The girl with the ponytail had a smile, a blush, and a bit of awkwardness as she extended the invitation to me.
It was pretty easy to see what was happening, my charm was at work.
It's A- ranked, which is unusually high, even the protagonist has a charm of around C or something.
At any rate, I wasn't interested in kids.
"Sorry, but I don't think I can. I have already got an arrangement with her" I said pointing at Julianna who was sitting next to me.
Of course, I didn't have any arrangement with her. I was just trying to be polite with my rejection of joining them.
Julianna was also good with playing along with my lies.
"I don't mind"
Huh? Wait, what?
You are supposed to help me here, not ditch me.
I...
I have been betrayed.
This is why I don't trust others.
The group's eyes fell on me, and the ponytail girl took a step closer with a huge smile "So? Will you come?"
I ignored her and looked at Julianna as I spoke up.
"Hey, we already made the plan, right? You were so excited too, remember? What happened to it?" Of course, it was all a lie, all I meant to say to her was just Why are you ditching me like this? Help me out of this mess.
"My, it wasn't anything important, getting to know our classmates is much more important and I think you will have fun. You should enjoy it. No need to worry about me"
Of course, the translated version of what Julianna meant You're on your own. Don't go about dragging me into this.
Why is she acting like this? She played along with me when I scammed the professor yesterday and got the credit point but now she is acting all bitchy.
"Are you guys dating...?" The ponytail girl questioned with a somewhat anxious expression as she twiddled her fingers.
"No"
"Hell nah"
Julianna and I both answered at the same time, the ponytail girl seemed a bit shocked and then had a happy expression.
"Seeing how close you are, it definitely looked like you guys are going out." It was the nerd 1 who spoke up from the group.
I could vomit.
"Like we said, we are not," Julianna said to the nerd with a stern voice which seemed to have worked.
"That's right! You shouldn't bother them again and again!" It was the ponytail girl who turned and reprimanded the nerd 1.
No, he just asked once, there was no again and again but you do you.
"Um... how about you both join us?" It was another girl from the group that spoke up.
Now the invitation has been extended to Julianna as well.
I looked toward her, waiting to see how she would respond.
See? You should just gone along with what I was saying.
"Um... uh..eh, I wouldn't want to intrude" Julianna somehow managed to come up with something.
"You aren't intruding! It's fine, joining us...your name is?" The ponytail spoke as her voice trailed off in the end.
"Julianna"
"Right, Julianna, just join us. It will be fun! My name's —!"
Before she could say her name, the professor called out to us.
"Noah and Julianna, both of you come to visit me in my cabin"
Nice save, professor but there was no reason to save this bitch.
"Well, maybe next time," I said to the group of kids as I stood up and left to follow the professor with Julianna just right behind me.
.
.
.
.
"If you had just agreed with me back then we could have avoided both those bunch of kids and left before the professor called us out," I told Julianna in a whisper as we both followed the professor.
And I have no idea why this fucker called me out.
"Didn't you say How about we just do not talk? And then you go about trying to involve me, can you not?" Julianna with a pretty dead tone.
Hm? She seemed to be in a bad mood.
Is she ...grumpy?
"Uh... are you like angry?" I couldn't help but ask.
"I am not," She said, speeding a little bit.
There was a time when my little sis was acting all grumpy and when I asked her what's her problem she replied Nothing!
At that time, my mom told me, I'm not angry means I'm angry. I don't have a problem means I have a problem.
And right now, this situation for some reason seemed similar.
"Hey, I didn't mean it in a literal sense. I just meant it in like um.." My voice trailed off not knowing what I should be saying.
"You meant like it? What?" Julianna practically hissed at me.
"Um.. eh.."
The fuck do I do?
When it all came down to it, I had no idea how to hold conversations.
I can only talk business like I did with Lucy but when things shift to a normal everyday shit I have no idea how I am supposed to talk.
What do I even say here to Julianna? Like, this is just absurd. Why is she fucking angry anyway?
This doesn't make sense.
For the nth time, I am just a shut-in neet.
I had rather fight monsters or some shit than deal with this.
With no reply from me, Julianna just shook her head.
The rest of the way we spent in silence until we reached the parking lot where the professor led us to his car and I finally blurted out.
"My mom once said, not to accept rides from strangers"
At my words, both Julianna and the professor looked at me.
