When Jealousy Comes Knocking

Annette was in the middle of her walk towards the Magical Study Complex with her groupmates. Their next class after the lunch break would be held in the laboratory room.

“Come on, Elisia, I told you it’s a ghost!”

“It’s just a witch, Leo!”

Nova and Annette exchanged wry smiles as they quietly listened to the other two arguing.

Leo then casually wrapped his arm around Annette’s shoulders and said, “Say Annette, as fellow ghosts, don’t you think the crying woman is a ghost?”

“Eh?? Um, I’m… not sure?” Annette fidgeted a little as she silently thought, It was neither a ghost nor a witch, though. But I can’t say that it was Aquantine, one of the guardians.

“Ah, Leo! Don’t bother Annette!”

“What? I’m not bothering? We’re friends! Right, Annette?”

All of a sudden, someone grabbed Leo by the shoulder from behind. “Pardon my intrusion, my juniors.”

As their focus shifted towards the source of the voice, their eyes widened.

Before them, Prince Henry and his aide stood as the prince offered a friendly smile.

“Your Highness, Prince Henry!!” called Annette’s groupmates in unison. Leo quickly removed his arm from Annette’s shoulders as they straightened up before Henry.

Meanwhile, the female students around them began to make a fuss in the distance as they noticed the presence of the Crown Prince.

Eh? W-why is Prince Henry here?! What am I supposed to do?? I thought he didn’t want to talk to me in front of others to avoid attention?! Annette silently drowned in panic. Her gaze then immediately shifted to Lucas who stood behind Henry with a questioning look.

Lucas, who noticed that, averted his eyes instead in silence.

Lord Lucas?!?! Annette screamed in silence.

“I just wanted to ask if this book I found over there happened to be one of yours?” Henry raised a hand that held a fine-looking leather notebook.

“Ah, no, sir! It’s not mine,” Leo answered stiffly.

Elisia turned to Nova and Annette questioningly, and both of them shook their heads in reply.

“I… don’t think it’s ours, Your Highness” Elisia said.

It’s mine, thought Lucas as he silently squinted at his master. I was baffled when he abruptly stopped in front of me as we walked, then snatched my notebook, saying he was borrowing it for a bit. But of course, it’s because of this girl.

“I see. I’m sorry to have stopped you all. You may continue walking to your class properly now,” said Henry as he turned to the male student and gave him a slight smile.

Leo flinched a little the moment his gaze met the prince’s.

“...Yes, Your Highness,” they all said, slightly tilting their heads.

Just as Henry turned around and was about to leave, a sudden loud crash filled the air, followed by a scream.

Crackkk!!!

“Aaaaaaarghh!!”

“Eeiikk!!” Annette flinched.

“Good heavens!! What’s that?!”

“Kyyyaaaaaa…!! Daphne!!”

Their focus shifted to a third-year female student lying on the ground with blood slowly dripping from her head. The students in the area hurriedly crowded around the scene.

“What?” Leo was puzzled.

“I think someone is injured,” replied Nova.

Annette’s groupmates then rushed to join the crowd, leaving Annette behind.

Eh?! W-what’s happening?!

Annette was hesitantly about to follow her groupmates when Henry came close to her and quietly said, “Stay here, Annette.”

Prince Henry then gave the notebook back to Lucas as he headed towards the scene, followed by Lucas.

At the scene, Henry and Lucas saw the female student lying unconscious among the scattered broken clay pot fragments and soils. Two female students stood near her with a horrified look. They seemed to be the victim’s friends.

“My Lord, Daphne!!”

Henry scowled seriously. Where did the pot come from? Above?

He looked up to the building near them. There were windows open in the laboratory classrooms on the third and the fourth floors.

“Can someone quickly call the professor? The two of you, could you please immediately bring her to the infirmary?” Henry then took control.

However, just after that, some professors had already arrived at the scene and took over.

As Henry told her, Annette had quietly been standing still in her spot, trying to catch a glimpse with her far-sighted spell instead when someone roughly brushed her shoulder, making her stumble.

“Tch! Don’t block the path, will you?!”

Annette turned around and quickly bowed. “I’m sorry!”

A third-year female student with long black hair stared at her with a scowl on her face. Her overall appearance was rare among the people of the Sheldiawald Kingdom, and there were slight dark circles under her eyes.

The female student then walked away with the same annoyed look, leaving a baffled Annette behind, unaware that a pair of eyes had secretly observed them from the crowd.

***

Serves her right!

The black-haired girl marched down with anger as she headed towards her classroom.

That woman! That vile woman!! She dared to touch what’s mine!! Unforgivable!!

