I Give Up on the BL Novel's Male Leads - Chapter 5
With a look of boredom, Edwin sighed and brushed back the hair tickling his forehead.
“Student Edwin.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t mishandle Keleb, even if it’s a monster.”
“Yes.”
After absorbing the magical power, Keleb seemed to faint, falling to the floor, then quickly shrunk and disappeared into the bag the professor brought.
A new Keleb was summoned, but Edwin didn’t participate in the practice; I had to do it alone.
The lesson with Keleb ended in a bit of chaos.
By the time class ended, I felt relatively refreshed.
Edwin had kept his distance and seemed to dislike me from the moment we greeted each other. This ensures there wouldn’t be any chance of him falling for me as in the original story.
I half-hoped we won’t be in contact with each other completely after seeing Edwin leave so quickly, similar to his departure in the original story.
“Illy.”
“Hmm?”
“Could you show me the notes you took during the magic mechanics class?”
Damon asked about the notes on our way home, so I paused to search my bag for the notebook.
I had notes for the day’s subjects, but not for magic mechanics.
“It looks like I left it behind.”
“Then let’s go back together.”
I chuckled at Damon’s suggestion.
“I’ll go back alone. Hold this for me.”
Damon nodded, taking the bag I handed to him.
After making it all the way down to the first floor, I had to climb back up to the fifth.
It would have been nice to have an elevator, but the academy’s faculty and board preferred the old-fashioned way, so only stairs were available.
I rushed up to the fifth floor and saw class 1.
The door was a sliding one with a window at my height to see inside.
I was about to open it when I saw it.
My seat.
And there sat Edwin, the obsessive Crown Prince, tenderly stroking the desk.
He had been prickly towards me.
But he was now looking at my desk with a distant expression, as if he might have set his plan amiss.
It seemed he had left the room before me and headed towards the main entrance, didn’t he?
* * *
“Why did you come back?”
Seeing Edwin’s strange behavior left me in a daze, and it wasn’t until Damon spoke that I snapped back to reality.
“What about the notes for magic mechanics?”
“I’ll lend them to you tomorrow morning.”
Damon’s puzzled look made me realize my expression was showing my confusion.
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Huh?”
“Did you see a ghost or something?”
At Damon’s words, my shoulders slumped.
“Feels like it.”
“What?”
I wished it had been a ghost. Why was Edwin, who had always been so cold to me, behaving like that at my desk?
And why was he caressing the desk with such a distant expression?
What exactly did he see? He was supposed to have fallen for Illein Thierry because of his aloof demeanor, wasn’t he?
“Damon.”
“Yeah?”
“While I was absent, did anyone sit at my seat?”
“No, not at the seat I moved your stuff to.”
His answer prompted me to ask again in disbelief.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I made sure no one sat there after I moved your things.”
I was taken aback, a chill running down my spine despite Damon’s chuckle.
“Did you really see a ghost?”
Soon, Damon was checking my forehead for a fever, a gesture I didn’t have the energy to protest.
What made him develop a liking for me? Or was it a misunderstanding? Could it be that he just happened to sit in my seat and was reminded of someone else in a moment of nostalgia?
No, such coincidences don’t exist, especially when everything else had been going according to the original story.
“Sigh…”
“No fever.”
That meant the original story wouldn’t change over something as trivial as this.
“Damon.”
“Yeah?”
“You saw it too, right? Prince Edwin left before us.”
“Oh, yeah. But why?”
Damon was still checking for fever. Looking at him, he seemed surprised, his eyes wide and lips twitching as he spoke.
“You go ahead.”
“Weren’t you planning to go to the central library?”
“I don’t want to go today. Just go without me.”
If I went to the library now, I might run into Edwin later.
I had been at ease, thinking Edwin had left school early.
In the original story, after transferring, Edwin encounters a significant incident at the central library on his first Monday, which entangles me with him.
The problem is that there was an incident in the central library and another incident on the way home from school.
But I don’t need such incidents.
“Where are you headed?”
“I plan to study alone until very late.”
I needed a place to study and for it to be late enough that both the central library and the route home would be deserted.
The incident at the central library was in the evening, and the incident on the way home occurred at sunset.
So, I would return home after the sunset and the stars appeared.
It was hard to study when I returned to the mansion, as usual.
My family was on the brink of ruin, and there weren’t suitable places to study.
That’s why I had to study within the academy, as all its buildings were free for students to use.
I needed to study but lacked a proper place.
