LDTOTSDML Chapter 8

"…?"

Coming back from a short errand outside, she spotted Del again, at the entrance of the main building.

And then the day after that, she ran into him at the faculty office.

"…"

"…"

That time, their eyes had actually met, and Del gave an awkward little bow of his head before quickly clearing out of the way.

"Huh? That student from before?"

So, for the first time in her life, Arphina asked her professor something that had nothing to do with schoolwork.

Why that student had come to the faculty office earlier.

"Said he thought he'd lost something in the library, was asking if we could check the lost-and-found. Some kind of accessory his little sister gave him, I think?"

"…"

"But you, by any chance—didn't that boy confess that he liked you…"

"Excuse me."

That made three days now of either running into him or catching him in her line of sight.

"…And I saw him again today too."

Arphina kept rubbing her own hands together, anxious. Sonia's expression stiffened right along with her.

"You don't think he's stalking you, do you?"

"I don't know…"

Calling it "following her" was a stretch—it really was just accidentally running into him. And the eye contact from yesterday had been the very first time; before that, it hadn't even happened once.

No—if anything, Del had gotten to each place first. Arphina was the one arriving after the fact wherever he happened to already be.

In fact, most of the time, Del hadn't even noticed her. Yesterday at the faculty office was the first time their eyes had actually met.

"But seeing him constantly is starting to freak me out a little."

"Want me to go say something? Tell him to know his place?"

"…Know his what, now?"

"Tell him to sit quietly in his corner and stay there."

Sonia, translating for her, looked ready to march straight into the Political Department dorm that instant.

Arphina grabbed her by the arm.

"Maybe I'm just overthinking this."

"What's overthinking about it!"

Sonia snapped.

"If some guy who confessed to you keeps turning up right in front of your eyes, of course you should be suspicious first! What if he found out where you go and got there ahead of you on purpose!"

"But this is the Academy."

However vast the Academy grounds were, it was still, at the end of the day, a school.

Students living in the dorms and attending classes were confined to a set area—the main building, with its dorms and classrooms.

So of course, even across different years and different departments, their paths were bound to overlap naturally.

"And he doesn't even try to follow me after he sees me…"

"…Huh?"

Sonia looked at Arphina with a completely baffled expression.

"What is this? Why are you being weird all of a sudden?"

"Being weird how—?"

"Why do you sound like you're being sweet on that first-year?"

"I, I'm not—"

This time it was Arphina's turn to look baffled.

But Sonia already seemed nearly convinced of her own suspicion.

"Where did my Arphina go, the one who told him off flat, confidently, said she'd never date, and walked around gripping a monkey wrench on day one!"

"I've never belonged to you."

"That's just a figure of speech."

Sonia asked, eyeing her suspiciously, "Wait, don't tell me—did you fall for his face?"

"That's not it."

Arphina shook her head again.

"It's just uncomfortable, running into him constantly like this."

Having rejected him so coldly, running into Del over and over kept making her feel embarrassed.

And on top of that, Del was so good-looking that her eyes kept drifting toward him without her meaning them to.

"I'm just glancing over because he's handsome, that's all—you're not going to twist that into something weird again, are you?"

"…"

"I'm serious, it's not a weird thing."

"…"

"It's true, though. It's a fact that he's good-looking."

Saying all that, and claiming it wasn't a weird thing?

Sonia wanted to push back and ask what kind of nonsense that was. But the fact remained that the damned first-year brat really was good-looking, so there wasn't much to argue with.

"…He is good-looking, I'll give you that."

Even she herself had felt a little disappointed when Del stopped coming around to see Arphina, hadn't she?

"He's good-looking, but…"

Del wasn't just handsome. It was the kind of face where if you accidentally caught a glimpse of it in passing, you'd want to chase him down and hand him money for the privilege, calling it a "glimpse fee."

So Sonia could admit Del's looks were real, but she couldn't bring herself to approve of Del himself.

"…"

Because…

Exactly one month ago.

"Hello, senior."

A blond boy appeared abruptly in front of Sonia, smiling brightly.

"…Huh."

Sonia, wondering vaguely what was for dinner tonight, stepped out of the classroom and blinked in surprise at the sight of Del.

"You're not stalking Arphina, are you?"

Then, frowning, she gave him a warning.

"Sorry, but Arphina's not here today. And if you're actually pulling this trick because you trust that face of yours, I'll take my monkey wrench and—!"

"I came to see you, Senior Sonia."

Sonia, who'd been about to threaten to give him a brand-new hole in the top of his skull with her monkey wrench, stopped short.

She glanced around.

Arphina was, obviously, not there.

So, hardly believing it, she asked.

"Me?"

"Yes."

Del smiled a smile whose meaning she couldn't quite read.

"…Don't tell me you've switched targets—to me?"

"Could you tell me what Senior Arphina likes?"

Del completely ignored the nonsense she'd just said and got straight to his point.

"No."

But Sonia refused, flatly.

"Kind of disappointing, handsome junior."

"…"

"Arphina turned down your confession, and that's the end of it between you two. So if you're approaching me trying to pull something, you've got the wrong person, kid."

She'd said it firmly, but inside, Sonia was actually scared.

'…Is this kid really fifteen?'

When he'd confessed to Arphina, he'd still seemed like an age-appropriate kid, young and naive.

