……
-Boom!
Ronari Syarino’s merciless fist slammed down on the principal’s desk.
The principal tried to retreat, pulling her chair back as she inched away, but the more she did, the closer Ronari’s shadow loomed.
“C-calm down, Ronari.”
“Do I look like I’m going to calm down? Why do I have to share a room with a boy? And with that thug of all people!”
The person Ronari was pointing at was none other than me.
That blonde top student of the year seemed dissatisfied with having me as a roommate.
It was only obvious that she had no reason to like me, but…
Thanks to that, here I was, dragged all the way to the principal’s office despite being dead tired.
-Ha-am.
I let out a huge yawn.
The principal, Teresa, made excuses while shrunken back in her chair.
“But what can we do…? The number of male and female students is exactly the same, and there are no extra rooms either…”
“Use another year’s dormitory, or the faculty dormitory! There must be plenty of other ways!”
“Those are full too. If there really were another way, I’d want to use it as well. But what can you do when there truly isn’t one?”
“Fine! Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a co-ed room was unavoidable. But why does it have to be me of all people! And with that delinquent!”
Didn’t she call me a thug-like fellow earlier?
She’s evolved already. Now she’s just calling me a thug.
While I was admiring this unexpected growth of mine, Teresa continued her excuses.
“If you get to know him, Student Ilsea is quite a good boy… perhaps? And there is an unavoidable circumstance behind this…”
“You expect me to believe that from first year to fifth year every dormitory is full, the male-female ratio across the entire academy is exactly the same, and so two people have no choice but to live in the one remaining faculty lounge?!”
‘Even I wouldn’t believe that.’
Ronari’s argument was perfectly valid.
However, Teresa’s answer was this:
“……That actually happened.”
And finally, Ronari’s volcano-like rage erupted.
I quietly plugged both ears.
“You think that’s an answer right now?!”
Ronari’s roar shook the principal’s office once over, and Teresa scratched her head with a troubled look.
“Aha… my ears are going to ring off. Still, I am the principal…”
“After pulling such an absurd stunt, you still want to be treated like a principal?!”
“Miss Ronari. As I said before, if there had been another way, I would have tried it. But there truly was no other way.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let things get this far in the first place! Don’t accept students beyond dormitory capacity! Expand the dormitories beforehand! What on earth have you been doing as principal until this happened!”
A perfect argument that made me want to applaud.
Teresa bowed her head deeply.
“You are exactly correct. I have nothing to say.”
Eventually, Teresa’s voice began to take on a groveling tone.
“This happened because of various overlapping reasons—grade repeaters, transfer students, and so on… We can’t kick out students we’ve already accepted, now can we? What fault do the students have?”
“Then what fault do I have?!”
“Hmm… the sin of losing at drawing lots?”
“Don’t tell me you drew lots to decide who goes into the spare room?!”
At that moment, Vice Principal Aurelia interjected.
“I guaranteed the fairness.”
“So it wasn’t a joke, it was real… Haaah……”
Perhaps because she had vented too much anger.
Ronari staggered as if dizzy.
I grabbed her collar as she was about to collapse.
But what came back immediately was an icy voice.
“…Don’t touch me.”
I backed away with both hands raised as if nothing had happened.
Yet even that reaction drew backlash.
“And you. Don’t just stand there quietly—say something. Don’t you have a mouth?”
‘…This girl is really a pain in the neck.’
-Tch.
I clicked my tongue and turned toward Teresa.
Well, it wasn’t like I had nothing to say either.
I was already dying from lack of sleep every night thanks to the monster hunts Teresa dumped on me.
And now I had to deal with this kind of annoying trouble too?
I said to Teresa:
“Surely we won’t be sleeping in the same room.”
Then, as if she had been waiting for those words, color returned to Teresa’s face.
“Of course not~ We do have a conscience, you know.”
“…Did you?” Ronari muttered under her breath, but Teresa pointedly ignored her and kept talking.
“Since this was originally a lounge, it’s much bigger than a regular room, and it has three rooms at that. So don’t be so stubborn and just look at the room first, okay? Okay?”
And so we were herded by Teresa toward the faculty lounge.
It was tucked away in a corner on the second floor of an old, sparsely populated lecture building.
“Here we are.”
Vice Principal Aurelia opened the door for us.
“…?”
Once we stepped inside, the first impression was surprisingly decent.
A fairly spacious living room.
There seemed to be only one bathroom and one toilet, but just as Teresa had said, it really was a three-room setup.
Two doors arranged side by side leading from the living room.
‘Well, at this level, it might be bearable enough.’
Ronari had stopped grumbling too.
Not bad when she’s quiet.
Both her and this old building.
If only they’d stay that way.
But such wishes are beautiful precisely because they are fleeting.
“Hup….”
Ronari, who had opened the inner room’s door, suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth.
Was there something strange?
Ignoring her, I opened the outer room’s door.
In that moment, I realized.
The identity of what Ronari had witnessed.
“I see.”
Between the inner room and the outer room, there was nothing but a single sliding door instead of a wall.
I entered the room and slid that door aside.
Then, as expected, I locked eyes with Ronari, who was standing dumbstruck in the doorway of the adjacent room.
