Ever since we were little, Hestia always felt like she had been downtrodden and was pushing herself down. I didn't know what exactly pressed down on Hes because she never told me, but Hestia was holding back on a lot of things. I sometimes felt like she was trying to push away the things she liked to do.
It wasn't that I didn't like Hestia's, reliant, old-fashioned style. If that was truly Hestia and part of her identity, I would understand it. It wasn't like there had been any issues between us because of it.
But there were times that Hestia couldn't hide how bored she was about it all. She always talked about being calm and collected and mature and talked about how such and such was unladylike, but her heart never seemed to be truly agreeing with her words.
She always seemed like she was trying to avoid what was in front of her. Instead, she always seemed focused on something else.
I wanted Hestia to feel content about the things she wanted to do and for her to live without regrets. We grew up together since we were young, so we were basically family. No matter what her real interest and heart lied, I just wanted her to do what she wanted.
"Damn.....the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am. Swan, you son of a… You unpleasant asshole. Crazy bastard."
Hestia wore a placid smile on her lips as she muttered curses under her breath, deep in thought. I stared at Hestia. When she saw me, she seemed surprised as she covered her mouth with her hands.
Well, there was no way that Hestia would curse somebody so strongly. I must've misheard it. That's what I told myself as I cleaned my ear with one hand.
Thanks to all of the different sides of Hestia that I'd been newly discovering, I spent a considerable amount of time deep in thought. Even during swordsmanship classes. I swung my sword with my head to the ground. It was a move that I'd done thousands of times, so it didn't matter too much.
My thoughts about Hestia continued on even during Hylli and my duel, so I almost got hit by his attack. That was when I came back to my senses and focused on class.
"Students, class is over! Dismissed!"
The teacher's voice rang clearly through the training hall. All of the students were swinging their swords with vigor, then immediately dropped their swords when the teacher spoke. Although the training hall had been filled with energetic shouts just a moment ago, once class ended everybody began to chatter amongst themselves.
The swordsmanship students greedily gulped down water as they wiped off their sweat with the towels that they brought. Hylli and I were also doing the same. My ribs ached from exhaustion. I wiped my sweaty, shiny face and stretched my arm towards Hylli. Hylli grabbed a nearby water bottle and threw it at me.
I had placed a spell on my bottle earlier, so the water was as cold as ice. I gulped down the cold water until my head began to ache from the chill, then grabbed a towel off the floor and poured the ret of the water on it.
"Yap."
With familiarity and ease, I threw the wet towel onto Hylli's face. When I did that, Hylli, also with ease and familiarity, allowed the towel to land on his face. With a resounding slap, the towel hit his sweaty face. It wrapped around his entire face. But even when his face was covered, you could see his handsome profile and silhouette. It was a prank we always played, but it was still funny so we burst out laughing.
Hylli poured water on another towel and did the same to me. Just like he did, I caught the wet fabric. It wrapped around my face, too. Cool freshness embraced my hot face. It was as cool as an air-conditioner, full blast, in a bank.
"Uh, Shuraina, I have something to say….."
Hylli and I were snickering as we played around, but a male swordsmanship student put his hand in his back pocket and slowly approached me. He looked embarrassed as he looked at the floor and quietly began to speak.
Hylli and I both stared at the boy together. The boy held a letter in his hand. Hylli's eyes grew wide as he looked at the boy squirming in front of me.
"Um...this....."
The boy gave me a letter with a heart drawn on it. He handed me the letter, then put his hands behind his back and put his hands back in his back pockets. Hylli's eyes widened as he watched the scene unfold.
"Shushu, you're surprisingly popular."
Hylli narrowed his eyes and poked my ribs a few times. I twisted his fingers to tell him to stop, but saw that Hylli's bones were stupidly strong and let them go. The male student seemed shocked at Hylli's words and immediately spoke up.
"Sorry, Shushu... It's not for you... It's, your friend Hestia, give it to her."
Even though the student had been acting shy a moment ago, he suddenly shifted gears and spoke as if he was ordering me to do it. It was a familiar situation for me, so I just cleaned my ear with one finger. I grabbed the letter with one hand and looked at the part of the letter that said 'To Hestia Flowith'. What number letter was this again? There were a lot of people who asked me to send their love letters to Hestia before, but the number only increased once we got to school. This was probably the eighteenth? Number shib-pal*?
Hylli's expression shifted minutely when he heard the student asking me to give the letter to Hestia. Before I could even say anything, Hylli spoke up first, annoyed expression clear on his face.
"Why don't you do it yourself?"
When Hylli threw a truth bomb at him, the male student's expression stiffened.
"That's, well, I'm shy. I don't have the courage to, either. Shuraina, you handed letters for other students? It's not fair if you don't give her mine then. Pass it on for me."
He couldn't seem to respond to Hylli's words, so he just looked at me and responded because I seemed easier to mess with.
As if extremely displeased, Hylli watched the situation with his arms around his chest and whispered in my ear.
"Shuraina, why's he behaving so rudely to you?"
"What about his behavior?"
"The letter isn't even for you, and he's asking you with such a shit attitude when he's the one asking you to send his love letter to your friend. Doesn't it hurt your pride?"
"This is a pretty common situation, so…not really."
