32 – Clean Up – 3
“How are you? Are you okay?”
Hestia asked Seol-ah in a very caring and kind voice.
“Yes. Thank you for caring.”
“Don’t say that. The most difficult person right now is Miss Lily.”
Seol-ah tried to keep her distance from Hestia as much as possible, but she didn’t even bother. As Hestia distanced herself from her, she wanted to reach out to her and accommodate her. Hestia let go of her words towards Seol-ah before she knew it.
“When did you two start talking?”
“Just now. I think it’s a little funny to be formal while going through such a big thing together. Besides, she apologized to Miss Cordelia and said she wanted to be her friend.”
While waiting for me, he seems to have told Hestia about her apology to Cordelia. Looking at her face, she remembered last night’s dream for no reason, and she became grumpy at the thought that the fun way to school alone with Hestia was interrupted. I looked at Seol-ah. She avoided my gaze as much as she could and ignored her.
“The two of you seem to have become very close in a short time.”
“Miss Lily certainly did something wrong, but there were circumstances that could not be helped. You went ahead and apologized and asked for help.”
Hestia answered my question as if it were natural. How pure of heart is this? If I get married later, I will never have a cheater or something like that in my house.
Seol-ah seemed to find it increasingly difficult to meet her gaze whenever Hestia treated her like an adult gentleman. She is clearly watching her.
“Lady Adamas. Are you uncomfortable somewhere?”
“No! No!”
Seola was taken aback by my question. She doesn’t even ask a very outlandish question, but overreacting is obviously suspicious. Now that I see it, it seems that she is not only looking at Hestia, but also looking at me. There’s no way he’s plotted something more poignant overnight.
I glanced at Hestia while she looked away for a second.
“Why is that?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you avoiding your eyes like that?”
“There is such a thing.”
However, Seol-A did not make eye contact with me until the end and she insisted that it was nothing.
“Ms. Lily, are you really having a hard time?”
“What are you talking about?”
After arriving at the classroom, Seol-ah went to a seat a little away from us and sat down. It was early, so even though the seat next to us was empty, she dared to choose another seat. Hestia spoke in a low voice to my ear.
“It seems like you’ve been avoiding our eyes ever since. I went through something like that yesterday, so I wonder if dealing with people is difficult. I guess I did something stupid.”
Hestia wondered if Seol-Ah’s suspicious attitude was because of her. Seol-ah is in a position where she knows what she said last night, it’s an outrageous worry.
How can a person be so white and pure? I tried hard to suppress Hestia’s desire to hug her. I’ll have to ask her out on a library date from her dreams later. Even if you don’t know the place, it seems good to stay up all night looking at the stars or having a school festival together. The strangely vivid dog dream gave me great inspiration regarding the dating course.
I decided to ease her ridiculous worries.
“That can’t be. Lady Adamas must be grateful to us too, right? Maybe it’s because I need some time to organize my thoughts.”
“Is that so?”
“Sure. I cried a lot yesterday saying thank you.”
Hestia tapped my arm and rolled her eyes.
“What if I just say that?”
“It hurts. Okay. I will keep my mouth shut.”
I rubbed the arm of the woman who had been hit by her and rudely teased her.
“Hello!”
Looking at the clock, it was time for the other students to come. Cordelia also went to school at the same time as the other students. She greeted us with a bright smile.
“You look a little better today?”
“What are you talking about?”
I spoke to Cordelia as she sat down next to us where she always sat.
“Yesterday, both of you were very strange. Should I say he was restless, or couldn’t stay still?”
“Is that so?”
“I did. What happened?”
“Uh, that’s…”
“I was worried about the results of the club interview.”
“Yes. So that’s how it was.”
When I couldn’t answer right away, Hestia, who was listening next to me, intervened and hit the cover. Cordelia nodded her head. It seemed that he roughly understood Hestia’s words.
“You said it was a travel club, right? Have the interview results not come out yet? Right now, today is the club activity day.”
Cordelia, who seemed convinced, suddenly asked a sharp question. In response to her question, Hestia and I became matchless. Come to think of it, today is Friday. I recalled the completely ruined interview and the face of Seol-ah, who was sure of my passing at the same time. Can you confirm that you passed?