“So this is the kind of room they gave us.”
I came out and looked for Aurelia, but she had already slipped away.
Vice principal and principal, quite the pair they make.
Can’t be helped.
I plopped down onto the living room sofa.
It smelled a bit musty, but it was comfortable to sink into.
Drowsiness washed over me.
“Hey.”
Here we go again.
I unwillingly lifted my heavy eyelids.
“What.”
Ronari’s frosty voice immediately struck me.
“Get out.”
She doesn’t seem to get tired.
Even after all that anger earlier, she was planning to go another round with me?
I simply turned my head away.
When I gave no answer, she spoke again.
“Let me make this perfectly clear: I cannot live with a suspicious delinquent like you even if I die. So I’m asking you. Please get out.”
Though she called it a request, the atmosphere foretold a fierce quarrel.
I asked her:
“Why am I a delinquent?”
Ronari counted off on her fingers.
“You don’t even attend classes properly. When you do show up now and then, you just keep dozing off face-down during lectures. Last year, you skipped all the group events too. You wander around covered in bruises from fighting all the time. I can’t tell if you even intend to properly attend this academy.”
Whatever that girl misunderstood didn’t matter to me.
But I had a reason to remain at the academy.
“You don’t care about the academy anymore either, do you? Just drop out. You could at least show that much consideration since you’re leaving anyway.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why? You want to be a burden on others until the very end?”
“I have a reason to remain at the academy. Don’t ask what it is. I have neither the obligation nor the intention to explain those circumstances to you.”
I spoke in a weary voice. I truly was weary.
“My class attendance is my own freedom, and no clause in the school rules has mandated my repeating a grade or expulsion. I am still an academy student. If you truly hate living together so much, then you leave.”
“What…?”
She heard me, so why did she keep asking?
I rose from the sofa and headed toward the room.
“What! Where are you going!”
I simply ignored Ronari.
At a glance, the two rooms separated by the sliding door differed in size.
The outer room was smaller. It seemed colder too.
Probably because it had two exterior walls. The draft was harsh.
I’d be fine, but if that girl caught a cold, I’d be hearing her cough all day long.
If that happened, the quality of my already insufficient sleep would plummet into the abyss.
“I’m not done talking yet?”
Ronari, who had followed me into the inner room, was raging beyond the sliding door.
-Slam.
I simply closed the door from the outer room.
And lay down on the bed.
“Hey!”
…As expected, the soundproofing was nonexistent.
“Why are you going in there without permission?!”
“That side is bigger, so it’s fine. I’m tired, so leave me alone now.”
And with that, I simply closed my sleepy eyes.
Sleep crashed over me.
I have work tonight too.
Would I even be able to wake up properly?
***
“…”
Ronari Syarino stared at the sliding door with a displeased look.
Should she charge in again and settle things with that bastard?
…She wasn’t without such thoughts, but Ronari decided to let it go.
Had she been angry all day? She was getting tired now too.
Today, she wasn’t in the mood to chastise anyone further.
‘And… he looked tired too.’
When he had stood up from in front of the sofa earlier, for an instant, the distance between Ronari and him had been less than two palms’ width.
The face of that boy, Ilsea, which she had seen then, had looked so exhausted that her heart had weakened slightly.
It was the same now.
Not long after the sound of him lying down, his sleeping breath was already audible beyond the sliding door.
He probably lacked sleep from causing trouble every night, anyway.
Well, she could overlook it for just one day.
“This room is… definitely bigger, I suppose.”
Ronari briefly paced around and examined the room.
For a lounge that had been hastily converted, it might not be bad.
It was indeed better than an ordinary dormitory, and the heating seemed to work well enough.
‘But that doesn’t mean the serious problem of that delinquent bastard being on the other side of that thin door disappears…’
If there was a silver lining, it was that Ilsea didn’t seem to have any designs on her.
Though Ilsea had become like a delinquent, he didn’t seem to have sunk to that level.
Ronari flopped down onto the bed.
Listening to Ilsea’s breathing, she felt somewhat drowsy.
‘…He wasn’t that kind of child before.’
Ronari looked toward Ilsea’s room, then slowly closed her eyes.
……
How long had she been asleep?
In her dream, she seemed to hear a rustling noise.
Suddenly alert, Ronari’s eyes snapped open.
The day had completely turned to night; it was pitch dark.
-Rustle.
Then she heard it again.
Was it Ilsea tossing and turning?
No, it didn’t seem so.
The faint sounds coming from beyond the door clearly indicated he was awake.
Ronari held her breath and stared at the sliding door.
But what she eventually heard was,
-Creak.
The sound of an old door’s hinges.
Did he go to the living room? The bathroom?
Ronari perked her ears for a long while, but no further sound came.
She got up and cautiously stepped out into the living room.
Upon coming out, Ilsea was nowhere to be found; only faint moonlight poured through the terrace door left ajar.
Where had he gone at this early morning hour?
The curfew must have passed long ago.
Ronari clenched her fist.
“That bastard again…”
He had probably been going out like this every night to do bad deeds.
When he returned, she would beat him up without fail, even if she had to do it this morning.
But Ilsea did not return to the room until morning.