“Pfft, Puhahah!”
“Stop laughing!”
“Pfft. I’m sorry. I can’t control that, I can’t… puhaha!”
Fjord, whose face had turned bright red from my endless laughter, shouted frantically.
“Stop laughing!”
I wasn’t the only one laughing.
Carson stared at Fjord’s face and occasionally burst out laughing, as if imagining something.
The only one who remains calm and collected was Kuhn, who hasn’t been here for a while.
Kun tilted his head slowly as if puzzled.
“It’s not like the grains are changing, so what’s the problem, Fjord?”
In response, Fjord glared at Kun, his eyes fierce.
“Then you should go out instead of me!”
“It is impossible for me to take your place, Fjord.”
“Maybe we can pretend you’re crazy and pretend to be me?”
One of Kun’s eyebrows rose silently.
“Will you?”
“Argh!”
Fjord screamed in agony as he grabbed his head, realizing that there was nowhere to escape.
After laughing for a while, I finally calmed down and shared some good news with Fjord.
“In case you haven’t heard yet, Kun came to the clubroom right after class, and he’s our class president.”
“…Really?”
Fjord, who had been writhing on the floor of the clubroom, stopped moving and glanced at Kun.
His eyes were filled with deep camaraderie and a hint of compassion.
I burst out laughing again at Fjord’s antics.
“Phew.”
How could two of my friends be chosen as delegates when I don’t even have a wide circle of friends?
I was in a very pleasant mood and called out curiously in an unusually high tone.
“I bet the chessboard of Fjord that one of you will be elected Miss Arena regardless!”
“…Why are you betting mine!” Fjord gritted his teeth and hugged his chessboard dearly.
No matter how much you pretend to value it, everyone knows it was just lying on the floor a few seconds ago.
Miss Arena.
It was a competition held on the day of the Academic Festival, the crown jewel of the event.
A contest to determine the most attractive student at Arena Academy.
The only catch was that only cross-dressing male students were allowed to compete.
I chuckled softly, calming Fjord down, “Alright, I’m going to stop laughing, and you need to calm down, and we need to keep our hands moving while we talk.”
We were now decorating the exterior of the clubroom door to match the ‘haunted house’ theme.
Even if we were going to use Carson’s illusionary magic, we’d still need to make the exterior look convincing.
But amid all the decorating, I heard about Fjord’s forced entry into Miss Arena, and I had to stop laughing.
“By the way, Kun, you were voted out against your will, too, so you’re a bit of a pushover, aren’t you?”
Kun fiddled with a piece of paper cut into the shape of a bat.
“My mother likes to dress me up in things, so I used to wear dresses when I was younger.”
“By force?”
“She wouldn’t have forced me if I refused, but… because she liked it.”
Kun smiled faintly, as if remembering his mother.
A filial son.
Looking at Kun’s seemingly unfazed behavior, it was almost as if the Fjord was a disaster.
My gaze involuntarily shifted to Fjord. His face was still pink from the rage that hadn’t abated.
“Fjord. Don’t be so mean. It’s a festival, we’re all in this together.”
As if that wasn’t comforting enough, he glared at me.
“Leen, do you think it would have been as easy for you to talk if you were the one cross-dressing?”
Carson, who was drawing a magic circle of buffs in the back of the clubroom, stopped and muttered.
“That would be cool, though…?”
At this point, I was ready to barge into the president’s office and demand to know why Mister Arena wasn’t on board.
Pressing Carson’s head firmly against mine, I gazed at Fjord, the corners of my lips curling up in a small smile.
“Of course, it’s none of my business.”
“I knew it.”
Fjord banged his forehead against the wall, now resigned to everything.
Then, in a sudden surge of anger, he pushed his sleeves up to the limit and began to argue furiously.
“No, how could you choose me as your representative? Behold, the muscles of my arm, hardened by swordsmanship!”
Carson turned to Fjord, his face sullen.
“Get off your high horse.”
Fjord silently lowered his sleeve, then retracted his arm.
I smirked and nudged Kun, “But by that height, isn’t Kun a bit tall for a cross-dresser?”
The three with me were all tall, no matter what they ate.
Given that he hadn’t stopped growing yet, Kun was probably barely over six feet tall by the time he graduated.
“By the way, Leen is….”
Kun trailed off and looked at me, his gaze finally meeting Carson’s and Fjord’s.
“Cute.”
“Small.”
Unlike the two of them, who expressed their thoughts in short, quick bursts, Kun pondered for a moment, then asked earnestly.
“When did you decide not to grow up?”
… I wonder if that’s called a question.
I stood still in disbelief, and Fjord’s mouth twitched as if he’d caught me in the act.
“Wow, Leen, you can control your height, that’s amazing. Ugh, how I wish I had that ability. Hmph, do you keep your keys at home, or are they removable?”
He teased me nonstop as if to avenge the earlier remark.
But there’s something Fjord was overlooking, and it’s that I don’t feel any damage from his teasing.
It’s just that they’re filthy big, and I’m of average height.
Besides, who cares if they’re short or tall, as long as I’m happy with my height?
Carson’s eyebrows knitted together, looking puzzled. It was like looking at a newborn baby animal.
“Little Leen is cute….”
My eyebrows, on the other hand, wiggled in displeasure.
Oh well, I’m not small.
I narrowed my brow in repulsion, “Caon. Are you being a little mean?”
Carson stared at me, wide-eyed, surprised by my words.
I stared back at him and asked him to think about it.
“I’m not saying that you wouldn’t be cute if you were taller.”
“…!”
Carson spat out a sigh of realization, “A big Leen.”
Abruptly, he covered his mouth with both hands and blushed.
“I love it…”
That was not the reaction I intended to provoke.
It didn’t go quite as planned, and with a quick pout, I changed the subject.
“Well, anyway, here’s what I wanted to tell you, Fjord.”
“What?”
I walked over to Fjord and put a hand on his shoulder.
“In case you don’t know, cross-dressing is the most manly thing a man can do.”
“Oh…!”
Fjord’s eyes widened, and he brushed my hand away indignantly, pretending to realize something.
“You think that’s going to give me any comfort, ack!”
“Pfft, phew.”
Ahhh, it was so much more fun to tease than to be teased.
After another round of laughter, I finally calmed down and picked up my pen again.
My job was to write the prerequisites and warnings before entering.
As I scribbled away, I looked up at Kun and asked, “Now that I think about it, why are you here? You were working so effortlessly earlier that I didn’t even notice.”
“Am I not being helpful?”
“Well, you’re certainly helping, but…”
Kun tilted his head in confusion.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You have your club now, do your club members have any problems with you spending time here?”
At that, Kun smiled weakly, as if it was no problem.
“I’m in the middle of a club right now.”
“…Are you some kind of wandering, parasitic club that infests other clubs?”
At my glazed look, Kun grinned and said implicitly.
“You’ll find out sooner or later.”
Well, I was curious, but since he used the phrase ‘you’ll find out sooner or later…’
I figured I didn’t have to pry.
“Yeah. I guess I’ll find out someday.”
I responded lightly, turning back to my pen.
<*WARNING* The club is not responsible for any issues that may arise inside, so those with squeamish stomachs, the elderly, or pregnant women… please be safe!>
A wave of pride washed over me as I looked at the finished phrase.
For example. The elderly and pregnant women should be healthier than anyone else.
I bragged about it, asking them to look at it, earning praise from Carson, a blank stare from Fjord, and silence from Kun.
It was a fun time of preparation.
🍃
The Arena Academy’s academic festival has begun.
The Academy, which had been closed to outsiders, opened its gates and allowed the public to visit.
Caridenes Potitua.
He was traveling to a foreign country, the Arena Academy, to see the child he had raised as his grandchild.
An old man with jet-black hair and pitch-black eyes.
His dark eyebrows and tightly pursed lips gave him an air of intimidation, and his strong frame and muscular body showed how much he had trained in his youth.
Even the wrinkles that hinted at his age were merely a means of enhancing his vigor.
He looked out at the smiling faces of the Academy’s students and thought of his son.
“…I miss you, Rud.”
Caris was a living legend of the Abascanthus Empire.
A master swordsman, always at the forefront of battle.
In his native Lagras, he was also known as the Killing Eagle, or the Nightmare of the Battlefield.
But that was more than two decades in the past.
After a peace treaty between Lagras and Abascanthus, he laid down the sword that had supported his empire.
He was knighted as a Grand Duke for his service in the war, but he had nothing left.
Parents and siblings. His beloved wife. A lifelong friend.
They all died in the war.
If there was one thing he had left…
A child, a son who looked exactly like his late wife.
Having spent decades on the battlefield, he had little memory of spending time with his son as a child.
So when he retired, he stayed with his son and doted on him endlessly.
By the time the war ended, his son was already a grown man, but that didn’t matter.
The two were happy.
Nothing could ever compensate for the lost time, but it was a very happy period indeed.
If only I hadn’t been so stubborn, that happiness would have continued.
“I was stupid. I lost everything in a moment of emotion.”
Nothing was more important to Caris than his son.
So, therefore, he believed it would be the same for him. But that was only in his mind.
Instead, his son chose the woman he loved.
The woman he brought with him was a native of Lagras.
— “Rud, I don’t care if whoever you bring with you turns out to be a beggar living in a back alley or a cripple with a missing part of his body.”
The fury of the man’s words leaked out of Caris’s body in a gurgle of frantic, unfulfilled breath.
— “…Father?”
— “But not anyone from Lagras. Not a Lagrasian!”
Lagras was the country that had taken everything from him.
It still brought tears to his eyes to think of those around him who had been turned to dust by their hands.
His body bore the scars of their war that would never be erased. He resented and opposed the union of the two with all his heart.
Who knew… That it would become the most regrettable act of his life.
