After I, a Penniless Noble, Entered a Fake Engagement with the Most Elegant Duke’s Daughter at the Academy, For Some Reason She Started Showering Me with Love - V2 Chapter 01.3: Looking for a New Place for Just the Two of Us

Chapter 01.3: Looking for a New Place for Just the Two of Us

“It can’t be helped.”

“Hmph.”

Yuri actually made the sound out loud and turned her face away with an exaggerated little huff.

With her emotions written plainly across her face, it was obvious—logic wasn’t going to win here. Maybe this tactic had worked for her before. In theory, it was cute.

In practice? A complete headache.

“It’s still somewhat warm today, but it’s only going to get colder. We’ll have more snowy days like last time. We can’t keep having tea outside forever, can we?”

“We can.”

“…‘We can’?”

Are you five?

I wasn’t happy about losing the rose garden either. 

But it’s not as though this was the only place in the academy where we could drink tea.

“We could just use the salon.”

“But there are people there.”

“Yeah, but…”

Other people’s eyes carried weight.

I had wandered into this rose garden in the first place to escape that pressure—and that was where I met Yuri. And Yuri herself kept her distance because she never quite fit in with the academy’s atmosphere.

Neither of us wanted to lose this small safe haven.

I understood that.

But we couldn’t just sit here freezing for the sake of it. 

Or rather—we had already proven we couldn’t.

“You caught a cold, remember?”

“…That was different.”

She denied it, though without offering any real counterargument.

Yuri was clever. Quick-witted. A duke’s daughter. She likely excelled in her studies too.

Which meant she knew I was right.

And that was probably why she chose to argue with feelings from the start instead of logic.

“I’m not giving in to crocodile tears. …And I really was worried when you caught that cold.”

Sure, her message telling me to visit had been filled with nothing but stubborn pride.

But I had been worried. Seeing her back on her feet had genuinely relieved me. That was exactly why I didn’t want her falling sick again. If there was even a chance of it happening, then we couldn’t keep having tea out here.

I wasn’t backing down.

Once that much became clear, Yuri—who had been avoiding my gaze—finally seemed to give in. 

She lowered her head and let out a long sigh. 

Resting her forehead against her folded hands, she looked up at me from beneath her lashes.

“…Alright. You’re right, dear husband.”

But—

She attached a quiet complaint to her surrender.

“I just don’t like the idea of losing my excuse to see you.”

The lonely smile she gave me this time made my heart waver.

I was a first-year. She was a second-year.

Different grades meant fewer natural chances to meet. Since we had seen each other almost every day since we first met, I hadn’t even noticed—but ordinarily, we weren’t in a position where we could casually spend time together like this.

In that sense, this rose garden—where we could drink tea without worrying about prying eyes—was irreplaceable.

Even if I set logic aside, I understood why she was so attached to it.

“Isn’t there any other room we could use?”

“If there were, do you think I’d be arguing this much?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, as if scolding me for taking so long to catch on.

Yes, yes. Sorry for being slow.

“We can rent private rooms, but not every day. Other students need them too. I could reserve one all winter under the duke’s name… but I’d rather not.”

“You’re saying that after bribing someone to let me into the girls’ dorm?”

“That was because you wouldn’t like it otherwise, remember?”

She said it so casually—so matter-of-factly—that my teasing died instantly.

That was a direct hit.

I bit my lower lip, trying to swallow the embarrassment creeping up my neck.

She had said she would be more careful.

“And besides,” Yuri added, brushing her long silver hair over her shoulder, 

“Isn’t it important to have a secret place that belongs only to you and me?”

A place just for us.

Something special, meant only for the two of us.

Suddenly, I felt like the clueless one—thinking only in terms of logic, forgetting about atmosphere and feelings.

I raised both hands in surrender.

At this point, I was the one being persuaded.

“Alright. We’ll find another place.”

“Somewhere we can be alone, just the two of us, okay?”

She winked.

I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that might somehow protect me.

◆◆◆

—“Let’s find another place where we can be alone.”

I’d said it on impulse… but it wasn’t like such a place would magically appear overnight.

If somewhere like that existed, I would’ve been spending time there long before I ever met Yuri. The fact that I hadn’t was proof enough that it didn’t. Yuri was searching as well, but apparently even for a duke’s daughter, finding a private spot without bulldozing everything with power wasn’t easy.

“That doesn’t mean I can just say, ‘Do whatever you want,’ though.”

Somehow, that would feel like betraying her.

It was the weekend, so there were no classes.

Outside, snow was falling thick enough to pile up. Going out was out of the question, and of course, there was no chance of holding a tea party in the rose garden. So I lay on my bed, wrapped tightly in blankets, trying to keep warm.

“Ugh… what am I supposed to do…”

I hadn’t properly seen Yuri these past few days.

The snow kept falling, making it difficult to meet. We ran into each other in the academy corridors now and then, but that was all. Yuri said she didn’t mind meeting in the cafeteria, but eating there regularly—at a place clearly meant for wealthy nobles—wasn’t something my family could afford. And there was no way I was going to let her pay for me without reason.

Maybe that was why.

The sense of not quite belonging at this academy—something I had always felt—had grown stronger over the past few days.

Ever since I started spending time with Yuri, I hadn’t even had the luxury of worrying about things like that. She constantly dragged me into one situation after another. My days spun around her. I didn’t have time to sit around feeling gloomy.

And yet, after being apart for only a few days, here I was.

Even accounting for the fact that I didn’t really have other friends to rely on, it still hit me hard how much I had been depending on her. It was embarrassing enough to make me want to cover my face. Instead, I lay wrapped in blankets like a caterpillar, surrendering to the cold.

“This is embarrassing.”

My body was freezing, but inside I felt like I was burning.

The truth was, I might have wanted a special place to be with her even more than she did. And I hadn’t even realized it. Acting cool with, “We can meet anytime, right?” only made it worse.

“Ugh—!”

I groaned and flailed for a moment before going still, lying there like a corpse. 

Finally, I kicked off the blanket and peeled myself out of it like shedding a shell.

“Guess I’ll go look.”

That was the only option.

I’d shove that embarrassing realization deep down and seal it away. Feelings aside, what needed to be done hadn’t changed. If anything, I felt more motivated now than when we first agreed to search together.

“Though… with this weather, I can’t exactly go outside.”

I got out of bed and wiped the condensation from the window to look outside.

The snowfall had lightened, but the world beyond was still blanketed in white. If I wandered around and caught a cold, Yuri would absolutely give me that suspicious look.

And honestly… I’d deserve it.

“Maybe I should ask the dorm matron or something…?”

I was just about to turn away from the window when I noticed something gold moving outside.

I squinted.

It was a person.

More specifically—Prince Lionel.

What was he doing out there in this weather?

He didn’t seem like the type to enjoy playing in the snow.

And yet, the very next moment, he dove headfirst into a pile of snow by the path.

“…Is that guy really a prince?”

First crawling on all fours for a cat, and now this?

Maybe he was just… extremely tired.

◆ End of Chapter 01 ◆
To be continued.