Originally, yesterday was the day the results came out. It’s awkward for anyone to see that people who were restless over the interview results haven’t even confirmed it yet, even though it’s been a while since the interview results came out. I wondered what to evade.
“Both passed.”
Seol-ah approached us while we were worried.
“What?”
As if Cordelia had never laughed at us, she shot at me with a sharp tone.
“They both passed the travel club. I checked in the hallway earlier.”
“No, so what are you?”
Seol-ah shuddered nervously, then put her hand on her chest and took a deep breath.
“I’m here to apologize.”
“Apology?”
“Lady Deneb. I’m really sorry until now.”
Seol-ah bowed her back. Cordelia looked at her with a puzzled expression, as if she hadn’t grasped her situation yet. Not many, but the other students in the classroom are also buzzing when they see Seol-Ah’s apology.
“What, what? What is this all of a sudden… !”
“I don’t think this will wash away all the wrongs I did to Lady Deneb.”
“Raise your head for now! Hurry!”
Cordelia hurriedly got up from her seat, embarrassed to have her apology suddenly received in front of the other students, and she raised her head. However, she seemed to have had a little effect on her apology. Suddenly, her tone softened a little, and her speech changed from casual to polite.
“What kind of plan is this?”
“There is no plan. I came here because I really wanted to apologize.”
Cordelia stared into Seol-ah’s eyes. Seol-ah also did not avoid her gaze. The eyes of the two collided fiercely in the air. It was Cordelia who turned her head first.
“Once I got it. But I don’t want to accept an apology right now.”
Cordelia came out unexpectedly strong. Seol-ah’s pupils, who trusted me when I boasted that I would accept her apology, shook. Embarrassed, she turned to me. It’s like a cry for help. Earlier, she clenched her teeth and averted her eyes, but now that she needs me, she does that. A little bit outrageous. I averted her gaze, thinking of hurting her.
“Is that so?”
Seol-Ah’s voice, which had lost her trusted colleague–even though it was only in her imagination–suddenly became sullen. As soon as Cordelia heard her sullen voice, her heart must have been shaken.
Seola’s pupils were wandering around like a lost cat, and Hestia also seemed to be contemplating whether or not to intervene in the situation. This is enough to make Seol-ah worry. I got up and went over to Cordelia and whispered her into her ear.
“Lady Deneb. Originally, the one who forgives first is the one who wins.”
After hearing my words, Cordelia flinched as if she was shaking more than before. I decided to put a last hit here.
“And forgiveness is also the virtue of a good knight.”
“That… Is it run?”
“Yes. There are many strong knights, but great knights who can forgive their opponents first are rare. With a generous mindset, you can be not only strong, but also a good and respected knight.”
Cordelia nodded her head at the story of my knight. She muttered to herself who she was explaining to, and convinced herself.
“Well, I guess so. It’s not because I really want to forgive him, it’s because I want to become a great knight.”
What, you really changed your mind about this? She walked over to Seol-ah, who was still sullen, and took her hand.
“I thought about it again, I apologized and I will just forgive you.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Seol-ah was taken aback by her sudden change of attitude. What is this? She shot me a look demanding an explanation. I ignored it lightly.
Likewise, Hestia, a little surprised, whispered to me as I sat down again.
“What did you say to Miss Cordelia?”
“I just said it is chivalrous to forgive first.”
“You can change your attitude like that just by saying that?”
“I didn’t think it was this much either.”
I, who boasted to Seol-ah, actually intended to brainwash Cordelia if she did not accept her apology, following her all day and reciting her aphorisms about her forgiveness. I never thought that I would change my mind after falling for the two keywords, winner and article.
“I will have to use that method the next time I persuade Miss Cordelia.”
“For example?”
“A good knight doesn’t drink too much and doesn’t use violence?”
“Does Lady Deneb like to drink that much?”
I don’t think there was anything like that. It’s called an academy, but in this world we are adults. Of course, there are not many students who go out of their way to drink alcohol in the dormitory, but students who like alcohol often enjoy drinking and dancing at the store outside the academy. But Cordelia, as far as I know, has never drank alcohol since entering school.
Hestia shook her head at my question.
“No. It’s not that I like alcohol, but I don’t have a good drinking habit.”
