Chapter 28: A Budding Friendship

The semester break was over, and after a month apart, the students gathered in the classroom.

“It’s been a while, Sayoreinne.”

“Yes, a month, hasn’t it, Euru? It’s good to see you.”

“Spending the break at the royal palace, meeting unfamiliar nobles, fulfilling royal duties, unable to see my friends, and forced to relieve my fatigue alone in my room… I much prefer academy life.”

Euru pulled Sayoreinne’s hand towards her, her fingers tracing the back of Sayoreinne’s hand.

The sensation of those long, elegant fingers gliding across her skin… it felt strangely serpentine. A warm, soft, pleasant serpent, perhaps, but a serpent nonetheless. ‘Were we always this close?’ Sayoreinne wondered. She had considered them friends, relatively close even, but this level of physical intimacy seemed… excessive.

“But you seemed quite friendly with your maid, Euru. And even if you were alone, you don’t strike me as the type to get lonely.”

The persistent contact sent a shiver down Sayoreinne’s spine, a tingling warmth spreading through her chest. She could feel the heat rising in her ears, and she knew, without looking in a mirror, that her face must be flushed. She would have normally been unfazed by such a gesture, perhaps even enjoying it, but now… she felt overwhelmingly shy.

“Hmm… you seem different today. And you know exactly what I mean, don’t you?”

Euru moved closer, their shoulders touching. Sayoreinne tensed, anticipating further advances. Perhaps deterred by the presence of others, or perhaps she hadn’t intended to go any further, Euru simply continued toying with Sayoreinne’s hand. Sayoreinne tried to pull her hand away, but she was no match for Euru’s superior strength. Her hand remained trapped.
Turning to face Euru, their eyes met. Euru smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

Blushing, Sayoreinne turned away, her gaze falling on Miner and Soine, who were sitting quietly beside Euru. They seemed unconcerned, yet Sayoreinne felt a strange wave of self-consciousness wash over her.
She turned back, lowering her head.

‘I wish the professor would just hurry up and get here…’

A familiar, soft voice, one she had grown accustomed to during the break, reached her ears. Sayoreinne looked up to greet the speaker.

It was Nell, a petite, almost doll-like girl, barely over five feet tall. Her shy expression was reminiscent of the Nell Sayoreinne remembered from the game.

And then,

“Um, well…”

“What……?”

Soine and Miner exchanged bewildered glances, clearly flustered by the exchange between Sayoreinne and Nell.

‘…I suppose it is rather surprising.’

After a month-long break, they returned to find the target of their bullying exchanging greetings with the person who had orchestrated it, their interaction suggesting not just a truce, but a hint of intimacy.

“…That’s certainly a surprising and curious sight. Did you two become friends during the break?” Euru asked, her expression a mixture of curiosity and confusion. Soine and Miner looked on, unsure how to react. Nell simply stared at Sayoreinne, her expression unreadable.

The intense gazes of four beautiful girls were overwhelming. Sayoreinne’s inner introvert was struggling.

‘What should I tell them?’

She briefly considered her options. The situation wasn’t particularly complicated.
She could simply tell the truth: she had frequented the library where Nell worked, apologized, and Nell had forgiven her. That was it.

‘…But what does Nell think?’ It wasn’t just her story to tell. If Nell preferred to keep it private, Sayoreinne would respect her wishes.

“…….”

Nell simply looked at her with a shy expression, seemingly unconcerned. It made sense. There was nothing controversial or misleading about saying “I apologized, and Nell forgave me.”

“……So, Nell accepted my apology, and we’ve been meeting every day since, so… we’ve become, um, rather close.”

‘Why are they all holding my hands…?’
As Sayoreinne spoke, Nell had slipped into the seat beside her, taking Sayoreinne’s free hand – the one not held captive by Euru – and toying with her fingers. Nell’s hand was small, but surprisingly warm.

The warmth of Nell’s hand made Sayoreinne grateful that the summers in this world weren’t excessively hot.

…And although she had been trying to ignore it, she could feel the gazes of the other Class A students upon them. They must have noticed the improved atmosphere between her and Nell towards the end of the last semester, but this… Euru practically clinging to her, the amicable exchange with Nell, now holding hands… it was enough to pique anyone’s curiosity.

‘Oh no… I just wanted to live a quiet life, avoiding attention.’ The weight of their gazes intensified the heat in her cheeks. She wondered how she appeared to them.

‘Haah…’ She sighed internally.

“U-Um, Nell? I, I want to apologize for… for bullying you. I’m really sorry!” Soine stammered.

