Chapter 47
Without any word, Swan would come over and just stare at Hestia's face. It felt very unfamiliar to see Swan looking at Hestia with such a soft gaze. I'd never seen such a face, like he had fallen deeply in love.
It was just really weird how Swan had never even said a single word to Hestia when he visited so often. Then why was he even bothering to visit in the first place?
Moreover, he was probably well aware that I was observing him, but he didn't even look at me. He didn't try to meet my gaze. I felt slightly bitter about it: was he really treating me like I didn't exist?
Anyway, what if he really asked me to help him get closer to Hestia in the future?
I was curious at how Hestia felt about Swan, who had come day after day to see her.
"How do I feel about Swan?"
When I nodded, Hestia's expression suddenly went stiff.
"Shushu, are you interested in Swanhaden?"
Hestia asked me an absolutely incredible question. I answered her, slightly shell-shocked.
"No, that's not it. I thought he was just really interested in you."
At my words, Hestia's expression turned into one of surprise. Then, she seemed deep in thought, face pulled into a frown, before quickly smiling again. Today's Hestia was quite expressive.
"Mm, because he comes every day?"
"Well, yeah."
I looked closely at Hestia's reaction. Hestia didn't seem to be too against Swan.
Honestly, I understood that the male characters had some kind of interest towards Hestia, but I didn't know how much Hestia was interested in the male characters. Suddenly, the situation seemed to get a lot more interesting.
I was stroking my chin, deep in thought. Hestia's expression seemed to get darker and darker.
"Shushu, anybody except Swan is okay."
"……?"
I was unfamiliar with this Hestia, who had a dark expression on her face. She always smiled and whined, but suddenly seeing the smile of hers wiped clean off of her face was a shock.
When I asked, "Okay for what?" Hestia just smiled and said that it was nothing.
I headed over to my afternoon classes after my morning classes.
When I finished changing and headed over to the training halls, it was strangely noisy.
"Swaaaaaaaaaaaan! You, you!"
I wondered why it was so loud. A few swordsmanship students were chasing Swan with furious expressions on their face.
Swan peeked to see the students chasing after him, then turned his head back to look in front of him, disgust written on his face.
"My mood's about to go way down because of your ugly mugs, okay? Stop chasing me."
"You, you! You're the one that made us look like this!"
At Swan's words, I began to observe the students who were chasing after him.
All of the students had clothes with artsy cut-outs.
The blue class swordsmanship students' training uniforms had been cut near the chest area, but the shapes were a little ugly. The nipple areas of the shirts were cut into hearts.
It was a gross sight to see a group of boys with heart cut-outs on their nipples.
"You guys said you wanted to fight me. I fought you, so what's the fuss?"
Swan opened his eyes wide and seemed to ask, "What did I do wrong?" with his expression.
It seemed that the boys had tried to fight against Swan. He was the son of a duke, was pretty, and was famous for his healing magic, so it looked like the other students had been angered.
Seeing the current situation, it looked like Swan had cut the boys' clothes like this as a punishment for losing against him. They had to keep wearing the clothes, so I kind of felt bad for them.
"How could you make our clothes look like this? How are we supposed to train like this?! And why are they hearts?!"
"You said that you were going to confess after training, so I just helped you out. Shoot your love towards that special someone with your heart nipples."
"How am I supposed to do that with these clothes?! I'll get dumped for sure!"
"Seeing your ugly mug, it looks like you'd get dumped anyway. Stop blaming other people."
When one of the boys chasing him yelled at him, voice full of anger, Swan responded with a happy smile on his face.
I felt bad for the boy, but I couldn't help but laugh because the scene looked like it was straight out of a sitcom. Wow, but Swanhaden's personality was….a piece of work. It was fun watching on the sidelines, but…..I would've burst into tears if I was that boy.
Next, another boy who seemed to have a grudge against Swan began to speak, face full of questions.
"I didn't duel against you, nor did I confess, why did you do this to me? I was just passing by!"
"Is that right?"
"Y……..you! I'm going to beat you into a pulp!"
In the end, Swan was captured by the boys he had angered. In my opinion, it looked like he had let himself be caught.
"Oh no. I'm so scared. I'm just a pitiful, weak magician."
"How are you pitiful or weak?"
"Cough, cough."
When he found himself surrounded, Swan began to loudly ask for the help of those around him.
"Teacher, they're bullying the newbie. Please help!"
When Swan asked the teacher for help in a loud voice, a teacher happened to be passing by and, full of righteous anger, ran to help Swan.
Then, he saved Swan from the students.
"How could you! He's already struggling because of his late start!"
Swan acted pitiful in front of the teacher who had saved him.
"Teacher, I'm struggling so much. Sob, sob."
He sounded like he was reading a textbook, but it seemed to work against the teacher.
