As his classmates had distanced themselves, Beret was alone and had his head on his desk, about to fall asleep.
Without anyone to talk to, and without any disturbances, falling asleep was easy… but not much time had passed when-
Bam!
“Huh!?” Just as he was about to drift into deep sleep, a loud noise, as if someone had struck the desk next to him, jolted him awake. Startled, he sat up. Reflexively turning his head around, he saw someone with long red hair, a choker around their neck, ample breasts, and a slim waist.
“Ah.” Beret quickly recognized who it was with these distinctive features.
“Yawn,” Hiding a yawn behind his hand, Beret looked up and met the person’s gaze.
“Oh, sorry for waking you.”
“… Elena? It’s fine. It’s my fault for sleeping.” It felt like she intentionally made the loud noise, though… As he thought that, Beret glanced over at the clock. There was about 10 minutes left before it was time for them to move to a different classroom.
“Phew. Almost time for class. Let’s do our best today.”
“You always sleep during class, and yet you say that? Planning to challenge the teacher today?”
“Huh? Me?”
“Who else? It’s not unusual, you know.”
“…Oh, right.” Although Beret didn’t even consider challenging the teacher, he quickly understood when Elena said that it wasn’t unusual.
“Well, I’m not saying that it’s necessarily bad to challenge things, but it’d be more meaningful for you to put your energy into something else. You’re capable of studying, after all.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Hmm, you seem unusually obedient today. Weird.” Elena and Beret were having a normal conversation, but they weren’t really close. They exchanged greetings when their eyes met, and they were on friendly enough terms for occasional conversations.
Despite Beret being feared by others, Elena, who was from a powerful noble family, didn’t change her attitude towards him based on others’ perceptions.
“Maybe because I just woke up?”
“That’s not a valid reason. Well, never mind. … This may be sudden, but what exactly are you thinking?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. I’m asking about Shia.” Seated next to him, Elena twirled her red hair with her index finger, her sharp gaze fixed on him. She was making such a serious expression that it was obvious that she wasn’t intending to let anything suspicious go unnoticed.
“This morning, I happened to meet her and heard about it. About how you didn’t blame her for accidentally breaking your favorite cup, how you didn’t scold her, how you picked up the broken pieces to prevent Shia from getting hurt, and how you even give freed her from her lunch duty.” Elena leaned forward, bringing her beautiful face closer, with her beautiful, jewel-like purple eyes staring at him.
“Honestly, I can only assume you have an ulterior motive. Of course, I’m not doubting you; I’m just curious about the reason.”
“If you’re going to say that, can you at least stop with the ‘I’m suspicious’ look?”
“I don’t want you to force your subject opinion on me.” Elena was precisely probing for the purpose while leaving an escape route so as to not be rude. Truly beautiful of a daughter of an earl family, Elena was not only beautiful but also shrewd. “Well, going back to the point… I just couldn’t ignore it when I saw Shia’s face like that.”
Elena shrugged her shoulders as if remembering what had happened at the time, and smiling, she continued speaking. “… She was so happy when she bragged to me, ‘Beret-sama praised me!’ I met her when she was coming back from the bathroom, and I think she was trying hard t stop grinning.”
“Haha, that’s just like Shia.” Beret couldn’t help but laugh, but that was a mistake.
“What are you laughing at? It’s not a laughing matter to me.” Elena’s tone instantly became sharp, and she once again had a serious expression on her face. She rested her chin on her hand. “As a friend, I can’t keep quiet if you’re playing around with her feelings. You can’t do that just because she’s your maid.”
“I see. I get what you mean.”
Being scolded severely, being made to run errands, and being told unreasonable things, was, to a certain extent, inevitable for a maid. Elena knew this and so she had never once reprimanded Berett for how she treated Shia. However, having feelings played with was beyond the scope of a maid, so it was reasonable for Elena to give a warning.
“Well, you probably won’t believe me when I say this, but I can promise you that I’m not playing around with her feelings. There’s no point in doing something like that in the first place.”
“Hmm, then why did you do that? Tell me.” At this moment, Elena could tell that Beret was serious about what he said.
“I wonder why. Why don’t you ask Shia instead of me?”
“Y- you say that, but you ordered Shia to not tell anyone.”
“I didn’t order her. I asked her.”
“Stop with the wordplay. You threatened her.”
“Say whatever you want.” There’s no way Beret could say something as ridiculous as “I’ve become kinder because I was reincarnated”, so he dodged the question.
“I’m not thinking about the things you’re worried about. Please continue to look after Shia.”
“My relationship with Shia isn’t so shallow that we’re friends only because you asked me to. I’m not going to say ‘yes, I will’.”
“Haha, that’s enough.”
“Hmph, that’s fine. See you later.” Elena replied coldly to Byleth and stood up. She picked up the materials on her desk and quickly headed to her next class.
“Yes yes.”
…
Hmmm… why did I believe him so easily?…
I feel like it was easier to talk to him than usual…
I’m sure it was just my imagination that it was a little, just a little fun…
“Mmm, this is kind of messing me up…” As Elena muttered to herself, the conversation she had in the morning and Shia’s happy smiling face came to her mind. “I’m glad that I’ve worked hard until now. I feel really happy thinking about it… ehehe.”