[Episode 9]
He glanced at me, neither standing nor sitting, then strode over and plopped down in the seat next to me. Still caught between standing and sitting, I stared at him with a dumbfounded expression.
‘Ah~, so he wants to sit in my seat. He’s marking his territory right now.’
Deep down, I clearly knew it was an absurd story, yet I desperately wanted to believe it. And intending to gladly yield my seat to the Second Prince who coveted it, I quietly picked up my bag and began inching toward the next seat over. I hadn’t taken more than a few steps before my desperate escape was thwarted by the Second Prince.
"Sit."
At that command—one fit for a dog—my resolve to quietly disappear without a word was shattered. In that instant, I ended up answering in a rather irritated tone.
"Pardon?"
"The professor’s coming in. Sit."
Surprised by his words, I looked forward to see the professor already standing at the lectern. Because the professor was staring at me frozen in an awkward posture, I had no choice but to shrink down into my seat. He then briefly introduced himself as if he couldn’t care less, and began calling the students’ names.
"Dietrich Degoff."
At the professor’s call, I quietly raised my hand instead of answering aloud. I wished no one would pay attention to me. However, in a classroom where only a sparse few were seated, the students couldn’t help but look at the unfamiliar student sitting glued to the Second Prince’s side.
The Second Prince wore an expression of surprise at my gesture.
‘It must be because of the name.’
I hadn’t counted them one by one, but whenever I introduced myself as ‘Dietrich,’ people tended to show the same reaction as the Second Prince. Once, someone had whispered to a friend, ‘That’s my uncle’s name….’ While I was deliberately trying not to think about the Second Prince sitting beside me, mulling over various thoughts, the Second Prince’s name was called too.
"Icarus del Ross."
Icarus del Ross. Icarus. I rolled the name around in my mouth, testing the pronunciation.
Truthfully, despite how it sounded, it had been an unpleasant name from the moment I first heard it. And that was separate from my personal grievances against the Second Prince.
To take a name from mythology where one flies toward the sun and falls to his death.
‘It’s no different from naming your child Gim Naksang or Bak Churak.’
However, I soon dismissed it, thinking, ‘Well, maybe Greek and Roman mythology doesn’t exist in this world, so it could have a different meaning than in reality.’ And to focus on the lecture that had just begun, I adjusted my grip on my pen.
Though class had been in session for less than five minutes, the instinct of someone who had faithfully completed twelve years of formal education and four years of higher education realized it.
This class was insane.
I should’ve noticed from the terrible title, "Understanding Tromple Regional Studies Through the Historical Conflicts of the Modern Kavaluna Continent: Translation," but it was a class so terrible that the name couldn’t even compare. Every word the professor uttered was definitely a word I knew, yet every word he spat out merely brushed past my ears.
For a moment, I couldn’t help but seriously wonder if the system of Imperial language remaining in Dietrich’s head had finally collapsed. No, perhaps the professor was a spy from an enemy nation here to destroy the Tromple Empire.
‘There’s no other way he could be so cleverly dumbing down students like this.’
Having attended only the first class, the professor was already sucking away my passion for learning like a leech.
The exam format was even more spectacular. The professor opened his mouth to say that instead of exams, we would have to submit reports during the semester. From the moment he uttered the first syllable, "Re-," it felt like a cold dagger was stabbed into my chest.
To think we had to write thirty-page reports twice during the semester. Recalling the countless worthless reports I had written while pulling all-nighters, my hands went ice-cold in an instant.
In the face of this tremendous class, I had no time to care about the fact that the Second Prince was sitting next to me. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t a class for freshmen. I grew curious about the face of whoever had placed such a fiendish class in the freshman course registration list.
‘No wonder the Second Prince was taking this class!’
Though he seemed to have attended school sporadically, the Second Prince was still in a higher year than Dietrich. No matter how much of a delinquent he was, an imperial prince wouldn’t take a class for freshmen.
In the end, for the rest of the class period, I spent a tearful time repenting my past behavior of nitpicking to get things stricken from lists.
***
"Dietrich?"