“Drinking habit?”
“You’ve seen Mikhail at the eve, too. How savage Miss Cordelia becomes when she gets angry with him once, after drinking.”
I guess she couldn’t bear to use the expression that her spigot turned or her eyes turned upside down towards her friend. I remembered her whining at Seol-ah’s slap on the eve of her eve, whether the crown prince saw it or not, whether I stopped it or not. She was immediately convinced.
“I think I know.”
“Originally, the person you shouldn’t touch the most is not the person who gets angry often, but the person who gets angry once, isn’t it? Cordelia-san also feels the same way. She was also with Mikhail, so you know? Miss Cordelia is not someone who gets angry easily.”
Come to think of it. Even though I teased her a few times, she never really got mad at me. Even when we did the embarrassing thing of eating her lunch with Seol-Ah without her, she didn’t take her anger.
“Sure. Come to think of it, I’m not that hot-tempered.”
“On the contrary, it’s because once you get angry, you don’t think about it.”
Hestia looked admiringly at Cordelia talking to Lily. She is not the eye of a friend, but the eye of a guardian of a child.
“Once you get to know her, she is a really nice person, but it seems that everyone treats Miss Cordelia with prejudice.”
“Come to think of it, I was alone on the night before.”
She has thought about it for a long time, but Cordelia really has no friends except for Hestia. She is me. She was originally a personality, so there is nothing strange about her even if she is not there. Now that she has Hestia, she doesn’t really want another friend. Hestia has one or two friends I don’t know who are in different classes and different grades.
“She once had a tea party at Miss Cordelia’s mansion.”
Hestia began her explanation with her vague eyes.
“It was a tea party attended by girls from aristocratic families who were about the same age as Miss Cordelia, including myself, and someone kept arguing with Miss Cordelia without reason.”
She seemed to know after that she didn’t have to tell me.
“He kept arguing with Tyler, telling me not to do it with Miss Cordelia. In the end, Miss Cordelia, who was angry to the end of her hair, pulled out her hair and left a huge hole in her scalp despite the people around her. Because of that, he spread a lot of rumors in the social world. Miss Cordelia is a savage and violent person.”
I almost laughed when I thought of Cordelia tearing her hair apart and screaming, and the aristocratic lady crying next to her with temporary alopecia areata. He struggled to hold back a laugh and spoke.
“Wow, what is he doing now?”
“He is in the same grade as us. It’s because half is different. Still, it’s fortunate that he seems to have calmed down a bit after entering the academy.”
In the end, Cordelia, who couldn’t hold back her anger, reacted a little violently, and rumors about her hair were spread all over the neighborhood. Our people are nice, but Cordelia, a fool who has a bit of a bad habit of her hands, did nothing while the rumor spread and became isolated.
“Of course, it is wrong to use violence under any circumstances… , But it’s not that only Miss Cordelia was at fault, so I think it’s a bit unfair that it ended up like this.”
“Did you stay quiet in the royal family and the duchy?”
In the social world, the prince’s fiancée was being bullied in an unprecedented situation.
“The ducal family tried to do something, but the imperial family was silent. Eventually, it became blurry. I was puzzled at the time, but now that I think about it, it seems that the criminal did it to isolate Cordelia in order to make it easier to tie her up.”
Hestia believes that Cordelia too must have been abused by Wilhelm. In fact, she was probably isolating her not to tie her up, but to break up her marriage more easily, but I didn’t bother to correct her misunderstanding. As for her unhappy betrothal to Cordelia, she herself will tell later. She didn’t want to reveal the fact that Cordelia had been hiding from her.
“So when Miss Lily wanted to apologize to her Miss Cordelia, she was a little happy. Of course, the impression so far may not have been very good, but she thought it would be nice if we could become friends while sharing the hardships with each other.”
“I see. Rather, do you know what happens to our travel club?”
I didn’t feel very comfortable talking about this topic anymore, so I hurriedly changed the subject. I hope the misunderstanding between the two will be resolved by themselves.
“Today is the first day, so isn’t it recreational? Oh, in case you don’t know, let’s check it out for ourselves.”
“Yes.”
I stood up, ignoring Cordelia and Lily, who were still having a deep conversation. You will do well
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