Chapter 25: Something To Remember Me By

Yelena took me to one of the ordinary jewelry stores on the street.

Ordinary girls usually like beautiful and sparkling things like jewels, but the girl in front of me was an ice princess who had lived half like a machine, with no interest in anything other than swords and training.

Even though she was the daughter of the Grand Duke of the North, who possessed enormous wealth, and was called the next candidate for the head of the Northern Knights, she was a girl who didn’t wear even ordinary earrings, despite having no money problems.

So, it was natural for me to be surprised when I saw Yelena heading to a jewelry store.

“Yelena, were you interested in this kind of thing?”

“Not really, but after hearing what you said, something suddenly came to mind.”

Yelena answered lightly and looked around the jewelry store.

It was a jewelry store, so the prices weren’t low, but a girl who had seen all kinds of jewels while living as the Grand Duchess of the North wouldn’t be impressed by a place like this.

What on earth did she see here? Before the question could even leave my head, Yelena picked out a hairpin.

For some reason, it had an amethyst of a color I had seen somewhere before, embedded in a black pin.

“Ah?”

Before I could even think about where I had seen this color combination before, Yelena smiled faintly and carefully touched my hair.

It was natural that my train of thought stopped.

A beautiful girl who still rarely smiled, even after becoming friends, was gently stroking my hair with a faint smile.

My heart began to beat uncontrollably fast. Yelena’s fingers, carefully touching my hair, made me feel like I was a precious person to Yelena.

“Uhehe…?”

I closed my eyes tightly. Knowing that my face was ridiculously red, I had no choice but to quietly feel Yelena’s touch.

I was sure I was supposed to buy Yelena a gift, but the question of why Yelena was buying me a hairpin came after Yelena had already finished paying.

For some reason, Yelena seemed to be in a good mood, so I didn’t want to ruin it, but it seemed like I was just receiving without giving anything, so I asked a little timidly.

“It seems like I was supposed to give you a gift, but I only received one…So, what do you want, Yelena?”

“Hmm? If it’s what I want, you’ve already given it to me, Sian.”

“Huh, I did?”

I urgently searched my memory. I had been led by Yelena’s touch to the jewelry store, and it hadn’t even been 10 minutes yet, so what had I given Yelena in the meantime?

I’m not old enough to have dementia, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with an answer. Yelena’s soft touch reached me as I was confused.

“Hehe, Sian, you’re a bit slow.”

“Uh…uh?”

Yelena murmured, smiling faintly. Yelena, who had completely taken off her usual mask and looked at me like an ordinary seventeen-year-old girl, was rather awkward.

It wasn’t an unpleasant awkwardness. The gap between her usual cold image and the image of a comfortable neighborhood older sister felt like a different kind of charm.

If before, my heart just beat fast, now my heart just dropped.

Yelena, who had frozen my body, approached my ear and whispered in a comfortable voice.

“If Sian receives the hairpin, Sian will think of me whenever she looks at the hairpin. I’ve already received a gift.”

“Ah? Uh, yes…?”

Yelena’s voice was so different from usual. I wondered if I had heard correctly, but there was no answer.

Yelena just looked at me with her usual expressionless face.

Only her slightly reddened earlobes proved that the appearance Yelena had just shown under the mask was not my delusion.

Time, which seemed to flow eternally slowly, eventually comes to an end.

That was also true for the time spent with friends. Before long, the clock in the autonomous district square pointed to nine o’clock.

I ate the sandwich I had bought a little while ago with Yelena and Regina, and quietly looked up at the evening sky.

“Did everyone have fun?”

“Yes. I don’t think the training time I sacrificed was wasted.”

“Me too…It’s the first time I’ve come to the autonomous district with a friend…”

Regina, who had been walking around all day, was very tired and leaned against me. While munching on the sandwich, Regina murmured quietly.

“How was it, wasn’t it boring?”

“Of course…! Today was really, really…a new day.”

Regina, who looked up at the sky with dreamy eyes as if recalling today, put her arm around mine and asked.

“Sian…Miss.”

“Hmm?”

