He looked like he wasn't going to do it, but did it anyway.
He pulled the ends of his mouth upwards and tried his best to give me a smile.
He already looked like a gangster, but he looked even more scary when he smiled. I was sure that the term "murderous smile" was created based off of his smile.
Cory had probably smiled without any thought, but his smile reminded me of a mafia boss smiling, half mad, after murdering an entire warehouse full of people.
A chill went up my spine. His happy smile was both full of himself and fear itself.
A female student passing by saw his face and shrieked in surprise. Then, another student passed me by and asked if I was okay. One passerby gave me a piece of chocolate and told me good luck.
...that was probably really stressful for Cory...…. I was trying not to react to it, but it was just too much so I guess it was time for me to butt in.
"Sir, do you have any friends?"
Cory's eyes shook slightly. He paused for a long time, then opened his mouth.
"....I do."
He struggled to come up with a name, then mentioned the prince.
"You've never talked to Hestia, have you."
"She ran away when I tried talking to her."
When I asked how he learned about her type, he said that he had coincidentally seen someone confess to Hestia.
When the confessing student asked Hestia, 'Who is your type, then?! I'll match them!', Hestia had responded with 'Shushu.' In conclusion, he had just coincidentally heard it while he was passing by.
Apparently, Cory had even been slapped by a stranger when he was just out walking.
He had been sitting on a bench and watching the couples sitting across from him without a thought. A man had then come up to him and asked if Cory was threatening him, then attacked.
Of course, after he had learned that Cory was from a marquis family, he had begged for forgiveness until his hands and feet were dust....
Then did that mean that in the novel, it wasn't that Cory didn't show his affections for Hestia, but that Hestia had one-sidedly avoided being with him? Was that why they hardly met?
Thinking about it, Cory was more of a silent supporter of Hestia. Honestly, I didn't really know. But the one thing I knew for sure...
This kid, he was just as pitiful as the prince.
I asked him once again.
"Are you really going to join a club filled with people?"
Cory stared at my face for a long time as if deep in thought, then chuckled.
"Give that over here."
Cory signed the club application.
Club activities take place every other day, after lunch.
Club days are great, because morning and afternoon classes both lose an hour each. Anyway, after getting my club paperwork in, I became the leader of the magic circle manipulation club. Meeting Cory every other day became a new part of my day. When I first submitted my application, people whispered about how they didn't even know what that was and that we would be terminated shortly. They quickly shut their mouths once they saw Cory.
Rich schools were the best. They even gave us a club room for our activities. Well, they actually gave us a room that was used by a club that was recently terminated.
The club that used our room before was the 'Ghosts and Paranormal Activities' club. The club members had glared at me as they packed up their stuff and left.
Okay, I can understand how you feel. But what am I going to do? Life isn't that simple.
It made me think that my club could soon become like that. I promised to do my best.
The club room that we had newly acquired was slightly larger than what I had assumed. I slowly began bringing over all of my magic supplies into our club room.
Because I had a mountain of supplies, the empty clubroom soon filled up. Cory had brought in a single box of supplies in the meanwhile. When I opened the box to check, it was filled with snacks. Of course, there were a few magic supplies. But most of it was food. Oh, I also just saw a blanket.
Cory took out a blanket and a few snacks from his box. When I stared at his stuff, Cory pat me on my back. I looked at them to organize them for him, but he seemed to think that I wanted some of his snacks.
"If you want to eat them, go ahead."
Cory trudged over to the sofa with his blanket, then laid down on the sofa. Cory stared at the ceiling, holding onto his strawberry-patterned blanket. His other hand was filled with snacks.
Cory just laid there, face expressionless. He munched on a stick-shaped snack. Then, he frowned and mumbled to himself, surrounded by his happy things.
"…..ugh, this is too comfortable."
It seemed that Cory had finally learned about the beauty of using the club room freely. He stayed in that position for a while, seemingly truly content with the club room, then fell asleep.
He woke up from time to time and helped me organize my things, read a few books, then fell back asleep.
Because I had brought over so many supplies, it had taken me quite a while to finish organizing. It felt like I had spent the entire week just bringing supplies to the room and organizing it.
Even today, I had to head to my dorm room to pick up leftover supplies. After eating lunch and before heading to our club room, I was walking over to the dorms when I saw Cory sitting on a nearby bench. I didn't see him in the cafeteria, and it turned out he was foregoing food as usual and eating snacks.