Exhausted from a class that had drained even my soul, I was listlessly packing my things when a low voice sounded from beside me. Thanks to the intensity of the class, the Second Prince’s considerable presence had grown faint. For a class to blur the formidable presence of the Second Prince—it was truly an insane class.
With class over, the Second Prince snapped my slackened string of tension taut once more.
‘What now.’
The Second Prince was now turned completely toward me.
"Your parents seem quite heedless too. I thought it was a name used only for sons."
The nobles of this empire were such blabbermouths.
The Second Prince must have gotten a hint from those snitch-like brats, whether they were from Erexion or the Crown Prince. Actually, if the Second Prince had stopped there, I might have vaguely brushed it off with an ‘Ah, yes. Well…’ like I had with Evan. However, the Second Prince soon leaned down and whispered in my ear.
"She didn’t even know if the adopted child she was bringing in was a boy or a girl. Now that I see, Count Erexion picked a proper person."
‘Ah, but this brat is really something else.’
Of course, Dietrich’s name did have that aspect to it. It was a name reminiscent of a general wearing an expression like a well-fed lion on the snowy plains of the north. It wasn’t a name suited for a child like ‘Dietrich.’
But no matter how bad your mother’s cooking is, the moment someone else says, ‘Your mother’s cooking is really terrible,’ you feel like crying.
While I agreed that Count and Countess Degoff did not possess exceptional naming sense, I didn’t want to hear it from someone else. I couldn’t stand having them compared to those Erexion brats just because their naming sense was a bit lacking, either.
Moreover, I didn’t want to receive criticism about names from Icarus. I didn’t want to hear such sneering from someone whose name was on the same level as ‘Gim Naksang.’ And to be honest, any name seemed like it would be better than ‘Gim Naksang.’
In the end, I broke my principle of ‘as if absent, unseen like air’ and responded to the Second Prince’s shallow provocation.
"It is a name given following an old legend from my hometown. One filled with affection, wishing for a girl to avoid misfortune and live happily ever after by giving her a boy’s name."
I didn’t forget to press each syllable firmly. As I spoke, I earnestly hoped that my unspoken message of ‘judging by the name alone, I’ll outlive you’ would reach him. At my response, he raised the corners of his lips in an amused smile.
"You never opened your mouth before."
"You didn’t give me a chance to open it."
At the words that popped out with a snap—I felt like the fist that had wanted to hit his snout should have been flying at me instead.
‘I overdid it.’
Sitting next to the Second Prince the whole time was already a bad sign; there was no need to give him room to extend the conversation further. Though it hadn’t even been a week since enrolling at the Academy, it wasn’t difficult to grasp how loose-lipped the members of this Academy were.
If I got entangled with the Second Prince any more, rumors would definitely spread. Moreover, even without deliberately trying to look, the sparkling Second Prince rendered my struggle to maintain a vague impression meaningless. Just because I sat next to him, with his radiance overflowing, it felt like I was forcibly receiving that spotlight too. I had been walking around with my eyes half-closed to maintain a dim impression, for goodness’ sake!
Whatever happened to my shitty mood, fortunately the Second Prince didn’t look particularly upset by my answer, which could have sounded like backtalk. Just as he was about to speak again.
"Icarus."
A voice calling the Second Prince suddenly rang out. Wondering who the bold soul was calling the Second Prince’s name so brazenly, I glanced toward the door where the sound came from, and saw the Crown Prince standing there.
Damn it, no wonder he was calling the name so boldly!
Fortunately, I seemed to be hidden behind Icarus. After saying something to someone in the hallway, the Crown Prince smiled faintly. The ‘ice-like’ Crown Prince only smiled like that in front of Roxanne, so she seemed to be waiting outside the door.
‘No, if this is the case, there was no reason to skip class to avoid him.’
It was like going on a safari tour to avoid a tiger.
Icarus glanced back at the voice calling him, then waved his hand casually as if he understood. He looked down at me again and shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated show of regret.
"I’d like to continue our conversation, but unfortunately, I must take my leave."
Saying we’ll meet again, he waved his hand loosely and soon reached the classroom door with his long legs. Watching the Second Prince’s back—broad enough to serve as a door panel—I resolved, feeling as tattered as a zookeeper whose hair had all been ripped out by a giraffe.
Time to take that back.