I made it a habit to call home once a day, because my parents were keenly feeling the emptiness of two of their three children living in the dorms of the academy. But because I hadn't called them when I was feeling sick, my worried mother had contacted the school directly to hear what had happened, and my mother had immediately tried to contact me over and over again.
It seemed that my visit to the sick bay had been found out by the members of our residence.
I stared at the missed calls on the contact device, and, taking a deep breath, called home.
"Shushu! Baby, I heard that you fainted! Are you feeling okay? If you woke up, you should've called me first!"
"Sorry."
"It's okay, why are you sorry for not responding when you were sick? Are you okay now? How many plates are you eating during your meals?"
"I'm eating enough."
"Around three plates?"
"Five plates."
"Oh. Well, our Shushu is eating more and more. Mm, that's good to hear. Shushu, baby, please stop doing things that make us worry. Your mother was about to faint after hearing what happened from your school. Like when you went missing when you were little, and when you rubbed your eyes with the hands you touched bugs with and got an eye infection, and when you were running around with a sword and getting hurt. Why do you make your mother worry so? I couldn't sleep a wink because I was so worried yesterday."
"...…I went missing?"
I asked my mother after learning about something new.
I was told that there was a time when I went missing when I was younger, but I had no memory of it. I remembered getting the eye infection and getting hurt by a sword when I was younger, but I had never heard of my going missing when I was younger. What had happened so that I, the person that had gone missing, couldn't remember it at all?
My mother also said that she didn't know a lot about when I had gone missing. Something about me suddenly disappearing and then suddenly reappearing in my room. So when my family asked me where I had went, I couldn't remember my disappearance and had just returned their question with a curious expression of my own.
And that was apparently how my disappearance became a mystery.
I frowned as I ended my call with my mother. Me, going missing? That was suspicious. I should probably look into it.
I tapped my chin and fell deep in thought.
"Shushu! Wake up!"
I could hear Hestia's voice. I was too sleepy to properly regain consciousness. I barely began to wake up properly after Hestia propped her arms under my armpits and began to drag me away.
"Did, did I sleep the whole time?"
I asked Hestia as she continued to drag me out. She smiled brightly, nodding.
"Shushu, you even snored. The teacher tried to wake you up, but it was so funny that they just decided to let you sleep."
....damn. I wiped the small bit of drool on my face and frowned.
After I had exited the sick bay, my sleep schedule had gone haywire. When I was in the sick bay, I got to sleep whenever my body felt like it, and my daily schedule had suffered because of that.
I was undergoing the weird sensation of being sleepy in the morning and wide awake at night. Yesterday, I had been rummaging through records to try and learn more about my disappearance so I wasn't able to sleep at all.
Haha, but to hear that I had snored when I was sleeping. Should I have been grateful that I didn't grind my teeth or talk in my sleep? I cringed in embarrassment.
I stretched my clenched fingers and happened to see the fountain pen clipped onto Hestia's uniform. The fountain pen had Hestia's name written on it, and there were a lot of small dents on it. It seemed that she had been using it for a long time.
"Hestia, what's that fountain pen? It looks like you've used it often, but I don't think I've seen it before."
When Hestia saw that my attention had shifted to her pen, she stuttered slightly in surprise.
"O-oh, this? Shushu, you gave me this..."
"I did? Really?"
There was no way that I didn't remember a gift I gave to Hestia. Seriously. I remembered every gift that I had given her. And remembered everything that I had received.
I started to look closely at Hestia's pen. It looked like something that I gave her. It was a bright color, like Hestia would like, and there was the little '$' sign that I always inscribed into Hestia's gifts.
But why couldn't I remember?
When I kept staring at Hestia's pen and looked surprised, Hestia took her pen and put it back into her uniform. She smiled with a small, 'Hehe'.
"It's okay that you don't remember, Shushu. It was when we were little."
"....that's strange."
It was really strange. I had the memories of my past life, even, so I had an even better memory of my childhood than most people. I even remembered how older brother Harun wet the bed when he was seven. But I couldn't remember the gift that I gave Hestia?
Was this related to my going missing?
I had stopped walking while I was deep in thought, but Hestia put her arm around mine and told me to hurry so we could head to the cafeteria.
After a quick lunch, I headed to the training hall.
The training hall already had a few people there. Listening to the sound of wooden swords hitting each other, it sounded like people were already dueling.
I put the fresh towel around my neck and drank the grape juice I had bought from the store earlier as I watched the two battle.
The two students in the duel were Swan and another swordsmanship student from the blue class. The student fighting against Swan was named Jimmy. He was the top of the swordsmanship students in the blue class before Swan had appeared, and there were talks of him being scouted by the kingdom. He was a pretty famous kid.
"Hiyaaaaaa!"
Jimmy swung his sword at Swan. Swan returned each attack with a bored expression on his face.
The weather was slowly getting warner, so Swan was wearing a thin black short-sleeve. He was wearing bandages up to his neck to cover any possible exposed skin.
Meanwhile, Swan's opponent Jimmy was completely decked. He was wearing the training outfit, and was wearing multiple magical accessories that helped him improve his attacks and defense.
I was watching this unfold from a random corner of the training hall.
