Unusually, the lecture hall where Mace was located was crowded with people.
It was when I spotted Mace's back as she walked down the corridor.
Some bastard I'd seen somewhere before quietly stuck something on Mace's back and ran away.
She didn't stop walking, so Mace must not have noticed.
I watched the direction the bastard fled, disappearing between the windows.
One of Max's gang. Those little shits are persistent as hell.
I stopped watching the leech and approached Mace, peeling off the note.
"Huh? Ain, when did you get here?"
"Just now. Hold on, I'm reading something."
"What's that? A love letter? Well, that last confession was a bit half-hearted! If you're begging for a chance to try again, I might seriously reconsider..."
Mace's chatter barely registered.
It was because of what the note said. It went like this:
'Eeny meeny miny moe. Ain and the nun are dating.'
That's roughly the content, very violently abbreviated.
Except the note was packed full of language far less refined and far more explicit than how I put it.
We had been stuck together all day lately, but I thought we'd avoided conspicuous places as much as possible.
"Ain?"
"Sorry. I'm skipping today."
"Huh? I mean, that's fine, but..."
I left Mace behind and walked quickly toward the classroom building.
Was this Max's doing? It was definitely a familiar face.
One of the guys who'd been among the gang whenever they surrounded me.
But fuck, is this bastard really stooping to such creepy shit just to harass me?
He wouldn't have gone this far when I lived my past life.
He was a cheerful friend who preferred talking shit to people's faces over behind their backs.
This smelled far more insidious. I knew this smell.
The stench that made you want to plug your nose—the kind that came when anonymous masses showed malice.
'Well, beat them up and they'll spill.'
I stood in front of the classroom I frequented and peered through the door crack.
Max and his classmates were huddled together having a friendly chat.
How fortunate they were gathered so nicely and cozily.
What should I do—should I act tough and beat them like catching rats to make them talk?
Or should I put on a proper clown show for once in a while?
Right, let's go with a cheerful attitude that Mace would like.
Might as well make it enjoyable and exciting.
—BANG!
I kicked the classroom door hard enough to knock it off its hinges.
"The pride of the family, Ain Magnolia, has arrived. You worthless commoner bastards. Lower your eyes and crawl."
I entered with a hearty greeting to Max's gang.
The gang and most of those occupying the classroom froze.
After identifying the intruder, they looked at me with even more drained expressions.
"Hello, Max. It's been fucking ages. How's your mother doing? I haven't been able to ask after her all this time."
Max had the look of someone facing a situation he never imagined.
Among the gang, I spotted the face that had stuck that shitty note on Mace's back earlier and bolted.
I wiggled my finger at that face.
"You know why I'm here, right? Come here."
"Come... what?"
"Come here, you fucking moron."
I wasn't suddenly using an abbreviation to invite him to join Korea's greatest game GOAT.
Actually, I'd planned to approach first before he came over.
I jumped across desks, then kicked the throat of the seed of discord separating friends.
—CRACK
"Gkkk..."
I'd worried I might miss because of my fucked-up eye, but cutting back on drinking paid off.
I grabbed the hair of the guy clutching his throat with flailing gestures and jumped down to the floor.
While grinding his face across the desk, I turned my gaze to Max and asked.
"Max, I'm really disappointed in you. If you want to throw punches, you can come to me anytime. Instead of making your little lackey run errands like his dad's dead."
Max just stood there with his mouth open, watching the scene.
I noticed the gauze wrapped around his mouth—the wound I'd carved that hot night must not have healed yet.
After wasting several seconds, Max finally answered my question.
"What... what... I haven't been bothering you lately... Why suddenly..."
I threw the guy I was holding by the hair toward the front of the blackboard.
With his face covered in scratches, he was still breathing heavily.
Enough time had been provided to clear up the misunderstanding between friends.
I pulled the note from my pocket and tossed it at Max's face, which resembled his mother's with its fine features.
Max reluctantly grabbed the fluttering paper and stared at it for a while.
"...What is this?"
"That gentleman lying over there stuck it on my wife and ran."
"Wife... Giselle? What, are you two dating again?"
Max asked back with a strangely lively energy.
"Uh... ahem... congratulations... Hey. So... when did it start?"
"...? What are you saying. Want to die?"
Annoyed by his blushing face, I raised my hand without thinking, then lowered it again seeing Max flinch.
Seeing him make a pitiful expression like a beaten dog, my suspicions melted away.
"...You really don't know?"
"Y-yeah. Really... What is this... Why such... obscene words... Ugh, I'm a bit..."
Max waved his hand as if he couldn't bear to look at the note's contents.
Fuck, I believed in you, Max.
I'm sorry. The interrogation process was a bit rough.
Though this bastard consistently talks like shit and shows slight tattletale tendencies because his parents are odd-numbered and he needs looking after, he's not the type to pull this kind of thing behind people's backs.
Max held the note and approached his friend crawling on the floor like a rag, sat down, and asked.
"Did you really do this?"
"......"
—THUD!
Max's fist, gripping the guy's collar, mercilessly struck his face repeatedly.
