Chapter 48: Before it overflows.

Thanks to Mary-June slightly adjusting her attitude, Violet felt as though one immediate worry had cleared, at least for now.
It wasn’t as if she had completely changed her way of thinking, but she seemed to have grasped the importance of appearances and social graces, and that was enough.

Still, when asked whether Violet’s own life had changed as a result, the answer was no.

She remained outside the family circle as always; neither pulled in nor approaching of her own accord.
In fact, she wanted to avoid getting any closer to Mary-June and having more emotions stirred up.

She had grown firmer in her resolve about what came after graduation, but at this stage there was nothing concrete she could do.
Any clumsy attempt at preparation, if noticed, would instantly slam the door shut on the convent path.
A duke’s daughter deliberately becoming a nun… it wasn’t unheard of, but it would definitely attract curious stares.
And if word reached her father, she would be interrogated, scolded without being allowed to explain, and finally married off to someone advantageous to the Vahan family.
Honestly, that outcome felt far more likely than smoothly becoming a sister.

(But… I suppose it’s peaceful enough, in its own way.)

If Mary-June changed her behavior, the people who made snide remarks just to be seen doing it would probably decrease.
Those looking for faults could twist even good deeds into evil, but such people were obvious to everyone around them.
Forced interpretations were, by nature, unnatural.

That meant the situation Violet feared most at the academy could likely be avoided.
She didn’t care whether people disliked Mary-June; her only concern was how Mary-June reacted to them.

“—chan… Vio-chan, are you listening?”

“…Sorry, what was it?”

“Is this part right?”

“Um… yes, it’s fine.”

The academy’s main library was so vast that even if every student gathered, it never felt cramped.
There were mountains of seats, and in truth several rooms on campus functioned as libraries.
Most were called salons, and only this one—largest and with the richest collection—was officially the “library.”
The main branch, so to speak.

Today every location was fairly crowded; salons and library alike filled with similar crowds.

Students spreading textbooks, notebooks, and writing tools across tables after classes could only have one reason.

“If it’s Yulan, you’d know without checking with me.”

“Yeah, but I was hoping Vio-chan would praise me if I got it right~”

Yulan beamed, in impossibly high spirits for someone studying.
If he loved academics that might make sense, but while he was good at them, he didn’t particularly enjoy them.

The reason he seemed ready to break into song was simply because Violet was beside him.
He wasn’t seriously studying just for the excuse of being with her; he needed to study anyway, so he was killing two birds with one stone.

“Well… if you get everything right, I’ll think of a reward.”

“Really!? Awesome!”

They weren’t exactly holding a study session, nor was Violet acting as tutor, but treating him to something afterward was no trouble.
With Yulan’s ability, a perfect score would be easy.

“Come on, finish before closing time.”

“Okaaay.”

At those words, his carefree expression instantly turned serious.
Even without smiling, his gentle aura didn’t vanish, but the moment he looked down at his notebook, “gentle” no longer fit.
Still, it wasn’t the sharp intensity Violet had; his drooping eyes unconditionally looked soft.

Right now, they were in the middle of test prep.

The year was divided into three terms, with two rounds of tests per term—six per year.
To gauge student performance, every subject was tested over threeCTP three days; a system students generally disliked.
Since this was the first round of the new school year, it was still relatively manageable, but the scope covered everything taught so far; the later the test, the broader and harder the range became.

Studying straight through everything was impossible.
If you could perfectly understand everything just through preview and review, life would be easy.

So students used a little shortcut; not cheating, just a minor test-cracking technique.

“Good thing Vio-chan kept the old tests.”

“I knew you’d come, so of course I didn’t throw them away.”

Simple: get past tests from upperclassmen.

Teachers were busy too.
Making entirely new tests six times a year for every grade was impossible; more importantly, the curriculum didn’t change.
Changing only the questions was far more than double the work.

Because of that, the questions barely changed year to year.
Not identical from one to ten, but maybe sixty, possibly seventy percent were nearly the same.
Different wording or numbers were, to the test-taker, practically meaningless.

Of course this method didn’t work for the advancement exams at term end, so proper studying was still necessary.
The shortcut only made things easier; it wasn’t a guaranteed win.