"I'm heading back to my room in the faculty block, so I thought I'd give you two a ride to your block. And while we're at it, we can go over why I called you earlier."
"So, why did you say about following you to your cabin earlier?" I asked.
"That was the plan but then mid-way I got a text from my colleague that my other colleague had found out that I was the one who had eaten all his cookies and he was waiting for me there. So, I decided to not go to the cabin."
"Still sounds like the type of guy any mom would tell their child to be wary of" His story didn't sound very convincing.
"You want to hold a conversation standing here or inside the car while I drive?" The professor exhaled a sigh as he posed the question.
I turned towards Julianna
"You wanna sit on the front or the back seat?" I asked and she didn't reply instead she just opened the back seat door and sat there.
Again, why the hell is she angry with me?
The professor shaking his head took the driver's seat and I sat beside him. The car looked like how that one expensive from my world looked like a Lamborghini Veneno except this was a four-seater.
Never thought I had been riding such an expensive car except...
This type of car model is pretty normal for people of this world.
.
.
.
.
"You are both liars. You lied to me yesterday. Noah, you traveled through the vehicle. The test you were given during the entrance ceremony was to run all the way back to your classroom." The professor spoke up bringing the topic that he wanted to discuss with us.
Guess, he figured it out, huh?
Well, it wasn't a lie that was hard to discover.
But I still had my credit point...
Hm? What did that mean?
"If that's what you think then you are tripping Oliver" I replied.
"Did you just casually call me by my name?" The professor or you could call him Oliver, asked with a frown.
"I didn't, professor. Like I said you are tripping, ain't he Julianna?" I passed the baton to Julianna and Oliver looked at the mirror in the front that reflected Julianna who was sitting in the back seat.
"No, Noah clearly called you by your name. He needs disciplinary action" Julianna who was angry at me said.
Good job, Julianna.
"See, Oliver? This girl is out for my blood, why do you think she had lied to you for my sake? I cleared the test the way it was supposed to be. I didn't lie"
I lied.
"..."
"..."
I looked at them since they didn't say anything, Oliver had an impressed and a little baffled expression on his face while I couldn't really tell about Julianna because of the damned hoody and her mask.
"What?" I asked
"Don't listen to him professor, all he does is just lie and spout bullshit" Julianna growled at me, I could feel her glare strengthening.
Oh man, seriously, what's her problem?
"Why are you so pissed at me?" I asked once more.
"I am not pissed at you" Julianna spat as she turned her head sideways, looking out of the window.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I am trying to hold a conversation. You aren't supposed to say you aren't pissed and then act like you are pissed.
Like the fuck am I supposed to say to you then?
See? This is why being a loner is the best. You don't need to trouble yourself with such crappy situations.
"Can you both stop your friend's quarrel for now? I brought you with me to talk about how you lied to me yesterday" Oliver interrupted before I could say anything else to Julianna.
"It's not friends quarrel, to begin with, we aren't friends." I corrected Oliver and he shut up and didn't reply.
Julianna didn't say anything and kept looking outside of the window and with Oliver shutting up as well, there was a silence in the car.
"..."
Exhaling a sigh, Oliver finally spoke up.
"Noah, for someone who managed to fool me, you are pretty dumb, aren't you?" Oliver looked at me with ...pity.
"The fuck you on about?" I asked, slightly confused.
"Julianna really has it tough, hang in there kid." Oliver offered supportive words to Julianna leaving me quite confused.
"Bitch if you know what she is angry about then tell me"
"Can you stop casually cussing me? I'm your professor and figure it out on your own—it's your problem. What I want to talk about is how you lied to me yesterday," Oliver replied with quite a bit of annoyance evident in his tone.
"What is even there to talk about it?"
"Wha? What? Excuse me? What did you just say? You lied to me and took a credit point which was a special reward for those who worked hard and got into the top 3 ranks but you—" Before he could finish I cut him off
"Look, Oliver, I am not dumb, alright? I figured the academy would realize within an hour at most that a wrong allocation of reward had ended up happening even if I didn't have my bracelet on me. They must have already asked you if it was just a mistake on your part or did you just seriously declared me as someone who passed the test.
