Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Confession

"Orphan girl. Come fight me if you've got a problem with it."

The bomb, finally dropped.

Every eye in the auditorium swung toward the stage at once.

Shock. Looks that questioned their own ears. Eyes blown wide, all around.

Not that I particularly cared. I finished off the remaining "thank you" in a flat voice and stepped off the podium.

"......"

A stunned silence, hanging over the room.

I walked back to the Class E waiting area and sat down.

She'd been frozen solid up on stage. It took a few seconds for the situation to catch up with her.

"Heh."

I gave her a casual wink and a little wave.

The mask made the wink useless, obviously.

As the silence stretched, the emcee professor rushed to pull things together.

[W-well then, let us bring the ceremony to a close on that note.]

[Students, you are all free to leave.]

The emcee, salvaging my mess.

I almost felt bad for him. Almost. I decided not to think about it.

Right now, I was running on pure spite.

Spite Mode.

Spite Mode Viktor.

In this state, I tended to bite people fairly often.

'Dragging out someone who needs sleep, and not even keeping your own students in line.'

I'd been trying to brush it off, let it go. But thinking about it now twisted something in my gut.

I had hauled myself out of bed at a time that should have been sacred communion between me and my blanket.

And this was the treatment waiting for me. Of course the fuse was going to blow.

'Serves you right.'

Honestly, I wasn't angry. Wasn't wounded either.

It had just grated, caught in some corner of my brain.

There was no way I'd get swept up in bait that basic.

Just a small act of spite.

"Ahem."

My mood lifted a little.

The ceremony ended, and students filed out of the auditorium in turn. Each one glanced my way as they passed.

"......"

"......Hm?"

One in particular.

The Class A first seat had been watching me for quite a while.

Between the curtain of blue hair falling across her face, deep-colored pupils blinked slowly.

'What's her deal?'

Rin Glacia.

The girl currently reigning as the undisputed top first-year.

"......"

"......"

Had my speech made that much of an impression on her?

She watched me from a distance. So I watched her back, blank-faced.

The staring contest ended when Rin turned away first.

'Yes. I win.'

The blue hair retreating into the crowd.

I slipped out of the auditorium myself.

I was halfway down the long corridor when two voices reached me.

"Sir Viktor!"

"V-Viktor-nim..."

A golden-haired girl and a dark-haired one.

I smiled and greeted them both.

"Ranne. Alice."

Had they been waiting for me?

They came trotting over to my side.

Now that I thought about it, this was the first time I'd seen either of them since being discharged from the Infirmary. There had been a lot to handle outside the academy, and after coming back I'd spent most days sprawled flat in bed.

'Though, even so, it's only been a few days...'

I set those idle thoughts aside.

"Did you both spend your days off well?"

"Yes! No problems at all."

"M-me too..."

Ranne, as energetic as ever. Alice, answering in a small, hesitant voice.

We stopped for a moment to chat.

Just then, a group of students pushed through the crowd toward us.

"Hey."

A voice packed with hostility.

I turned and caught a flash of bright yellow hair. The same delinquent girl from up on the stage earlier, tanned skin and a look sharp enough to draw blood.

"The hell are you?"

The Class B first seat.

Caitlin, or was it Gay Dentures. Something like that.

She moved toward me radiating menace.

I tilted my head at the display.

'What, is this a public confession?'

A perfectly reasonable guess.

I ran through what I knew about her.

Not much, honestly. Nothing beyond surface details.

Name: Caitlin Lettuce. First-year, Class B, first seat. Defining trait: Delinquent.

"I said, who the hell are you."

She looked spoiling for a fight.

We'd never spoken before, and yet here she was. The reason wasn't hard to find.

Apparently my little jab during the speech had not sat well with her.

'I may have gone a bit far.'

I opened my mouth to apologize.

"Class B first seat... Caitlin, was it?"

"Yeah, that's me. Answer the question."

"I'm sorry. What I said during the speech. I called you an orphan girl."

"Ha, this guy's a joke. What, are you shaking in your boots or something..."

"I hadn't accounted for the fact that you genuinely don't have one."

"......What?"

"No, I mean. Honestly. I... genuinely didn't think you'd really not have one."

"W-what are you..."

"Parents. Everyone usually has a set, so I assumed. But I hear one of yours is missing, Caitlin. It's rather like ordering a set menu and finding a piece absent. Do you call that a defective product, I wonder..."

She had probably come over for a dominance game. Or outright intimidation, if not that.

Her air of menace was heavy enough. Among students, it had probably cowed people easily, establishing her standing without much resistance.

But she'd overlooked one thing.

Where I came from.

A beautiful land ringed by mountains and sea.

Yet so steeped in shadow that dominance games were practically a way of life.