And thus, Swan took care of all of the students who had bothered him. Swan waved happily at the students who were dragged away by the teacher.
I watched the whole scene unfold from start to finish, and found myself shaking. Hmm, Hylli definitely had a point in being scared of him.
Hylli was easily bullied by people like Swan.
But I must have watched too closely. Swanhaden had seemed to notice my existence.
Hylli hadn't arrived at the hall just yet, and all of the students from earlier had been dragged away by the teacher.
Swan watched as the children were being dragged with a sinister look on his face, but immediately stiffened. His smiling face had also stiffened. Swan quietly muttered, "……damn it." and tilted his head to the floor. At this point, he could've just looked at me dead on, but he never turned his head my way.
Swan stayed like that for a few more moments, then turned to look directly away from me. He suddenly ran away.
After Swan ran away last swordsmanship class, he didn't approach Hylli again. To be exact, he seemed to avoid Hylli, who was always around me.
I wondered if the scene that I had witnessed was embarrassing to him, but I knew that was his original personality and didn't care about it. I was curious about why Swan had ran away, but that curiosity didn't last long. I became more invested in what was going to come out for dinner.
I headed over to the green class to visit Cory and Hylli.
It wasn't like I had a particular reason to visit, but I just wanted to hang out. Last time, Cory had said, "I have lots of snacks in my locker, so come and take some," so he was probably going to give me some snacks too, right?
It was a new development, but I was craving more food recently. My appetite had also gotten bigger, and sharing snacks with Cory had become a common occurrence. I had already eaten a lot, but it felt like I could eat a lot more. Cory seemed to enjoy the fact that I ate a lot.
I had eaten so much of his snacks recently that I had started to feel bad, but seeing Cory look content made me feel better.
Anyway, I definitely wasn't going to the green class to eat. It was to visit Cory and Hylli. I was going there to hang out, not to eat. That wasn't my objective.
I swallowed thickly as I headed over to the green class. My mouth was watering. Man, I'm hungry.
When I headed over to the green class, I immediately tried to call for Cory and Hylli, but paused.
The class was incredibly loud.
And in the middle of all of the noise sat Cory and Hylli, and Swan, who was visiting.
Swan was throwing paper cranes that he had folded at Hylli. I couldn't even begin to fathom how many he had folded: the cranes just kept coming. The paper cranes briefly flew in the air before attacking Hylli.
"Hand it over."
On Hylli's lap was a ton of video devices and photo devices.
"No, you can't! If they know they're going to kill me!"
"I can kill you before they do, you know?"
Hylli began to furiously resist to prevent Swan from taking the items. Swan used a mixture of magic and power to press Hylli down, then held the cranes with a scary expression on his face. It looked like Swan was about to shove the paper cranes into Hylli's nose.
"Before I clog your throat with the cranes. Hurry up. I'm being incredibly kind right now."
Poor Hylli, he was being bullied out of money by Swan too. I didn't know what that item was, but for now my interest was more towards Cory's locker than the item mentioned. Oh, no, my true intentions popped out.
Cory looked at the two of them from the sidelines and said one thing.
"Hylli, you've done it now."
With that, Cory just stared at them and took a bite of his apple. Cory placed himself as viewer and only that.
Cory watched the two of them, then met my gaze as I stood at the doorway. As if surprised, Cory's eyes grew slightly wide. He smiled.
"Oh, Shushu, you're here?"
At Cory's words, the class grew quiet.
Swan, who had been shoving Hylli and trying to grab the items in his grasp, immediately tripped and fell, taking Hylli down with him. Ouch, that looked like it hurt.
Meanwhile, Cory welcomed me enthusiastically when he saw me. I had been weirdly moody recently and had been kind of cold towards him, but Cory always tried to match my moods.
"I was kind of bored. Let's get out of class."
Cory tried to get me out of the mess as soon as possible. Yeah, I didn't want to join either. But……
I didn't want to go further away from Cory's locker. That was a small store in itself.
I immediately tried to erase that thought from my head. Shushu, was Cory your food cart or something? Why were you only thinking of food?
But I couldn't seem to hide my feelings. I couldn't stop myself from staring blankly at Cory's locker.
Cory seemed to understand my thoughts and smiled, pointing at his uniform.
"Put your hand in my pocket."
I put my hand in his pocket.
"…..!"
Dimension magic!
Cory's uniform pocket had been enchanted with dimension magic, and that space was filled with crackling sounds.
I opened my hand in the dimension and grabbed a chocolate bar.
When I asked if I could eat it, Cory said to eat as much as I wanted.
Wow, this was pure genius. Why did I never come up with this?
"Cory, you're a genius."
When I complimented him while eating chocolate, Cory also grabbed chocolate out of his pocket and ate with me.
As soon as Cory and I left the room, the class erupted into chaos once again.