I don't care enough about these situations for it to hurt my pride. There had been one specific time in the past when I had a crush on a boy and I thought he liked me back. The boy had, however, asked me to pass on a confession letter from him to Hestia. I had been absolutely devastated. After that incident, I put my pride in those kinds of situations in the back burner.
"This is common? Have you ever received a letter of your own? I'd think you would get a lot."
"Please shut up."
"Sorry, seems like you don't. But you're full of charms, so I thought you'd have a lot."
"I do have a lot of muscles."
Hylli scratched his cheek as he checked my mood.
"Anyway, are you close with him?"
"Nope."
Hylli continued to glare at the boy as he whispered. When I told him that we weren't close, Hylli immediately looked more displeased.
The male student looked at us uncomfortably when we continued to whisper to each other without him. Oh, let me fix that. He shot me uncomfortable gazes. The boy waited for me to agree and stood there, bored, then faked a cough to gain my attention.
Hylli and I stopped whispering to each other and stared at the boy in front of us. Hylli then snatched the letter from my hand and crumpled it up with his fist. Because we had been playing around with wet towels earlier, his wet hand damaged the letter. Hylli put the crumpled up letter into the boy's shirt pocket.
"You're really nothing worth looking at, huh? Just looking at you makes me feel annoyed."
Hylli's red eyes gleamed angrily as he glared at the boy. Wow, even if the situation was pretty annoying, for him to crumple up a love letter? Thinking about it, Hylli's personality wasn't the best either. Maybe it was because he was the main character of a depressing romance novel.
Wait, hold up. When I thought back to when we first met, Hylli asked me to act as a bridge between him and Hestia, too. Was he being extra wary of the boy in front of him because he was a love rival? That's funny. Pot, meet kettle.
"If you're going to ask someone to do such an annoying, useless task like this, shouldn't be at least be nicer to them, attitude-wise? Shushu may be small and have an unapproachable demeanor, and she may have a horrible personality, but does she look easy? You thought that she was obviously going to help you. If you really wanted that, you should've come to her with an armful of snacks, begging for her assistance. How shameless."
"You wanna die?"
He sounded like he was going to help me but there were little bits and pieces that were there to stab me in the back. I'm small and unapproachable? I have a shit personality? I glared at Hylli with narrowed eyes. Hylli smiled back shyly. But even when he did that, his main character buff swept in and made him look handsome. I wanted to beat his face in.
But seeing how Hylli was the crown prince and a genius swordsman, the other boy was considerably cowed. He looked at me with hateful eyes, then apologized to Hylli. I was kind of dumbfounded, but this wasn't the first time something like this had happened so I didn't put too much thought into it.
The people who handed their love letters to me had difficulty approaching Hestia because of her beauty and demeanor, and seemed to find me easy. It wasn't always the case, but it was generally true. I may have had an unapproachable demeanor, but I wasn't too popular, and as sad as it was, I wasn't too pretty. I was easier to approach. It also didn't help that I was always next to Hestia, so it was easier to approach me. Moreover, the swordsmanship class had an image of me being a poopy-pants, so.
I helped out a few students who seemed to have especially difficult times their letters, and I suddenly became an ojakgyo. I just liked romance novels and liked listening to others' romance stories, and just helped out because of it. ...….but I was also the official ojakgyo of the original novel.
The male students seemed disappointed and bitter about not being able to send their letter, so he put his hand in his pocket and gripped his letter tightly.
Tak, tadak.
There was a sound of metal hitting metal, like a pair of tongs. Swanhaden suddenly appeared on the scene. Swanhaden had gotten punished for property damage as soon as he entered the academy, so he was currently wearing a neon-colored vest and doing school-wide community service. He happened to be holding a pair of garbage grabbers when he appeared in our sight.
Swanhaden, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, fished out the boy's letter from his pocket with his grabbers and shoved it in the boy's mouth.
"Trash belongs in a trash can."
Then, Swanhaden snatched Hylli's water bottle and poured water into the boy's mouth. He made the boy chew the letter in his mouth with a bit of water to help it go down.
Swanhaden seemed to search my gaze before giving me a fake but sunny smile. Then, he gripped Hylli's towel with his tongs and wiped the other student's mouth with it. He dropped the towel into the trash bag he was holding when he was done.
And as suddenly as he entered the scene, Swanhaden was gone. His appearance felt so natural that we didn't even question it. ….But come to think of it, Hylli was much, much nicer than Swanhaden.
It was a bit rude, but why did the two of them react so strongly when all the boy did was ask me to send a letter? Hylli was a close friend, but I didn't understand what was going on with Swanhaden. No, well, his entire existence made me wonder what was going on.
I stared at Swanhaden's retreating back and at the boy who was trying to cough out the letter in his throat. Hylli just looked at the boy with a cold, uninterested gaze.
Hylli put one hand on each of my shoulders before turning me around and walking away from the scene.
"Are you being mean to him because he's your love rival?"
"No, I just got angry. Wasn't he completely ignoring you? And how many times have you been compared to with her for you to just think that was normal? The fact that he was looking down at you made me feel angry. He looked down on you, someone who's defeated me."
It felt like he was looking down on me, too, Hylli muttered angrily, pouting.
Wow, that was actually kind of heartwarming.