I hadn't seen Swan hold the sword other than when we were children. Moreover, I had hardly any opportunities to watch his skills. I was honestly curious to see Swan's sword skills-the one that even Hylli was fearful of.
I sipped on my grape juice as I watched the duel. I couldn't remember it too clearly because I was too young, but I remembered Swan feeling like an insurmountable wall that I couldn't fight against. I remembered losing each and every duel we had when we were young. After that, Swan would always have that belittling grin of his after he won. Jerk.
How much would Swan, who had been talented since he was young, have improved?
I watched with excited eyes, but Swan didn't show his true strength. Honestly, it seemed like he was just annoyed by the whole thing. Swan was just one-sidedly beating up Jimmy as if he didn't want to do it or if Jimmy was too weak for him to go against.
As if angry, Jimmy began to yell.
"You son of a…lose, just lose! I'm the top student in the blue class!"
But Swan wasn't even looking at him. He just stared blankly at the ceiling.
"...…"
"Are you listening?! Even if you're treating me like this, I'm the best!"
Jimmy's face as he was getting beat up was bright red. It seemed like he was furious. Swan just listened to his words with one ear and let it flow out of the other. He just swung his arms and just continued to beat Jimmy up.
"Swanhadeeeeeen! Today's the day I'll finally beat you!"
When Jimmy ran towards Swan, Swan just scowled and cleaned his ear.
"...sure, sure."
With that insincere acceptance of his, Swan beat Jimmy with a single attack.
Swan fancily twirled his sword and buried his sword next to Jimmy's fallen face.
Swan looked extremely bored. After easily defeating Jimmy, Swan began to speak like a bully about to take a kid's money.
"I won, so keep your promise."
"Keugh...."
Jimmy grit his teeth, seemingly angry that he lost.
"Repeat the promise again for me."
When Jimmy asked with an angry scowl on his face, Swan buried his sword onto the ground once more and leaned on it.
"You know the prettiest girl in the yellow class. The prettiest girl in school."
"...Hestia?"
"Your eyesight must be rotten. Not her, the one that she's always with."
"Stop just calling them 'her' and just give me her name!"
Swan responded with a, "It's embarrassing to say her name." and became angry. His fake smiles had always been pretty consistent so he didn't look particularly angry, but Jimmy immediately switched his words at Swan's threats.
Jimmy muttered a, "Hestia's objectively the prettiest one." but Swan didn't even pretend to hear it.
Jimmy seemed deep in thought before opening his mouth as if he remembered something.
"Eeugh, if you're taking about someone that's always with Hestia, you're talking about that orange-haired girl with those dim sambaekan* eyes? She's pretty? She looks cold and kinda dark."
"Shut up."
Swan stabbed the sword in the ground right between Jimmy's legs. When Jimmy shrieked with fear and tried to get further away, Swan stabbed another wooden sword right behind Jimmy. Because of that, Jimmy had a sword near his neck, another near his back, and another between his legs. He couldn't budge.
"Hey, hey, hey! Are you trying to kill me?! Calm down, but you know I'm ri... Ack!"
Swan grabbed Jimmy by his collar and began his brainwashing session. It was a bit brutal, so I have to skip the detailed explanation. You could use white magic like that. Scary bastard.
A few minutes later, Jimmy smiled as he yelled, "Hurray for the orange goddess!" and began spouting nonsense.
Moreover, Jimmy kneeled and swore loyalty to Swan and listened wholeheartedly to what he had to say.
"I'm entrusting you because you have a wide social group. If anyone has any kind of video of her, bring it to me. If you can't bring it, then destroy it. Make sure there isn't a single video of her going around the school."
"Yes, sir!"
I watched the entire scene unfold and quietly slipped out of the hall.
I felt like I had watched something that I should've have.
…..they couldn't have been talking about me, right?
Orange hair with sambaekan* eyes, that was such a side character-like description. And I was already the side character of a novel.
No. Of course not.
No, right?
Am I?
After eating dinner, I decided to take a walk. I was supposed to walk with Hestia, but Hestia was busy these days.
While I was walking by my myself, I spied a silver-haired boy near the school pond. That familiar head of hair was Swanhaden.
Swanhaden was sitting on the grass and biting into the apple that was included in the school dinner. He blankly stared at the pond, then grabbed a stone and skipped the stone onto the pond. After about six skips, the stone sank into the pond.
The wind blew and his silver hair gently blew with it. The color of the sunset dyed his silver hair slightly orange. If he just closed his mouth and stayed still, it wouldn't have been strange for him to be called a fairy.
Swan seemed to get bored after skipping a few more stones and laid down on the grass. Then, still lying down, he continued eating the apple. After a few more bites, he used magic to make it rot faster and threw it near the roots of the tree.
Swan looked at the sunset and muttered something, then covered his head with his jacket.
I approached Swan, who was on the verge of falling asleep.
"Swanhaden, are you sleeping?"
Swan suddenly stiffened after hearing my voice. He didn't move an inch. When I approached him, Swan suddenly began to pretend to sleep.
Oh, so that's how you're going to play it?
"You like me, don't you."
As soon as I finished talking, Swan rushed to sit up.