Chapter 17
Looking back, Vita and Carlisle first met a year ago.
“Senior, Senior.”
Strangely enough, Vita had been feeling down from the very start of that day. While they were eating lunch together, Lu called out to him, and Vita turned his head.
“What is it, Lu?”
“Some weird guy showed up.”
What kind of guy could he be?
Following Lu's gesture, Vita looked over and was momentarily at a loss for words.
There stood the perfect embodiment of his ideal. And he was receiving the full attention of countless students, to boot.
-Ah, is that him…?
-The transfer student who was supposed to come today?
-He's insanely handsome.
Vita heard the whispers around him as well.
Broad, square shoulders and long, shapely legs.
Even another man couldn't help being captivated by his looks.
Black hair and golden eyes.
He had a cool yet cold-looking face that drew the eye.
But that was all. Vita soon lost interest in him. Which was only natural, right?
If Vita had been a woman, he might have looked at him with interest, but the guy was another man.
‘A guy that handsome is obviously shallow, without even looking further.’
Vita privately decided that he seemed like some flighty type, nothing special.
In fact, perhaps he was jealous deep down. Enough to conjure such an unfavorable prejudice without realizing it.
But Carlisle Schultz really was something else.
[End-of-semester overall rankings
1st. Carlisle
2nd. Vita …]
It included written-exam scores, too?
I mean, a delinquent might be good at P.E., but not at written exams, too, right?
“No way, what…”
Even after seeing it with his own eyes, Vita could hardly believe it.
He had lost first place for the first time. In other words, he had been defeated.
But that was only the beginning, and he had no idea then that it would continue. After that, Vita never beat Carlisle even once.
“The two of them are first and second again. By the slimmest of margins, too.”
“Their rankings are always right next to each other. Aren't they practically rivals?”
Forced to acknowledge it by the words around him, Vita bit his lip.
At this point, Carlisle and I are practically rivals.
Yes, rivals.
“Just wait until the next evaluation. I'll definitely beat you.”
“…I have no idea what you're talking about. Who are you?”
But, tragically enough.
Carlisle, his opponent, didn't even have him on his radar. That infuriated Vita. The night he'd tried to act familiar only to be humiliated had left him so indignant and angry that he couldn't even sleep.
‘If only I could beat that guy just once…’
Let me beat Carlisle Schultz. Let's grind down that arrogant nose of his—
***
“Heh… pfft…”
Was Bianca having a good dream?
She must have been feeling pretty good if she was smiling in her sleep.
“Haah—seriously.”
Carlisle was dumbfounded.
He was so dumbfounded that all he could do was let out a hollow laugh.
[Go out with me.]
He had confessed without missing his chance, after setting the mood and deciding it might actually work. Women were creatures who all tended to get swept up in the mood, after all.
But the person he'd confessed to had actually fainted?
No, seriously.
[……Bianca?]
Carlisle felt as though his breath had stopped.
[Bianca!]
He had been flustered in a way that was completely unlike him. He had thought she had collapsed from some sudden health problem.
But that wasn't it. She had simply fainted.
More precisely, she was asleep.
A helpless smile tugged at the corner of Carlisle Schultz's mouth.
How did everything this woman did manage to feel so cute?
He was relieved, yet dumbfounded.
He had seen women cry happily after receiving a confession, but this was the first time he'd seen someone faint.
Carlisle had even been about to perform artificial respiration and first aid before hearing her soft, even breathing.
“Mmph…”
Right.
Only when he heard her light breathing did he finally feel a little relieved.
Carlisle revised his thinking.
‘Did she like me so much that she fainted just from getting a confession?’
He had already settled on that arbitrary interpretation.
Well, actually.
That had to be a good sign, didn't it?
Carlisle gently stroked the sleeping woman's head. This moment alone was quite satisfying, after all.
Her eyes had been shaking wildly, and her face had turned adorably red.
He had already reached one firm conclusion from that reaction alone.
Bianca liked him. She seemed too inexperienced with her own feelings to realize it, but he was certain.
Or, at the very least.
‘She couldn't possibly dislike me.’
The bell was about to ring. Afternoon classes would be starting.
But Carlisle didn't particularly want to wake the woman sleeping so soundly.
“Mmm…”
She even had such a lovely smile on her face.
“Time to wake up, miss?”
He whispered instead. She was an interesting woman, even when all he could see was her sleeping face.
Her dainty nose was cute, and her delicate eyelids were beautiful.
She was so tiny, white, and delicate that it felt as though she might disappear if he gave her a light poke.
Gazing at the sleeping woman with an inexplicable sense of satisfaction,
Carlisle Schultz thought.
He wouldn't be able to let today pass. It was a day he couldn't hold back.
He already had a pretext to make a move on her, after all.
And then, at that moment.
Vita, who had been asleep, slowly regained consciousness.
“…Mmm?”
How should he put it? He couldn't make sense of the situation.
The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was Carlisle's face.
“Did you sleep well, Bianca?”
Vita stared blankly at the face smiling and chuckling at him.
‘What is this, a dream…?’
Until just now, he had been playing a trick on Carlisle.
[Haha, you didn't know, did you?! The Bianca you slept with was actually me after I'd turned into a woman!]
Once Vita had turned back into a man and revealed the truth, Carlisle Schultz let out a scream.
[That's impossible…! I can't believe it!]
Clutching his face, Vita had been standing right in front of him, laughing mockingly.
Vita felt as though he had forgotten something extremely important. But his mind was foggy, so he blurted out something absurd.
“…I'm not Bianca.”
“Then what are you?”
No—this was reality?!