“Can we, come out together like this next time…?”

“Of course.”

I answered that and approached Regina a little more. It wasn’t time to reveal our secret to Yelena yet.

When we were almost cheek to cheek, I hugged Regina and stroked her back, speaking in a gentle voice.

“I promised. I’ll show you the world you haven’t seen before. I’ll break the ‘fate’ and let you move on to the second year.”

“So, look forward to it? There are a lot of places I wanted to travel to together while living as an adventurer. Let’s travel together after we graduate.”

“Yes…!”

Sian was too close to Regina and didn’t notice Regina’s face turning red. She just thought that Regina’s voice was trembling more than usual.

Regina, trying to control her expression, took a big bite of the sandwich and mumbled happily.

“Umm. Ehehe, it’s delicious…”

“Eat a lot, Regina. Regina needs to grow up quickly.”

“Ugh, I…I’m, big enough…”

Regina, who answered urgently and couldn’t even swallow the sandwich properly, muttered in a muffled voice. I took out a handkerchief and wiped Regina’s mouth.

“Yes. Our Regina is very big. Amazing.”

“Ugh…”

Realizing that she would only be at a disadvantage if she answered further, Regina lowered her head powerlessly and made a somewhat dissatisfied expression.

“Hmph, you’ll say I’m cute anyway…right?”

“Ah. How did you know?”

“Because Sian said to improve my confidence…”

Then, Regina, who was making a triumphant expression while slightly sticking out her small but assertive upper body.

I smiled at her and answered.

“Yes. You’re doing great.”

The moon had risen brightly. As the curfew approached, the bright lights that made up the city were turned off one by one.

Somehow, I liked watching that scene. It felt like I was wrapping up a pleasant day with the city.

I crumpled up the wrapping paper of the sandwich I had finished eating and threw it in the trash can. We stood up from the place where we had been sitting together.

It was fun until today, but as new students of the academy, the time to enjoy leisure was almost over.

Tomorrow, regular classes would begin. And now the midterm exams were less than two weeks away.

“Playing is over for today. Now that the semester has officially started and the midterm exams are coming soon, we have to study hard from tomorrow.”

“If…if you don’t know something, you can ask me.”

“Come to me too. I’m a little confident in my studies.”

“Ahaha…Thank you both for the offer. But, I’ll try to start studying alone for now. I’m not very good at sitting at a desk, so I don’t think I’ll be able to concentrate properly if I have close friends next to me.”

I said that, but the reason I refused their offers was different.

Of course, Yelena and Regina’s grades would be very good. Yelena was a natural genius, and Regina would have memorized the questions from the countless regressions.

The problem was that both of them were quite bad at teaching ordinary students like me.

A genius’s eyes see problems differently from ordinary people. Besides, Yelena wasn’t very good at explaining in the first place.

If I went to Regina, I could get all the answers on the test…but what’s the point of getting all the answers by memorizing them?

“That’s…too bad, I see…”

“But come find me if you change your mind.”

“Yes. Thank you both for the offer!”

As we chatted and walked around, we could see the students talking to each other.

Maybe they were students who came out to enjoy the last of the new student’s leisure time like us. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing.

As I watched that scene, the clock above the main gate, pointing to 9:30, came into view. I felt that even the last break time was almost over, and I turned to the two of them.

“Then, I’ll be going now.”

“Me…me too…”

“Me too. Good night everyone.”

When I returned to the dormitory, I organized my empty room and prepared for bed. Now, just as I was about to fall asleep comfortably, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Ah, wait a minute.”

Remembering a fact that I had forgotten, I urgently rummaged through the coin purse in the drawer.

“…Ah?”

No matter how much I rummaged through the purse, all that came out were a few copper coins and one silver coin. I had spent all the money I had prepared on the academy entrance fee, so there was no money.

Lately, there had been so many big things happening, such as sparring with Yelena and meeting Regina, that I had completely forgotten.

“Sigh…”

Powerlessly putting the purse back in the drawer, I sighed and thought.

Tomorrow, I should go to the adventurer’s guild in the autonomous district.