Cole’s startled noise and Juniper’s simultaneous gasp made Blythe twist her torso around again, bracing her hands against the rough tree trunk to peek around it.

  She tried to remain quiet and unnoticed.

  Sure enough, they were staring at someone who had landed in the large bush next to them. As the girl in the bush made a loud sound like she was sucking in a breath, Cole stepped up to offer her a hand.

  “Whoa! Are you alright? Here, let me help you out of there.”

  Those words were too familiar.

  Blythe remembered this scene—this was definitely the first encounter Daisy had with Cole in the game.

  She watched as Daisy took his hand and allowed him to support her out of the bush. Her backpack, which she’d used to break her fall when she’d jumped out of the principal’s office window, was still in her other hand.

  Once she was standing on the ground, Daisy raised her arms slightly to check on them. Blythe remembered that she’d sustained several scratches from falling into the bush like that.

  Blythe winced at Daisy’s grimace as she brushed herself off.

  “Thank you,” she said to Cole.

  He was still staring at her.

  Blythe knew why: the pink camellia on her head was the reason. In the game, after Cole had helped Daisy to step out of the bush, he was fascinated by the sole camellia flower that happened to be tangled in her silky hair. It made her look like she was wearing it as an accessory, and it drew his attention to her beauty. Of course, Cole also just enjoyed talking to pretty girls in general.

  “There’s a flower caught in your hair,” he said, reaching out to the aforementioned flower. “Even the flower was drawn to your beauty.”

  Flustered, Daisy pulled back and spluttered an incoherent sentence about how she didn’t understand what he was talking about. Blythe suppressed a smile, knowing she was appalled by his shameless flirtatiousness.

  “Hey, I thought you thought I was intelligent and beautiful!” Juniper cried, already looking jilted and jealous.

  “Oh, I do,” he said earnestly, turning back to her. “The world is filled with beautiful people.”

  Juniper’s jaw dropped. She lifted her foot, seemed to stop just short of stomping it, then glared at Daisy before brushing past them both for the exit. Behind the tree trunk, Blythe’s mouth lifted into a half-smirk. Cole’s compliments didn’t mean anything.

  Daisy finished dusting off her uniform.

  “Shouldn’t you go after her?” she asked warily, shrugging her backpack onto her shoulders. “She seemed upset.”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” Cole said breezily. “I wanted to ask for your name, actually. I’m Cole Tempest. You look familiar, but I don’t believe we’ve ever been introduced.”

  “We’ve been in the same Gyueric class for a year.”

  Daisy’s annoyance was written all over face.

  Blythe knew it was because she already knew who Cole was. His reputation as a playboy preceded him. He was too swarmed by girls to notice anyone outside of the swarm in each class, so he didn’t know who she was. That didn’t bother her. What did was that he only suddenly cared about getting to know her name upon finding her attractive. Daisy didn’t like his thoughtlessness towards his fellow classmates.

  Daisy was also irritated that Juniper had turned her frustration with Cole toward her at the end. She struggled greatly with ostracization in the game, largely in part due to the popular boys taking an interest in her and causing most of the girls to resent her for it. She wanted Cole to go after Juniper to appease the girl he’d clearly been flirting with minutes ago, if only so Juniper wouldn’t join the ranks of girls who hated her for existing. That was another reason why she wanted to avoid associating with Cole.

  His face lit up. “Oh! That must be why I feel like I’ve seen you before. Pardon me for not realizing that earlier.”

  “Not at all!” Rapidly shaking her head, Daisy held her hands up in front of her. “Please, do not worry. I am but an insignificant person, and I truly apologize for interrupting your moment with her. I’m sure she would appreciate it so much if you went after her to reassure her.”

  He did a double take. “Reassure her? We’re just friends, really—”

  “That’s wonderful.” Daisy did not care. “Please excuse me, I should take my leave now—”

  “Already? But I haven’t heard your name yet.”

  He moved to keep up with her as she began making for the garden entrance.

  “It’s quite alright, Mr. Tempest,” she said, forcing a smile at him.

  “Call me Cole,” he said. “We’re all supposed to call each other by our first names, aren’t we?”

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  Daisy looked like she’d bitten into a lemon.

  She inclined her head. “It’s alright, Cole. We have not interacted before today, and it seems highly unlikely we might interact much in the foreseeable future. I am too insignificant a person—”

  “I sense you simply do not wish to give me your name.”

  Cole halted in his tracks.

  Gee, you think?

  Blythe crept to the other side of the tree trunk to continue watching the scene unfolding before her. She’d never thought it could be so thrilling to watch the in-game events in person. But she did feel like a voyeur spying on their first real encounter with each other. She imagined this was like playing a VR game as a mob character watching the main characters interact with each other.

  Daisy threw a polite smile over her shoulder. “I sense you are good at sensing these things.”

  Letting out a laugh that came from the belly, he said, “You’re really interesting. This is the first time anyone has ever talked to me like that. Now I really want to know your name.”

  “And I really do not wish to give it.” The impatience had crept into Daisy’s tone now. “Good day.”

  For the daughter of a poor baron, she was quite feisty in her thoughts, especially toward the love interests that thought she might fall all over herself for the honor of talking to them. Cole was used to girls fawning over him with just a flash of his smile, so Daisy’s resistance to his charms sparked his interest. Blythe always preferred playing otome games where the protagonist wasn’t prone to quickly becoming infatuated with the love interests.