“I apologize as well. I’m truly sorry, Nell,” Miner added, bowing her head.

They had apologized of their own accord, without any prompting from Sayoreinne.
They might be minor nobles, but they were still nobles, apologizing so readily to a commoner like Nell. And their apologies felt genuine, not forced or performative.

‘They wouldn’t have bullied anyone if it weren’t for the original Sayoreinne.’ It wasn’t Juseong’s fault, yet he felt a pang of guilt and remorse.

“I accept your apologies. Please raise your heads,” Nell said, accepting their apologies with a cool indifference.

She glanced briefly at them, then turned back to Sayoreinne. …Anyone watching might assume she was dismissing the whole affair as someone else’s problem. But perhaps that meant she truly wasn’t bothered by it anymore? Perhaps it was a positive sign…

As they walked towards the dining hall, Sayoreinne was surrounded by Miner and Soine, her constant companions, Nell, now a true friend, and even Euru, who usually kept her distance, had joined them today.

A smile spread across Sayoreinne’s face. She had been more in touch with her emotions lately, and she found herself smiling more often. She was happy to be surrounded by friends.

Perhaps, just perhaps, she was doing alright after all.

When Sayoreinne apologized to her in the library, Nell’s first reaction had been anger. ‘What is she plotting now? Does she enjoy tormenting me this much, knowing how difficult things are for me?’ She had rejected Sayoreinne’s apology outright.

‘What’s she going to do now? Get angry? Be disappointed that I didn’t fall for it?’

Sayoreinne’s reaction had been completely unexpected.

She had bowed her head again and apologized. Nell hadn’t accepted it. Yet, Sayoreinne hadn’t given up, persuading Nell to talk after closing time. ‘Now, after all this time?’ Nell had felt a surge of anger. ‘There were plenty of opportunities to apologize before.’

Despite her anger, she had hesitated. She would have normally refused, but… whether it was an act or not, Sayoreinne seemed different since the start of the second semester. Nell had wanted to see what she had to say, so she agreed.

In a secluded corner of the academy grounds, almost deserted, Sayoreinne apologized again. Nell had to admit, no matter how she looked at it, Sayoreinne seemed sincere.

Sayoreinne was genuinely trying to apologize.

The realization made her heart pound. Despite their currently strained relationship, Nell…

…had admired Sayoreinne. When they first met, she had been captivated by Sayoreinne’s beauty, her grace and elegance, her confidence and seemingly unshakeable self-esteem. Sayoreinne had been everything Nell wanted to be, her ideal. Even Sayoreinne’s forced, unnatural smiles had seemed charming.

But as time passed, Sayoreinne had revealed a different side of herself. Aggressive, irritable, prone to hysterics, her words, though polite, often cruel and cutting. The confidence Nell had admired had been a mere facade. And then there was the bullying, orchestrated by Sayoreinne, targeting Nell, someone at the very bottom of the academy’s social hierarchy. The clumsy, half-hearted bullying, which Nell had initially dismissed, had gradually become a source of distress as her family’s financial situation worsened and her anxieties about the future mounted. Perhaps she had wanted to blame her suffering on the bullying.

Regardless, Nell had come to despise Sayoreinne, the girl who had once resembled her ideal, but who now seemed determined to prove that ideal was a lie.

Something had shifted in Nell’s heart during the second semester. She had pretended not to care, but she had been observing Sayoreinne. Sayoreinne hadn’t shown any signs of her usual hysterics. She had been quiet, almost withdrawn. Nell had briefly wondered if Sayoreinne was finally becoming the person she had admired, but she had quickly dismissed the thought. ‘People don’t change that easily.’

But now, seeing Sayoreinne bowing her head, offering a sincere apology… could she have been wrong?

Her head spun, her heart racing. She needed to know. She needed to confirm whether Sayoreinne was truly the person she had admired, her ideal.

She had accepted Sayoreinne’s apology and asked to be friends, asking her to continue visiting the library during the break.

Sayoreinne had readily agreed, spending time with her every day. She hadn’t been irritable, aggressive, or foul-mouthed. Her smiles had been genuine, not the forced, mask-like smiles of before… and they never failed to make Nell’s heart flutter.

The little over a week they had spent together had been joyful and comforting, a welcome escape from Nell’s harsh reality.

Sayoreinne wasn’t exactly the person Nell had imagined, but it didn’t matter. She had grown fond of this slightly awkward Sayoreinne, the one with the beautiful, fleeting smiles, the one who flustered easily at physical contact, yet pretended to be unfazed.