Chapter 84: Ideal person.
Until the pre-bell rang, Violet kept her head bowed; Rosette asked nothing.
She only said, “Are you all right?”
When Violet answered, “I’m fine… and I’m sorry,” Rosette simply smiled in relief and replied, “Then that’s good.”
She understood the boundary between kindness and imposition.
Some people might prefer someone to force their way in, but for Violet, who couldn’t put anything into words right now, Rosette’s distance was a blessing.
“I’m sorry, Rosette-sama.”
It was our first real conversation, yet I had shown her such a pathetic side…
The usual Violet would never have done that.
Part of it was because the seed of those feelings was Yulan, robbing me of composure, but the biggest reason was that our positions were far more similar than I had imagined.
The comfort of receiving true empathy had made me open my heart too much.
Both Violet and Rosette were surely in the minority.
In ideals and in reality, we lived bearing the same weight; rare comrades.
Yet that didn’t give me the right to assume she would understand everything, to believe she could comprehend it all.
That would make me no different from those who forced their ideals onto Rosette.
“You must have been startled. Please forget it.”
“Please don’t worry about it. Besides… yesterday it was I who startled you, so we’re even.”
There’s a vast difference between learning a secret that shatters an image and suddenly breaking down, but… she was surely saying it knowingly.
Whether it was consideration for me or her true feelings, I didn’t know, but in our short time together I had already understood that Rosette was kind.
She didn’t mock my weakness, didn’t twist her face in annoyance, didn’t pry out of curiosity.
She didn’t scold me for leaning on her; she simply allowed it, and that made me happy.
“Well then, shall we head back? The pre-bell has rung, and we don’t have much time.”
If we didn’t return before the main bell, we would be late.
That was something both the rumor-plagued Violet and the idealized Rosette wanted to avoid.
More than anything, in this academy, if a student disappeared without notice, an absurdly massive search party would be mobilized.
With royalty, nobility, and the children of every VIP in attendance, the security was only natural… but to the students themselves, even a few minutes’ delay causing the entire campus to buzz felt suffocating.
The route back to our classrooms was nearly identical for same-year students.
Once you ignored the floor divisions, all grades were gathered in the same wing; though in this vast academy, “the same wing” still covered a frighteningly large area.
As we walked in step toward that wing, a question finally occurred to Violet.
“Come to think of it… you knew which class I was in, Rosette-sama.”
In the midst of all the panic and surprise, I had completely forgotten, but was it normal to know the classroom of someone you had never properly introduced yourself to?
Even most of my own classmates were hazy to me.
I had long known Rosette wasn’t in my class, but I had never once cared which one she was in.
“I had heard you were in the class next door. Violet-sama is… well… rather famous.”
The word “famous” was wrapped in layers of sugarcoating, but it was obvious the ingredients were negative rumors.
From clinging to Claudia and causing trouble, to the later scandal with my half-sister.
Judging from her tone, Rosette was referring to the latter.
The former I could accept as my own fault, but the latter had been pure collateral damage.
Should I be angry or dumbfounded that Father’s harm had spread even to the academy…?
Remembering the last time I chose anger and ended up with a bad ending, dumbfounded was probably wiser.
I didn’t have the stamina left to be angry.
“But I wasn’t completely certain… so I planned to peek into each classroom one by one.”
I got lucky and found you on the first try; she said with a sheepish, adorable smile.
From the way she walked to the way she formed expressions, everything looked refined, yet it wasn’t because she was playing the ideal princess.
Those manners were simply ingrained in her, natural.
She seemed to believe her true self destroyed the ideal, but to Violet, Rosette’s essence was nothing less than the genuine, flawless princess.
“Then… next time it’ll be my turn to find your classroom.”
“Eh…?”
“How about… today at lunch?”
“Ah—! Y-yes, please! I’ll be waiting…!!”
There was only one class next to Violet’s.
The answer was obvious even without searching.
She must have realized the roundabout invitation.
Cheeks flushed pink, nodding excitedly over and over; Rosette looked far more childish than the image anyone held of her.
Her expressions changed freely, as if her heart and facial muscles were directly linked.
Even while unable to openly love what she loved, she possessed an unyielding core that refused to give up or let go.
She wasn’t merely graceful and soft-spoken; she could chatter too.
Everything; except her ingrained beautiful manners; was utterly removed from the rumors.
Knowing isn’t always good.
There are things better left unknown.
Rosette kept her secret and continued to act the ideal precisely because she knew such people existed.
Exposing everything doesn’t always lead to a good outcome.
I don’t believe baring all is the only form of honesty.
Yet even so; yesterday, today, right now; I find the Rosette I have come to know beautiful.
The ideal was shattered, broken.
And precisely because of that, the Rosette I discovered was truly the ideal person.