Ekaterina slipped into the classroom just before the first class in the afternoon began. As she rushed to prepare for the lesson, she smiled at the girl sitting next to her.
“Thank you very much for your help before. Thanks to you, I could make my brother happy.”
“What a relief. I’m glad that I can be a help,” Flora said with a smile.
There, they heard this kind of conversation.
“It’s unpleasant how that shabby girl can act so cheeky, eh.”
“Yes, yes.”
(Don’t introduce yourself here, oi!)
Irritated, Ekaterina was going to glare at those trio girls. But before she could do that, she noticed something.
Flora was looking down. Which was strange, considering how she always ignored the Yes-Yes Trio’s nasty remarks elegantly.
Then, Ekaterina spotted slight spots of dirt on Flora’s uniform. It looked like she fell on the ground.
That made Ekaterina’s head boil.
Did they physically bully her!?
...It might be good if the teacher appears now. Because Ekaterina was about to directly start a fight with the Yes-Yes Trio. It would most likely escalate into a catfight. But then it would give a bad reputation to Alexei, so she endured it.
(Fuck, how shall I take revenge?)
xxxxx
The class ended with Ekaterina unable to concentrate at all. Right after the bell rang, she leaned towards Flora.
“Miss Flora, can I have a little of your time?”
“Y-yes…”
Flora’s eyes were widened. Ekaterina wondered why for a moment, but then she realized that she called her with her first name.
(Let’s be aggressive here.)
“Should I not call you by name?”
“No! Please feel free to call me so.”
“What a relief! I’m glad to hear that. Please call me Ekaterina as well.”
“But…”
“Do you hate it… I thought we’re already very close after talking about our mothers…”
“No, there’s no way I hate it!”
Flora shook her head so vigorously that her fluffy cherry blossom colored hair became slightly messy.
“But our social position is too different. I don’t deserve it.”
“I’m not forcing you. But please understand that I would be happy if you could call me by name.”
“Y-yes. Um… I’m also happy to hear that.”
Flora was smiling, a reddish tint on her white cheeks. As her name suggested, she looked like the spirit of a flower.
By the way, Ekaterina suddenly noticed that Flora’s name had a foreign feel in this world, where most people have Russian names. She never thought of that in her previous life. Maybe it’s like a Japanese person with ‘Maria’ as her name? It’s not that weird, just a bit unusual.
“Miss Flora. If you don’t mind, could you show me your notes? You always take notes diligently, so I’m curious.”
“Of course. Here.”
“That’s very kind of you. By the way, I write mine like this.”
“My! So you are devising the way you write your notes.”
Actually, Ekaterina wrote her notes using the ‘business person’s notebook technique’ that she learned during her intern period as a new employee.
However, markers and colored pens didn’t exist in this world, so Ekaterina wasn’t satisfied with this. By the way, her writing instrument was a quill pen. It looked fancy, but it was hard to hold the thin axle. Plus it could only suck a little ink, so she had to dip it in the ink bottle even before she could finish writing a line in her notebook. She wouldn’t be able to use it anymore once the tip of the pen became dull, so she had to sharpen it with a knife… Could someone invent something better soon?
Flora’s notes were filled with clean, easy-to-read letters. She wrote down summaries of what the teacher verbally explained.
“You’re very good at summarizing the explanations. This is a good reference. I couldn’t finish writing this part. May I copy yours?”
“Of course.”
There, they heard another unpleasant remark.
“Look at her accepting kindness at face value. How unsightly.”
“Yes, yes.”
……
Ekaterina covered her ears, leaned her neck slightly, and smiled.
“Since it’s getting warmer these days, the bugs are very noisy. Sometimes, their buzzing sounds unpleasant.”
Flora widened her eyes. Then she chuckled. “If it’s getting too annoying, maybe we should have them exterminated. ...Oh my. Please pardon me. I’m just talking to myself.” Then Flora only shook her head.
Ekaterina wanted to voice out her agreement out loud, but that would awfully differ from her character.
With this, the Yes-Yes Trio would now know that the noble lady of Duke Yurinova was supporting Flora. Ekaterina didn’t plan to hang out with those girls. If they did something to her again, she wouldn’t let them go easily.
“Miss Flora, can you teach me how to cook again tomorrow?”
“If you’re fine with me, then of course.”
For the time being, Ekaterina planned to stick to Flora so that they couldn’t bully her. But she would only protect her until the event with the prince started. After all, he would protect the heroine at that point.
For that, let’s cook and study together to increase intimacy.
...Somehow, it sounds like Ekaterina wanted to improve the affection to obtain the target capture.
The villainess capturing the heroine… what kind of joke was that? There’s no GL route in this game.
But Ekaterina didn’t play all of the game routes in the game, so...
Nah, impossible.