“Well, I figured Vio-chan would keep them… but…”

When they were in middle division, she had helped him the same way every test period.
But this time, he had wondered if she would help someone else instead.

Someone who didn’t know the academy’s test system at all; her little sister, Mary-June.
Regardless of whether Violet wanted to.

Understanding the worry in his glance, Violet gave a short “ah” and returned her eyes to her textbook without concern.

“I have no intention of forcing something on her she hasn’t asked for.
Besides… she doesn’t need it.”

Violet probably understood Mary-June’s intellect better than the girl herself.
Back when Violet had refused all cooperation out of pure malice, even sabotaging her, Mary-June had still taken first in the year effortlessly.

Most people couldn’t understand just by listening to class, Violet had said; but Mary-June was the type who never had that problem.
An unmistakable genius.

This time, Violet had been willing to help if asked… but it seemed that wouldn’t happen.

“Never mind that; don’t neglect your own prep.
If you’re going to do it, I’d like a good score; otherwise there’s no point in helping, right?”

“…Yeah, I’ll do my best.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Yulan could probably get a satisfactory score on ability alone.
Only if nerves or some accident prevented him from performing would it be a problem; but that worry was unnecessary.

Actually, the one who needed to work hard was Violet.

“…This might be tough.”

She muttered under her breath so Yulan, now focused on problems again, wouldn’t hear.

For Violet this was her second time around, but that didn’t make the difficulty any lower.
Last time she had tried hard too, yet still been overshadowed by Mary-June’s scores and scolded by her father.

Her mind wasn’t bad; in fact above average.
But it couldn’t touch genius, and she had already accepted that.

The problem was how much she could soften her father’s criticism.
Last time, scoring above average had led to an argument when she talked back.
This time she would have to listen silently, so she wanted to shift his interest to praising Mary-June as quickly as possible.

That meant she needed a decent score; but she hadn’t expected to retake the tests, and they were from a year ago.
If someone who had been imprisoned could remember year-old tests, they’d have memorized every lesson already.

And the biggest issue: Violet had no upperclassman to borrow past tests from.
Meaning the shortcut most students used was unavailable to her.

She had upperclassman acquaintances, but none she could casually ask for old tests.
And “Violet” wasn’t the type to lightly ask favors anyway.

So she had to cram everything from scratch without even predicting what would appear.

Last time had been brutal too; even the first round.
The subsequent six had each set new records for misery.
She had cursed the tests and fantasized about burning down the academy more than once; in her mind it had gone up in flames repeatedly.

Pushing herself that far for excellent scores, only to be compared to her top-ranked sister and scolded…
Looking back, the bar set for her had been absurdly high.
The fact that neither sister used the shortcut had only fueled her father’s comparisons more.

The younger sister still took first; what were you doing, older sister?

No matter how hard she tried, the numbers were undeniable proof to him.
Effort meant nothing; falling short of Mary-June meant she had slacked off.

Different people are born with different talents, and effort yields different results too.
There’s no superiority or inferiority in that; just individual aptitude.

Mary-June was a genius; Violet’s effort couldn’t match her.
That fact alone had become fodder for her father’s contempt.

(Don’t make excuses, he said.)

Don’t use talent as an excuse.
With the same mouth that praised Mary-June as a genius, he scolded Violet for lacking effort.

That was the first time she truly saw how biased he was.
She had felt it many times after and eventually grown numb, but back then despair had overwhelmed her.
Memory from a year ago was hazy.

She knew Mary-June was a genius and that her own efforts couldn’t compete; she had already accepted her lack of talent and no longer grieved it.

“Results tell everything, don’t they…”

Not to Violet; to her father.
Not the struggle of the process, only the outcome mattered.
No matter how hard she claimed to have tried, falling short of Mary-June was immutable fact.

In the end, the only path left was the same brutally inefficient grind as last time.

She let out a soft sigh without realizing; she hadn’t even noticed herself.

Normally no one would catch it.

But one must never forget: the person beside her right now cared about Violet’s existence more than anything else in the world.

Even in the middle of serious studying, Yulan would never miss the sound of Violet’s sorrow.