Cory stared blankly at the sky, then waved when he saw me. I was holding boxes with both of my hands, so I shook my head instead. Cory quietly smiled to himself and walked over to where I was.
"You need some help?"
"Please."
Oh, also, I ended up speaking casually to Cory. Whenever I tried to use polite language to him, he frowned and told me that he hated that more than potentially quitting eating snacks. He didn't want any suffixes, either, and told me to just speak casually to him.
At first, I had refused to speak casually. We had a huge gap in social classes, and I didn't want any problems arising from that. Cory wasn't someone who would pick on me because I didn't speak formally to him, but I had gotten used to taking extra precautions.
But Cory had, in the end, succeeded in making me speak casually to him. Whenever I tried to speak formally, he would shove a snack in my mouth until I would stop.
Cory looked at me as we shared boxes to carry. His eyes were fierce, but they weren't scary anymore.
"I kept thinking, but there's a lot of supplies. They're not even magic supplies."
He peeked into the boxes and spoke.
"Most of them are machine parts, Shushu. Are we building our own magic devices?"
I nodded at his question.
"We need to show some proof of our club activities. We need to protect our room. We don't have enough impact with just magic."
"Mm, our club room is precious."
Before he had entered the club, he had said that he didn't want any responsibilities, and that he didn't want to do anything in the club.
But after he had joined, he promised to do everything that was within his capabilities, and after realizing how great our room was, became passionate about protecting our room.
Recently, he had even begun asking about magic circle manipulation.
"So, what's your plan?"
Cory kicked the door open to help me in.
"Well, it's only in the planning stages. Hmm. I'll tell you everything that I know so far, then I'll explain it when the time comes."
Cory nodded after mulling over something in his head.
"What you mean by what you know is taking apart magic circle equations and reapplying them, right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"And that's a branch of magic that you invented, right?"
Cory frowned, then made a sound.
"You explained it to me before, but I can't seem to grasp the concept. I can't understand it. I know that magic circles and math have some similarities, okay? But I don't really understand utilizing that and creating a new form of magic."
Recently, after hanging out with Cory often, I had realized that he was a very good person. It might have been because he liked magic, but he was always humble in the face of knowledge and was very honest.
When he didn't know it, he said just that with no shame. When I misunderstood something or got something wrong, he would politely, kindly give me a detailed explanation or comments.
He was good at listening to others, then added his own thoughts after listening. He was a very comfortable person to be with.
Anyway, I understood his feelings about not understanding my magic. This particular branch was created with the knowledge I had from my past life, after all.
The magic in this world had a lot of similarities to the science in my past world. After multiple attempts, I slowly understood how to use the knowledge from my past in this world.
I thought that the future of this world was the world of my past life. The faster I accepted new technology, the better my life would become.
Humans will follow the easiest, most comfortable road no matter what. If they could read the future, there would be no reason to go against the grain. However, the people of this world had no way of knowing that I had knowledge of math and science. Nor how much easier my life was because of it.
It was obvious that they didn't understand. If they did, that would mean that they also had memories of their past life.
To be honest, I assumed that no matter how smart Cory was, he wouldn't be able to understand. I made a magical item for Cory yesterday or the day before because I was grateful for his efforts, though. He would probably like it.
We arrived at the club room while chatting. We only had to organize two small boxes, so we were done in a flash. When we finished organizing, our club room looked quite similar to my room in my estate.
Cory looked around at our changed room in awe.
"Good job, Shushu."
He flicked his fingers and made a blob of water hover midair. I opened my mouth and swallowed the water in a single gulp.
Then, Cory picked up his strawberry blanket from the floor and laid down on the sofa.
He looked at me from his comfortable position, then patted the chair next to the sofa. It was a 'you're probably tired, take a break' from him.
I laughed.
"So you're going to take the comfy sofa, and I have to take the stiff chair?"
He muttered, "Oh," as if he just realized it. With a blank expression, he patted the sofa he was lying on.
"Just sit here."
"It's cramped."
Hearing my words, Cory looked at the ceiling and scratched his head. If he just sat down, two people could easily fit on the sofa. He seemed adamant to keep lying down on the sofa.
He seemed to have an epiphany at that moment. He looked back at me with an expression that said, 'I'm being especially nice', then spoke.
"Here."
He laid his strawberry blanket on the wooden chair.