  “You know,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets as he watched her walk away, “I’m aware of where you just came from, don’t you?”

  Her whole body stiffened before she whirled around.

  “Excuse me?”

  He pointed a slim index finger upward. Blythe followed it to the open window three floors above the bush Daisy had fallen into. The other windows on the other floors, although also open, were not aligned right above the bush.

  Blythe’s wide grin felt like it might split her face apart. She’d always enjoyed this scene in the game.

  “If I’m not mistaken, you jumped right out of the principal’s office.” His expression remained carefree as he crossed his arms. “And why might a student have to do that? I would hazard a guess that perhaps you were sneaking around in there. You weren’t supposed to be in there, and that’s why you came out from the window instead of the door.”

  “Y-you … I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! I merely fell out from a classroom window because … because there was a giant bug that was chasing me!”

  Unfortunately for her, Daisy was an awful liar. Also, she wasn’t afraid of bugs.

  He tutted, shaking his head. “As much as I’d like to believe you, that window is the only one directly aligned above the bush you fell into. And the other windows don’t open wide enough for a whole person to fall out from it.”

  Blythe looked up. He was right. She hadn’t noticed it before, but all the classroom windows were opened to the same small extent. A person wouldn’t be able to simply fall through a tiny gap like that. On the other hand, the principal’s office windows were wide open, the day curtains billowing in the light morning breeze.

  “Furthermore,” he continued, “even if you were waiting in a classroom for the lesson to start and somehow fell out diagonally into the bush, it doesn’t explain why none of the other students in the classroom wouldn’t at least have tried to look out the window for where their classmate has gone.”

  It made sense. There would at least have been some clamor if a classmate fell out of the window regardless of whether people liked that classmate or not. Besides, the infatuated boys would’ve been concerned for Daisy.

  “Which begs the question—what were you doing in the principal’s office?”

  Of course, Blythe knew why Daisy had been snooping around in the principal’s office.

  After her mother went missing under mysterious circumstances at summer break, Daisy found some mysterious letters addressed to an unknown person hidden away in a box in the attic. The sender had the same name as the school principal, and the letters made mention of the school, and even Daisy herself, more than once. Struggling to find a connection between her mother and the unknown person or the school principal, Daisy decided to try to sneak into his office to see if she could find anything related to her mother there.

  She waited for him to step out for a morning coffee before she stealthily crept into the room. She’d barely begun the search when she heard footsteps approaching the door. With the only possible exit being the window, she leaped out and ended up landing in a pink camellia bush. That was how Cole was introduced to the player in the context of the game.

  Obviously, Daisy couldn’t tell him the truth. She stood there staring guardedly at him instead, caught in her blatant lie.

  Then, all of a sudden, his face broke into a bright smile.

  “Why don’t we make a deal? For the price of telling me your name, I won’t ask any further questions about this!”

  Aghast, she gaped at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I personally consider it a great deal,” he mused. “Otherwise, I’m sure Principal Montague would be interested to know that a student has been poking around in his office like a thief. I wonder what the repercussions of that are?”

  “You’re blackmailing me just to get my name?! You could’ve asked anyone else for it!”

  “You see, I’d like to hear it from you directly. It’s different hearing it secondhand from another classmate—wouldn’t you think it creepy if I learned your name from another person and began using it to address you?”

  Blythe tilted her head to left and then to the right. She both agreed and disagreed. If the person was a fellow schoolmate, it wasn’t odd that they would have mutual friends who would mention their name in passing. It wouldn’t be a big deal in that case. But if it was some random stranger, it would be incredibly creepy.

  “I regret to inform you that you already are a creep in my eyes,” she informed him.

  He just laughed. “Thanks.”

  “That’s not a compliment!”

  “And that’s not your name. Hm, should I go to Principal Montague now or after school, do you think?”

  “Daisy,” she spat out, looking thoroughly defeated by this point. “It’s Daisy.”

  Blythe couldn’t blame her. The principal could expel her without a second thought if word got around to him, especially since she wasn’t from a powerful or influential family. It was the same reason Daisy hadn’t retaliated but sought to evade Blythe’s bullying. She couldn’t do much against the daughter of a duke who was engaged to the crown prince.

  “What about your last name?”

  “Willoughby.”

  “Daisy Willoughby,” he said, testing her name out on his tongue. “It suits you. It’s a lovely name.”

  She just grimaced at him.

  “I’ll see you in Gyueric later, Daisy!” he said, walking past her with a lazy wave.

  Blythe ducked her head behind the tree trunk.

  “I hope I never see you again,” Daisy muttered when he was gone. Blythe barely caught the words.

  She trudged out of the garden as well.

  Finally, Blythe was the only person left here. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the fresh garden air. All the tension in her body from watching them drained away. That had been a delightfully entertaining scene. The melodic chirping throughout the garden brought a rejuvenating surge of energy through her.

  Humming softly to herself, she ran her finger down her class schedule. Her first class of the day was Kirmilese, another language class. She made a mental note to stop by her locker before going anywhere else.

  She didn’t want to be caught unprepared again.