In other words, by now, if the academy wanted they would have taken my credit points away from me and given it to the one who actually passed the test in the shortest amount of time but it didn't happen. My credit point is still with me, which means, the academy concluded that while I did fail the test the fact that I managed to scam you is an achievement in and of itself and thus they are letting me have the point.
On the other hand, I highly doubt they had let you scoff free from your carelessness, you probably received some penalty, didn't you? You ate your colleague's cookies, didn't you? You are an adult, not some kid. It doesn't make sense for you to eat the damned cookies of your colleague, not even a friend. You could have just bought a packet for yourself if you wanted it that badly unless you can't. You ....the academy penalized you by not giving any AP for the month, didn't it? You can't buy shit because you don't have any AP, you have to go on with whatever necessary groceries you have been given for the month by the academy, don't you?
Oliver, there's nothing for us to talk about. The academy itself has decided to let me off, in other words, the only reason you called us both is because you were gonna ask us for the AP as a form of penalty, lying to us that it's a penalty given by the academy while keeping the truth a secret. Basically, you were gonna just lie to us and take some of our money but you know what Oliver, even if you were to crawl on your fours and beg for it, I won't give you a single one of my AP, so you an fuck off and no, I am not giving you the driving charge for dropping me off to my block."
I spat out everything that I figured was the case and Oliver remained silent while Julianna now was focused on Oliver as well and after a while the first on to break the silence was Julianna.
"I am not going to give you my AP either," Julianna said in a cautious voice, probably still not sure if what I said was the truth or just a baseless assumption.
But her words worked to break Oliver's silence.
"...Not even 500 AP? Both of you?"
"Nope"
"No"
We both replied to Oliver at the same time as he finally screamed.
"Oh come on! It's because of you that I am broke right now! You can't do this to me!" Oliver shouted, pleading quite desperately.
"So, I am right" I relaxed on the seat as I looked out of the window.
"How did you figure it out!? It doesn't make any sense! And you can't even figure out why Julianna is angry at you! This is just absurd." Oliver complained and that was all he could do.
"If you tell me why Julianna is angry at me, I will give you 1000 AP," I said, and for whatever reason it seemed like greed manifested in him.
"If you give me about 2000 AP maybe I will tell you wh—"
"Forget it, I will figure it out on my own" I cut him off.
"A 1000 AP would do!" Oliver switched his tone pretty fast.
"800 AP"
"What? You said 1000 AP befo—"
"600 AP"
"Okay okay 600 AP it is! I will tell you!"
"So, what's the reason?"
"Jeez, you stingy brat. She is angry becau—" Oliver who grumbled a little and was about to answer me was interrupted by Julianna.
"Oliver, could you not involve yourself in our matter? You are a professor, act like one."
"Julianna, I need the AP to sustain myself. I have no other choice but to involve myself and why did you also start calling me by my name? Seriously, you both have no manners."
"I will give you 1000 AP. So shut it and drop us off on our block and leave"
"As you wish, my lady" Oliver changed his tone pretty fast.
I wouldn't mind offering Oliver more AP to give me the reason for why this bitch is angry with me but I decided against it. Julianna would probably throw more AP towards Oliver to keep his mouth shut and in the end, it will turn into an auction bid type of thing where Oliver will have a disgusting smile on his face and that's the last thing I want to see.
After a bit of silence passed among us, Oliver spoke up.
"By the way, Noah, you still haven't gotten the bracelet? I told you to go get a new one right away, didn't I?"
"I will get it when I feel like it" I replied.
"Haah~ seriously, go get it first thing once I drop you off" His words for some reason felt like he was nagging at me as he continued "So, what open electives did you both choose?"
"I opted for horticulture and psychology, seemed easy to get the grades in" Julianna replied from the back seat.
Open elective.
Oh, fuck. I totally forgot about them.
There are core subjects that everyone has to study but all students have a choice to choose any subjects of their own choosing, which are termed as open electives, it is mandatory to choose at least 2 subjects different from your core ones, there was no maximum limit tho.
Everyone has to choose something, or else they will be given any two subjects at random by the academy.
"What was the deadline to fill out the form again?" I asked.
"...Noah, the deadline was yesterday. The forms have been out for a month before you even entered the academy. Seriously, what were you doing all this time?" Oliver seemed to be exasperated.
Well, I was busy clearing the hidden dungeons the entire last month.
"Whatever" I replied.
