Blythe went into the classroom and instantly saw a hand shoot up into the air and wave at her. Sophie was seated at a table in one of the middle rows. She beamed at Blythe, looking even happier to see her than she’d been yesterday.

  Blythe’s sudden change in attitude must have been a catalyst for it. Who wouldn’t be happier that their friend had become more amiable overnight?

  Smiling back at Sophie, she made her way toward her. There was a cute potted plant plushie sitting on the desk next to Sophie’s. Blythe assumed it was meant to reserve the seat for her.

  To her surprise, as she walked down the aisle, she realized Noel was sitting at the desk right in front of hers. His head was down as he read a reference book open in front of him, so he didn’t notice her.

  “Good morning, Sophie,” Blythe said, sitting down at the desk with the plant plushie. It was about the size of her palm. “Thanks for saving me a seat.”

  She passed the plant plushie back to Sophie, who lowered her head in a bashful motion.

  “Good morning, Blythe. It’s no problem at all.”

  While Sophie stuffed the plushie back into her bag, Blythe scanned the room for anyone else she might recognize. Not a lot of the desks were occupied yet. She didn’t see anyone else she knew. The game tossed in little tidbits here and there about the subjects the love interests took, but she’d been too preoccupied with balancing Daisy’s schedule to have the brain space to remember them all.

  “Did you manage to ask your parents about changing your status to a boarder?” Sophie asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, turning back to Sophie. “They said they’d inform the principal as soon as possible, so I just need to hear back from the administration.”

  Sophie lightly clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful! I’m looking forward to it. Now we’ll get to see each other even in the evenings.”

  “Me too.” Blythe grinned back at her, her heart warm with sincerity.

  It was the first time someone had been so enthusiastic about hanging out with her. Riley was very chill and independent, so she would never get hyped over just the opportunity of spending time together.

  Blythe added, “By the way, that’s a really cute plant plushie.”

  “Oh!” The expression on Sophie’s face was a mix of confusion and joy. “I thought you didn’t like it. I’m happy to hear you think it’s cute now.”

  Oh no! Idiot, idiot! I shouldn’t have said anything. That’s what I get for trying to be nice!

  She’d made herself look flaky and capricious. Then again, she’d already presented herself as a walking bag of contradictions by humiliating Daisy in front of a bunch of people in the dining hall and then turning around to claim she had no ill will toward her.

  At the inadvertent reminder that there were more bullying scenes to come, Blythe’s stomach clenched up. Now that this was her life, she had to think things through. Once she had some free time, she needed to note down all the bullying scenes she could recall and make some kind of plan to prevent them from happening.

  She didn’t currently have the time to contemplate it—Sophie was repeating her name, looking concerned.

  “ … ythe? Blythe? Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, pretending to shake herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry, Sophie. I got distracted. Could you repeat what you were saying?”

  Sophie smiled. “It’s alright. I was asking if you would like one. I have a few of these plushies in my room. They can be used as a keychain, too!”

  It was basically an offer of ’more’ friendship. Blythe would never turn that down.

  “Is that really okay?”

  “Honestly, Blythe, you don’t have to be so polite with me!” Sophie giggled, half-covering her mouth with one hand. “If I couldn’t see that it was you, I’d be thinking you were someone else entirely!”

  Blythe forced the corners of her lips back into a smile, wresting down the urge scratching at her brain to slam her forehead over and over against her desk.

  “Of course,” she said. “I was just so happy that you wanted to give me one. It’s adorable. I’d love to have one.”

  "I'll give it to you next week," Sophie promised.

  Before Blythe could thank her, some commotion from the classroom doorway reached her ears. She turned in the direction of the noise to see Jude and another male classmate, swarmed by several female students, entering the room. It took her a second to look past the small crowd to recognize the guy next to Jude.

  He was Titus Hollis, another love interest in the game.

  Fascinated, Blythe watched as he smiled at one of the girls and nodded just a little. Some of his soft pink hair fell into his amber eyes. In spite of his yandere tendencies, Blythe had a soft spot for him—he was the most romantic out of all the boys once he fell for the player character.

  Titus was popular among the girls for being attractive and the son of a marquess, but, unlike Cole, he didn't go about flirting with every girl in sight.

  In fact, he barely showed any interest in romance or friendship. His only acquaintances were Magnus and Jude, but that was the full extent of his connections with others. He came across as cordial but distant to anyone who approached him, which appealed greatly to the girls who liked a challenge.

  Since he was an unlockable character in the game, Daisy would only be able to romance him if she opted for the Patisserie Arts elective and raised her stats in both charm and strength.

  Beside him, Jude's stoic face stood in sharp contrast. He was trying to edge away from the girls into the classroom, but Titus moved with him and subtly foiled his every attempt.

  The corners of Blythe’s mouth twitched. In his route, Titus had confided in Daisy that he deliberately used Jude as a shield from his own admirers sometimes. He knew that Jude was slightly uncomfortable with the attention. However, Jude’s presence helped to deflect some of the attention away from himself, so he took full advantage of it.

  Titus’ fan girls were far more outgoing than Jude’s, and they were not afraid to approach him. While it was Titus they admired, they still appreciated the company of the handsome son of a famous knight. Whenever Jude happened to be around Titus, they would attempt to engage him in conversation as well.

  Titus had a bit of a bad personality.