He'd definitely seemed that way then…

'No, wait, why does this kid feel so…'

Oppressive?

They were just standing there, facing each other. That was all. Del was even keeping a polite distance, standing calmly far enough away that he couldn't have reached her even with his arm outstretched.

And yet Sonia's heart was pounding hard, as if she'd just come face-to-face with some ferocious predator, and her fingertips were trembling.

Even her mouth, which had been running off threats a moment ago, had sealed shut as if glued.

"Senior."

Del took one step closer.

Sonia flinched and swept her eyes around. Right now, in this hallway, it was just her and Del—nobody else.

"I'm really glad you said that."

The dim blue reflected in his curved, gently smiling eyes was not a look that had any business coming from a fifteen-year-old.

Whatever was going on, Sonia knew one thing for certain: she was afraid of Del. She'd become, unmistakably, the weaker party. She was the mouse standing in front of the predator.

Then, just like that, the strange, heavy pressure crushing down on her body vanished—as if it had never been there at all.

"…Puhah!"

Sonia gasped for air, forgetting entirely that she was standing in front of a junior.

Hurriedly gulping down the air she'd apparently been holding without realizing it, something was suddenly held out in front of her.

She looked up to find Del, grinning with an innocence infuriating in its cheerfulness, holding out some kind of box.

"Sorry for scaring you. This is choux cream. Go share it with Senior Arphina."

"…"

"Take care, then!"

And with that, Del was gone.

"…Whoa."

Alone now, alarm bells rang in Sonia's skull. 

'—What. What the hell was that thing.'

Fifteen years old, and he could put off that kind of suffocating pressure?

Sonia herself was only seventeen. But compared to her peers, she liked to think she'd lived through a fair number of twists in her own life, and had come across a genuinely wide variety of human beings.

And out of all of them, the worst, without question, had been Arphina's biological father, Count Tonide.

Trash who wouldn't even treat his own daughter like a person because she had no magical talent.

'I thought the worst of the worst was Count Tonide, but…'

Now that top spot might be about to change—

'…Hm?'

As her trembling body slowly settled back down from its fear,

'Maybe not quite that bad yet, and…?'

Sonia tilted her head.

Either way, Del had become a deeply suspicious and dangerous figure. Honestly, he was scarier than Count Tonide, if she was being frank.

But that didn't necessarily mean he was worse trash than Count Tonide, did it?

"…"

After a moment's thought, Sonia threw the choux cream Del had given her straight into the trash.

Dangerous was dangerous, no matter how you sliced it.

She wasn't about to give her precious young lady some unidentified food from a source like that.

Ever since that day, Sonia had revised her assessment of the boy named Del.

From a pretty face worth paying money to look at, to a pretty face worth cursing while you looked at it.

Arphina, who had no way of knowing about this shift in her friend's feelings, was privately feeling quite pleased with herself for having asked for advice after all.

"I think ignoring him is the answer, honestly."

"Even a beautiful gem is still just a rock underneath."

"So if you just keep ignoring him and walking past, that awful face of his will start feeling ordinary. Give it time and you won't even care anymore."

"Is he honestly the only good-looking guy around? The young lord's really handsome too. Well, I still haven't seen him yet, but…"

"If none of that works, want me to just kill him quietly? He's a commoner anyway, and you're under the Duke's protection."

The direction veered off slightly toward the end there, but Sonia had been genuinely worried about Arphina.

'Sonia's finally understanding how I feel.'

It had bothered her a little, how lightly her friend had taken her worries at first, dismissing them just because the new kid was good-looking. But now Sonia was on guard against Del instead.

Just that alone was enough to lighten Arphina's heart. She probably wouldn't even need to carry her monkey wrench around anymore.

'Ignoring him really was the answer.'

Arphina firmly made up her mind.

Since she couldn't help her eyes drifting because he was handsome, she'd just get used to that face as fast as possible.

And if they happened to run into each other, she'd walk right past without acknowledging it.

'He's probably not a bad kid, though.'

She'd been genuinely startled when he'd suddenly shown up and confessed to her, but aside from that one incident, he hadn't actually done her any harm.

In fact, that was simply the ordinary, sensible way for a person to behave.

But Arphina had never quite managed to treat the ordinary as ordinary.

"Hello, senior!"

"Yes, hello…"

Even while returning greetings from passing underclassmen, Arphina kept thinking of Del.

Del's confession hadn't been a cruel joke.

And having reached her own conclusion—that this was exactly why his confession kept surfacing in her mind and stirring something in her chest—

"…"

A question she'd briefly forgotten came back to her, and Arphina stopped walking.

Standing blankly in the crowded hallway, a faint line creased between her brows.

'Where on earth did I meet him, exactly?'

According to Del, they'd met before, and that was when he'd fallen for her.

But no matter how hard Arphina thought about it, she had no memory of ever meeting anyone who looked like Del.

That face wasn't the kind of thing you'd forget just because time had passed.

"…Wow, right on cue."

A mocking voice cut in from behind her.

But Arphina, too absorbed in thoughts of Del, didn't hear it at all.

Tranlator Rant: If your goal is to stay single forever, make lots of girl friends—specifically ones like Sonia. They know better than you, so they can act and think for you. With the best of intention the road will be paved for you...