She bit her lower lip hard. Her mind replayed the memories of what had happened.

A female student named Daphne had been spending extra time alone with a man after the class had ended, the man the black-haired female student loved to death. She saw the two of them sitting close to each other, close enough to touch, as they talked and smiled.

Meanwhile, she could only quietly observe from a distance. No one should know her relationship with her beloved, that’s what her beloved had warned her. Should their relationship be revealed, he said he could not see her anymore.

But she continued to witness the excessive closeness between Daphne and her beloved. Daphne would even secretly touch her beloved’s hand in public. And no one would ever find out, but her. How could she not?

Her eyes would always closely follow her beloved in secret whenever she saw him on the campus.

He was the love of her life. He was the sweetest. He accepted her, who had been avoided by everyone, in her most vulnerable time. He gave her all the love and attention she needed. And most importantly, he gave her the utmost pleasure she could ever receive over and over again. It made her feel that she was entirely accepted.

She would do anything for him, anything. She was his special one after all. She also strongly believed that her beloved was hers alone to have.

“They avoided you because they don’t know how special you are. But I know. I will help you experience the taste of heaven, and you will soon discover your new self with me,” his beloved had told her.

Even if there were some other female students flocking around him, her beloved would only choose her. She believed she was just that special.

But that disgusting wormhole! When I thought she had been so touchy with him recently, that woman actually dared to pull my man to the cabin late at night!

She stopped, the scowl on her face deepened as she gripped her skirts tightly.

My botany club members said they heard a voice coming out of that cabin. And it was her!! I don’t even know how long it has been this way!

She bit her lip even harder. She was about to continue her walk when suddenly a voice called out to her from behind.

“Yolanda.”

She jolted and instantly froze. Her heart beat faster. She recognised this voice. It was the kindest and sweetest voice that had saved her for almost two years now. The voice that she loved the most.

“Meet me in my office after school today,” he said before walking away.

Cold sweat ran down her face.

***

“Why did you do that?” the man asked calmly.

Yolanda hung her head as she bit her lower lip. Her black hair slowly fell to the front, casting even more shadow on her face. In the back of her mind, she knew that she might get scolded. However, she could no longer contain herself after what she had witnessed that night.

“Yolanda,” the man called again, still with the same calmness.

She slowly looked up to the man she loved the most.

He had leaned one side against the bookshelf next to him, with his arms crossed, calmly staring at her. However, Yolanda could not see any slight hint of his usual smile. Her heart throbbed.

Yolanda hesitantly opened her mouth, “S-she… seduced you. She pulled you to that cabin.”

“So you followed me?” he said with his voice lowered.

She jolted. Anxiety crept in and she grew panicked. All of the emotions that she had held back with all her might suddenly burst out.

“I was just…!! Um, I… don’t want her to touch you, sir! You have me! She must have bewitched you! She is the bad one! I merely taught her a lesson!” she frantically said.

“You did something I didn’t ask for and without my permission.”

“Why are you covering for her, sir? What about me! I’m your special one! She deserves it!”

Tears overflowed in her eyes. Her heart throbbed once more, even more painfully than before.

“Are you not going to listen to me, then?” the man calmly said, completely unfazed by her tears.

“I would love to do anything you want me to, I swear! Didn't I do well taking care of that Ignatius? The roots too! But you are mine alone, sir! As it has always been for the past two years! You shaped me like this! I can’t live a single day without you now! I need you! I would never forgive anyone who touches you! Never!! No one is allowed to take you away from me!! Please, sir! You should only look at me… I’m all yours…” she pleaded.

The man stared at her in silence for a while. There was not a single expression on his face.

He then straightened himself up from the bookshelf and unfolded his arms.

“You may go now.”

Yolanda stared back at him. She couldn’t read what was on his mind. Her beloved didn’t say anything else. He didn’t say he would abandon her, but he also didn’t say that he forgave her.

She opened up her mouth, wanting to say something, but she changed her mind and closed it. Yolanda was afraid that she might hear something she didn’t want to hear if she asked. She hung her head down and gripped her skirts with both hands.

She bit her lip before turning around and leaving the room.

Once he made sure Yolanda had completely gone, he spoke up, “You’ve endured it well.”

Behind the bookshelf next to which he had been leaning stood a woman in her late thirties, who had been standing there all this time in silence.

“Should I take care of her, my Lord?”

The man slowly turned and approached her. He raised his hand and placed it under her ear, lifting the woman’s face up, then he leaned closer.

“Well, perhaps it’s time to end your endless jealousy with that girl, right, Becca? I’ll leave it to you,” he whispered.

Her cheeks flushed rosy.

“Understood, Lord Luvan.”