It was early afternoon, and I was training by myself in the Institute courtyard.
—The bell has already rung, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
I kept practicing my form anyway. Leonie and I may have lost to Ein and Flicka this time, but I wasn’t gonna let it happen again. That still didn’t mean I felt like going to class.
Every once in a while, one of my classmates or an upperclassman passed by, but none of them paid any attention to me. It was like they didn’t want anything to do with me.
—Looks like everyone is treating you like a troublemaker now.
I guess they didn’t want to risk getting mixed up in my mess. Leonie and Nor were the only exceptions.
All things considered, the Hero Institute was more boring than I could have ever imagined. Worst of all were the lectures, which were a total pain. When I had heard this was a school that would teach you how to become a hero, I had expected there would be classes about creative methods of combat and stuff like that. But in reality, lessons were basically left to the Gear, and the teachers rarely focused on each student’s individual needs.
So lectures are boring, and the students who were already strong in the first place get the best grades in practical training. Not much of a school, if you ask me.
—Perhaps that is the true nature of school after all.
If what Proto said was true, then I’d be much better off just practicing my fighting forms by myself. I was starting to feel like I understood what that pickpocket we had run into before the entrance ceremony was talking about.
Trying to shake off my feelings of disappointment toward the Institute, I kept training on my own for a while before lying down on the lawn. I closed my eyes, basking in the warmth of the bright rays of spring sunlight on my face. That pleasant feeling of exhaustion after exercising was starting to give way to sleepiness. I thought about how Leonie would be mad at me for skipping class again.
Speaking of Leonie, I hadn’t had a real conversation with her in a few days. She had to be pretty frustrated about losing our battle against Ein and Flicka. Or maybe there was something else on her mind. Either way, she sure did seem depressed these days. I didn’t want to just leave her be, so I had tried to make conversation starting off with one of my usual pickup lines, but…
“How can you be so flippant all the time? Are you not worried at all about whether you’ll be able to keep up with classes?”
…she had snapped back at me.
Personally, I chalked up our loss against Ein to a series of coordination mistakes between us, so I wasn’t concerned whatsoever about it reflecting on my work in our lectures, much less practical training. Maybe this was just my big head talking, but I was pretty sure I could have beaten both Ein and Flicka by myself if I’d really tried my hardest. What Leonie and I actually needed was to work on as a pair was trusting and understanding each other.
“But that’s a minor problem in the grand scheme of things. We’ll figure it out.”
Humans had a saying: Good things come to those who wait. I figured this was the kind of thing where I just had to go with the flow and let it play out on its own.
“Hi, Ruchika.”
Someone called out to me just as I was about to nod off. When I opened my eyes, I saw someone I hadn’t been expecting and sat up.
“What’s up, Nor? Hasn’t class started already?”
“Yeah…”
Nor was standing in front of me. If a straight-A student like her was skipping class to come looking for me, there must be something pretty important she wanted to talk about.
“You coming over to the dark side to be a bad student like me?”
“No! I just have something I really need to discuss with you.”
“What’s that?”
Nor sat down a little way off from me. I wondered what it could be. If this had been Leonie, who was always way too serious and tended to criticize me, I might be able to guess, but I couldn’t imagine what Nor wanted. She looked as though she had made up her mind about something before coming here.
—Rather unperceptive of you, Ruchika. If you think about it, you should be able to guess.
Huh?
—There aren’t that many reasons why a girl like Nor would make such a bold move.
Hmmm, could it be I’ve gotten myself into a sticky situation?
“Oh, so that’s how it is, Nor.”
“You already guessed what I want to talk about?”
“Yeah.”
Wow, okay… I would have never expected it, but it must be true.
“I never meant to hurt you, Nor.”
“Yeah…it’s been hard to see you two like that.”
“I bet. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.”
“Ruchika…”
I walked up to Nor, looked into her glossy, light-blue eyes, and spoke.
“I’m sorry, Nor. You’re a very lovely girl. But Leonie is the only one for me. I can’t return your feelings.”
“…Huh?”
Though it pained me to have to tell her this, for some reason, Nor responded to my heartfelt declaration with a confused look on her face.
“Wait, you’re saying you want to be my mate, right?” I asked.
“N-no, that’s not it! That’s not it at all!” she said.
“Huh?”
I guess I had been off the point on this one.
What the heck, Proto?! You were totally off!
—……
Yeah, sure, now’s the time you pick to keep your opinion to yourself!
What a piece of junk.
But that aside…
“If you’re not confessing your love to me, then what is it?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Leonie.”
“Leonie?”
Nor nodded back at me.
“She’s in a really tough position right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone at school is shunning her… Simply put, she’s being bullied.”
“Bullied…”
Like I had talked about with Proto before, since Leonie was so beautiful and smart, I figured it was easy for people to get jealous of her. That much was clear based on how everyone had treated her the other day in class. But if she was getting bullied, would she really put up with it? In my mind, she would almost definitely speak up against something that absurd.
Perhaps sensing what I was thinking from my expression, Nor continued speaking.
“I-if it was really about something she did, I think things might have gone differently. But the reason she’s in this situation in the first place…is partly because of you, Ruchika.”
“Huh? Me?”
I was a little taken off guard by this unexpected swerve in the conversation. But Nor kept going, putting the pressure on me.
“L-Leonie’s expected to look after you, right? And now she’s getting blamed because you won’t attend class or take your lectures seriously.”
“Whaaat, for real…?”