"You are one troublesome kid. You will really have a hard time making friends."
Hm?
Wait?
It was when I said friends that Oliver went silent and called me dumb...
Oh hell naw
I turned towards Julianna as I spoke up.
"Are you fucking angry at me for calling you an acquaintance?" I asked and Julianna flinched, which made me realize that I hit the mark.
"Woah, you figured it out" Oliver gave his useless commentary and I ignored him.
"This doesn't make sense. We are acquaintances. What's wrong with calling you an acquaintance?"
"You figured nothing out"
"Shut up, Oliver. Besides, it's ridiculous for me to think of her as a friend or for her to think of me as a friend. We literally met just yesterday and we never even introduced ourselves to each other, we just ended up hearing each other's name when we told it to others. We were arguing with each other the first time we met. I am right to be confused with how she is acting" I replied.
This is just stupid.
"If what he said is true then sorry Julianna I don't think he is wrong, I would also be quite confused if the situation happened to me too" Oh, finally, Oliver is being useful.
Tell her how stupid she sounds.
"I have known you much longer than anyone else in this academy, makes sense to offer you a deal if I have one than making it to someone else. That's what you said before you dropped your groceries in my room" Julianna barked at me.
And I have no fucking idea what she wanted me to say here, so I decided to provide the answer to Oliver who posed his own question to me
"Wait? You dropped your groceries in her room?"
"I did. I mean, I don't eat all that shit, I don't even know how to cook it all. So, I thought I should throw them out but then I remembered I could just give them to Julianna in return for some AP and that's what I did"
"...Noah, did you give her all your groceries how much did you ask her to pay?"
"Mostly all. I asked for 800 AP"
"800 AP for giving away almost all of your grocery is quite a low amount since the academy provides you with excess stuff and quality products"
"I know but why would I charge her that much for no reason? It's no use for me I just wanted to throw it all out but that would have been a waste so I just gave it to her. Can you just get to the point" I couldn't help but feel like Oliver was just spouting crap at this point?
"Ah, I understand still even if we ignore the grocery, after saying something like that to her how can you call her just an acquaintance? How could you be this dumb? How did you even figure me out?" Oliver seemed to be annoyed.
But....eh?
Did I made the wrong signal or something?
"Was I acting like a friend?" Did I give that kinda signal? I asked Julianna directly.
"...Hmph" Julianna didn't reply and just turned her head away but I could tell this was it.
Okay...
This does sound like my fault.
But it also means that she accepted me as a friend, huh?
This was weird.
The fuck am I supposed to say now? I, of course, didn't see Julianna as a friend.
To begin with, why would I be buddy-buddy with anyone in this world when I planned on going back to my own?
I didn't know what to say so I said the only thing I could.
"Sorry"
...
After a brief moment of silence, Julianna spoke up.
"You better be, you bastard!" She kicked my seat from behind, which reminded me of the first time when we met on the bus, but this time her voice was a bit cheery instead of complaining.
I, on the other hand, didn't reply as I quietly looked outside the window.
Soon after we arrived at our block and dropped off the car.
"Well, take care of yourselves. Glad you made up." Oliver said before hesitatingly looking at Julianna as he asked "Um... about the 1000 AP that you said you would give me?"
"Hm? What 1000 AP?"
"What? W-wait? You said you would give me 1000 AP for keeping my mouth shut and not telling him about the reason!"
"Ah, right...but, Oliver, you called us liars, didn't you? Why would you trust a liar's words?" With those words, Julianna turned away and started walking and I simply followed along since I had to go in the same direction, anyway.
"You fucking brats!" Oliver shouted from behind and we didn't look at him.
"Hahaahaha!" Julianna burst into laughter as she spoke up "It sure gives a different level of satisfaction to see someone cuss at you who normally wouldn't, doesn't it?"
"You are a fucking menace," I said to which Julianna just laughed it off.
She kept walking a little ahead of me, as I stared at her back I couldn't help but wonder how she interpreted my sorry.
Whatever she interpreted it as, I knew it wasn't right and I wasn't going to correct her either.
I looked up at the sky, it was a bright clear day.
Friend, huh?
I remembered the only friend that I had made once, long ago, so long ago, I don't even remember anything about that person anymore.
But I do remember one thing.
That person was my only friend that I didn't kill.