Max continued punching even as the gang around him tried to pull him off.
"Fucking, embarrassing, shit, how, many, times, do, I, have, to, tell, you, huh?"
"Hey, you didn't hit that side enough. Hit evenly so there's no gradient."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks. You, bastard, disgracing, my, face, fuck..."
Watching Max give his friend sincere advice from behind, I felt a bit moved and ended up offering some guidance on disciplinary methods.
It still seemed suspicious to be just one guy's doing, but the spectacle before my eyes was so entertaining.
Arms crossed—ah, I can't do that anymore.
I smoked a cigarette and waited leisurely until Max's fists stopped.
"What are you doing right now!"
In the middle of watching, a familiar authoritative shout came from the broken door.
Tsk, it was just getting interesting.
Iris, maintaining a restrained appearance due to the surrounding gazes, strode toward me, Max, and the rag bastard.
"Ain Magnolia, can you explain this commotion?"
"I was training a bastard. I'll call you when I'm done."
Iris grabbed my sleeve slightly, inconspicuously, with an attitude different from her voice.
Bringing her face close to mine, she silently mouthed 'Ain' and 'please.'
I patted Max's shoulder to commend his efforts, then followed Iris out of the classroom.
Even while walking down the corridor, Iris's gait and expression never faltered.
My back and shoulders stung terribly from the crowd's gaze drawn by the commotion.
I walked for a while watching only Iris's stiffly rigid back, then entered a sparsely populated lecture room.
The two or three people remaining hurriedly left as soon as they saw me and Iris enter.
Iris's expression, which had instantly relaxed, trembled as if hit by an earthquake.
"A-Ain... Why, why... that, wh-what, what, what..."
"You're going to pass out. Take a deep breath."
I put out my cigarette and sat on a chair in the empty lecture room.
Iris stood in front of me, stamping her feet and gnawing her nails.
"Mace, the nun was being harassed. In a childishly petty way."
"Th-that person? Th-that person, the, the dismissal procedure was just decided..."
"...What?"
The humor vanished instantly.
I approached Iris and grabbed her shoulders.
I misjudged my strength and wrinkled her previously pristine uniform.
"What the hell are you talking about? Dismissal? Mace?"
"B-Big Sis doesn't know the details either... The, the reason was... a, a romantic scandal with a student and lax educational attitude...?"
I felt like my vision was going dark.
So while I was looking for the cause, the higher-ups had already handled it themselves.
The cause—meaning they expelled the victim who brought no money or use, rather than the unclear perpetrator.
As I sat back down in the chair and rubbed my face, Iris sat diagonally on the desk in front.
She looked at my face with a worried expression and said.
"Th-then the romantic scandal... w-with Ain...?"
"What's the point of asking..."
My head ached, so I took out another cigarette.
Iris looked at my face and lit a flame in her hand to light my cigarette.
Only after blowing smoke toward the floor did I ask Iris.
"Then where's Mace? Where is she now?"
"Sh-she's probably... still at her original residence...? Th-they said they'd give her time to pack..."
With the cigarette in my mouth, I dashed out of the lecture room.
I pushed through the crowd still loitering in front and headed for the prayer room, for Mace.
The pouring gazes were no longer visible. I didn't even care.
Thanks to the smoke spreading thickly before my eyes, my vision became clearer instead.
My steps quickened, thinking I might lose her forever if I was even slightly late.
Sweat beaded on my forehead like pearls, flowing down over my eternally closed eye.
The cigarette went out from the backward wind, and the cigarette dropped with a thud between my parted lips.
In front of the prayer room, I found Mace dragging a bulging, rag-like bag with both hands.
Seeing her struggle with the bag caught on the threshold while grunting, I felt somewhat relieved.
Hearing the running footsteps, Mace looked toward me too.
I stopped in front of Mace, grabbed my knees, and looked down at the floor, catching my breath for a while.
"Fuuuck... Should I cut back on cigarettes too... Even running is hard now..."
"Ain..."
Mace's small hand touched my sweat-soaked hair.
When I raised my head, she removed the hair stuck to my face, just like when I first met Mace.
I thought her eyes looked slightly droopy, but Mace, returning to her usual cheerful expression, opened her mouth.
"I'm screwed! I got fired!"
"Fucking Academy..."
"But I got this as severance pay!"
In Mace's outstretched hand were two gold coins.
They're disrespecting her even on her way out.
My sympathy for clergy who were martyred in foreign lands surged in real time.
I took a deep breath and asked Mace in a voice with slightly subsided trembling.
"Where will you go now...?"
"...I can't go. Anywhere."
Mace's face quickly deflated as she stared at the prayer room door she'd just exited.
I didn't want to see that expression of ingrained resignation ever again.
So I said something to make that expression disappear from her face.
"Can't go where? You can just stay at the house of the person you've been leeching off."
Hearing my words, Mace's face became a question mark as she tilted her head.
Even if Iris covered for me, causing this much commotion meant at least suspension.
Aside from gratitude and guilt toward Max who got involved without knowing why, there was nothing else weighing on my mind.
"Live at my house. At least for a while."