Children born there took up a calling with their small hands from early on.

We got this education young.

In front of cigarette-stunk idiot boxes, we waged years of war over honor. And because that honor belonged not to ourselves but to our parents, we fought all the more desperately for it.

Sometimes against middle-aged men, sometimes peers, sometimes younger kids. Occasional foreign invasions. The Japanese, northern barbarians, western devils, the Manchu hordes. Aiming guns, blades, and spells at each other.

We held the front lines with our voices and our fingers.

That was the spirit and the fire our land and people had always kept alive.

Back then, we were all child soldiers. Armed to protect our fathers and mothers.

Knowing how to protect something means knowing how to strike.

You who have never known the war inside a 24-inch frame underground.

We had killed things you could not even imagine.

Our threshold had climbed year by year, until there was nothing left we could not slay.

And this was among the most basic of moves.

When picking a fight, the very first thing you kill.

Parents.

Nation name: Republic of Korea.

We were children raised in the land of the Parent-Diss.

"Anyway, had I known that in advance, I wouldn't have committed such defamation of fact... I'm really so sorry, I'm not quite sure how to make it up to you..."

"You, you... you son of a bitch, I swear,!"

Crack.

Caitlin's hand curled into a fist and she launched herself at me.

Her classmates grabbed her before she could close the distance.

"Caitlin, stop. The professors are watching."

"Let me go! The way he talks, I'll,!"

"Save it for later. Make it official."

"Damn it,!"

"Just let it go. Word's always been that the Class E first seat isn't right in the head."

Four Class B students holding her back before the punch could land. Even then, it looked less like they were restraining her and more like she was choosing to stand down.

The professors watching from a distance were probably the reason.

Caitlin swallowed her fury and forced herself still.

"Haah... a Class E insect, of all things."

Sparks crackled through her yellow hair.

Her ability, electricity, leaking out without her meaning it to.

The sound of it snapping near my ear.

Crackle. Crackle.

"You... just you wait."

She threw me one last look, sharp as a blade.

Then, flanked by her classmates, she strode out of the auditorium in wide, deliberate steps.

'Don't pick fights if you can't handle one.'

I shrugged.

After that, the ceremony wrapped up in its own chaotic way.

***

A few more days passed, and the week-or-so suspension of classes came to an end.

Academy life resumed its usual rhythm.

Nothing much had happened in between.

'Caitlin's side does nag at me a little.'

Class B was a class I'd have to clash with sooner or later anyway. In the source material, she was a recurring villain of sorts, an antagonist I'd run into fairly often.

Whipping them into shape the way I had with Class C didn't seem like a bad idea.

'Though maybe there's no need to go looking for trouble first.'

Class B's first seat, Caitlin Lettuce.

She had a spectacularly terrible temperament.

Walking away after being humiliated like that was not in her nature.

'Two days at best, a week at the latest.'

She'd show up. It was a certainty.

Class B's education could wait until then.

With that settled, I turned my focus to what actually needed doing first.

'Setting that aside for now...'

I peered around the entrance to the classroom.

Several Class E students had already claimed their seats.

My mind was already on the promise Javert had made to me some time ago.

-"I also promise compensation for this matter of surveillance."

-"For the remainder of your time at the academy, if there is anything you wish for, tell me. Just the one."

The wish she had granted me.

No point in sitting on it. I planned to cash it in now.

Stepping into the classroom, I found a professor at the front, organizing documents on the podium.

Soft red hair pulled back neatly. Green eyes like a stem running between flower petals.

"Professor Javert."

"......Ah. Viktor."

That same mineral-flat gaze as always.

I smiled and walked toward her.

Close enough, I reached out a hand.

"......?"

"Professor."

Slide.

My hand found hers and wrapped around it gently.

Javert looked up with a question practically visible on her face.

I kept my voice light.

"You remember, I hope? That you'd grant me one request, whatever I asked."

"Of course. I haven't forgotten a promise made only days ago."

"Well then, I'd like to tell you what that request is."

"Right now?"

Javert tilted her head slightly.

I tilted mine to match. "Is that not all right?"

"No. There's no reason it wouldn't be."

She turned her ear toward me, ready to listen.

The Class E students who had been chatting among themselves were looking our way now too. Clearly wondering what was going on.

"It's a simple request, actually."

I shifted my fingers slowly.

My hand slid between hers and interlaced.

A faint rose scent drifted past and was gone.

That ever-flat gaze flickered. Just briefly.

I caught it.

Meeting her eyes directly, I spoke.

"Professor Javert."

"......"

"Would you go out with me?"

In the classroom.

With every last Class E student watching.

A confession, dropped in broad daylight.

"......"

Stunned silence, all at once.

A beat later, the classroom erupted.

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