased.
“I see….”
His voice was drained of strength. Kairos lowered his head deeply with a heavy sigh.
At least he had a conscience. I listlessly turned away and gazed at the sun rising in the distance.
A little while later, Kairos finally spoke again.
“Then if I hadn’t erased your memories, Rene… you wouldn’t have had any reason to hate me this much, right?”
“……Hm?”
There was a strange note of self-reflection in his voice. When I turned my head, Kairos was staring intently at me.
“Well, I suppose not?”
I nodded, feeling slightly bewildered. I also remembered the underachiever saying that the two of us had originally been quite close.
“I see.”
Kairos nodded slowly. Soon, his expression grew quite serious.
He pressed his lips together and looked at me for a moment before standing up and speaking.
“Even if I regret it, I can’t turn back time.”
His voice sounded as though he had made a firm decision.
When I looked up at him, he continued in a forceful voice.
“So from now on, I’ll work to change the way you see me, Rene. I can’t gather up water that’s already been spilled, but I can wipe up what overflowed.”
“……?”
Well, for him, it was a fairly convincing thing to say. He would work to make amends instead of merely regretting his mistake.
But…
“I thought you said you didn’t like me?”
It was admittedly a little out of the blue. Anyone listening to what he had just said would have taken it as a vow that ‘I’ll make you like me again.’
“Rene, I don’t mean that I’ll make you like me again. I simply mean that I’ll try to return to the way things were when we first met.”
“So… you just want us to go back to being ordinary friends?”
“Yes. Like when we first became buddies.”
Kairos continued in a firm voice.
“Because I still want to remain close to you, Rene.”
Then Kairos put on an utterly serious expression.
I looked at him for a moment, then answered as indifferently as I could.
“Oh, really?”
This guy really was something. Anyone would think we were former lovers who had broken up for some tragic reason.
He spoke as though he were some prince from a fairy tale, but he was the one who had erased an unsuspecting Rene’s memories and used Rene as he pleased. It was the sort of underhanded thing only a fairy-tale villain would do.
“Fine, then. Go ahead and try.”
I became certain that I could never grow close to this guy. I answered halfheartedly and stood up.
“You’re going back?”
“Breakfast should be ready soon.”
Mornings at House Friesna started early. To a mage who valued productivity and efficiency, diligence was practically a matter of life and death.
“Let’s go together.”
Kairos immediately fell into step beside me. Without answering, I headed toward the mansion.
‘Haaah, my lot in life.’
Still, perhaps because I had exchanged such a foolish conversation with him, the strange loneliness and unease I had felt while walking through the garden had completely disappeared.
※※
“Ahh, home really is the best.”
The underachiever tossed off her outdoor clothes and flopped onto the bed.
“Why don’t you wash up before lying down?”
I couldn’t hide my genuine contempt. How could a person be that filthy?
“Nooo~ It’s such a hassle~”
Ria squirmed beneath the covers, then let out a little groan as she stretched. She rolled over once while still lying down and gazed up at me.
“Then let’s take a bath together for the first time in a while.”
“No.”
“Aww, why not~? I don’t want to refill the water~”
The underachiever began squirming and whining again.
I had hoped her meeting with Father might have made her a little more mature, but mature? Not at all. She seemed even more troublesome than before.
I ignored her and walked over to the wardrobe. Without even glancing at the whining girl, I took out my pajamas.
Hup!
“Ghk….”
But my peace didn’t last long. Just as I crouched down to retrieve my pajamas, the underachiever suddenly threw her arms around me from behind.
“Today, we’re definitely taking a bath together!”
She was doing something ridiculous and spouting equally ridiculous nonsense.
“W-wait a minute…!”
But her strength was too much to dismiss this as a mere nuisance. She snatched the pajamas from my hands and then grabbed her own as well.
“Wait… I said I don’t want to?!”
“Hehe, there’s no right of refusal, Miss Rene.”
After gathering our clothes, Ria easily lifted me up. She tucked me under her arm like a sack of potatoes and marched toward the bathroom.
“Stop iiiit!!”
“Don’t be shy. Don’t worry. I won’t tease you about your breasts today.”
That didn’t comfort me even the tiniest bit.
Ria even began humming as she opened the bathroom door.
After that, she stripped me with uncanny speed… and when I came to my senses, I was sitting naked in the bathtub, facing Ria.
‘……She’s ridiculously huge.’
“Hm? Is there something you want to say?”
“Not really.”
I quietly looked away and submerged myself in the water. Perhaps the fatigue from the trip had finally caught up with me, because as the warm water seeped into my body, my tension melted away and I quickly relaxed all over. The strength drained from my shoulders with a sigh.
“Now that we’re bathing together, it feels nice, doesn’t it?”
When I resurfaced, the underachiever asked with a broad grin, as though she had been waiting for me. I snapped back gruffly, “No, it doesn’t,” and quietly stared up at the ceiling.
‘……Starting next week, I’ll be attending school normally.’
Regular attendance = skirts required.
I felt dizzy just imagining it. When I sighed without realizing it, the underachiever immediately tilted her head.
“Is it because you’re worried about the written exam?”
“No.”
I shook my head and looked at her.
“What about you? Aren’t you worried about the written exam? It would be a shame if your perfect score on the treasure hunt were all dragged down because of the written test.”
“What’s there to be ashamed of? That score reflects my true ability.”
The underachiever continued as though it were obvious.
“Honestly, all I did during the treasure hunt was follow your instructions, Rene. I was just lucky, and I do wonder whether someone like me should even accept support from Mr. Friesna.”
“……Haaah.”
This girl was still going on about Mr. Friesna.
“Don’t worry. He values people who strive to become perfect more highly than people who are already perfect.”
I leaned back against the bathtub and continued.
“And we achieved that top score together. Without your sense of direction, Ria, we definitely would have gotten lost along the way.”
She was no help whatsoever with magic, but she showed surprisingly sharp instincts in other areas.
Especially considering how hopeless Ellie and Julia were with directions, we definitely would have been late to the final testing ground without the underachiever’s quick wits.
“So don’t let this get you down. You did more than well enough, Ria.”
“……”
For some reason, the underachiever was staring intently at me.
“……What’s with that expression?”
I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Ah, no… I just didn’t expect you to say something like that, Rene.”
Ria gave an embarrassed little laugh and lowered her head. Perhaps because of the hot water, her cheeks had flushed red.
“What’s wrong with telling someone they did well when they did well?”
I wasn’t particularly stingy with praise. I answered as though it were obvious, then quietly closed my eyes and enjoyed the warm water.
Still, perhaps because Ria’s mouth had finally gone quiet for once, our first bath together wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected.