Chapter 10 - Love and Like, and Norm (恋と愛と、普通と)

translated by myonnie

Yoshida, startled by my brother’s appearance, half-pushed me away, and I straightened my posture and turned to face Julius.

I found myself unconsciously doing seiza when faced with this situation,

“Rene, you’re eyeing another man again?”

“And why are you eyeing me, I wonder?”

“Ahaha, just kidding. Is everything okay?"

I took my brother’s outstretched hand and stood up. He easily pulled me up, slightly surprised me.

“Who’s that guy?”

“He’s Yoshida, and he was implicated when they locked me up... Ah, this is my brother.”

“Yoshida, sorry about Rene.”

“I’m not Yoshida.”

“Oh, really?”

Eventually Julius picked up my bag, which had been carelessly tossed on the floor, and said, "Let's go home," as he started walking away.

The way he casually carried my bag like it was natural was, really, the epitome of a chic, capable man.

“Do you want to ride our carriage?”

“No. My carriage should still be waiting for me. It’s fine.”

Yoshida’s carriage was, apparently, waiting in the opposite direction from where my brother’s waiting, so we decided to part ways there.

“Yoshida, I’m so sorry. Teach me again next time, okay?”

“Never again, dummy.”

He spat out and turned his back. Is he angry? This was all caused by the students who locked us in that place, but I felt guilty for getting him involved.

But he continued, “I forgot to tell you one thing.”

“Question number 8, you got it wrong. The correct answer is water magic."

With that said, Yoshida walked away with one hand raised slightly.

“Yoshida, thank you...!”

The way he left was too cool. I deeply regretted that I had neglected characters with glasses in otome games before.

I planned to increase his favorability for me, but instead, my favorability for him inadvertently exploded. What a blunder.

In the end, without realizing that I had missed his real name, my brother took me by the hand and we started walking again.

“Hm? Have you fallen in love with Yoshida?”

“Honestly, I want to be friends with him.”

“Uh-huh. Hopefully you can.”

With an amused smile on his face, Julius walked down the quiet street lit by street lamps. It’s hard to put into words, but it felt strange.

We eventually reached the carriage. I expected us to sit facing each other as we had done before, but out of all places Julius chose to sit next to me. What now? I quietly moved away to make some distance, but he immediately closed the gap.

“You’re too close.”

“Yeah. It’s because I’m sticking to you.”

He was so close that I could catch a view of his long, beautiful silver eyelashes.

As usual, I had no idea what my brother wanted to do, so I decided to ask him something that had been bugging me for quite a while.

“You don’t like me, right?”

“I don’t hate you.”

Julius definitely didn’t think much of me. Honestly, he did seem like the type of person who wasn’t interested in anything. It probably just wasn’t me.

And yet, he took the trouble to come all the way from the house to the academy at this hour, to look for me. Deep down, I was very surprised.

He eventually smiled eloquently, his hand on my cheek.

“But you shouldn’t like anyone but me, okay?”

He declared as if it was for granted. Unconsciously, a silly voice came out of my mouth. “Huh?”

“If anything, it’s Rene who’s in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anyway, we have to catch up with the practice you missed today.”

“...I appreciate that.”

None of what he said made any sense. You’re not telling me that this game had an incest route with the heroine’s blood-related brother, right? Nope, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. Or was he telling me I should be a clingy sister?

Nevertheless, the undeniable truth was that this incomprehensible brother of mine had saved me today.

"...Hey, Julius."

“Hm?”

“Thank you, for coming to look for me. It made me happy.”

Yoshida said it. That no one would think of looking for us at that place right away. Which means my brother must’ve been looking for me for quite a long time.

That’s why I sincerely thanked him, but he looked a little surprised, though eventually arching his well-shaped lips.

“Really, I didn’t know why I came.”

◇◇◇

“Good morning.”

“......”

Then another few days passed. And today, too, I didn’t forget to greet Prince Theodore. Of course there was no reply.

I only found out yesterday that I had been nicknamed “greeting maniac” from the students passing. Because the way I greeted only him was unnatural.

Julius told me that while laughing hard. Wow. I hope they know most people would cry in this situation, unlike me.

In the midst of all that, I greeted Yoshida when we passed each other, and he greeted me back normally. Help, I might really fall in love with him.

“Oh, crap. I put too much in.”

“Hey!”

And now I was in potions class. The teacher randomly grouped the students into a pair, and today’s lesson was about experimenting.

I was grouped with the red-haired hottie who I asked for my seat on my first day last week, Willy, but he was too much of a disaster. Even the mild-mannered me was about to lose my temper.

In the last class, he ignored the procedures which caused frog entrails to spurt onto my face. That day, I cried for the first time since I came to this world.  I’ll never forgive him.

“Forget it. I’ll take care of this. Willy, don’t touch anything.”

“My bad.”

“Geez.”

By the way, someone like this was a B-rank. Although his knowledge was catastrophic, he had a high rank due to his overwhelming amount of magic power and skill.

For magic, he was said to be one of the best in our grade.

“You see, I’m really not cut out for this.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“...You have really changed, don’t you? Until the other day, you always had your face down and rarely spoke.”

“Hmm.”

Recalling the sensation of the warm and peculiarly smelly entrails, anger within me welled up again. Willy caught that, and his eyebrows lowered.

“Hey, are you still angry? With what happened the other day.”

“Well.”

“I’m sorry, I mean it. I'll give you this as an apology."

He suddenly tore the edge of his notebook and wrote, "A ticket to help Rene," and handed it to me.

“What is this?”

"An exchange ticket. When you're in trouble, I'll help you out."

“Eh...”

His unexpected gift of apology distinguished my fury. I reluctantly accepted it, forgiving him. He’s not a bad guy. Maybe.

...I still didn’t know that this piece of paper would be ridiculously useful in the future.

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