  “Will you be going to the training hall after your classes today, Titus?” one of the girls asked him.

  Smiling, he replied, “That will have to depend on if Jude will be going too.”

  Jude glared at him.

  The rest of the girls began plying Jude with questions about his plans for the rest of the day. He answered them awkwardly, but most of them didn’t allow him to finish his sentences before interrupting him with another question. They remained encircled around the two boys as they all made their way into the classroom.

  Thanks to the game, Blythe knew that Daisy had Gyueric with Cole and Magnus, but she hadn’t expected the other love interests to be in the same Kirmilese class as her.

  She glanced back to see Sophie disinterestedly staring at them. Upon catching Blythe’s eye, she smiled.

  Blythe returned it before digging through her bag to take out the relevant textbook and notebook.

  Once Jude and Titus began making their way down the aisle between the desks, the fan girls fell back to move out of their way. They created a bottleneck by the first row of desks that way, gradually forming a line to trot after the two boys.

  Blythe wished she could’ve asked Sophie whether this happened all the time when Jude and Titus were in the same class.

  Instead, she swallowed her burning question and watched Jude and Titus—her eyes nearly popped out as she noticed the raccoon being cradled in Titus’ left arm. It had been blocked by the girls surrounding them earlier.

  She finally remembered it. Gavin the raccoon had been part of Titus’ introduction in the game, but the game had glossed over the details of his little pet that understood what he was saying. It was made clear that Titus could understand Gavin’s noises, and that Gavin went everywhere with him, but beyond a couple of cute scenes, the raccoon wasn’t much involved in Titus’ route.

  In a passing thought, Daisy had noted that some of the other people in school also had an animal like that with them. Blythe had completely forgotten about that until she’d seen Gavin with Titus for the first time in person.

  It stood to reason that the professors and students she’d seen having animals with them were in the same category as Titus and Gavin. Blythe needed to visit the library to learn a bit more about this if she didn’t want to evoke more suspicion for being clueless.

  In the meantime, she attempted to pull up Gavin’s profile information as Titus strode down the aisle.

  That was concise.

  As Titus and Jude settled down at the desks at the back of the classroom, the fan girls converged on them once more.

  Blythe turned back to her desk. It wouldn’t do for them to discover her staring at them. It probably wasn’t something the original Blythe did.

  Sophie chatted with her about her progress on the embroidery for Magnus. Blythe hadn’t touched it last night because she’d still been in doubt about the reality of her situation, but now she was starting to realize she might have to complete it. She tried to cheer herself up with the idea of getting to increase her embroidery skill level.

  As the seconds passed, the classroom began filling up with students. Eventually, most of the seats were filled.

  Professor Greene came in with clacking heels and a flowy dress. Her genial smile instantly put Blythe at ease.

  “Good morning, class!”

  Everyone chorused the greeting back at her. She put her bag down on the teacher’s desk.

  After the theoretical section where the professor explained a new grammar point and answered a few questions from the students, she clapped her hands.

  “Time for some conversation practice!” she announced. “Today, we’ll be doing something different. I know I allowed you all to pair up with whomever you chose on Tuesday, but that was merely a warm-up for the first lesson of the semester. For this new academic year, I want to shake things up.”

  Murmurs arose in the room. Looks of uncertainty and confusion were exchanged among the students. Blythe subtly checked Sophie’s reaction. She was cool as a cucumber, staring straight ahead at Professor Greene.

  Blythe took her cue from her and schooled her features into a neutral expression. From the sounds of it, the other students were nervous about a change in conversational partners. Not that it mattered much to her. She wasn’t looking forward to engaging in practice conversations with others, even Sophie.

  “I’ve noticed most of you still keep to your own little groups from last year and haven’t interacted much with your other classmates. From now on, I’ll assign you your conversational partner in class. You’ll have a different one each lesson, so that by the end of the school year you will all, hopefully, know each other better.”

  Protests erupted from different corners of the classroom.

  “But, Professor!”

  “We already know each other!”

  “Unfortunately …” That one had been a whisper from someone a couple of rows in front of Blythe, but it was loud enough to elicit a glare from Professor Greene.

  The moment she spoke again, the class quieted down.

  “I’ve gone through the trouble of planning out your assigned partners for the next two semesters, so I look forward to seeing you all break the ice with your classmates. Although I’m sure you already know of each other, you don’t actually know each other yet.”

  That meant Blythe would be paired up with all of the love interests in this room at some point.

  She resisted the temptation to slouch in her seat. Sophie’s back was as stiff as a ramrod, and she was sure it was expected of the original Blythe to sit up straight as well.

  Professor Greene began reading off her prepared list of pairings for today’s lesson.

  “Sophie Rockwell and Shauna Gilbert.”

  Sophie turned to Blythe then, a small pout forming on her lips. “I was hoping we would be paired together.”

  She gave her a pacifying smile. “Even if we were, we wouldn’t be paired together in the next class then.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Grace Howell and Julian Edelstein.”

  Professor Greene continued reading the names off her list.

  “Blythe Ridge and Noel Thoreau.”

  At the last announced pair, Blythe felt her facial expression shutter.

  Given Professor Greene’s system of switching up each pair until everyone had been paired up with everyone else, it was bound to happen eventually. But she wasn’t expecting to be paired with a love interest so quickly.