Only then did Vita suddenly come to his senses.
‘This isn't a dream…?’
As his sense of reality returned, he suddenly realized what his head had been resting on.
“…!”
Vita abruptly sat up, only to bump his nose against Carlisle's.
“Ow—!”
That hurt.
***
“Ugh, seriously-”
Vita Shamal rubbed his reddened nose, looking ready to cry.
But that lasted only a moment.
“Y-you…!”
Pointing a finger at Carlisle Schultz, Vita began demanding an explanation.
“Explain yourself, right now! Why was I…”
“Sleeping on my lap?”
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
“You don't remember anything?”
Carlisle smiled strangely.
Vita's face turned bright red, and words failed him.
He had remembered it. The utterly ridiculous thing he'd unconsciously tried to forget.
[Go out with me.]
After hearing that nonsense, Vita had panicked at his own strange reaction.
His mind had come to a complete stop, his heart had suddenly begun pounding,
and he had actually felt his face grow hot.
‘…N-no way!’
Realizing that about himself had been so absurd that he was left speechless.
‘Could I really have…?’
He was innocent by nature, but he was old enough to know things. He had learned indirectly, through movies and anime, what sort of feeling this was.
In other words…
Nerves, attraction, excitement. And so on.
So Vita ended up more flustered than ever.
‘…No, this is…’
It couldn't happen.
When had it started, exactly? When he had begun his “competition” with this guy?
Or on that strange night with Nathan?
Was it really because of things that minor? Or was it simply because he was as lewd as this guy claimed?
It was shocking in every way.
Even as he kept repeating to himself that it absolutely wasn't anything like that, the shock had apparently been so overwhelming that he had briefly blacked out.
‘Even so, fainting is a bit much…’
It did seem extreme. But in any case, his unconscious mind had been trying to protect him.
In the end, Vita Shamal remembered everything, but he couldn't acknowledge it. He couldn't act as though he remembered.
He couldn't! How could he possibly admit it?
“Mmm, what is it…?”
So Vita desperately pretended not to remember.
“I don't remember anything. Ugh… my head hurts.”
Whether or not Carlisle knew, he only smiled faintly.
“Oh, really? That's a little disappointing. But there are still plenty of chances.”
At those words, sweat trickled down Vita's back.
But if he answered, he'd only get dragged deeper into it, so he kept his mouth shut.
Ding-ding—ding-ding—
Then the afternoon bell rang.
Carlisle stood up again and held out a hand to Vita.
“We should go now.”
“What, where?!”
Vita tensed, but at Carlisle's next words, he gave a small nod.
“Aren't you going to class?”
Right. He had to go.
He did have to go downstairs.
In the end, the two of them had barely eaten lunch before coming down from the rooftop. The trip down in Carlisle's arms felt even more awkward to Vita than before.
***
And then, well, how should he put it?
Time flew.
-At this vertex…
Vita could hardly take in the lesson, so he pinched his own cheek several times.
He couldn't concentrate because of what had happened on the rooftop. His gaze kept drifting toward the back of Carlisle Schultz, seated much farther ahead.
‘…Get a grip, Vita.’
Vita kept repeating it to himself.
Maybe he had finally lost his mind.
“What's wrong, Bianca? Want me to pinch you instead?”
He immediately waved at Sasha, who said that to him.
“Ah, no-!”
He shouted in panic, drawing everyone's attention.
Of course, Carlisle looked over at him too, and Vita's face quickly ripened like a tomato.
Not only that, he'd kept spacing out and failed to answer the teacher's question properly.
“Focus, Bianca.”
“I'm sorry, Teach.”
He suddenly wanted to die.
Vita secretly yanked at his own hair for no reason and blamed Carlisle Schultz.
‘Why did it have to be with that guy…’
Why did he have to be in the same class as Carlisle Schultz? How had he ended up getting entangled with him in such strange ways over and over?
And whenever their eyes met, Carlisle's little smirk only made Vita even more furious.
If his seatmate Sasha hadn't spoken up, he might have gone on like that for quite a while.
“Hang in there a little longer, Bianca. Tomorrow's a public holiday.”
Oh, was it?
Tomorrow was a public holiday. Vita's mood improved.
Maybe he could watch some anime tonight, for the first time in a while.
Magical Girl Eve Rosaline—my nth rewatch!
Ding-ding—ding-ding—
Then it was two in the afternoon. Thanks to it being the day before a public holiday, classes ended early.
Vita immediately packed his bag and prepared to leave school.
‘Anime really is the best thing to watch when you have too many distracting thoughts.’
Over the past week, Carlisle had apparently been busy, because he always disappeared somewhere right after classes ended.
In other words, after-school hours were a time when Vita Shamal could regain his peace. A time when he no longer had to get pointlessly entangled with Carlisle.
Clearly, that should have been the case today as well.
“Wait, Bianca.”
Carlisle Schultz approached, waving something in one hand.
Sasha, who was standing beside Vita, let out a shrill scream.
“Whoa, is that a Wizney Park ticket?”
A hugely famous amusement park, a theme park where reservations were notoriously hard to get.
More importantly, it was expensive.
“I made a reservation for this afternoon. Are you coming or not?”
Carlisle was technically asking Vita's preference, but the answer was practically already decided.
“W-Wizney…?”
A Wizney Park ticket?!
It was a place Vita had visited once as a child and never been able to visit again.
Vita's amethyst-colored eyes began to sparkle.
He loved amusement parks, and besides, there was a collaboration going on there right now.
Magical Girl Eve Rosaline!
A collaboration for Vita's all-time favorite anime—the very one Vita had planned to watch today!